Good evening, and welcome to the Board of Education's Truth and Taxation and Budget hearing. We will call this meeting to order at 05:46. Please rise and join with me in the pledge of allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of The United States Of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. During the Truth in I'm sorry. During the Truth in Taxation and Budget hearing, public comment will be heard during agenda item five. A yellow card must be submitted in order to be called upon.
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, and I will call the names of those who I have a card for during public comment. For roll call, all board members are present with the exception of trustee Annas, who just ran to her car and will be back shortly. At this point, is there a motion to approve the agenda as presented? Moved by trustee Gupta. Is there support? From trustee Blake? Alright. All of those in favor, please say aye. Aye.
Any opposed? That's a six-zero vote. Our main agenda item is the truth in taxation and budget hearing, which is required by law. And I'm gonna turn it over to you, Mr. McDaniel. Thank you, madam president. Alright. So I'm gonna jump right into the presentation. We have about fifteen minutes. So, we're gonna start with the taxation piece. So looking at twenty twenty five taxable values, you'll see about 4.8%, of taxable value growth compared to, the same time last year. Last year was a 6.6% increase and you'll see it kind of varies by municipality, but anywhere from 2.8 to 5.5%
growth in taxable values. And these numbers are provided by the Oakland County Equalization. As a reminder, six mills will be levied on all commercial personal property and 18 mills on all other non homestead property. That was true in 2024, 2025 and will continue beyond. Much of this information, is continuing, as well. Right? We are gonna continue to levy, 50%, millage in the summer and 50% in the winter. One thing that does change is the millage reduction fraction. So, Headley decreases some of the millages. So this one will is still well above the 18 mills that we can legally levy,
but will be reduced each year and that's why we went out for the renewal. And then this is the local portion of the $9,608 for $24.25 that we receive, as part of our foundational allowance. The next piece again, taxed at or, levied at 50% summer and 50% winter is, the extra, which is the debt retirement, the bond that, the school district passed as well as the sinking fund. So we are recommending 1.01 mills for series one of the 2016 building and site bond funds and then 0.51 mills, for series two.
This is the exact same, millage rate as last year. And then we saw a slight reduction in the sinking fund due to the, heavy provisions which reduced the fraction, by 0.9907. So, 1.4425 mils is what we need to levy for the sinking fund. And then just a summary. In the last several years, you'll see that in 2013, we taxed about 6.7 mills. It stayed that way until about 2019 when it decreased to 5.3 and then, has decreased since. So for 2025, for our our,
homeowners, 2.9625 for the debt in the sinking fund. And what that means on the property tax, revenue side is, a slight reduction in general operation. I'm sorry. There's a typo on that slide. But increases in debt retirement and sinking fund, assuming that we were able to receive all of these funds. We don't always do that. There's delinquents, taxpayers. So, the budgets reflect our estimates but these are, what the property tax revenue could be. Next, we'll dive into the budget. So, these are our budget priority priorities. Excuse me.
Balanced and equitable, minimizes any impact on student programs, uses a team based approach, and provides promotes ongoing communication for transparency and openness. I wanna remind, the board and the community that budgets must be adopted by June 30 through July 1 in accordance with Michigan law. The final budget for 2425 was presented in detail at the June 9, Board of Education regular meeting, and then the budget 2526, that we're about to talk about was also presented in detail. Right there in red, this budget recommendation is based on a series of assumptions.
There's a lot of information that we don't have right now. There are several different versions of the budget out there. We're using the governor's budget. But for example, the house budget that's out there, is $20,000,000 more, for Rochester Community Schools. That's an estimate. That budget is unlikely to pass, but I just wanna show or share, kind of the variance in different funding levels, when we take a look at the Governor's proposal, the House, and the Senate. And then there's also the impact of, the Federal Government on reconciliation. We're not exactly sure what that,
looks like but would have impacts, on the State and potentially Rochester community schools. So if we jump into, the general fund budget, this is hard to see but this is the full general fund budget. Again, we presented this in detail at the last meeting but I wanna go over a few highlights. We're basing this on the governor's, proposal which is a $10,000 per pupil foundation allowance that's up $392 We removed any grants that weren't in the governor's budget. We removed, what we received last year in lieu of a foundational allowance increase. It's $5,800,000
in retirement. And then on the revenue side, we're estimating 150 FT feet feet feet feet feet feet feet feet feet feet feet feet feet feet feet feet feet feet E loss on the revenue side. On the expenditure side, we've adjusted salary and benefits to, actuals. This is also based on the assumption that all, current district employees, are here next year. There's some allowances for, new teachers, contracts, things like that. We removed grants, as well, so no revenue and no, expenditures and then, estimated a health care increase. Those are the big changes on the general fund budget side. So you'll see that what that does to expenditures,
just over or excuse me, the fund balance as percentage of expenditures, you'll see that's just over 15, 15% fund balance. And then quickly on the other, smaller funds, debt service fund that pays down the bond, debt. And we, just went through the tax rates, that are reflective of the actual debt payments that we have to make. Sinking fund, an increase there in expenditures. For a number of years, the the technology department had the bond fund to rely on and now are starting to, utilize their sinking fund dollars. Carrying steps we mentioned is kind of unknown. This is going to be a six week program over the summer and then some
forecasted increases, to bookstore student school activity, and then food service, was held, in the same as last year. So that takes me through the, truth in taxation and budget, presentation. Thank you, madam president. Thank you. Next we have agenda item five point zero, which is public comment. I have one person who identified, budget and I have a whole bunch here that look like they are for the next meeting. So at this point, just a reminder, you have three minutes to speak. I will try to remind you when you have ten minutes remaining. I'm sorry.
I will try to remind you when you have thirty seconds remaining when addressing the board. Please state your name and your relationship to the district. And, we ask that you address all comments to the entire board, not to individual board members, school district employees, or to members of the audience. The The board will not be responding to comments or questions during the meeting. However, someone will follow-up if needed. And at this point, I have, Rick Baldick. Good evening, board. Looks like you got yourself a bit of a budget pickle. I came to this hearing last year to point out some of the flaws in your projections and you pretty much blew me off,
ignored the comments. And here we are a year later and everything I told you came true. I told you your, enrollment was over projected, that your expenses were under projected. You said you were going to make $20,000 to carrying steps, you lost $200,000 So here we are a year later and that's where you're at. You thought you were going to have a 20% fund balance and it's really 'eighteen. Now you're looking at next year and you're saying it's going to be 'sixteen. Well, it's really going to be more like 'fourteen when it's all done. See, part of the problem is kind of the cavalier attitude you're taking with taxpayer funds.
You know, you're to the point where you're treating a $100,000 like it's a rounding error. You know, people point out, you know, a a spending problem here and there and you say, well, it's a drop in the bucket. Well, your bucket runneth over. Okay? If if you look at how you ended 2425, you went halfway through the budget year and you said everything was fine. And then all of a sudden in the fourth quarter, you come up with $10,000,000 worth of unreported spending. Where the heck did that come from? Did you buy a bridge or something? I you know, fuck. The funny part about this is nobody said a word.
The the trustees never asked, you know, well, what happened? What did we spend it on? What you know, why did this all occur in the fourth quarter? Nobody cared. You just went on. Well, okay. That's what it is. On we go. Well, you can't continue like that. It's not gonna work out for you. As we look forward here to '25, '26, you know, it this kinda started with your your facility planning process. There was a big tip-off there. When you were all done with that process, it said you had, like, 2,000 empty seats, but you only had nine empty classrooms. Hell, you should have had 40 or 50.
I started thinking, well, that's not right. How did that happen? So I look it up and lord knows since 2018, you've hired 474 more employees. 68 of them teachers and the other 400 and some are non instructional personnel. Now I have no idea who those people are or what they do, and I don't need to. But as trustees, you should because that's the source of your budget overrun. Twenty seconds. Now you've got this budget approval coming up here and as trustees, you have choices and options.
The budget is the sole responsibility of the trustees. No one else's. So you take a look at that and you there's any number of things you could do. You could send the district back to the drawing board. You could cap the spending. You could do almost anything. Thank you very much. Okay. The choice is yours. Please choose wisely. Alright. At this time then, we will adjourn. It's 05:58 and we'll start our regular meeting at 06:00. Is there any objection to that at this time? Alright. Then we are adjourned at 05:58,
and, we will start back up here shortly. Good evening and welcome to the Rochester Community Schools Board of Education regular meeting called to order at 06:00. Please rise and join with me in the pledge of allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of The United States Of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. This Board of Education regular meeting is a meeting of the board in public for the purpose of conducting the school district's business and is not a public community meeting.
However, public comment will be heard under agenda item six. If you wish to speak tonight and have not already filled out a yellow card, they're located on a table near the entrance to the auditorium. Once you've completed the card, please hand it to the shield officer. Please note that cards must be completed prior to speaking, and I'll call the names of those who I have a card for during public comment. I call on my board colleagues to abide by the norms we've agreed to. These include keeping comments germane to the agenda item that we don't surprise each other at the board table, that we have one speaker at a time that 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 we request that there not be any outburst 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 asked to leave the building. On behalf of my colleagues on the board, we're grateful to be able to serve this community and appreciate your support. For roll call, all board members are present. Moving to our agenda, is there a motion to approve the agenda as presented?
Moved by trustee Gupta. Is there support? Support from trustee Blake. Is there any discussion on this? All of those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed, please say no. That's a seven-zero vote and our, agenda is approved. Agenda item four is our spotlight on success. And tonight, we have a spotlight on the Rochester Hills Resiliency Center. And I'm not Mrs. Grime? Thank you very much. This evening, I would like to welcome Jamie Ayers, director of victim services at Common Ground,
and Kelly Kinnear, program manager at Common Ground. Hello, everyone. It's nice to see you all and for us to be able to talk about the resiliency center. You can go ahead. So resiliency centers are put in communities that have experienced mass violence incidents, and they are federally funded. And so our Rochester Hills resiliency center is at the corner of De Quindre And Auburn Road, And it's been put in place to support the community after the splash pad incident that happened just a year ago. And so, the resiliency centers are there to help with the healing process,
provide resources. We have fun activities, crafts, you know, kids' activities. Then we also have emotional support. We help people get to the resources that they need if they're still dealing with trauma. There's no wrong door with our resiliency center. So even if you're not sure if you should come into the resiliency center or not, we encourage people to come in. All the services that we provide there are free. And we are, short term funding through the federal government through a program called, the Anti Terrorism Emergency Assistance Program. So we're funded for twenty seven months.
We've had about so far we opened in December and January. And we've had about just over 2,000 people who have visited the center, to receive support and services resiliency center looks like on the inside. We're not a therapist's office, we're not a doctor's office. It really is just set up for so it's that comfortable. If you wanna come in and meet with, what we call navigators, which are victim advocates, to kind of find out what's going on, what we can do to support you, if there's any needs to get you to the resources that are needed. And really, regardless of where you were or how you were impacted to from a splash pad
incident, you're welcome in our center. And so, everyone we want everyone to come into our doors, see what we're about, whether you need services or not. Maybe you just wanna come in and do a fun craft with our, you know, one of our navigators. We also have therapy dogs often Mondays and Wednesday evenings. So even if you wanna come in and just pet a dog, you can come and do that. It's just another view. These are our soft spaces within the center. We can have meetings there. If you ever wanted to come in there and have a meeting with, you know, your organization, we try to open it up. It is a smaller center,
but we try to do what we can to support anyone in the community who wants to use our space. These are some of the services that we provide. So we do a lot of education around trauma and, you know, mental health resources. We have, long term healing and resilience for communities that experience mass violence. We have emotional support. We have we do community outreach, so we work with our first responders, our local nonprofits, governments, or different types of organization. We have our drop in activities. There's a lot of different things that we offer at the center. And, really,
we listen to the community and what the needs are, where the gaps are, and we try to fill those needs. And so if there's something that maybe you feel is missing in your community that we can do to help, we we try our hardest to make that happen. So this is our QR code. You can check out our website. You can check out our Facebook page. We post the majority of our activities for the week on Instagram and Facebook. And you can always call us anytime. And we also have a +1 800 number that is 20 for when the center's
not open that you can help get resources through. We always encourage people to call 988 if they're experiencing any sort of mental health crisis and need someone to talk to outside of our business hours. We're not a, crisis agency. We are connected to Common Ground, who is a crisis agency. But we are here to help get people the resources. So if someone's in need and you need to call, we can help get you to the right place. I do wanna give Kelly an opportunity to fill in if I missed anything. No, I just would encourage people to follow us and, share, about the resiliency center.
We want to make sure people know about the resources and the supports that are out there. And, like Jamie said, there's really never a wrong door. We encourage people to come and we'll make sure that they get the support that they need, even if it wasn't directly related to what happened at the splash pad. And so, you know, we want to remove those barriers and make sure that people have access to the services. And a lot of what we do at the center is really for community connection and strengthening those community supports. And so that people don't feel alone,
and they have that peer support. So, we do a lot of different activities that bring community members together. And we also, have a clinical consultant on staff and she helps run some of our support groups and facilitates workshops and things. So it's also a space where you can learn, you know, a space to really connect with other, members of the community, and then also receive service. So, you know, those are really our goals, is to strengthen those community connections and how, people understand as well their trauma reactions and that normalize that for them and validate
their feelings. So, we really, like I said, want to encourage people to visit, to come see, and spread the word. So, thank you. Thank you very much for coming this evening and telling us about it, and everyone else as well. Madam President? Trustee LeCoultre? I was just curious. Usually, our spotlight on success talks about RCS programs. Is is the resiliency center affiliated with RCS or is it just a resource that we can use in the community? So, we're here for the community.
So, anyone through Rochester Community Schools absolutely can come to the to the resiliency center. But we're here because of the mass violence incident that happened. And just for context, you know, we have one in Oxford and we also have one at MSU. So, it's there to have to support the community long term because the healing journey from a mass violence incident is a long process and it's not linear. And so we try to be in these communities for as long as possible so that we're able to support people as they kind of process through their feelings.
Gotcha. Thank you. Thank you. Alright. We are moving on to agenda item five which is communications and this is where we reference various communications that have been received. Item 5.1 is communications received by the board. Trustee Blake, can you give us an update? Sure. We received three communications which are in the board packet And in addition, we received a correspondence from Joshua Kielyzewski regarding the district behavior support model and the removal of the behavior interventionist in elementary schools. Thank you.
Agenda item 5.2 is the section where members of the board share communications that went to them and were not sent to the full board. Did any board member receive communications from the public? Trustee Gupta? I did receive, one, email from Steve St. Juliana regarding, the, SCTSEG, insurance carrier. Trustee Lecui? Today I received a communication from prior trustee Andrew Weaver calling for the resignation of board member Julie Alspa, which cited documented misconduct in her previous role and criticized her involvement in the superintendent
contract negotiations amid, budget crisis. Trustee Lausanne? I also received that same email. Anyone else? Alright. We're now on agenda item six, which is public comment and this provides an opportunity for board members to hear from community members. If you wish to speak tonight and still have not filled out a yellow card, please fill one out now. If we have more than thirty minutes of comments, the remainder will be heard under agenda item 10. When your name is called, please move to the microphone and address the board. When addressing the board, you'll have three minutes to speak and we'll try to let you know when there's 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 being used. We also ask that you address your comments to the entire board and not to individual board members, school district employees, or to members of the audience. The board will not be responding to comments or questions during the meeting. However, someone will follow-up if needed. At this point, I have quite a few here. We will start with Vincent Perrozzo followed by Mike Reno and
Sophia Haroun. Is there a way to lower the microphone? Good evening. My name is Vincent Perazzo. I'm a ninth grade student at Stony Creek High School, and I just finished my third year of Chinese study. The Chinese program in Rochester Community School has personally impacted me by opening new gateways for my future. Approximately 1,100,000,000 people globally speak Mandarin Chinese, the dialect taught in our classes. This enables ever important global connections, which are needed to advance our world. Without the Chinese program, this incredible language would be blocked from students district wide,
reducing the impressive resume of RCS. Consider the utility of other languages offered and thriving at RCS. Spanish, French, German, and American sign language. These are all very important languages, yet Mandarin Chinese alone has double the speakers than any of them. Why cut a language so diverse? Why intentionally prevent students from learning the language they want? Why get rid of opportunities for so many students? These are questions with no reasonable answer. Next, the Chinese classes recently found out we would all have to have a combined class next year with three levels together and over 30 students.
Confronting this dilemma, merging the classes will be detrimental to students for so many reasons. Having such a large number of students in a classroom all learning this incredibly difficult language causes headaches for both students and teachers. I, for one, was not led to my full potential because of a far larger class size this year than last year with an even wider variety of skill levels and traveling students from the other three high schools reducing the class time. Because of this, I couldn't learn Chinese to my fullest potential due to a lack of challenging material
in the class and a lack of differentiation for the top knowledge hungry students. Academia agrees. Many studies have found that students learn better, especially foreign languages with a smaller class size. In addition, there's so much wide variety of Chinese levels in our program that a combined class simply doesn't make sense. We have some incoming Chinese three students that are still developing their speaking and writing skills to form a sentence, yet we have incoming AP students that can speak fluently for minutes. Combining them in the same class simply doesn't make sense.
There are even large discrepancies in skills which students need to work on. The Chinese three students need more speaking and writing skills. The Chinese four students need more vocabulary, and the AP Chinese students need to prepare for a difficult AP exam with listening, speaking, writing, and reading sections. Due to this, in order to improve everyone's level where they need it most, separated classes seemed for the level seemed to be the best way forward. Thank you for your time. Thank you. Mike Reno followed by Sophia Haroun, followed by sorry
Catherine Agarwal. Mr. Reno? Mike Reno, former school board member. And, just to start with, great speech from him and he is 100% right. You guys, I didn't know you were thinking of ending that as a real pity or combining it or whatever you're doing, you ought to expand it. During the time that I served on the board, we certainly had our share of controversies and hot topics and things that people would argue about. But we at least tried to listen to the public when they came. We keep getting feedback here. Think that was by design to help me lose twenty seconds of my time.
That's my question. We would at least try to to listen to people. And, it it it's always difficult. I know what it's like sitting up there. You've got an agenda item and there's always this maximum pressure because it's typically introduced and then you are gonna vote on it right away. You don't really have time to to listen to people. But we, at least, would make an effort to listen to them during each agenda item. And the way that you've structured this now makes it really difficult. You've almost tried to come up with, you know, maximum obstruction for people to come up here and talk.
You make it so it's right at the beginning of the meeting. We can't really hear your points of view on these agenda items that you're gonna vote on. So there's no way that we can get feedback or maybe offer you something that you haven't thought about. I think if your objective was to reduce attendance, it certainly appears that it's been effective because I think you have fewer people showing up. And it's probably because what's the point? You know, you guys even said the quiet thing out loud, which is that the community doesn't really seem to impact your decisions on these things. And, I just would encourage you to try and spend a little bit more time listening
to people. And the last thing that I'll add on this particular point is that even if people don't show up here, they still watch and they still talk to each other. And when you guys are walking through the local grocery store or going to, community events, even you know, we have a very polite community for the most part. They're not gonna come up and confront you because that's really not the place to do it. But I can assure you people are talking and they're judging, you know. So I think you would do better if you would allow more people to come up here and talk, and and do it in a way that makes sense.
The second point that I'll bring up is that you previously had a superintendent that was kinda a curio, the way he he ruled the board. And I'm concerned that you're heading down that same sort of path, you know. It created a lot of problems in the past. He insisted on a contract with an enormous golden parachute that, you know, shoot that, you know, I don't know what the results are of that, but I'm sure that's still reverberating. You know, it's I'm just concerned that you're headed down the same path. And to the point about public opinion, I know maybe this doesn't matter, but I understand you're gonna be voting on a revised contract for a superintendent that
for hasn't even been here that long. And I'm not trying to judge him, but it's that he hasn't been here a year, and you're already talking about revising a contract on this. It makes you look subservient to him when you couldn't even honor the contract you had. And the other thing, whether it's intentional or not, makes him look greedy. You know? Like, he is demanding that you alter his contract, and if he doesn't, he's gonna leave. And you guys are capitulating to that. I don't know that that's what's going on,
but I'm telling you, that's one appearance. And so, you know, you don't even you haven't even had an evaluation of them yet. And you're already talking about giving a raise. So I would just give pause to what you're doing, especially in light of the deficit. Thank you. Sophia Haroun, followed by Catherine Agarwal, followed by Joshua Kilojewski. Good afternoon. My name is Sophia Haroun. I'm gonna be a freshman at Rochester High School this year. Today, I want to ask the Rochester Community School Board to make Eid a holiday on our school calendar. For the past three years, I've been a student at Ruth Bear Middle School.
Not once we've had a day of Eid off. This school year, or last school year, Eid happened on a school day. It was also the same day I had a big paper due for my advanced language arts class. We also had our eighth grade farewell party. I ended up coming to school on Eid, June 6, because it was the last day of grading or any papers that wanted to be submit. I went to school on Eid to go to my farewell party, to go turn in my paper. I didn't want to miss school, but I also did want to celebrate Eid with my family.
It was hard to choose between my faith and my school, and I don't think a student should have to make that kind of decision. Eid is a really important day for Muslim families. It's supposed to be time to pray, to be thankful, and to spend time with loved ones. For many of us, it's not just a regular day. It's a very special day, and it's a day where we want to feel respected. There's a lot of Muslims in Southeast Michigan. In fact, there are over 240,000 Muslims in Michigan, which means many Muslim students are among our community and going to school or missing
school just for Eid. Making Eid a holiday would show that our school district sees and supports all students no matter what faith they follow. It would make their students feel included and respectful. Other school districts like Troy, Bloomfield Hills, Ann Arbor, Hamtramck, and Dearborn give their students the day off for ease. I hope that Rochester Community Schools will be able to do the same. Thank you so much for listening. I really appreciate your time, and I hope you'll consider time for change. Thank you. Thank you. Kathryn Agarwal, followed by Joshua Kilojewski,
and then Shona Sadiki. Thank you. Before I begin my prepared remarks, I would definitely say, if we're gonna consider Eid, please consider Diwali, because Diwali directly impacts my family, as my husband and son are, Hindus. So be sure that you thoughtfully and carefully consider about adding new holidays to our schedules. So, good evening, board. You've seen me here before. My name is Catherine Agarwal. And I'm here tonight because I am deeply frustrated and frankly appalled by this board's consideration of increasing the superintendent's salary while more than a year remains on his multi year contract.
Multi year contract. Let's be honest, this is fiscally reckless, tone deaf to the financial reality of our district, and an insult to the taxpayers and families you're supposed to represent. Contracts are put in place to establish clear expectations and responsibilities. Renegotiating one midway through just to hand out a raise is completely inappropriate, especially when the District is running deficits. And it does look greedy. I agree completely with what Mike Reno said. Let's look at the facts. In the superintendent's first year, the district's budget ended in the red. And now,
going into the second year of his contract, we're facing yet another projected shortfall. In any normal work environment, this would prompt serious scrutiny, not a raise. Most employees in the public and private sectors don't get rewarded for underperformance, and certainly not while their current contract is still in effect. And the truth is, this Board has a very poor track record when it comes to financial accountability and managing its leadership. We all remember what happened with the previous superintendent, Robert Shaner. This Board gave him a glowing performance review and a very generous pay raise,
even though his and his administration's actions violated ethical norms, created serious leadership failures, and ultimately landed the district in a lawsuit, resulting in a large financial payoff. That should have been a wake up call for this Board to reestablish accountability and demand responsible, competent leadership. Unfortunately, it seems those mistakes are just simply being repeated. To make matters worse, you're considering removing the performance based structure from the current superintendent's contract and replacing it with automatic guaranteed raises.
This is a huge mistake. Performance based contracts exist for a reason to hold leaders accountable for actual results, especially when it comes to financial management, student outcomes, and staff morale. This proposal sends a terrible message to our families, teachers, and taxpayers that leadership accountability and responsible use of public funds don't matter in this district. And frankly, that's very unacceptable. I urge this board to reject this proposal, leave the superintendent's contract as it stands, and finally start putting financial stability,
student success, and this community's trust ahead of administrative pay raises. Thank you. Thank you. Joshua Kilojewski, followed by Shona Sadiki, followed by Cohen Thakur. Hello, Borden. Nihao. That's about the only Chinese I know, but great speech by the young man earlier. So I'm Joshua Kalashzewski. I have three children that attend Baldwin Elementary School. I'd like to shout out to the Baldwin staff under mister Miranda. I think they were doing a great job, particularly the teachers and, you know, somebody who is involved in,
what I'm speaking on tonight, Jenny Hamilton, who's the former b biz behavior interventionist or BI. So I'm here today to talk a little bit about the new model. I look took a look at the new model, in the agenda, and the presentation doesn't really do justice to, you know, the I think the criticalness of this topic. It doesn't really explain what the new plan is. And mostly, it doesn't compare it to the status quo, which you're doing today, which has been widely supported and has had lots of, communication, you know, here in these meetings as well as in emails from the public.
I do appreciate your prompt response to my email, mister Blake. That was very quick. And on a Sunday, I wouldn't expect that. That's appreciated. One thing I have you know, I think my was it Mike's book or earlier meeting minutes. So you people talk at these meetings on things and you list their names, but you don't list when but you don't list what they talk about. I mean, and it's all getting round of applause. What's what's happening up here isn't getting much applause, but I think you should write down, you know, the minutes of what these people are talking about, what I'm talking about, not just their name. So that, you know, who benefits from these these so the the BI role was the MTSS tier two
level. Who's benefiting from this? You know, these are actual scenarios, I think, just probably from the school that, you know, we're at, but I'm sure it's common elsewhere. You know, children dealing with parental death, clinical depression, selective mutism, dealing with a divorce, struggling with friendships and social skills, especially with social media issues these days, abuse in the house. You know, these are real scenarios. They're not made up. They're actual scenarios that these people are helping today. And the these BIs have master level teacher degrees, counselors, their therapists, psychologists. The new model has the front line as RBTs,
which requires a high school diploma and forty hours of training only, which seems to, you know, be a little bit under par for what they're talking about. In your slide 10 of the budget presentation that was presented previously, you said that you're expanding RCS district behavior support model, yet you're eliminating roles. So that's a reduction in my book. In slide 12 of your presentation, this covers RCS behavior intervention program salary and benefits, showed a $726,000 increase, 5.2%. Yep. Where's the only thing I've heard of why we have to reduce this is because
you've got a budget issue from funding. So you're increasing the budget. Where is that money going? You know, considering that discrepancy, I would urge the board to not approve the budget. Where else are there issues like this? I mean, I think it needs a closer look. Where is the risk assessment? I'm an engineer. If I change a machine, I have to do a risk assessment because someone might get hurt. If you change a model That's you very much. Thank you very much. Yes. Thank you. Please consider Shona Sadiki followed by Cohen Thakur and Kelly Thakur. Good evening, respected board members, of the Rochester Public Schools, board superintendent,
and fellow community members. Thank you. Thank you for allowing me to address you here today. My name is Shona Siddiqui, and I'm here to speak to you not just as a parent of a Muslim student, but as a representative of families who share the same hopes for a culturally responsive educational environment for every child and student. First, allow me to express my deep gratitude for the support you've already shown our community in the past over the years. You know, we've had school administration, consistently listen and take action when the holidays consided with exams or critical school activities.
They did work with us to accommodate makeup tasks or alternative arrangements, which did really, help. That responsiveness did demonstrate true compassion and understanding and let our children know that in this district their faith matters. This spirit of respect and collaboration is something we'd like to see ongoing and the very reason our school has become such a welcoming place. You've cultivated an environment where faith, culture, and identity can be openly shared, So thank you for that. So I'm here today to ask you to take a meaningful next step. And the next step is to formally add Eid al Fitr and Eid al Adha,
two critical holidays in the Muslim, faith as official holidays on the Rochester Community Schools calendar. These days are to Muslims what Christmas or Thanksgiving is to others, you know, sacred, communal, and integral to our identity as well. Having to choose between this, worship and school attendance, places a lot of unnecessary stress on our children and I've seen that, it really is difficult for them. I've had children who say they had to also make a choice between attending field day and and that's something that they have missed as well in the past. So we're not alone in making this request in Michigan,
as the previous student, Safia, mentioned as well. More and more districts are recognizing the growing diversity of their student populations. Troy School District has included Eid al Fitr and Eid al Ata as formal no school holidays in their 2024, 2025, and '26 academic calendars. Bloomfield Hills Schools has done the same and given Muslim students time to observe without penalty. Hamtramck Public Schools, also known for its diverse, student body, has designated floater eat days in their calendar, and even Crestwood School District in Dearborn officially marks eat holidays on its calendar.
Beyond Michigan, we've also seen districts like New York City, Burlington, Vermont include Eid holidays, underscoring a growing nationwide recognition that honoring religious diversity strengthens our school. By adopting this policy, I feel that RCS would align with these districts, not only easing, you know, our burdens on our Muslim families, but sending a powerful message that every faith tradition is valued here. I understand that school calendars demand careful planning, balancing attendance requirements, and instructional time. But as others districts have shown, it is possible with thoughtful adjustments that this can be done.
And the benefits are really clear that students feel welcome, parents feel heard. Thank you. That's your time. Thank you so much for listening. I appreciate you very much. Thank you. Alright. Cohen Thakur followed by Kelly Thakur. Good evening. If possible, I respectfully ask the board to consider extending public comment time to allow speakers to fully address their concerns. Esteemed board members and valued members of this beautiful community, I'm Cohen Tucker and a student at Stony Creek High School. I'm here today to to discuss my concerns with the disappointing and detrimental changes being imposed on the Chinese language program across our high schools.
When I see this district in the core values of our outstanding schools, I am filled with admiration for the commitment to student success and academic excellence. Yet, at the same time, I'm left with many questions. Namely, how and why such significant reductions to the Chinese program were made with little to no transparency or opportunity for community input? These decisions seem to be made at odds with the district stated pride and excellent pride and academic excellence and its commitment to preparing students for a global future. The late notice and minimal communication surrounding these changes not only contradict the district's own
emphasis on clear, timely, honest, transparent communication, that have left many feeling that this critical issue is being quietly pushed aside, without the open dialogue our community deserves and in conflict with the very values the district has publicly professed. With that being said, it's essential to clarify why I'm here. Before coming to Rochester in 02/2020, I lived in Shanghai, China for six years and began learning Chinese at a young age. It's a core part of my education ever since and is deeply personal to me. I'm not alone. Many families with similar international experiences chose the district specifically for its commitment to Chinese
language education. The Chinese program is vital for many reasons though. For instance, it offers real tangible benefits to the students, including a $4,000 scholarship opportunity through the Michigan Seal of Biliteracy. Beyond financial aid, Chinese opens the doors to international business, government, STEM fields, and global engagement. Cutting this program, limits not just the language, but the future options and competitiveness of every student who chooses it. I understand that not everything can be resolved tonight. But given the urgency and the long term impact of these changes, I respectfully urge the board to schedule a special meeting dedicated to discussing the future
of the Chinese program. Families like mine and many others in this district deserve transparency, input, and a commitment to the values this district stands for. And above all, we deserve an honest answer to a simple question, why is this program being cut? Thank you for your time and for considering what this program means to so many of us. Thank you. Kelly Tucker followed by, Diya Tucker. Good evening, board members, superintendent, and community members. My name is Kelly Tucker. I'm the mother of six children and three of them have studied Chinese in this district, each with a deep personal connection to the language and culture.
My son, Cohen, is entering his junior year and will be taking AP Chinese this fall. He will be studying Mandarin he began studying Mandarin in kindergarten and just completed his eleventh year excuse me, His eleventh year of the Chinese language instruction. For him, this is more than just a subject. It's part of who he is. My younger son, Davis, is entering ninth grade and my daughter, who is entering eighth grade, will be enrolled in Chinese three this coming school year. They've followed their brother's footsteps and they're thriving in the program. Our family was fortunate enough to live
in China for six years where Mandarin became a part of our everyday lives. We when we returned to The U. S, it was essential to find a dish to find a district that valued and supported and continued Chinese language learning. This program has allowed my children to grow academically, culturally, socially, and for that I'm grateful. But I'm here tonight because I'm deeply concerned about potential changes to the structure of the of the program, particularly like the idea of combining students from all levels three, four, and AP into one single classroom in one hour.
AP Chinese is rigorous. It's a college level course. Cohen and every AP student deserves focused, advanced instruction that reflects the years of effort they've put in. At the same time, beginner and intermediate students like Davis and my daughter need targeted teaching to build strong foundations. Combining these students into one class would make it incredibly difficult for anyone to receive the quality of instruction they deserve. It's not fair to the students. It's not fair to the teacher. There is only one Chinese teacher in the entire district, Chen Leshia,
and she is exceptional. She is kind, patient, and deeply skilled. She creates a classroom atmosphere where my children feel welcomed, supported, and seen. That's no small thing, especially in a language class where confident competence is everything. Asking one teacher to manage such a wide range range of learners, from first time students to those participating in the AP AP exam, is an impossible task. It puts a strain on the learning environment, limits how deeply she can engage students, and risks burning out an educator we can't afford to lose. We would never combine algebra one,
geometry, and calculus into one math class. Right? Because that's foolish. Language education should be treated with the same care and respect. Chinese is one of the most spoken languages in the world. It offers our students a gateway to global careers, cultural understanding, and lifelong opportunity. Our district should be proud to offer this program. Thank you very much. Diah Tucker. Hello all, and thank you so much for having me. My name is Dia Tucker. I'm a Stoney Creek High School alumni, and I am going my senior year at the University of Michigan for a bachelor's in psychology, and I'm pursuing a double master's in education and public policy.
I also am an older sister to three RCS students. Enrolled in the Chinese program and am actively taking Chinese in college. I am here today to speak about a decision regarding the RCS Chinese language program to combine Chinese levels three, four, and AP into one class period, which is roughly around thirty minutes of instruction due to students from other schools having to be transported back and forth. I strongly urge you to change this decision. Chinese is the most spoken language in the world and is the hardest language to learn as a native speaker simply due to the fact that there's no alphabet, which makes writing Chinese Chinese characters extremely difficult.
Also, the significance of tones in the Chinese language is extremely hard for many non Chinese natives to grasp. Research has shown the best way to learn a language is through consistent daily practice, also immersion such as speaking with native speakers, watching media, and and reading in the targeted language. Consistency and balance are are important when learning any language. Combining three levels into one short class period strips each students of the essential daily consistency needed to learn the hard language of Chinese. The RCS motto states, to provide a quality education in a caring atmosphere
so all students can attain the necessary skills and knowledge to become lifelong learners and contribute to a diverse, interdependent, and changing world. If the district strongly believed in this model, then combining and cutting the Chinese program would not be happening. The world consists of more languages than the romance languages. For every current student enrolled in Chinese and the future of RCS students and their their futures, whether it's college or future careers, I strongly urge you to change this decision immediately. Thank you. Thank you. Ashar Khan? Hello, everyone. My name is Usher Khan, and I am an incoming freshman at Stony Creek High School.
Today, I would like to talk about something that is important to me and many other students in our school district. I believe that our school should give a school day off for Eid. Will some students miss school every year on Eid? I would like to stay home from school for the day to attend special prayers and gatherings. We know how important school is, but our holiday is more important to us, and it means a lot. When we miss school, we will most likely fall behind on homework, classwork, or even tests. It is not fair for us to have to make up on lots of extra homework just for following our religion.
This is a problem that no one should have to worry about. One more reason to change this is that lots of other school districts across the country already give students the day off for Eid. School feels like Students feels like it's not fair and feel left out. It also gives the impression that our holiday is not as important as the holidays of other students. RCS should follow the as the holidays of other students. RCS should follow what other districts have done across the world and be in support of Muslim students and be willing to do so. It is more than just a day off for students. It is the most important holiday for us.
Families get dressed up, go to the mosque, and have a special prayer, then attend gatherings with family and kill in the community. By sending the students home for the day, we are not just giving them a vacation day. We are allowing them to enjoy the day and be a part of something that really matters to them a lot. That experience makes the relationship between students and their families, including the school and the community, stronger. Making Eid a school holiday would be a powerful message that our district is interested in diversity and inclusion. It would show that the district is paying attention and valuing what our community is
saying and acting on it. Making either holiday on the school calendar would make people feel heard and happy that they can celebrate their holiday without worrying about making up schoolwork. That is a fair thing that shows how that shows we care about people's faith. Such a change has a huge impact on how we feel towards school. Students shouldn't have to make that decision about whether to go to school or to stay home and celebrate. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak here today, and please consider putting Eid as a holiday on the official Rochester Community Schools calendar. Thank you. At this time,
I wanna ask my colleagues what they would like to do. That's thirty minutes of, communications we've had. Normally, we would move on and the rest would have an opportunity under agenda item 10. There are six people currently, who have not spoken. Trustee Gupta? My vote would be to move forward with public comment and finish it. Is the board okay with that? Okay. We will continue here. Madam President? Trustee Lecui? I move that we reinstate recording both names and the topics that community members discuss. I'm sorry. Trustee Lecui? Trustee Lecui?
This is not appropriate at this time. Madam President, this is the public comment section. Right. And my question That is when people are commenting at this point. If you would like to add an agenda item, we may do that at this point. At this point, we are having we are going through to talk about this. Madam President, according to Robert's rules, you acknowledged me, and I have the floor. And you shouldn't be interrupting me. I am asking, but it is not germane at this time. As you've said before This is public comment. This is the ability for individuals to hear your comment. Point of order. Trustee Lacoun,
what is your point of order? Here's my point of order, and please allow me to fully explain it as written in Robert's Rules. And my point of order is that we're going through the agenda And on the agenda, you don't have motions as an item You have just topics This topic is called public comment And I intend to make a motion that is related to the topic that's on our agenda about public comment I should that is related to the topic that's on our agenda about public comment. I should be allowed, according to Robert's rules, to make a motion about public comment during the public comment section on our meeting. That would be fully germane. Trustee Lucui,
we have six people who are ahead of you to speak. They are community members. And at this point, we're going to continue with them. So we have Zainab Abbas, followed by Mark Serra, followed by Stephanie Van Dale. Good evening. My name is Zena Babass, and I'm an incoming junior at Rochester High School, as well as the current vice president at our school's Muslim Student Association. As previously mentioned, I'm asking that our district honor the most precious holiday to Muslims around our school, Eid, a holiday that we Muslims celebrate twice a year and the dates are determined by
the lunar calendar, therefore causing it to be on a different day each year, much like Thanksgiving, which also falls on a different day annually and is already accommodated for in our school calendar. There have been multiple times when high school students have had to choose between their faith and their education. This past eve in June, I went straight from Eid prayer to sitting in my chemistry class for final exam review, while my family celebrated with friends. Surrounding districts have already acknowledged the importance of Eid. For example, Troy and Abbott School and many more. With a large Muslim population at Rochester High School and even more across Adams, Stony,
and not to mention the elementary and middle schools, It's time that Rochester Community Schools do the same and acknowledge Eid by letting students have the day off. Thank you for your time. Thank you. Mark Serra, followed by Stephanie Van Dale, followed by Joe Verlullen. Thank you. My name is Mark Serra. I am a father of two at Rochester Public Schools, have lived in the community twenty seven years and we love it here. And so I was here at the last meeting and to talk about the behavioral
therapists. So I'm asking you to reinstate the behavioral therapists. You had all of them sitting to my left. They do an incredible job. They help our children. I've talked to I have so many stories about how these behavioral therapists have helped the children. And if you lay them off, you will regret it. Make the right decision and reinstate the behavioral therapists.
It's as simple as that. This gentleman did a fantastic job explaining in more detail about what they do. They have impacted this community in a positive way. Some have proposed that you hire you hire a couple individuals to train the teachers to be behavioral therapists. When I've talked to teachers, principals, they're like, this is not gonna work. We need boots on the ground.
We finally finally finally, finally found something that worked. Don't kill it. Reinstate the behavioral therapists. The current, this will hurt the children and open up the district to lawsuits, harm and malice. I've seen the results and the success stories over and over and over. It's it works. You will be glad when you reinstate the behavioral therapist.
You'll be making the right decision in your heart. I know it to be true. And I hope you will too. Thank you for your time. Thank you. Stephanie VanDale followed by Joe Verlullen and Imad, I apologize, Chugate. My name is Stephanie Van Dale. Rhymes with whale. And, I did that for you, Barb, because, you know, the whale emoji belongs to me now. So every single time you touch it, think of me. So, you know, a lot a lot of issues have been brought up here about,
you know, the Chinese teachers and making Eden holiday and, you know, the the non listening by Mr. Reno. And, you know, the the we just had an election. And we tried really hard to replace the and and get this board to a place where we would get the students supported, right? And, you know, it didn't work out. So, you know, there are five obstructionists up there who don't want to listen to the parents, don't want to listen to the kids,
don't want to listen to anybody, want to give a raise to an incompetent superintendent who has yet to fulfill any part of his contract, and a central office that completely is bloated beyond anybody's, what do I wanna call it? Awareness. You know, the, the incompetent trustee who claims to be a treasurer, who, does she even go to the meetings when talking budgets or anything, Matt? Is she there? So, yeah. You know, there's a lot of failure going on here. And I am just completely
appalled. You know, these five people aren't gonna listen to us parents. They're not. They haven't for years. And what they're doing is they are reinstituting Shaner two point o with this guy up there, who's asking for a raise, a multi thousand dollar raise that he doesn't deserve. You signed a contract. Live with it. So, you know, what what do we do? We go back to the drawing board and we find parents to be elected into
these positions so that our students can be supported. But it takes a while to get to the next election, which is 2026. And I hope and I pray that there are parents out there that are willing to step up and replace the multiple incompetence up there. Thank you. Joe Verlohan? Good evening. My name is Joe Versalino. I am so sorry for my terrible handwriting. I'm a community member. My,
my wife went to Rochester Adams High School. It's where I did my student teaching as well, before I taught in Detroit for ten years. I'm an award winning educator, the 2021 Detroit Teacher of the Year. My, my kids go to University Hills, with Mr. Cal, And he's, he's so wonderful at what Martin Luther King describes as cultivating a rugged sense of somebody ness. He's out there every morning giving kids high fives and smiling at them, and it, it warms my educator heart.
It might have been last meeting. I don't know where I saw the clip, but, doctor Russo was asked about some of the staggering mental health issues with young people. The CDC reports that one in ten young people will make an attempt on their life. Fifty eight percent of young people, according to a Harvard graduate study, say that they feel further and further away from a sense of meaning and purpose every month. I, this this leads us to what most researchers would consider with, our current generation of students as the most connected and the most lonely generation to
ever exist. You may see this. Our students are are lost and lured in by followers and likes and subscribers and views and shares and status and achievement, and it's left us with, a mental health epidemic with young people. I wanted to introduce myself to you tonight because I lead a I lead one of the most prominent initiatives in the country around mental health for, for students called the Lionheart Experience. And we fuse evidence based practice with music, paint,
and story. And we're backed by mental health professionals across the country, therapists, counselors. We have over 800, five star reviews from parents. And our programming connects young people to an inherent sense of self worth and identity, one that doesn't go away, one that you stay rooted in. And every parent loves to be able to hear the message that we bring to young people. The message is I have worth, I have value, and I have a beautiful future to look forward to. And so as Rochester Community Schools continues to be excellent,
a wonderful place for my own kids to grow up, I would love to speak with any of you who might be interested in helping to pursue programming with, with the Lionheart Experience, my group, and, Rochester Community Schools. Thank you so much for a wonderful place for my kids to grow up. Thank you. Iman, I'm not even gonna try your last name. And then, Andrew Weaver after that. Good evening, members of the school board and fellow community members. My name is Iman Chiktai, and I'm a rising junior at Rochester High School in the RCS district.
I've been an active member in the school community. This will be my third year on the RHS girls swim team. Some of my leadership positions include being in charge of events at my mosque, volunteering at many club activities, tutoring students, and currently, I'm performing as a link crew leader, district liaison for Rotary Interac, vice president for French club, and PR manager for our Muslim Student Association. I'm here to respectfully ask you to consider giving students a day off for Eid, one of the most important holidays in Islam. Eid is a day of celebration, prayer, and time with family. For Muslim students like me,
it's the most meaningful day of the year, like Christmas or Thanksgiving. However, this year, part of my finals and my brother's eighth grade farewell party fell on the same day as Eid. We ended up having to rush to school after attending our Eid prayer. My brother missed all his classes and didn't get his yearbook during homeroom, which led him to not be able to have all his friends sign it. I arrived right before my exam, which was honestly quite stressful. And on top of that, since this was the last day before finals, many of my classes went over their exam reviews that same day, which I unfortunately had to miss. This is just one of the experiences of my brother and I from this Eid.
Muslim students in the RCS district suffer with the same problem every year. We have to choose between celebrating our faith or attending school, and that doesn't feel fair at all. Missing school for Eid means missing tests, lessons, and falling behind. It's stressful, and it makes us feel like our holidays and beliefs don't matter. Recognizing Eid as a school holiday would show that our district truly values diversity and respects all cultures and religions. Other school districts in The U. S. Have already made this change. If even the district closest to us like Troy can find a way to do it,
so can we. Giving a day off for Eid isn't just about one group. It's about showing that every student belongs. Thank you for your time, and I hope you'll consider supporting this change for a more inclusive and respectful school environment. Thank you. Andrew Weaver? Alright. Well, then Madam president? Then we will continue on with our agenda. Madame President. According to Robert's rules, I've called your name. I should be recognized during this point. No. Trust me, look. I am just going to tell you that you are reading those wrong, and the items that the section you are reading has to do when a motion
is on the floor. Madam President, 40 So consent agenda item. The chair must recognize any member who seeks the floor while entitled to it. Right now, we are going to move on to agenda item seven. It is the consent agenda item. Madam President, point of order. Trustee Lacoue, what is your point of order? Once again, you're breaking Robert's rules. I'm entitled to seek the floor. I'm also entitled to make a motion that is relevant to the topic that we're discussing on our agenda. Alright. Well, I Point of order, Madam President. Yes. Hold on. I I will allow the board to since you do not value my opinion at
this point, I will ask the rest of the board if Trustee Liqui should be allowed to continue with a motion. All of those in favor, please say aye. All of those opposed, please say no. No. That is a I did not hear you, Trustee Lecuy. Was that a you voted yes, I'm assuming? I I vote that was in favor of me being able to make a motion. That was a two five vote. So at this point, we are moving on to agenda item seven, which is the consent agenda item Madam President. All matters listed under the consent agenda are considered routinely I have a question about
by the Board of Education. Madam President, point of order. Trustee Gupta? We have an approved agenda that this board approved at the onset of the meeting. Robert's rule says to abide by the agenda unless you can get a motion passed, seconded and passed to change the agenda. The items being brought, we don't have anything on our agenda that is germane to changing how we handle public comment. That could be on a future agenda item but is not germane to this agenda. Okay. I I that was very long, but I agree with that,
we have an agenda and that is what we are moving forward with. Agenda item seven is the consent agenda. All matters listed under the consent agenda. I have a question about public comment. This is not a need to be a motion. A point of order is not a question. So what is your point of order? Point of order is you're moving on past this agenda item before I get a chance to rightfully call out and be recognized to ask a question about a comment. Trustee Lekhoe, I have a question about the Chinese program, and I I would like to ask about what the people spoke about. That is that is not we we are not commenting on that right now.
Right now, we are on agenda item seven, which is the consent agenda. All matters listed under the consent agenda are considered routine in nature by the board and will be acted upon by one motion. There is no separate discussion of these items. If any member of the board requests an I 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 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, 7.3, but still under the consent agenda. Our consent agenda consists of item 7.1, Board of Education meeting scheduled for the twenty five-twenty six school year. Item 7.2, human resource recommendations. Is there a motion to approve the consent agenda as presented? Moved by trustee Annas, support by trustee Gupta.
Does any board member wish to remove an item? Madam president. Trustee Lacui? Item 7.1, please. K. Those in favor of approving item 7.2, please say aye. Aye. Opposed, please say no. Alright. Item 7.2, the human resource recommendations have been approved. And I'd just like to say congratulations to Josh Bukema for his appointment as the assistant principal at Rochester High School, Megan McGuire for her appointment as assistant principal at Van Hoosen Middle School, Laura am I saying this right?
Reinke Reinke for her appointment to the role of assistant principal at Hart Middle School, Todd Negosian Negosian for his appointment as the athletic director at Stony Creek and to Adrienne Walker on her appointment as the auditorium coordinator. I'd also like to thank and congratulate Darlene LaValvo and Amy Wetzel on their retirements. Are any of those are any of those people here at this time? Congratulations. Thank you very much. We're going to move on to, is there a motion to approve item 7.1, the Board of Education meeting scheduled for the 2526 school year?
Moved by trustee Annas, support by trustee Gupta, And, trustee Lacui, you had asked that this be pulled. Yeah. I was wondering if you could clarify why you've decided ultimately to change or abolish the distinction between regular meetings and work sessions. The reason that I'm asking that question is because I think our current structure makes sense. We just have to follow it. Work sessions typically would focus on fewer but more in-depth discussion topics, with board members receiving as much relevant,
information as possible in advance. And that way, it gave board members a chance to discuss things and then vote on them at the next meeting after they've had a chance to process it. And as we learned earlier, you know, the way public comment is structured, we don't get to hear public feedback on some of these things, until the beginning of the following meeting. So also, if we have a work session, we can talk with the public, and then we can vote on it at the following meeting. That might be very helpful. So now I'm just kind of curious what is our structure going to look like now that we don't have the distinction anymore and everything is considered a regular meeting. Yeah. As I had said originally,
we had work sessions and regular meetings separate because we did not record the work sessions, and the regular meetings, were recorded. Now we record them all. There had been some discussion about trying to, get the length of our meetings under control. The hope would be that by being able to have flexibility on when items are available to be able to spread that out so that we could have a, you know, more uniform length of time. I agree with you. I would still hope that any, work session items,
if they were an item to vote on, would be at a meeting prior to so that they wouldn't be back to back. But this, you know, that was the rationale for that, which is what I had, emailed to everyone and I did not hear anyone providing any feedback that they weren't happy with that. Madam President? Trustee Lacui? Well, that's not true. I I told you my preference was to keep our current structure as long as we follow it. But, okay. If we're talking about the reason we're doing this is because we wanna have a more uniform length of meetings and we wanna try to reduce the amount of time
that we are that the meetings last. I'm curious with, like, typically with regular meetings, we have a spotlight on success. Are we having twice as many spotlight on successes now that they're all regular meetings? Or how are some of these sections going to be happening? My hope would be that or the thought would be that we would still have, only one spotlight on success. That we would, we had talked about, even dividing some of our comment up, meaning, like, having the students come to one meeting, having the, PAC and the, PTA representatives come to another meeting to kind of spread some of that out as
well. I didn't see that written anywhere about spotlight on success or what you might be doing with some of those other sections. Are you considering success or what you might be doing with some of those other sections. Are you considering timing some of these other sections too? Like, you time public comment to three minutes. Board members and administrators are limited to to three minutes. Are we gonna do the same thing for some of these updates that we get from other representatives and groups? Or I just haven't heard, what your thoughts are. Or if we are changing the government hearing from people quarterly versus every meeting? Or, you know, we haven't talked about any of this.
Yep. Nope. I had planned to continue with the once a month as it has stood so far. Okay. I'm personally, I'm still in favor of keeping the structure because I think it just makes sense to do it with work sessions followed by regular meetings. And it makes it clear when we expect to see a topic more than once and when we don't. But do any other board members have any feelings on this at all or should we just proceed? Trustee Blake? I was happy to see that you were proposing to make a change because the way that we've been having these meetings the last couple of years,
it just it's insane. I mean, we start like today we started at 04:45. We'll probably be here till 11:00 at night. All the surrounding districts have about a two hour board meeting. I mean, our meetings, our agendas are so packed. And that's the one meeting and then the second meeting a month is the work session and oftentimes that is not as long. And so if you can shift these things up so they're a little more even, I think it makes sense. Trustee Lozan? I think I have bad feedback, but we'll try this. I agree because I can kind of merge together Carol Butts and Jason's point as
long as my fear is by making them all regular meetings is that now we're gonna have all the meetings are gonna be long. Because our work session is like, okay, it's a work session. We know we're only gonna be here, oh, maybe two hours, sometimes a little bit longer. But if everyone's in a regular meeting, can we not jam pack a regular meeting for five, six hours every time? Because I have little kids. I don't want to be here till 11:00 and get up at 06:00 in the morning tomorrow. So it would be appreciated to kind of spread them all out and make sure that if we are doing that, cap them at three hours tops maybe. Well, that is certainly the hope. Sometimes it's difficult to judge,
because I can't predict necessarily what people are going to have long commentary on. But the the plan is to even them out and not be as long. And we can decide at some point if that's not working that we go back to, the other format. Madam president? Trustee Lacui? You've been on the board for many years, and it never used to be we never used to have this problem even with the work session regular meeting format that existed before. So there are other ways that we could reduce the amount of time that we take at the meetings, and a lot of that has to do with how packed are we gonna make
these agendas probably. Honestly, you're right. It was not an issue until about two and a half years ago. And that is when we started to have an issue with the length of the meetings. So, alright. At this point, we have a motion to approve item 7.1, which is the educate Board of Education meeting schedule for 2526. All of those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Those opposed, please say no. No. No. I'm sorry. Trustee Luzon, that was a no? Okay. That's a five two vote, and the, calendar is approved. We we are moving on to agenda item eight,
which is reports, and we have four this evening. We'll start with superintendent, superintendent update. Mister Russo? Thank you, madam president. Before I turn it over first and foremost, to to Mr. Murphy for SPCC update, I wanted to, have a few updates for the community and for the Board. Most recently, the House Republicans proposed a budget as part of the state budget process. This school aid budget as is would would result in a 19 and a half million dollar addition for our budget next year. There are a host of confirmed issues with this proposal. It it does not pass legal or constitutional muster.
It is unsustainable by the state of Michigan, includes higher education funding, includes money for private schools, and its its sum is about $12,000 per student. Dollars 1,500 per student is in a big block grant, which is new, for us in in the past few years here. Having said that, the proposal is not a possibility, and members of the House have confirmed that. I've been working with our lobbyist, Ann Mark Tisdell, to advocate for pat to advocate for passing something before June 30 that incorporates the elements that all have agreed upon so that we have something more concrete to build
our budget. This is also highly unlikely. I will keep our board of education informed of progress and movement, and this past weekend's open press is a is a good example of, what districts are struggling with to plan into moving next year. We currently have prepared a budget for next year that resembles the governor's budget proposal, but the exact proposal is also highly unlikely. So our budget right now is based on sand, so to speak. I want our board members to know my team has prepared more sustainable and consistent budget ideas such as spending reductions and personnel changes to name a couple. As we get closer to having real numbers to work with,
we can adjust plans, have budget amendments to address our needs as we move throughout the year. For example, if a school aid budget is passed in August, we will look at real numbers, our actual enrollment, and make adjustments to spending and staffing to help reduce a potential $6,000,000 deficit if those numbers should correlate. I'm sure as a board, you don't wanna pass a budget that shows a $6,000,000 deficit, and neither do we want to do we do we do not recommend that either. We will keep the board informed of any in adjustments as we get closer to real numbers and then prepare budget amendments for you accordingly.
It is also important to note that during graduation season as I spoke with parents across the district, some were asking about rumors regarding the budget. One parent asked about having 500 more teachers than last year, for example. This is simply untrue. For context, since 2017, we've added 120 instructional staff, 32 in general education, 88 in special education, adult, virtual and alternative education, counselors, CTE, etcetera. Some of these have been grant funded positions. Public schools are bound by certifications as well as we should be. If you look at the 32 general education teachers,
that is about 1.5 per school. Or if you look at high schools, we have more CTE and AP courses offered, for example, compared to 2017. In that same period, we have two seventy more non instructional staff. Only because in 2017, the reporting for most of these categories were different. We now report and fingerprint all custodial positions, transportation positions, food service, etc. There were different reporting requirements then, and so any comparison of that data needs context. This is seemingly coming from my school data.
I have repeatedly had conversations about my school data and how sometimes this data is wrong. Sometimes it's right. But what it represents is often missing without nuance in context. That's all for me in terms of updates. Mister Murphy, can you give us an SPCC update? Madam president? Trustee Lacui? Well, I had a question about my school data because doesn't my school data just use the information that the districts give them? That's the dis that's the information that the districts give to the state. So they're just reporting what the what the districts give them. So if the data is wrong,
that would only mean that the districts were wrong in the way that they reported it to the state. That's not necessarily true because sometimes our our data we so for example in 2017 we had one annual time we had to report our staffing. Since 2017, in 2023 they tried to push it for monthly. That didn't pan out because no one has the staff to do that. So now we do it two times a year officially. When we put our exits in, sometimes my school data when it uploads information, those exits aren't revolving at the same pace at which we input them. So if we put all of our exits in,
I'm gonna make dates up for you, August 1, and they roll their data August 2, we might not they might not show all the exits, for example, of people who retired, resigned, or otherwise have been terminated. In addition, there were different reporting requirements, as I just said. Very different reporting requirements from 2017 to 2024. So our non instructional folks that people that now the rumors that have started that we have four seventy four more teachers, we have 500 more teachers we're bloated all over the place. The two the it's simply not true.
I just gave you the data from our rep report. I just gave you the data from our rep report. Mr. Russo, I never Which is not negotiable because that's what we turn into the state. How they decipher that information, I'm not a state employee. I've never heard anyone say we have four zero four more teachers. I mean, the idea is there's four seventy four more employees. And you're saying number is also wrong. Okay. Perhaps you could deliver some of these numbers to the board in a written form, and it would be helpful to be able to see that broken down and help
us understand how many more of these employee positions have been added to our district since 2018 because we've lost almost a thousand students. I have no problem doing that. And you're right because the way the state I mean, what are what are people supposed to do? Because the state is the official data portal. And so if you're saying there's more context that we should have, I would love to have additional context. And that sounds great because I've asked about certain positions where people have left, and I've asked, well, why do we have multiple roles that look like they have the same job description?
Is it possible we can consolidate in some of these non instructional areas so that we're not losing people who are, you know, who work closest with our students and who and who we might need? And I'm not getting a whole lot of feedback when it comes to understanding what are the jobs that we could potentially trim and what are the jobs that we could Some of our 848 contractors include those who present provide enrichment, Durham Transportation, ABM, who's our custodial services, Chartwells, Shield. I would love to to have this in written format before we discuss it.
I've asked this before with numbers. I don't wanna have to try to scramble I have no problem providing it, but it's not a discussion. I was just gonna report, and I can repeat the question. And and Mr. Russo said that he would provide us with an update on that. So Thank you. Alright. So to mister Murphy. I think I've got some feedback here. Sound okay? Okay. The SBCC, the superintendent's policy curriculum committee met, last week on the agenda and were discussed with ongoing discussion of purchasing conflict of interest in nepotism policy.
We invited Adam Blaylock from Miller Johnson to join the group per request of the committee from the last meeting to talk about these issues and to, I think in consensus at the end, draft some additional language for us to review at a future meeting regarding, potentially differing dollar amounts for approval by the board depending on category. So he will be drafting that language. The committee would then consider that and whether to bring any of that forth, for official change. Continue to talk about AI, administrative regulations.
We drafted some based on our AI committee that was done this year, sent that for legal review. That came back with some comments, and now that's back with the committee to look at as well. Our goal on that would be to bring it in more complete form, this fall. I think, in line with the presentation for the school board as well. We continue to working on potential health education, administrative regulations. Didn't present any new ones that's still in progress and will be continued to be reviewed at the next meeting. Also, it was discovered in our current whistleblower Administrative Regulation that there's a dead link.
Basically said, insert or click here for the procedure and there was nowhere to go. So in looking at that and updating it, we aligned some of that language, with current practice and expanded on it a little bit and have a recommendation that will be coming forth to you soon, for the thirty day review to enhance that and to include a link that is live. And then we completed with, discussing tonight's Salary Study update and just opened it if there were any questions for
the Committee. We don't think we have a next meeting scheduled, but we will schedule that soon. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Murphy. We can move on to our district behavior support model with Ms. Gaucher. Oops. Sorry about that. So good evening everybody and thank you so much for the opportunity to speak with you tonight about the expansion of our district behavior support model. I'm really excited to be able to speak with you on this. So this work started on a very small level within the special education department two
years ago, and it has evolved into, a really student centered proactive framework that's designed to build capacity and staff and improve outcomes for all learners. So tonight's presentation is gonna provide more information regarding the sustainable district wide system that's rooted in evidence based behavioral science and inclusion. It's designed for all learners both in general and special education. So our overall mission is to empower staff with the training, the tools, and the support that they need to address student behavior proactively across all different learning
environments. I know that there has been a lot of ongoing discussion about the former behavior interventionist or the BI positions, and how they relate to the current model. I would like to clarify the board and for our community that this new model is not a replacement for the grant funded BI positions. It's worth saying again, the work of our formal behavior interventionists was invaluable. These dedicated individuals made such a meaningful impact on both individual students and student groups, and their contributions to our district deserve recognition and to be celebrated. We're proud that many of them have transitioned into new roles within our current structure
as MTC MTSS behavior consultants, helping to carry this important work, moving forward. So the district behavior support model is an expansion and really an evolution of behavioral supports that we've had in place within our special education department over the last two years, and I just briefly wanted to talk, about that. So in the 2324 school year, we hired our first district board certified behavior analyst or what we commonly refer to as BCBA. His work focused on supporting staff who serve students with complex behavioral needs.
In that same year, we began contracting registered behavior technicians or RBTs through various agencies to support a small number of students who really required some more intensive support. And while these efforts showed promise, we also recognized the need for a more systematic, scalable approach that could reach more staff and students. So this past school year for the twenty four, twenty five year, we refined and we strengthened our model. We maintained our BCBA position and we hired six district based RBTs through EduStaff while
continuing with a few contracted RBTs. And this allowed us to expand beyond individual student support and begin building capacity among RCS staff. So for example, of a few of the things that we accomplished this year, we were able to train our transportation staff, including bus drivers and monitors, in de escalation and behavior strategies. Across the district, we were able to provide nonviolent crisis intervention or c, NCI training to over 275 staff members, which included teachers, paraeducators,
ancillary staff, and administrators alike. So as we're looking ahead to this 2526 school year, we're excited to continue this expansion by expanding our behavioral support model to include general education. By leveraging the specialized knowledge and practices that have been foundational in special education, we now can support general education teachers and teams with the same level of coaching and training. This expansion aligns with one of our district's most important beliefs beliefs and one that all of you know that I feel very passionate about,
that all truly means all. Our model is rooted in behavioral science, specifically through behavior skills training, or known as BST, And it's guided by trauma informed practices. It emphasizes proactive classroom coaching, targeting staff and parent training, data driven functional behavior assessments or FBAs, and behavior intervention plans or, commonly referred to as BIPs or BIPs. It also emphasizes the full integration into our district tiered system of support. We know that there is a need for a consistent district wide system,
and that need is more pressing than ever. We know that we're continuing to see increases in students with behavioral challenges across all grade levels and settings. I also think it's important to mention tonight that the work that we're doing with this district behavioral support model really aligns with upcoming shifts at the Michigan Department of Education, which is currently exploring legislative reforms, related, excuse me, to seclusion and restraint. These reforms aim to move districts away from reactive practices and really towards proactive trauma and practices and really towards proactive, trauma informed, and more dignified behavior frameworks.
And this is exactly the kind of system that we're putting in place. The statewide conversations that's really driving this work at MDE are the following challenges. Inconsistent use of data to inform behavior policies and practices, having an overreliance on reactive strategies instead of preventive approaches, learning environments that may not fully support diverse sensory and emotional needs, and there's a clear need for more staff training and model behavior intervention and strategies. I'm really proud that RCS is gonna be ahead of the curve in addressing these issues. And if you could the curve in addressing these issues. And if you could actually go to two slides back,
please, where there's the visual. Yes, thank you. So I want to take a second now and really talk about the intentional design of the RCS behavioral support team. And this was really designed to, include three board certified behavior analysis, four MTSS behavior consultants, and then up to 12 registered behavior technicians. And together, this team represents a layered collaborative approach to really pro actively supporting student behavior across our system. And so I'd like to take just a a really quick deeper dive into how
each role contributes to the model, for everybody to have the same shared understanding. So our board certified behavior analysts are master level professionals who have advanced training in behavioral science. They lead the design and the implementation of individualized behavior support plans. They engage in instructional partnerships with staff. They analyze behavioral data and they provide supervision to RBTs. The supervision requirement includes a minimum of 5% of the RBT monthly hours, which roughly, equates to about one and a half hours per week per RBT.
It's important to note that a single BCBA can supervise up to six RBTs at a time. And the BCBA positions, are housed within the special education department and they fall under the REA contract. And it's important to note that the FTE for the additional two BCBA rules is not new. Instead, it came from a really strategic restructuring of existing special education positions. Moving now to our registered behavior technicians or RBTs. Thank you. Those are certified paraeducator level staff who work directly with students to implement behavior strategies.
They collect the data, and they support classrooms under the supervision of that BCBA. Now these roles of the RBTs function similarly to paraeducators, but they have a really strong behavioral focus and they have specific certification. RBTs are hired through EduStaff to allow them to be oversight. In this past school year, we employed nine total registered behavior technicians, six that were of which through EDU staff and three that were with contract agencies. And the next important part of our behavioral model is our MTSS behavior consultants. And they share many of the same responsibilities as our BCBAs.
They're supporting those tier one and tier two interventions. They're designing and implementing behavior support plans. They're providing professional learning. And they're partnering with staff to address behavior in real time. However, unlike the BCBAs, they do not supervise RBTs, and the FTE for these four positions come from a combination of grants that are yet to be determined. What I'm especially proud of is that many of these roles have been filled by individuals who previously served as our behavior interventionist, and their experience and the relationships within our district are going to be key to
helping ensure continuity and trust as we expand this, district behavior support model. So collectively, these positions make up a unified district team that's really designed to build capacity among staff and provide high quality, individualized support for students across both general and special education. In looking at, the upcoming school year, it's important to note that our BCBA and our RBT positions will continue serving special education population. So those are gonna be all of our students ages birth through 26,
while also expanding services to support our general education settings as well. Our MTSS behavior consultants will focus specifically on students in transitional kindergarten through fifth grade. This targeted assignment is a direct response to the change in the former behavior intervention positions and the need to maintain dedicated support in elementary buildings. Looking forward, it is our hope that as the model continues to evolve and expand, that we will be able to extend more MTSS behavior support to the secondary level.
In the meantime, students at the secondary level continue to be well supported through existing positions such as counseling and intervention staff. I wanna emphasize once again, every member of our district behavior support team has the skills and the capacity to support all students regardless of general or special education designation. And that's a really important part. And I know this is a lot of information, so I just wanted to pause for just a second. Thank you guys for your engagement in the presentation so far. We reviewed a little bit of the background,
rationale, the team structure that you see up on the screen, and I'm excited to walk you through the next sections where we're going to actually look at, so how is this model going to be implemented and how is it going to work? So, next slide please. Okay. So before we dive into the four different components of our behavioral support model, it's really important that we're grounding ourselves within its foundation. So our model is intentionally aligned with our multi tiered system of support or MTSS and positive behavior interventions and support, PBIS, within that framework. In addition,
our model also incorporates the behavioral skills training or BST, which is an evidence based approach that's rooted in behavioral science. BST is widely recognized for its effectiveness in teaching both children and adults across a broad range of skills. And it really consists of four concepts. I'm sorry, four core steps. Giving instructions, modeling, rehearsing, and then providing feedback. Our district behavior support team will use this process to build the capacity of staff members through active, ongoing coaching and training.
Our model includes four key components, and the first that I'd like to focus on is the professional development. This component is still evolving in collaboration with our elementary building administrators. However, I am excited to share tonight that several plans are administrators. However, I am excited to share tonight that several plans are already in motion. We are going to continue with our crisis prevention intervention training, which includes verbal interventions and deescalation strategies. There will be monthly tier one escalation strategies. There will be monthly tier one presentations to all elementary staff. There will be tier one leadership training for our learning consultants and our teacher consultants.
We will have on demand resources including micro PD opportunity and the district's, behavior padlet. And then on our district, provided professional development days, we will also have professional development geared towards, our mission. The second component is looking at tiered supports. And at the heart of this model is a structured multi tiered approach to behavior intervention that I'm sure many of the board members in our community are familiar with. So I'll just go over them briefly. This is where we're talking about those tier one,
tier two, and tier three supports. So our tier one supports are those universal strategies and those really those proactive teaching of expected behaviors for all students to really promote positive outcomes and prevent challenges before they arise. Arise. Our tier two intervention is more targeted interventions for students who need more than that tier one support. And these interventions are developed in partnership with building teams and our district behavior support staff, and it will include specific action plans and progress monitoring.
And then our tier three will remain our intensive, individualized interventions for students with the most significant behavioral needs. At this level, district behavior staff will support the functional behavior assessment process and the development of behavior intervention plans, which could include crisis plans when appropriate. The third component is collaboration. And we know that collaboration is gonna be critical to the success of this work. Building teams will continue to use the established team process and problem solving packet for
any student requiring support. From there, our district behavior support staff will partner with buildings to deepen intervention planning through our instructional partnership model. Through these partnerships, behavior team members will conduct classroom coaching, support the implementation of intervention plans, and facilitate behavior review meetings to evaluate student data and determine next steps. This shared problem solving model really emphasizes a two way collaboration, and this builds capacity while honoring each building's uniqueness.
And then the last component of our model, is our RBT supports. So we know that our registered behavior technicians play a really versatile role within our model, and they provide flexible and targeted behavioral support such as whole class coaching. That's gonna be designed for our kindergarten and our early elementary settings to focus on universal classroom routines. It will include classroom specific coaching based on teacher identified behavior goals, short term preventative support for students to reduce challenging behaviors and promote skill development,
And it will also, provide student specific long term support for a very small number of students who have complex behavioral needs. It's important to note that this model is not to design, is not designed, excuse me, to place an RBT in every elementary building. Instead, the RBT assignments are gonna be based on student need and data, and it's gonna follow a structured decision making process. Each elementary building will continue to benefit from its own resources, including the critical incident team, learning consultants, teacher consultants,
special education teams, and still continue to have the same access to district wide interventionists and behavior support consultants. Ultimately, the district behavior support model is designed to positively impact teachers, students, and families by equipping all stakeholders with skills and strategies that foster inclusive, supportive, and successful learning environments. And we realize that this model is not just about addressing behaviors. It's same time creating systems that support long term growth and capacity in the future. Next slide, please. So a critical, part of the success of our district behavioral model lies in how we implement it.
And at the center of this work is our instructional partnership model. The behavior support team will partner with building teams, not as a crisis response, but as a proactive support system designed to prevent crises before they occur. This approach focuses on planning, coaching, and collaboration, ensuring that teams are equipped to address behavioral needs early and effectively. I would also like to share that we're not alone in this work by using this type of model. Several of our neighboring districts such as Troy and Clarkston have already begun to implement
behavior support frameworks similar to the one that we're building here in Rochester. It's really encouraging and uplifting to see this collective shift towards a more proactive systems based model across Oakland County, and we are partnering with districts that already have established systems. Additionally, together with Mrs. Hempton and Mr. Cuzamano, I wanna emphasize that this work is not supplemental, but it's essential. The district behavior support model represents a key pillar of our teaching and learning department and it lines directly with strategic plan number eight, which I know that we're gonna be discussing later on in our meeting tonight.
At the heart of this plan is the belief that students deserve to feel safe and supported and understood within their learning environments. There are spaces where their individual needs are met with not only dignity, but care. Staff deserve access to ongoing professional development and the confidence that comes from being equipped with those foundational behavioral skills that allows them to lead calm, responsive classrooms. When both students and staff feel confident, connected, and supported transparency. As part of our commitment, we will provide updates to the board and community at the end of each trimester
sharing progress and outcomes as we continue to build and refine this work. Next slide, please. Okay. In conclusion, our goal is simple. We want to return instructional control to our teachers and help every staff member feel confident in managing student behavior. We believe that in starting with the end in mind, by creating sustainable systems that lead to stronger classroom communities, students will be more successful. So, again, thank you for your time and support. I appreciate everyone's engagement. And at this time,
I welcome any questions, that the board might have. Trustee Annas? Well, first of all, thank you, Tiffany, for the deep dive, into your slides. I did have a couple of questions. The first is, the model that shows that we have, four MTSS behavior consultants, that will cover TK through five throughout the district. How are they seen throughout the district? I mean, we have 13 elementaries and I don't know how many TK classrooms, so, you know, my concern is four is not enough. How are you addressing that?
That would be my first question. Do you mind if I answer that really quick? That way I won't forget it. I'm so glad that you brought up this point because the, the way that we've designed the, behavioral, support model is that, everybody, whether it's the MTS board certified, consultants, if it's our BCBAs, if it's the RBTs, they will also be supporting our transitional kindergarten through fifth grade. So it will be, obviously, the MTSS behavior consultants, but everybody else will be supporting too. I just wanted in the presentation to, explain that, we also on the secondary,
on the special education side, would be continuing with our BCBA work, and RBTs. But we will have have this whole team supporting our elementary staff. Okay. So then, is it structured that in a way that the four MTSS behavior consultants, kind of are, they umbrella over, BCBA and then the RBTs, they work as a team. Is that I mean, is that how it's gonna be structured? Yes. It's gonna be structured. Yep. Okay. And then, you mentioned, the slide with the, four components with the district behavior support team in the middle,
the collaboration, the team collaboration, with educators. And who else then? Is it the RBTs or is it the BCBAs and the MTSS that are partnering with the educators in the classroom? Yes. And so we will continue to use our building, processes that are already established through going through building team. And then when, additional support or training or coaching is needed, the building team will be reaching out, to the district behavioral support team. And then, they will be looking at, each of the different roles, in particular,
starting with our behavior consultants and our MTSS behavior, coaches to partner, very closely in that. And then depending on where the need is, will depend on where our registered behavior technicians, help serve within the district. So it will be a very collaborative approach, and we have a very intentional design, which what we're calling our instructional partnership model, for staff to have an easy way to access this type of support and for this type of support to be really present throughout all of our elementary buildings.
Yeah. I think that's one of my biggest concerns is that, you know, pushing some of this onto the educators in the classroom. And I know you made the point that the idea is to return instructional time to educators. But at the same time, I think there could be a conflict in terms of also demanding that educators, you know, not that they, they don't manage their classrooms and they don't, look for students who need those behavioral supports and get them that support that they need. I'm just concerned about, about just making sure that educators do have that time for instructional,
focus. And then, I know you mentioned the, because my next my last question was what's the evaluation plan for this model? And you did mention it's the, that you'll be coming to the board table at the end of each trimester? Yes. And so that's part of our strategic plan number eight. And so we have a plan designed to, look at all of our data, collect input and feedback, and then we would like to, if we have the opportunity to come to the board, to be able to, kind of share, as we continue to build and refine this model. Yeah. A 100% you should be coming back to the board because that was really one
of the key questions and key areas of concern is, you know, when you implement anything new in terms of structure into an education system, especially something, that that is as important as this. I think it's really key that the board gets feedback and it's on a more regular basis. And then the last point I just want to make, and it's a point it's not a question, I really like hearing that, we're partnering with other districts who have already implemented this, behavior model support, and behavior model support, program or structure, because I think, we can learn a lot from best practices from other districts who've already tackled this. So thank you so much for your time.
Yeah. Thank you. Trustee Gupta? Hello. Thank you also for the presentation. Appreciate it. I have a few questions. So to start, if I understand it correctly, so I was a little surprised to hear you say that this isn't this model is not meant to replace or at least replace part of what the behavioral interventionists were doing. That was a little bit of felt like a surprise for me. So, I wanna but I did listen to everything he said and I under what I'm understanding, if I got it right, is that, we and I know this already,
that the the grant funding for those roles has gone away. And so that's why we unfortunately had to, find a different model, but this is the best practice in the field at the time that's evidence based. And so we're looking at how to implement it and and make it systemic. Is that correct? That is correct. And, that's why I wanted to really highlight that this isn't really just coming out of nowhere. But over the last few years within special education, we've had this vision all along kind of building up to where we're headed right now. And if it's a good practice for students with IEPs and IFSPs,
then it's great for all students. Great. And then, a question that I have also is, two questions I have left are, and this might not be for you, but, do we have kind of a comparison of the, costs associated with running a program like this as compared to what we were doing with the behavioral interventionists so that we can kind of see the cost comparison? Is that something we could look at in the near future? Yeah. I will refer to my colleague, mister McDaniel. Yes. I think it's something that we can look at in the future. I think right now,
we're trying to, get approval for certain positions with certain grants. It was important to us with the budget deficit to live within as much as we could, the current constraints. So I think we did add to the budget a few of those RBT positions. Yeah. I think it would be helpful to be able to look at that comparison. Not that it necessarily needs to be like apples to apples, but just to see the value added. And so, I'm also glad to hear that there's a plan for evaluation and reporting out. And my final question is,
in the, of development over the last couple years of this plan, had have teachers and, the other staff involved in this work and maybe families even had an opportunity to provide input on the model. Yes. Very much so. And I think that the, the framework that we've decided to continue to move forward with, we were seeing a lot of success. We just didn't have enough of the supports in place which is why we're trying to grow it, because staff members and families are really finding it beneficial.
Trustee Lausanne? You mentioned that you are going to find the need to bring a place. Is there a group that takes priority, like special education over general education, or is it kinda just like a day to day or a case by case? How's it gonna work? Yeah. So, that will come back to, again, our our process that we have, our instructional partnership model, where it always, for, any student, starts at building team, and follows that established practice. And then when the district behavior support team gets involved, regardless if they're general education,
special education, we'll be working with that team and partnering closely with them to make sure that that student's needs being met. But really, you know, I know that we we sometimes have to to have different names, but this is just for all RCS students. It doesn't matter if they're general education or they're special education. Everybody is going to get their needs met. Trustee Blake? So you've said a lot, and it's a lot to take in. And I don't know if I caught everything, so if you've covered this, I'm sorry. But, I had a few concerns about this. The one question I had, I guess,
and you probably covered it but I'm not clear on it, is the difference in the qualifications and the training of these different people. So you've got the BCBAs, the RBTs. We used to have the behaviour interventionists. I think people are concerned that we're losing something without having that. What does the what do these people have in terms of qualifications training that the behaviour interventions didn't have or vice versa? That's one question. Another, I guess, concern I have is just the availability. We know there are less people, but I've heard a lot of stories of people who have used the behaviour interventionists.
And it's not always kids with severe, you know, behaviour problems, but the kids with maybe you know, they're having trouble making friends. Or I know of one kid who The behaviour interventions would eat lunch with that kid because they needed that, like in the middle of the day. But they're not probably severe enough. I worry about those kids. Like, they're not their behavior is not to a level where they probably would gain the attention of maybe these people, but what would we do for those kids? If that makes sense. Yes. So I'll answer your second question first just because
because it's, right there in my mind. And so, again, for all students, you know, and the the type of student that you were talking about that might have those needs, we're still gonna have our same supports within the buildings, special education team, the general education team, etcetera. And we have been talking in our partnership, with our elementary administrators, throughout this process, on, you know, looking at that that team process, and is there a way within that too to identify those type of students, etcetera. So, that is on our radar and I do feel confident that,
that this model will be able to provide the support that students need. I can't speak, to every single behavior intervention's background and the training that they had. But to your first question, our BCBAs, have to have a master's level, that's rooted in behavioral science. Our MTSS behavior coaches could come from a different variety backgrounds, probably very similar to our, to our behavior interventionists. Some are coming with, social work. Some are coming with counseling. Some are, have specific training that they've taken in regards to behaviors.
And I think that really the strength of the team, that we have developed and created is that everybody's coming with a different skill set, but then still comes around and encompasses the vision that we're, we're trying to to make here. The RBTs, the certification for that, is, what would be considered at the same, like, paraeducator level, but they have specific behavior training. Trustee Lecui? Alright. I have a few different questions too. So one thing, just to kinda to bounce off of what we were talking about here because,
Trustee Blake and Trustee Lozan both asked similar kinds of questions with, like, is there a group that gets priority or, like, what types of students I guess what I'm wondering is what criteria is there that a student is going to get support from one of these professionals and which professional does the student get support from? So that's a great question. And again, that's gonna come down to collaborating closely with that building team as they're going through that building team process and they're going through the established process with the problem solving packet, etcetera. That will determine, so based on those team members, of what
again, this whole framework is built on being really proactive and preventative. So, we're gonna be going in and giving the coaching and the training and the resources and the tools, to helpfully help some of those students, oh gosh, that may not always get brought to a building team, etcetera. And so, you know, we'll be responding to the needs, as it comes up through buildings. But we also have this whole other side of, you know, how can we partner with you to teach and learn and grow these foundational behavior
skills that all of us at some point had in college or most of us did. But, sometimes, you know, practices change and need to be updated. And so, it's good to be able to provide those experiences, for everybody. Okay. And is it the RBTs, the paraeducator level position that generally work with the students the most? Or do all of them work with the students? All work with students. All of them work with the students. And how will it be distributed across the 13 elementary schools? Yeah. So again, that just depends on where the need is.
We have an idea of certain buildings and students and, areas already that we know starting off the school year, that we're gonna be, very present, and very proactive with. But really it will kind of depend on, where the need is coming. And we think that, you know, we'd be able to give an update at the beginning of the school year. We're kind of we're seeing where the support is shaking out, that we're gonna be able to cover all, all of those buildings. Okay. And then I was wondering what metrics you're going to use to evaluate whether this
new model is effectively yielding results for those students. Yeah. So that's a great question. And actually, I'll be able to, if you don't mind holding that thought, I'll be able to answer it when we get a little bit more into the strategic plan and I can bring it up. But we have a bunch of different criteria, that we'd be looking at. A lot of it referring back to data, how much is it being used. And let me I'll bring it up and I'll circle back to you if that's okay. Okay. Because I know my my overarching thought as we switch to the new model and
stuff too is that I know too, even as a teacher, what you really value is having more boots on the ground like we heard in public comment and having, you know, additional adults to students to to help with that. It's not that you know, sometimes teachers sort of talk with each other about how, Oh, we don't need more consultants coming in and telling us how to do our jobs, like how to manage a classroom and some of that sort of thing. But they would really value having extra adult support to help work with the students. So I'm just wondering how this model compares to what we had before because I
think a lot of people, parents and teachers who were speaking and writing letters, really wanted the extra support from more adults working directly with students in the classroom. I'm not sure how to get that question answered unless we did see more of a comparison between what our previous model offered and what this model offers. But I was curious about that. If you don't mind, I'd like to weigh in on that one. I think it is very difficult. Is that on? Thank you. It's a little difficult. I'll just speak louder. And I was I had a discussion with a couple of board members just before
this started just talking about this. And what what would it look like in terms of a a data piece walking into tonight or a different model and saying what for the last two years that we've had that we've had behavior interventionists, what does that look like and how would you have measured whether that was successful, whether it was not successful, etcetera? And I think that's a that's a great question to have. One of the data pieces would be to look at, what are suspensions look like at the elementary school, etcetera. But what we heard overwhelmingly tonight and what we hear in letters to the board,
etc, is that sometimes it's not about the discipline part of behavior, but a child who is, you know, I forget which, which speaker was talking about the exact specific examples of, a death. You know, a parent death or something that the child is going through, etcetera. And so that wouldn't really measure doing a discipline data, you know, versus a couple years ago versus now really wouldn't measure a lot of the pieces that come up. I think it's really important, you know, to to say a couple things. One is this is not the same thing, and we know that.
I mean, I I don't know how else to we we've to try to do this presentation, we're trying to make it very clear it is not the same thing. We recognize that. We recognize the behavior interventionists. We found there is there wouldn't be an outcry from the community if it wasn't a valued position and those people weren't doing their jobs well and helping students, right? And so to me that feels like a success. But I'd also like to say that, you know, if I'm a student who is there's a panic death or some of the examples that, that Mr. Kalashevsky uses, you know, we still have supports on the ground.
It's just not as much, right? When we talked about the behavior interventionists going away, that was seven and a half FTE. Correct, Mr. Murphy? Am I that's the right number? Seven and a half FTE. So seven and a half FTE at 13 elementary schools, we didn't have a one to one. Right? It wasn't like you're losing a principal or a gen ed teacher. It wasn't a one to one for 13 elementaries. And so for years there's been supports in place like school psychs, social workers, speech and language paths, people who can address needs for a student if they're having some sort of whatever
that is, if it's a crisis, if it's, I don't you know, I I need help with I think Trustee Blake said, I I don't have any friends at lunch and I want to sit with someone. We we've had that for decades and we had social you know, we have the social work, we have a little group with them, etcetera. So there are other pieces in place that have that have been a continuum of service and not left. Like a behavior interventionist didn't come in and we dropped four other, you know, supports. So I just want to make sure that everyone understands that. I guess the other the other thing that I was wondering was something that Trustee Gupta asked, which was,
you know, what's the cost comparison of our previous program compared to this program? And I wish we had better answers on that because we're we're supposed to approve last year's budget. We're supposed to approve the 2526 budget coming up. And I I can't imagine why we wouldn't have an answer to what that is. I understand that the money comes from grants sometimes and a lot of this money is tied to grants, but we should have a general idea, I would think, if we've got, you know, a certain number of staff that we're hiring to do one and to do the other.
Shouldn't we have an idea of how much one cost versus the other? Well, we can tell you exactly what the cost was to what what it was because those people those humans had had money assigned to them. Right. Right. For those who are coming in, you could be at a very different level of the REA contract on a for a BCBA, for example. So we could use we could say that this is a static number we'll use, but it could be higher or lower. Or we could be very conservative in our approach and say what the top number is, etcetera, if we're coming in. But, what we can say is that Well, what did we use for the 2526 initial budget?
I mean, it is just factored in to the okay. But 2425, just to be was it was it 910,000 and change, mister Murphy, mister McDaniel? Is that about right? 910,000, was the cost of behavior pension at 7.5 FT feet feet feet feet feet feet feet feet feet feet feet feet feet feet feet feet feet feet feet feet feet feet feet feet feet feet feet feet feet feet feet feet feet feet feet feet feet feet feet feet feet feet feet feet feet feet feet feet feet feet feet feet feet feet feet feet feet feet feet feet feet feet feet feet feet feet feet feet feet feet feet feet feet feet feet feet feet feet feet feet feet feet feet feet feet feet feet feet feet feet feet feet feet feet feet feet feet feet feet feet feet E. And then, and that That's an issue that we've talked about. Some of the grants that we'll provide for BCBAs couldn't for behavior interventionists, etcetera. Yeah. I think the only addition to the budget which is incorporated in the budget is,
some additional RBTs. I think the other staff are already accounted for. So no additional increase to the budget to move to this model. Not knowing who's in each of those positions, I wouldn't be able to give you an exact number, but, there are no, I don't think any new positions in here unless there are, positions that are open right now, and I believe there's placeholders for these staff members. Trustee Alsbaugh? So I really appreciate the detail you gave us and walking us through this. And I think it's important to remind us that we do have other building supports in place.
You know, the other trustees have echoed some of my concerns, that there's a feeling that there's less support at the buildings because something is gone. I appreciate you mentioning that it's 7.5 FT feet feet feet feet feet feet feet feet feet feet feet feet Es, versus there'll be 12 RBTs. So that may end up being an increase. I'd also like to see the cost information. And when we get to an evaluation, I'd be very interested in seeing data that would reflect how this is an effective model. You know, has suspensions increased? Have referrals increased and gone unresponded?
Do we have people moving through our MTSS process and they kind of get to the level where, okay, like the Tier two is working and they maintain that? So, when you do come back, I'd definitely be looking for some type of evaluation information that shows that this new model is meeting the needs of our students. But I do appreciate all the information. Thank you. Trustee Blake? I think I'm agreeing with many of my colleagues, but I just wanted this is just a quick clarification. I wrote this down now. I don't know if this is what I meant. I wrote down under next I wrote down next to the RBT nine last year,
12 this year. Is that am I right? Correct. Okay, so this is not 12 new people. We already had nine of them. Correct. In the prior year, even with the behavior interventionists. We also had these nine people? Yes. So we're really not adding hardly any additional people. We're taking those nine or seven and a half people away and we're adding a couple people that there. Okay. Alright. I have a couple questions as well. So from a teacher and student experience what will, like,
what will change? What will the differences be? We're really hoping that, teachers are gonna feel more support and have more tools to help them support their students, in the classroom, instead of having the child be removed from the classroom by another adult. So again, it really comes down to that that building capacity. And our goal is for students to be learning in their classroom, and this model helps that teacher confidence and skills and behavior and regulation support. And I know when you talked about,
I think it was in the slide, it had professional development that there was going to be some trainings and things like that. Will did you say did I miss it? Like, will there be something before school starts, or will it all be in the classroom as it goes along? And is that training for just the teacher, or is it training for the kids as well? Yeah. So it's gonna be training just for the teacher, or the teaching staff. Yes. It is gonna happen prior to the school year starting or during some of that time during the district's professional development provided days,
in addition to different ways in which we're embedding that information. We also recognize and see the importance of partnering closely with our families with this information and knowing that the tools and resources that we're using in school also might be beneficial at home. And so, in talking with our, elementary colleagues and just, you know, kind of brainstorming as a team, we have some ideas on, how can we also get this information to families in a consistent manner, and then how can we, perhaps utilize our PAC, our PTAs, etcetera to do presentations and things like that.
So those are all things that are being discussed and I would love to share more about it when we get closer to the school year and, we have more of those pieces in place. And then just as we look at this, because I think I I got lost because I thought we said we have currently one BCBA and six RBTs, but then I just heard we had currently have nine RBTs. So how many BCBAs do we have? Like, for this from this past year, how many did we have? Yes. So we currently have one BCBA on staff. But can't they only manage six RBTs?
They can only they can only manage six. So we had, RCS employed through EDGIS staff six RBTs, and then the additional three were contracted. And part of that contract is they have their own BCBAs from the contract company, that provides that supervision. And then these behavior consultants, did we have any of those before? We had an elementary MTSS behavior coach, and a secondary, MTSS behavior coach as well. Is that the same thing as a behavior consultant, or is that closer to the MTSS behavior consultants?
I think. Yeah. I would say that it's, it's very close. It's very close to that. And again, many of our, former behavior interventionists are taking the role of the MTSS, behavior support consultant. But the So is the four MTSS behavior consultants that's listed in print down below the same as the four behavior consultants that are listed in the diagram? Oh, yes. I'm sorry. Yes. So those are the same? Those are the same. Yep. Okay. And but what we're saying is that,
there were other roles within the district that are going to be moved into these roles. And so the only thing we need to add are three RBTs? Is that what I'm hearing? So, we are adding two additional BCBAs. Those are those positions are within the special education department. They're not gonna be new FTE, due to some really strategic restructuring of special ed positions. And so there's no additional FTE there. For the, behavior consultants, those positions, again, many of them are filled by our former behavior interventionists.
And then, one of our leaders in the who has a really strong social work background. And so those are those are positions that, we had in the district and then with the RBTs. In looking at, we have the nine so far. You know, ultimately I would love to have all 12 be RCS employed through EDGIS staff. And that is the goal that we're working towards. And so it really would just be an additional three, as well for that. And with those nine RBTs that we had this year, were they only working with special education?
Correct. Because the last two years, this has just been a special education model. But in this upcoming year, we didn't want it for all students. And so I understand there's an expansion there, but I'm also concerned about you know, I wanna make sure that our gen ed students are being, you know, getting their needs met. But I also wanna make sure that our special education students or students in special education are as well. Right? And so your confidence level with this new, new or expanded, you feel there's sufficient personnel,
in order to support the needs of all RCS students? I do. Over the last really this past year when we had the nine RBTs on a much, smaller scale, their roles and the things that they were doing to support students and teams, will be happening next year, but just on a bigger level. So, of course, you're gonna have some RBTs with a very small number of students who have those really intense behavioral needs that need that type of, more intensive support. We then had RBTs that were going into different learning environments and assisting students with
special needs or students who had some behavioral challenges that needed to be assisted and supported, where they were going in and not maybe necessarily working directly with that student, although it may have included that, but also working with the staff in kind of that environment. We also something, you know, kind of new that with the additional RBTs that we're really excited about is this whole class coaching, so that for our earliest learners who are coming to us with perhaps maybe not the same level of classroom readiness skills that we've seen in the past,
they're gonna be able to help and support develop those behaviors, which really, sometimes can be the root of where, some challenges begin. So I do feel really confident, like anything new. Are we gonna have some temporary obstacles that we're gonna have to work through? Absolutely. And we've experienced that over the last two years. But with the team that we have, with the evidence based research practices behind this, with the design of it, and partnering again really closely with our neighborhood Oakland County Districts, I feel very,
very confident and excited because not only are we gonna be meeting student needs, but we're gonna be giving our teaching staff, our building administrators additional tools to help support all students. And it's gonna take time, but it's gonna be really great, as this work continues. Okay. My last question is, it says up to 12 RBTs. Why does it say up to 12? I would love to get 12 RBTs total. That is our goal. But we, at this point in time, in looking at this new model, it's the expansion.
Technically, with three BCBAs, each can have six RBTs that they supervise. We would have up to 18. We may decide that there's a need to grow there, but we, wanted to make sure that we started with something that was really manageable. Because what we do, we want to do well. Okay. I can add to that, too. It's important that they're good. So if you can't find that they're good. Right? So they're not the easiest, folks to find. We do our best, right? But we want to make sure they're they're doing a good job. So I think the up to 12 is a realization that you can run this
program with less than that and still have that goal in mind. But quality is important as well, and that will come out in sort of the evaluation piece. Trustee Lacoue? I was wondering with special education, I thought typically you had to have a special certification in order to be able to teach special education and sometimes that money comes from different spots and stuff too. I could be wrong on all this. I'm just wondering how how we're able to do this where you have the staff members dividing their time between general education and special education? And is there any kind of complication with that in terms of,
like, what kind of certification is required and Yeah. So that's a great question. So all of our, students who have IFSPs and IEPs will be taught by certified staff within that area of special education. So our district's, behavioral support team, is coming in to help and support. They're not necessarily doing specialized instruction like our special education providers would be. That knowledge and really leverage what we're doing in special education to work with our most unique learners to help and support all students. And so really how the,
you know, how the support kind of plays out will ultimately depend on, our instructional partnership model. And as the, the referrals, come in and where the support is needed, then that's a piece that we'll be able to figure out. So I'll be able to give an update on that when we get a little bit further along into the process. And I did, circling back to your other question, find some of the success criteria. So I'll share a little bit of these with the, the statement that, of course, that these are gonna change. This is just our thoughts at this moment, and we're certainly gonna be open to how can we provide the best data to
show success. But some of the, some of the components that we were looking at is the number of student referrals submitted for both general education and special education students, the number of instructional partnership rounds accessed by both behavior consultants and BCBAs, so that that instructional partnership process, feedback of our stakeholders that we're taking at the end of each trimester, the number of professional development sessions delivered to and the number of staffs targeted. And one of the items that, is part of our strategic plan, that I didn't really touch upon tonight is that just some additional embedded built in
support for staff members throughout their day to access support, so the number of staff that participate in, in some of those additional, offerings. But, again, this is not an exhaustive list. It's gonna be something that as the work continues to grow through the strategic plan, that we are gonna continue to revise, because we really wanna see how is this impacting our students. And we hope that that is really successful, but it's also gonna guide, our students. And we hope that that is really successful, but it's also gonna guide us in where we're gonna go from here just like with any new project or initiative. Okay. I think we're ready to move on to the compensation compensation study.
Compensation study, mister Murphy, with mister Romberg using me on Zoom, I believe. That would be so. Okay. Before we jump there, I just wanted to say thank you to miss Gauthier for the presentation. I know that, first of all, it was it was hopefully, the board saw every board member saw it, gets your answers your questions answered, and you have some details to this plan. But most specifically, without mister Cusmano and miss, Hampton here, miss Gauthier took on the the lion's share of this presentation portion, and I just wanna say thank you. It's very well done. Mister Murphy?
Yes. As we get connected to Mr. Romberg, I just have a short intro, a little bit of history and then an introduction of, Romberg, Stober and Associates as well as Mr. Romberg himself. So as a reminder as to the why here, legal counsel as well as Michigan Association of Superintendents and Administrators, MASA, have consistently recommended over the past year or two that all nonunion positions have a defined salary schedule based on specific roles rather than individual negotiations. This approach offers several key benefits.
Number one, it mitigates disputes, reduces the likelihood of legal challenges related to administrator retirement, which previously disputes previous disputes have led to the Michigan Supreme Court. It streamlines processes. It provides a more structured and transparent compensation process for both the board and our employees, and it boosts recruitment and retention by ensuring competitive wages to attract and retain top talent. So the project overview, which will probably be repeated as, Mr. Romberg starts talking, but just as a quick, overview,
we initiated a formal salary study with Romberg, Stover and Associates. As of June 1, so far, this has cost us $19,130 the primary goal of this initiative was to establish this defined salary schedule for district administrators who are not covered by collective bargaining agreements, excluding the superintendent. This involves standardizing compensation, which by creating a consistent and structured approach to administrator salaries, ensuring competitiveness, and again, improving transparency. A little bit about Romberg, Stover and Associates.
RS and A is a Michigan based management consulting firm with extensive experience working with K-twelve school districts. Their services include classification and compensation studies, cost containment initiatives, organization reviews, HR, performance management programs and administrator contracts. Their consultants have presented at numerous Michigan education associations, including MASA, the Michigan Association of School Boards, MASB, and the Michigan School Business Officials. They have completed or worked with approximately 150 k-twelve school district projects,
predominantly in Michigan. And to introduce mister Romberg, we're pleased to welcome mister Jeff Romberg, founding partner of RSNA this evening. Mister Romberg is overseeing this project for Rochester. He has over thirty years of experience and has provided management consulting services to educational institutions, including numerous K-twelve compensation projects. He holds a BS and an MBA degree from Washington University. And with that, I'm going to turn it over to mister Romberg, hopefully, to join us via Zoom to guide us through the project.
Can you hear us, mister Romberg? Okay. Do do we think he'll be on shortly, or should we move on to eight point four and come back? Alright. Okay. We'll we'll take a break. Okay. Thanks. Hi, Jeff. Can you hear me? Barely. K. I see your lips moving. Can't hear you quite yet. We're on a five minute break if you can hear me. So I'm just getting prepped. Yeah. I can hear you, but just a little. Okay. Him with no audio? Audio. Could you all hear me? Whoops. Can Can you hear me okay? It's pretty faint. Can you hear me? Excuse me. Mike, can you unmute,
zoom back out, our signal to you? I don't think you can hear us. No. I'm not here, but I'm talking to oh, I'm sorry. Him. Our signal is coming out that he has to unmute it to for Are you trying to do something on your end? David? Do you know what he can see right now? What's what's visible to him? Live chat? Okay. If you can see us, just hang. Ask him to type in the chat. You can hearings. So if if he Safe Ed guys in back. If you can see if you see mister Mike, who's running the head end room in the hall, can you grab him? We need him to reconnect to something.
Hey, David? Yep. I can hear you now. Can you hear me? I can. Okay. We're just finishing a five minute break, so we'll get started here very shortly. I've already given you a glowing introduction. So the board knows who we know who you are. So as soon as we get back in session, you'll be able to jump right in, okay? All right. Okay. Awesome. Thanks. Okay. So again, having introduced Mr. Romberg prior, just as an overview tonight, this will be a report and question and answer, right? It will take us through this presentation, the project itself, and be able to answer any questions. And then later in the meeting,
I'll be bringing forth two recommendations. Out of this report. One, to accept the recommendation of the overall structure of the pay scale and pay grades for the positions and then one for the actual human beings and their pay for next year once placed on the schedule. So with that, I will welcome again, mister Romberg to join us to take us through tonight's presentation. Welcome, Jeff, and thank you for joining us. Thank you. You you guys are working hard tonight, I mean, following your agenda. So is there gonna be a a the PowerPoint come up?
Or Everyone has a copy. We can see you. I'm not sure what, the community can see at this time, but I believe everyone up here has a printed copy of the presentation. So we should just work from that. Correct? Yes. Alright. Well, good evening. Thanks for letting me come before you. And by the way, I apologize I couldn't do this tonight in person. So what I thought we'd try to do with the presentation is kinda give you an overview of the project, what we did, key observations, recommendations,
and the important end product, which is a proposed salary structure, salary schedule, for you to consider in the compensation of this group. The scope of the project was to do the compensation review for the nonunion positions. I think we ended up looking at about 50 different jobs or positions, and then the work on putting together an updated salary schedule. The reason for this is fairly straightforward. We wanna make sure that Rochester schools can attract,
entertain, motivate quality staff. This is a highly competitive market today, and it's not letting up at all, as all districts are looking to find talent and leadership. And so staying on top of the market is important. Secondly, was to give you some salary administration practices so that on an ongoing basis, you'll be able to make salary increased decisions knowing you've got a framework and some guidelines to help you along the way. And then finally ah, I see something jumping up here.
I'm on the overview slide if you wanna move that along for me. We get to the purpose. Back up a little bit. There we go. Thank you. And I I guess I can let you know when it's time to move. Appreciate that. The other important aspect of this work is this last point, which is to assure compliance with the Office of Retirement Services and what are now new normal salary increase requirements that are in fact necessary to ensure that your administrator's compensation,
these nonunion staff members' compensation, in fact, will be allowable and can be reported and accepted for purposes ultimately of computing retirement payments. So there's been, a long history of issues with the Office of Retirement Services and the rules they've come up with. And I think, finally, we're getting some closure. This has gone to the supreme court twice. And as it stands now, there's much better direction. But the bottom line is all school districts need to build salary schedules and that's
what they're looking for. These are salary schedules that ultimately should be approved by the board, in fact, on a regular basis. And so we're all sort of used to salary schedules with teachers, but many districts did not have salary schedules for other staff, for principals, administrators, other support positions. And that now is becoming critically important. And so to avoid any risk of not injuring or harming any of the administrators as it relates to their retirement amount that they will receive, when they in fact retire,
building salary schedules, using salary schedules is now more important than ever. And so I'd argue it's been the right thing to do for a long time despite the Office of Retirement Services matters. But now it's really important. I don't know one any district that shouldn't or isn't now pursuing trying to build schedules. And that's exactly what, we provide for you in our work. If we go to the next page, we can just talk about the activities quickly. So we spent some time upfront planning the work, collecting documentation, getting up to speed. I've done work on and off,
and our firm has with Rochester Schools for years now, but it's been quite a while since since, since we've been back. So it's nice to be there and to do this project. So a big part of the work was let's go find out what the market is paying for our positions. And so we identified a target group of districts. I think we initially picked fourteen and eleven of them participated or we got data for, which is pretty good banding average. They're in your report, if you wanna look at the districts. And we focused on districts of similar size,
expenditures per pupil, student demographics. They're all Southeast Michigan, but Forest Hills, which we think was a good choice to include. They're over on the West Side of the state. They're a large district. They have three high schools. And so they also were part of our sample. But the rest were, as you know, were in your area, neighborhood here in Southeast Michigan. So those are the targets. As I mentioned, we got a good response. I think Utica, Livonia, Northville, seem to be too busy to want to fill it out or participate in the survey.
And we did ask for a fair amount. So we not only wanted to know for all the positions that we were asking them to look at what they pay in terms of salary, but if they have salary ranges or salary schedules, what do those look like? The work year for these positions hours per week, if there's some variation of a typical work schedule, if they have merit pay, longevity pay, tax sheltered annuities, any education stipend pay, all those things were asked for each of the positions. And what we did was we developed a survey with a description of each of
the jobs at Rochester. And we sent it out to the districts and asked them to provide data back, if in fact they had a position that was comparable, similar, not exact, but comparable or similar enough. And so that was kind of the marching orders we gave them. And so then we spent a fair amount of time on follow-up. We can move to the next slide, to make sure that everybody understood what we're looking for in the positions. And matching jobs is always important. And again, no two districts are organized the same. And there are a number of positions at Rochester that are somewhat unique to your
district and wouldn't find a lot of those in other districts. But by and large, we got great a lot of great data back. We did a comparative analysis of this market or the market data, if you will, which we'll talk about in a moment. And then use that information to put together this updated salary structure, again, for the nonunion staff based heavily on what's the market telling us and any other internal equity considerations and some assumptions we made about sort of desired level of competitiveness, so how competitive do you want to be and we'll talk more about that in
a moment. The, so we should go on to observation. So here here's an important thing to talk about. So if you look at the market and we define the market and we focused on the median data points, that's the middle of the market. We said, we don't know that you want to be at the high end of the market or the low, but maybe with this group of districts, we at least ought to be in the middle. And so we looked at median data and we looked at the salary range information and that's mostly what we based our analysis on because a lot of districts did
in fact have salary ranges. And in certain instances, they gave us actual incumbent pay, so we integrated that in into our analysis to come up with a composite value, if you will, for every position, where we had data, for Rochester schools. And if you compare the market to what you're paying today and overall average that you're at 96.7% of the middle of the market. So I'd say you've been doing a pretty good job. Hats off to you to be that close
to the middle of the market. You're just three percentage points away from being at these medium levels, if you will. So if you want to know how you've been doing against the market, that's kind of a big picture. Detail by position, by district, that we surveyed, if you can look at. But this is it's kind of roll it all up. What's it telling us? It says we're not doing too bad of a job at the district and being fair and being competitive and being reasonable, again, with the with the goal of being in the middle of the market, which is where most of our clients' school districts wanna be.
Occasionally, there's a desire to be a little higher up in the marketplace and we wanna be a little past that median level. But most districts would say that's fine. That's a good spot for us. So then we went to build the pay schedule, and our and so it consists of 14 pay grades. So we took all this data, we took all your positions and said, we think we can slot them in 14 grades. And these grades will have ranges, and there'll be a 10% difference from one grade to the next. Important to kind of think about consistency.
So we go from one level to the next, we move up 10%. Or conversely, if we go down, we drop 10% from one level to the next in terms of the dollar value or the ranges for those levels. We also built a step schedule to help us help you walk through, these ranges so that employees can have a progression plan. How do I get from the beginning of the range to the end? And again, step schedules are quite typical, common, and used extensively in public education. So there were 10 progression steps.
Each step is 3%. So that back to this theme of consistency, right? 10 grade differentials, we want 3% step differentials. It yields an overall range with around 30%. And that's pretty much what the market showed us. We computed an overall range with from all the data and it comes in at 27% or so. So we're right there in the neighborhood. And we just did this scheduled last year for Plymouth Canton and their range with 30% just to give you an example. So that's some of the aspects of this proposed salary schedule that we put together.
And then we place the positions in those grades of the structure based upon what the market told us and any other internal equity considerations to make sure pay relationships within the district also made sense. And we'll show you all that in a moment. So here's another important consideration. So now we've taken all the jobs, we put them in one of these 14 pay grades. And so now all these jobs will have a new range midpoint. And how does that compare with the middle of the market? Because that's kind of a target, range midpoint,
middle of market, and we're at 99.1. So we are proposing for you a salary structure, that in fact will be in the middle of the market where the range midpoints are 99.1%. And again, that's the overall number. There are some differences varying by position, which we focused on and looked at to make sure we were comfortable with one being a little higher, a little lower. And a lot of it has to do with how many data points did we have, how tight were the job matches. But just to give you again a big picture sense, this proposed structure system for you will have you right there within a percentage point
of the middle of the market with your pay ranges. And again, the emphasis is on ranges of the positions, if you will, that's not the pay of an actual incumbent. Our focus through this whole project was about positions, not necessarily individual people. Okay. The other thing we did was look beyond, as we mentioned earlier, at additional areas of compensation that districts might provide or do provide in some cases. And so tax sheltered annuities, longevity pay, merit pay and education pay. And so all of that detail is also in our report.
And I think it's, the overall view we have is there's nothing there are certainly some districts that offer more. It depends on what position you're speaking of, what district, what particular aspect of additional pay. But we don't think overall the results are such that it needs to have any impact on the salary range recommendation. So we conclude that you should just rely on the salary data to build your salary ranges, which is what we did and are recommending to you. And to put another way, there's nothing there that stands out as a gee,
we are so far behind or so far ahead, with one of these areas of pay that we ought to either increase the ranges or back them down a little bit, from what we otherwise would do. So we don't think they have an impact, a measurable meaningful impact at all. But there's interesting information and data, maybe for the future to think about these aspects that you might provide, who else is doing it, how much is it, that sort of thing. Pay administration. So this should not be viewed as a one time study that says in 2025,
this is what we want to pay our one be our pay schedule, pay structure, pay system. But it should become an ongoing system. And part of that is to keep these ranges up to date. And so on an annual basis, you need to look at the marketplace. You have to do a whole comprehensive survey of all of the of all of all the positions again, but you need to know, so how much are ranges moving in the marketplace? How much are other districts increasing their schedules? And consider that because likely what you want to do
is increase your ranges by some percent. I think we shared some data earlier with the district about how much your salary range is moving and they're in the 2% to 3% neighborhood. So every year you want to look at the market and say, gee, we ought to bump up our ranges a little bit, so we stay with the marketplace. Any given year doesn't sound so bad, but if you do that a couple of years in a row, now we're not so competitive anymore. And I repeat again, this is a highly competitive marketplace today as you I'm sure you all know.
So it's staff then should be given the opportunity each year based upon a couple factors. One is their performance, and two is the district's ability to pay the financial resources. But if those are such, then district staff should be eligible for a pay schedule increase, if you adjust the schedule up by 2% and also the step increase, again, based on performance and financial resources. So it's not an entitlement. It's not automatic. But, if those conditions exist, then in fact,
and that's what districts do. I mean, that is the standard way to approach this. And I could cite lots of examples of that in school districts around around your area that have that kind of system and that methodology. And so employees that have a sense of what's my future look like, what might what might my pay progression look like, And it really helps the district and I believe boards of education because now you've got a system and you sort of know what's happening. It's good for budgeting purposes, etcetera. So, every year, that's part of the process as well.
When you hire new staff, where do you place them so they should be put into the pay schedule and the grade that corresponds to their position and on the step that's consistent with their qualifications and experience. It's also important that new hire step placements consider the placements of current staff. I think it's on the next slide. And there you go. Thank you so much. And so that we don't create any internal equity issues, right? So if you've got somebody in the district that's been there for ten years in their job and now you're bringing in someone new who doesn't have much experience,
doesn't seem to me you'd want to put them in the same spot on the pay schedule. So, you have to look internally as well as what does the person bring that you're going to hire to the table. We don't think you need to have hard formulas in terms of experience, credit, etcetera. They land on a given step. Give yourself more flexibility. Just be mindful of these considerations. You're likely going to establish new positions or things are going to change with existing positions. I don't know any school to sit at a standstill and doesn't change. And I'm sure that's true for Rochester. And so the key is to stay on top of that.
And so if a job has changed, you should update the job description. You should perhaps need to go out and get new market data for this different job, again, from comparable districts, all to help you decide where we're going to put that job. If it's a new job, what grades would go in? If it's an existing job, the responsibilities have changed. There are requirements have changed. We need for that position. Maybe that job needs to go up or even down. Again, it's all part of this is a living system. And so the key is to keep it up to date, not only with the dollar side,
but with the placement of jobs within the pay grades themselves. So that's some thoughts about, again, that's the system, not just a one time study. This is the proposed salary structure. There are 14 grades. I'll call out immediately. Notice grade 13, there's it says vacant. That's okay. You might use that grade sometime in the future. We don't believe any position should be slotted there now based upon the market data. So, so but I but I think there's two vacant grades actually in the structure. I think 13,
and as I recall, maybe one more again, three. So anyway, positions, the pay range for the job, and you can see that kind of the hierarchy, we start at the top and go on. If we can move to the next slide, you can see the positions that fall in grades nine through six. And a lot of time was spent on this and actually giving good input and feedback from the district as well. And then we move on to the next ones, which are grades four from five, where the positions again, these are jobs and it's not people yet.
And we know there's people in them, but these are where jobs should be placed within your structure. And then finally, the last three grades. So that's what the structure looks like. And then the last schedule on this overview tonight is or about the project is the step schedule itself. If you can go to thank you. So this is the 14 grades again. And these are now the steps. And so you'll see that everyone's got 10 steps, 3% step differentials, meaning when you go from step two to three, you're going up 3%.
And overall that computes to 30.5% range width, which is which we keep an eye on because of what's the market doing. We don't want our ranges to be too narrow or too wide. We're either going to overpay or not be competitive enough. So and but you're right there. This would get you exactly where what the market data told us. So again, I can't emphasize enough how important this is not just from a good pay administration standpoint, but from an ORS standpoint is they've now,
have really are pushing districts and they're requiring districts, expecting districts to have salary schedules. So I'll stop. Happy to respond. Comments, thoughts, questions? Thank you, mister Romer. Appreciate, the presentation. Board colleagues, who has questions at this time? Trustee Annas? No. Trustee Lausanne? I emailed this question the other day. I did not hear back. I was wondering if let's see here. Our packet shows that a handful of our administrative positions are below market average and suggested paying that increasing their pay.
I'd like to know if these raises are just automatically being given to them, or will they be based off their evaluations? If I could take that. Actually, in my opinion, that's probably more appropriate to discuss when we get to the actual recommendation, if that's okay, because those will have positions and names associated with them. I'd be happy to speak on it at that time. I think probably for Mr. Romberg, specifically questions about the design, the project itself, what data he found, the recommendations coming forth. And then again, if there's specifics related to us,
that's probably going to be more toward the recommendation, if that's okay. I do have one question about the structure. So each step is a 3%, and then you had mentioned that there there should be an inflationary piece of it as well each year. But that's not in here. That's something we put in every year. Is that right? Correct. We could choose anything from zero to whatever we choose for that. Right? But and and then it should it could be. In fact, we can help you give you the data every year. We can tell you how much in the market salary structures are moving.
Salary schedules are moving. And to use this and you can also contact, your neighboring districts and say, how much are you moving up your salary ranges and salary schedules. So you get a sense of this market trend. And then, yes, you'd make a decision each year as how much you want to adjust those. You're probably more used to this with, for example, teachers. Right? So you negotiate with teachers and they have contracts for multiple years, and then there's how much did those schedules move each year. But so this this is the this is not negotiating multi years.
I guess you could, or establish a multi year schedule, but we normally suggest just have the keep your eye on the market, find out what's going on, as you get to that salary kind of planning time. And if the market's moving 1.5% or 2%, then that's probably something you want to think about doing. So you keep your ranges. Remember, these midpoints are now 99% right there in the middle of the market and you want to and that's not a bad place to be. So if you want to keep that, you're going to need to keep moving ranges. And that's what districts do.
That's what lots of organizations do, not just school districts and various industries. They'll all keep an eye on how much do we move our ranges up. Trustee Blake, to me, that's what would come back to this board every year, right? If you approved this evening, you'd approve the structure itself. If in subsequent years, there was a recommendation to change that by 1% to two percent, any increase to me would come back to this board for an annual recommendation, discussion and approval. And that was my concern or that I wanted to at least maintain some bit
of control over this. Mister Romberg, can you tell us, if you know, I guess, what percent of districts now have step schedules for their non administrative staff? Or I'm sorry, nonunion staff? I can't tell you the percentage, but I can tell you a lot of them do. Many of them do, because I work with them. I've built literally hundreds of these schedules over, how many decades now for schools. It's just becoming more important because of the problems of retirement services.
But, it's certainly commonplace today. I could get you more examples of that if you want or I have to go back and look at our files and say, what's Bloomfield doing? What's Troy doing? Districts we've worked with today. But I could I don't know the percentage, but it I would say it's pretty high. Thank you. Just a second. Trustee Annas? So I was looking at the, appendices of, your report and, like, for instance, the market analysis, which has the compiled salary results. And some pages you have highlighted in yellow specific school districts and specific,
positions, I guess. And and my question is why why were those specifically highlighted in yellow? I think it's in the yeah, the survey results itself. Yeah. Like appendix B1, and, like, page 12. Yep. Yep. And so there there actually is a footnote at the end of that schedule on page 32. But here's what I mean, I'm glad you I'm glad you brought it up. Here's what it means. So we reported back to you, you Rochester, all of the data that was given to us. So we didn't edit any of it initially.
We said, here's what we got from the other districts. And then in certain instances, we said, that doesn't look like a good job match to me or a good fit, or it's only a part time job, and it has a different work schedule. So there are instances when we said, here's the data, but we don't think we should use it in terms of our computing the value of the position. And so, and so that's what that means. We and we wanted the district and you, as a board to see all of the data regardless whether it's a good match or not. And then we we chose to edit a few.
It's really not very many, but that's what that yellow means. Okay. Means we don't think it's a good job match, a good fit for your position. Thank you for that clarification. Sure. Missy Lecui? Well, first of all, I I do agree that I think it's good to create some kind of organization and have some kind of structure with minimums and maximums. And I know we don't wanna find ourselves in trouble with the office of retirement services. We've actually experienced trouble with that before when we had the highest super highest paid superintendent in the state and there were issues. But while I agree that I think we're starting with a good concept,
I was also wondering about question that she brought up before where she's asking how much of this is automatic and how much of this is based on merit and how is that in the best interest of of our district? Because, well, I can understand that a lot of districts might be moving to a step system that kind of mimics a a a style of step system that, you know, the collective bargaining groups use. These positions are not collectively bargained. And so in that case, I feel like having some kind of merit based system can be a really good
thing. It can actually motivate your top performers, and incentivize people and help draw them in. So I'm just kind of wondering how we go about that. Are we required to not have merit included, or is or are we able to do that within the structure of having our minimums and maximums in the step system? You want me to respond? Yes, please. Thanks. Oh, okay. So I think it should be tied to performance. I don't think as I said before, if someone's doing a good job, they're competent, there's good competent performer, and they've had a good year, then they probably you ought to think about giving them that step increase.
It's just a way to figure out how much to give them for a raise and it's what most organizations do. But I don't think it should be necessarily automatic. It ought to be tied to I mean, if someone's struggling and didn't have a good year, then I'm not so sure I'd be giving them a step increase. Gotcha. The other increase is just all about the market. It's how much of the and it's but it's not inflation. And that's when people think about the cost of living or inflation. Compensation people like me, we don't care about the cost of living or inflation. I know that sounds crazy. I care about how much salaries are moving in the marketplace.
So salary ranges are going up, your ranges should be going up if you want to stay in that same competitive position. And so that's independent of performance, that's staying competitive with the market. And so in most cases, someone would get that increase even if they didn't move their step, right? They stayed on step three because of some performance questions or issues, but step three is not worth another percent or whatever. It's easy. Typically, you'd give them that increase. But, but again, it's something you can think about and should consider every year.
How well is the staff performance? Should they do they warrant a pay increase? Hopefully, they do. Hopefully, you get that kind of staff that, and I do think, for what it's worth, practically, most districts will give step increases to nonunion staff if they have these schedules and many of them do. This is not something unusual at all. In fact, it's a little surprising that Rochester didn't already have the step system or have a pay schedule and pay ranges. If you look at all that detailed market data,
you'll notice there aren't many jobs at all at Rochester. I think they even have a range. But look at all the other districts that do. And so you can look at the Farmington Hills and look at the Birmingham's and no and etcetera, etcetera. Plymouth Cantons and Walled Lakes and Troy's, they have ranges. They have a system, which by the way, you need period in my view from just a good sound pay administration perspective just to help you make right decisions every year. And I say you, it's this administration and the board, that that,
you know, obviously, would would would wanna do that. So it's just now has become more important because of all this nonsense with ORS. But it's but it's also real. So we can't you shouldn't ignore it. Trustee Blake? I was just seeing here on on slide nine, in the middle dot, it said district staff should be eligible annually for the pay schedule increase as well as the step increase depending on staff upon staff performance and the district's financial resources. So I think that it incorporates that idea. They have to be performing in order to get these increases.
And and it may be a year financially where the district can't afford it. Right? Let's hope you don't get there. But, I mean, you you need that flexibility and protection. So, you know, for whatever reason, we have some serious budget issues that, weren't anticipated and we can't afford to give pay raises this year, then, you know, you you shouldn't have to do it. Those to me are the two important qualifiers. Financial, how is the district doing and how well does the individual perform? These positions are governed by personnel manuals.
So within those, we'll now that there will, in theory, be a step system, will contain language that reflects that. There will need to be a anyone with less than satisfactory evaluation would not be eligible for a step. District reserves right to free steps. That sort of language will be incorporated into each of the manuals, if this is approved and this goes into those manuals as well. Okay. I am not seeing any more questions at this time. Did you have anything else, mister Murphy? I know I think we have questions once we get to this section and the
action item. No. I want to thank Jeff. I think I predicted that we'd be on about 07:15, so I appreciate him staying with us until 08:45, nine and It's not a problem. And again, I wish it could have been there in person, but it is great to meet you even if it's virtual. I guess we're all more used to virtual, right? But I wish and if you have any follow-up questions, one more data information, how many other districts have step schedules. I mean, I can try to pull some of that together. I don't but it's many. I can assure you of that. And it will become more because of this ORS matter.
Thanks, Jeff. Appreciate it. Okay. Good good luck to you. K. I'm leaving. Right? You're done, Jeffrey. Yes. Thank you very much. All set. Thanks. Thank you. Okay. Take care. Alright. Well, we are going to move on to the strategic plan right now. Mr. Russo. Thank you, madam president. It'll be a second to get that microphone working. Strategic plan for year year two that we are about to roll out to you right now. As we wrapped up year one of our strategic plan, we began planning for year two. This process included taking a look at what from year one was still ongoing,
was was embedded, or completed. We then reviewed all 145 deliverables from the onset of this five year intended process, looking at which deliverables made sense for year two, which ones could be consolidated or modified to meet the needs of the community. I then asked my cabinet team to to determine what goals they had for next year and potentially beyond. We took all of this information and with the help of Scott Fuller and teams of educators created what we feel is doable for year two. What we are presenting tonight is our titles and incentives, which are the reasons why this work is important. Although this is an agenda voting item under new business,
if you have questions or comments or feedback, we are happy to take this feedback over the course of the next two weeks and discuss. This goes for any community members as well. Having your feedback is one of the purposes of tonight's presentation and part of our process. Each person will take a minute or less I'm holding that to you I'm holding you to that. A minute or less to describe the plan in which they are identified as owners. Miss Hampton and mister Cuzumano cannot be here tonight, so miss Gauthier is miss Gauthier is discussing their their plans. She yeah. She did the short end. But the purpose in general of spending just a minute is because we know you've
had time to look at it. If you have questions, comments, concerns, etcetera, I know that you're going to to voice them afterward, so we don't wanna put a whole lot of, time into describing all of the details, etcetera. We're gonna go through that, right now. So if we go to slide thank you. 48. Plan one. We will take it to Ms. Gauthier and Ms. Gauthier after each one of them. If you have questions or comments specific, we will take them after each one of the plans. Okay. So looking at number Plan one, Mrs. Hempton is the owner of this plan, which is gonna be a continuation from last year.
The focus of this plan will be to implement evidence based literacy practices in elementary schools while engaging in a comprehensive literacy review. This is really important for us to focus on to continue to improve literacy instruction and learning opportunities for our students and increase professional development for staff. Okay. Number two. So mister Cusimano is the owner of plan number two. The focus of this plan will be to expand work based learning opportunities for students in grades nine through 12. As a district, we wanna provide embedded work, based learning opportunities for students in a career area that is related to the teacher's
subject area and passion. For plan number three, Mrs. Hempton is the owner of this plan, which is similar to our differentiation deliverable from last year. The focus of this is to do a deeper dive in exploring academic options for high achieving or high ability students district wide to ensure that we're meeting all students' unique learning needs. Don't go into four. Is that you were done with three? Yes. Okay. I have a question for this. This was originally in the teaching vision area,
so I'm curious why we moved it to the learning vision area. I can answer that question directly. So, when we met with Scott Fuller, as we went through this process, first our staff, well, as part of it, our cabinet team identifying what areas of where they wanted to move to for next year. We gave this all to we gave all of these elements to Scott and Scott came back with putting these under, different visions, vision statements, whether it was learning, teaching, etcetera. We had discussions about three or four of these for why it sits where it is. And to be honest,
after Jeff after Scott Fuller left our planning session for two days, which was very helpful, we kind of took ownership of this plan and said, There are some places where we think this works and some places where we don't. We kind of felt on this one, this could be teaching, learning and quite frankly, could be also under PD. So Trustee Blake? So I did have a quick question on this one, too. The title is Explore Academic Options for High Achieving, High Ability Students Districtwide. There's a $0 cost on this, and I'm just wondering, like, what this will look like in the end.
Is this going to be like a list of we could do this or we could do this or we could do this? Or is this going to be a plan that we think, given what we are dealing with in our district, this is our plan, let's say, for the following year to implement something? Yeah, that's a great question, Trustee Blake, and I think it's a little bit of both. I think for this year, what we heard unequivocally from the 145 deliverables before I came on board, what was evident was that parents and teachers and everybody, the 6,000 respondents, a good portion of them wanted,
what are we doing for our highest highest achievers in our classrooms? And so this was an opportunity to look at we feel like as part of the MTSS process, we've really focused well and done a good job of supporting students who might need some those bubble kids who might be just underperforming and just need an extra boost, for example, those tier two kids. But we figured that if this was really, want by the community, given our new structure that, Ms. Gautier kind of presented today, where we have MTSS support coaches now kind of in a more robust fashion that
this is the year to look at how are we supporting those highest achievers, whether that's inside the classroom or outside. Okay. Moving on to plan four. Mr. Cusimano is the owner of this plan. The focus is to explore the feasibility of alternative scheduling, in particular, in looking at course scheduling. This is important for our district to to explore to ensure that RCS students are provided the best opportunities possible, for their academic journey with us. Okay. Okay. I I know I have many questions on this one. So, what's written here doesn't really tell me anything.
Like, I from talking to mister Russo, it sounds like this includes looking at, like, block schedules and other scheduling. It's, about potentially looking at start times. But that's not called out here anywhere, and it doesn't talk about what grades are impacted. So can you tell us more about, like, what this is? And then I was curious about, like, the vision statement and deliverable. Like, I didn't see those when I went through what had been identified the first time around, you know, as possibilities.
So just trying to understand where this came from and why we chose this versus, like, the ones that specifically say review block scheduling and So I can start, Ms. Gauthier, if you want to add to any of this. I feel like I'm trying to help you out because you have so many to talk to. I could probably turn it over to Doctor. Luker or someone else to help. But really this was a kind of consolidation of a couple of those items to your point, President Butel. And I wrote down more detail regarding Plan four. Really, we left this meaning as feedback from you really,
we left this open because of that. We said we want to look at late start, early start. We want to look at flipping, you know, doing healthy start times. What does block scheduling look like? Can we afford it? If we're going to talk about block scheduling at the secondary level, can we afford to do so because what is the cost, etcetera? Looking at that, we don't have to look too far. We still have that in a couple districts in our county, which is nice. But we left it you know, we just quite frankly, we left it more vague on purpose so that we can explore a lot of items instead of breaking it down to like 20 different plans that would include 40.
Go ahead, Doc. Thank you, Mr. Russo. I like you said, vague is important here because the work that's going to be, in the subcommittee and I can see, Mr. Cusimano, we've talked about this a little bit. In a subcommittee, you're going to maybe put a board member in there. You might put a parent on that subcommittee. And you want to get information from the community. But first, you make a decision that it's going to be block scheduling. It's not gonna be maybe skinnies at middle school level. I mean, we've we've talked about all these for so many years, us being the educators in the room, but it's important that in plan number, is it four, needs to get input still from the community.
We don't wanna be squared into just block scheduling. So there's more to come on this plan that, Mr. Cusimano and I have talked about that I've we've went through, with the ideas of in the community that are out there, even late starts to PD times. I guess but to me, if you say the deliverable is explore the feasibility of alternate student course scheduling, I would never think that that was start times because start times aren't course scheduling. Yeah. They would be, with start times. Yes. I don't know.
I guess I would just like to have a better breakdown to better understand exactly what we're expecting out of each one. Yeah. Like, think about Michigan virtual. You have kids that are taking 21 f. I mean, there's so many scheduling options that happen with regards to a student schedule. Like, it would change scheduling in itself. But, again, like mister Russel said, we would never wanna block that in. Right now, we don't allow we students, by law, are allowed 21 f. However, you know, how does that look in our in our high schools right now with 21 f? If a student takes a 21 f course,
that means that they're out one hour of the day. Can they take two twenty one f courses? You know, and where does that stop? Our virtual campus now goes for VLAC. I think there's a lot of discussion that's gonna happen around what does the daily schedule look like moving forward from this plan. So for plan number five, and missus Hempton is the owner of this plan. The focus of this plan is to establish consistent data collection, analysis, and response protocols. This work will allow our district to continue expanding organizational, data literacy along with building coherence within the work that we do with data studies,
reflections, and action planning. Okay. So it's not just literacy. It's all subjects and all grade levels? Yeah. Using a common data protocol really is meant for more than just outside of the of teaching learning as well. We use this at Team Rochester now. We introduced it for how we're looking at data in our departments, what kind of data digs are we doing where we're meaning, is it something that we have to do a comparison to? There are multiple types of data digs. But to look at the Uncommon Data Protocol for teaching and learning specifically, it can be used for any subject.
I believe we'll start with literacy and math, but it can be used across the district. So, I mean, couldn't we then the deliverable is design common data protocol for all subjects and grades? I mean, to just identify what it is that we are looking at. I'm loving this mic. I have no issue with changing that for Plan five because it's we we're we're leaving we're we put that as a thinking it was all encompassing, but I'm fine with that in that language. For plan six, Mr. Cusimano is the owner of this plan.
The focus of this one is an exciting one that deals with implementing AI literacy and best practices for staff and students. The goal of this deliverable is to provide support and training related to AI usage and potential future AI initiatives. And Mr. McDaniel, you have number seven. Yes. Missus Gauthier, you're doing so well as the voice of the strategic plan. Plan seven, develop basically healthy food options that include made from scratch and low sugar, with the incentive of hopefully growing participation, especially at the breakfast level. So I'm back with Plan eight, and I am the proud owner of plan eight.
Who this is gonna be developing and implementing a cohesive district wide behavioral framework. The focus behind this plan is based on the core belief that every student deserves to thrive in their learning environments. We're gonna accomplish this by strengthening school wide systems, promoting positive behavior, and ensuring that educators have the tools, the strategies, and the confidence to support all types of learners in their classrooms. Is this what we talked about already or is this something Yes. Okay. Yeah. Moving over to plan nine. Plan nine is implement and roll out a district visitor management system. The incentive is,
sense of security, responsiveness to collective voice of the community. Right now, I know that we we used, grant funds for that. The board approved that, visitor management system, but there's a lot of work to be done with visitor management because you're you're shifting the, focus of a community and how they enter our buildings. There's gonna be a lot of training, with assimilating to the the kiosk that we're building, for that, deliverable. For plan 10, missus Hampton is the owner of that plan. This focuses on expanding k through five access to STEAM, so science, technology, engineering, arts, and mathematics, and engineering principles. This is important to continue the hard work that's already been accomplished within this area
and continue to give students experiences with STEAM that align with district goals and elevate their own learning. And then for plan 11, Mr. Cuzzimano is the owner of this plan. The focus of this is to implement responsive instructional strategies in classrooms across the district to ensure that educators are equipped to improve student engagement and achievement to the greatest extent possible, and this does cover all grade levels. And subjects then too, or does it apply to subjects? I'm sorry. Could you repeat that one more time? It's all grades and all subjects?
Correct. Okay. Thank you. Trustee Gupta? I'm just curious to better understand this particular one. I like, it sounds a little vague for me. Like, I can't picture it in practice, what it is exactly. Like, I as a concrete piece. What does it result in and what does it look like in practice? And so we'll be definitely able to answer that as we get more into the committee mark, but when we're looking at just overall instructional strategies and practices of how we're engaging learners, how we're elevating their learning to the next level,
that's going to be what the focus is of this year. So more to come. Okay. I think I'm up. Plan 12? Okay. This would be to develop a systemic process for policy and AR communication. I don't envision this to be a year long goal. I envision this to be a few months in the fall working in tandem with the board. I think we have a pretty good process in place now to through the committee work to develop new policy in AR to share that with the board and to get it approved and or communicated. I'm not sure yet there's a systemic process then that,
that goes out or is shared regularly with community and students and staff in just one way. And I want to develop that and firm it up. So that's this goal. Plan third oh, any questions? So I'm sorry. So this is just to a way to communicate any policy or administrative regulation changes to staff, community? Exactly. So something different than what we currently do from a forward standpoint? Correct. I don't feel we have a systemic way of doing that right now.
And I feel that sort of lands in my area. So in tandem with the board and the superintendent, the goal here would be to develop that, firm it up so it stays in place whether I'm here or not, whether you all are here or not. And it's expected. Okay. Plan 13 is to strengthen the tool and process for nonteacher evals. And as we were talking tonight, I think this will even expand a bit further. The original idea was to reenvision our support staff evaluation process. We're hosting a cohort through Oakland Schools in our district next year to work on
this in tandem with our HR department. But I also believe in recent conversations with Superintendent Russo that we want to also reenvision or, I guess, change a bit our central office evaluation system and make it uniform, which I think will serve our purposes when it comes to the earlier discussion of the nonunion steps as well. So look for probably this work to have an end product of new
tools and time lines associated with both. All right. Plan 14, develop training materials and resources to improve understanding of business office and purchasing procedures and penalties for noncompliance for items such as budgets, budget cards, purchase orders, etcetera, with hopefully improved understanding and compliance with business office procedures. I I have a question before you go on. Doesn't that from a deliverable standpoint seem very similar to 12? I mean, completely different thing, but that you're designing a structure to communicate the policies and processes? I would say it's they sort of support each other in in a lot of
instances. Yes. But the deliverable says design a system to review document to review, document, and adjust policies, administrative regulations, and structures. So, like, what the project title seems to be saying is that you're going to have training materials so that people understand the process. But what the deliverable says is that you're going to design a system to review, document, and adjust policies, administrative regulations, and structures. It just Yeah. No. I I see your point. I mean, I wrote project title and Scott Fuller wrote deliverable.
So, you know, if those languages aren't married together, we can certainly, revise the deliverable. Our understanding all along was that the deliverable was established at the beginning and then titles work to serve the greater deliverables. So sometimes they'd be repeated. Right. That's what I mean. It could be repeated. Like, it could say under 14, it could say design a structure to communicate policies, administrative regulations, processes, structures, and stakeholders. Right? I mean, that could be there for it. It just was confusing to me because the project title to me did not go with the deliverable. Yeah.
I think the idea No. I was I was gonna move on. Yeah. So, 14 that we can certainly change the language on the deliverable. Plan 15, increase profit margin of tuition based programs to support the general fund. The incentive there is to hopefully financially support, other district operations in the general fund as a whole. I have a question. Trustee Alsbach. Tuition based programs, are we talking about, SAC and enrichment or would it be other programs? I think the three major ones that come to mind are school aged care, SAC, pre k, tuition based pre k, not GSRP, and then our enrichment programs.
The only thing I I wondered what I I guess I didn't like the title from the increased profit margins versus something like explore the revenue and expense of tuition based programs and suggest changes or because I'm not sure that, I mean, I we can't increase profit margins at all cost. Right? I mean, we wanna have programs that people can afford. I certainly agree on covering our costs, but I'm just not sure about the profit margin piece. Okay. Trustee Gupta?
I think in this one, again, we kinda have a little bit of a mismatch between the deliverable and the project title, two, equally valid valuable things to do, but they just don't seem to go together. So identify common systems for program audits. I'm not quite sure. I mean, I could really stretch it stretch myself to make an argument for how increasing profit margin of tuition based programs to support the general fund fits in that, but it would be a stretch. So I think I that is something I think we just need to make a
little bit more consistent there. I think there's also something to be said about the district will measure the effectiveness of its programs and work to make identified adjustments. I mean, the intent of that vision was identifying, you know, programs within our schools that our students are using, and are they effective or not? So I think it's a little bit of a stretch there. That's my 2¢ on it. Sure. Yeah. Again, G and D on the left and Matt McDaniel on the right. But we can certainly make any updates we need to.
I was gonna say as it as it relates to that too, mister McDaniel, one of the things that and I wasn't here for the first 100 you know, the the big planning session. But when I look at things like school age care, before and after school care, I'd like to see how we how we as a team can improve accessibility, staffing earlier on, etcetera. I think those are, like, the big pieces and the the big hits that can come out of something like this. So I don't have a problem revisiting what 15 looks like in terms of language so that it meets the needs of what we're looking at. Michelle? Yeah. And for that one,
I don't think that making the two columns match is what we're looking for. I think both of them are good goals, but they're really two different goals. Okay. Number 16. Out of the deliverable to develop a process to identify, communicate, and check for understanding of district expectations. The title here is to create an all employee RCS handbook. Goal being or the incentive being to create and communicate those uniform expectations clearly and to have one place, that any employee or frankly,
the administrator, HR department could go to, to reference when need be to reduce legal risk to the district, create a predictable work environment, and promote a sense of belonging and engagement. Moving on to community engagement, we have, two deliverables. Plan number 17, Standardized Parent Square as the source for newsletters, attendance, polls, surveys, and volunteer sign up forms in addition to district wide communications. And the incentive really is to unify our district communication tools into one platform. That was one thing that was, a common,
goal listed in this the original 6,000 member survey. Plan number 18 Don't go too far. Yep. I really think that plan number 17, the incentive, should be to gather to be able to gather community input on a variety of topics. I mean, this whole this year's end, in this year's strategic plan, I didn't feel like we really hit the mark on being able to, I don't have it in front of me, but to get two way communication going. We keep talking about Parent Square as two way communication,
but so far, it isn't. But next year, the goal is at least to be able to have surveys. And so I think that, for me, is a main incentive, is to be able to gather And that may be a result of what we're looking at. Right now, Parent Square has the capability. And and I do believe two way communication has been ongoing, once we instituted it through the last couple of months with our pilot school and then, when we went district wide. So that that has been taking place between our teachers and students.
Teachers to teachers. Okay. Because when I asked the last time, I was told that, like, parents can't communicate with their teacher through that, that there is no two way communication, not to mention that it was, providing district input from two way. But So I think, we're talking two different things. So if a if a staff member initiates a, I believe it's a direct message, they can communicate back and forth with each other. That has been taking place. A parent can't go to parent square and initiate a conversation.
Right. But I'll just go back to the original intent of two way communication was not specifically with the teacher. It was with the district from the standpoint of being able to provide input on, board, you know, things like yeah. The strategic plan, the you know, any changes that we're looking at doing. So I just I I guess I really feel that, you know, one of our incentives should be that we want to be able to gather this community input and and get that.
So k. Anyone else on this one? Trustee Gupta? I just wanna echo that. I think when we, were fleshing this out and I love the parent's spirit. I think it's it's an and not an or. But, that we were really wanting to make sure that the strategic planning process, as was described to us by Scott Fuller on the front end, should not be just that you survey and you do the focus groups at the beginning, but that you're also getting input from your community along the way about how things are going and how things might be changing and that sort of thing.
So, and I think that's where we're kind of seeing not seeing that piece yet in here, and we're eager to see that. Okay. Plan number 18, explore opportunities to enhance digital content in alignment with the ADA or Americans with Disabilities Act best practices. And, the incentive is to demonstrate continued commitment to inclusive learning and community engagement. Okay. Trustee Ospwa? I have a general question. Are we to that point yet? I don't wanna jump in if anyone has I believe so.
Okay. So as I look at our vision document that was given to us, and this is dated January 2024, it has, you know, the content pages, and it talks about, learning, teaching, leadership and professional development, and then community engagement. These are our one page summaries of what these things mean to us. In this isn't particularly just for Lori. It's just a general question. Am I missing in that presentation where it talks specifically about the professional development area? Or how do we talk to me about that.
Yeah. So there's one one of the challenges in a in a good way was to look at what our needs for the next year and years beyond. But we also didn't wanna be handcuffed into saying we want, like, three from each category, for example, and that's using an arbitrary, where some of these things can be put into our profe could be labeled as professional development. For example, if, Laurie, are you working the slides? Could you go up, whoever's working the slides go up? Use one example of, of this talking about, say again, Matt. Yeah. Where where we were Kimberly and Pasquale have a a couple that are in they're
in charge that could actually fall under PD because teachers are gonna be trained in some of these things as as we go. But, really, we we looked at where does where can it fit let me back up. Where does it most mostly fit? And so he's teaching, learning, or PD, and none of them came out as PD. And I'm not even sure coming back to that, because I don't have the wide, version of this, I'm not sure that leadership was had many. Do you remember that, Mr. Murphy or Doctor. DeLuca? I don't remember. But in talking about it with Scott, too, we talked a couple of times about how interchangeable, like, you don't improve teaching without improving learning.
You don't improve learning without improving teaching. You don't do any of them without developing and training your staff. So he told us not to worry too much about where those landed as long as it was an overarching, goals that we were focused on improving the district as a whole. So I don't think we noticed that same when we were done looking through this, but weren't too concerned about it in year two based on what we had there. I just appreciate knowing where the thinking was. And I do understand that a lot of these will involve professional development. I was just wondering why it wasn't called out directly.
But thank you for addressing that. Can you talk about what your plans are for including, like, staff and parents and students on these committees versus, you know, just getting survey input? First thing, we'd like to talk about the rollout of it. So as as we talk about, you know, listening to the community, when I first came here, one of the one of the things was that our our teachers, our staff overwhelmingly said, I think 68% was the number, 71% was the number that they didn't wanna do a welcome back day, that they wanna spend their time in their room. So that's an example of,
when we wanna roll something like this out, we're not doing a welcome we're not planning a welcome back day right now to do that in the front end. So we'd wanna create some videos that showcase what year two when we wrap up year one and what year two what year two, deliverables are, and maybe not go through them. Something that can live in live on the Internet in perpetuity that kinda talks about these as general buckets, but then really have to give empower our principals to go through and do this, during their PDs, the staff meetings, etcetera, as we as we go through the onset of the year.
How How we involve community, I think, hopefully tonight, for those who are watching, etcetera, and we could follow it up with an official, email or communication. Probably use ParentSquare for that. Right, miss Grain? And how and what feedback you have given this. Because, I think that's a big piece of this, as I mentioned in the onset of of of of the strategic plan part of this agenda, is that really tonight, I know it's a voting item, but we really do want feedback. We wanna hear what you have to say. We will put it out for community to see what they have to say, and then come back to to adopt and take some of these notes and etcetera,
and you have a couple weeks to review it. But then as we go into committee work, should let the last part of your question, president Butel, I I think it's important to look some of these things will be internal and some of these will not. They'll have parents and, caregivers and and anyone else who who fits in some of these to to be included in our in our committee meetings and to engage the community. For example, some of the things that miss Grine is in charge of, would be a great place to put some committee work. For data protocols, I don't think we'd wanna put parents on the data protocol committee.
So that that's that's our plan. But I guess there's things like when we're looking at start times and you're looking at different scheduling models, I think that would be a great place for parents and students to be, you know, as well as staff to be involved. And, I guess I'd just like to see more of that since I felt, like maybe this year, we did not incorporate community members the way I had expected that we would. And so I guess I'm not really sure. I know, there's an action item later regarding the strategic plan,
And I'm not really sure at this point, what we're looking for since we're providing feedback over the next two weeks. So I guess we can talk about it at that point or, you know, I'm just I'm I'm unclear on that, and I felt like there was detail missing that we need in order to vote on it. But And that that's also fair. If you want if there's more detail that you want that that we can provide, over the course, like, to look at plans the plan within the plan,
for example. Right? To look at what are milestones and measures and those steps for each one of them, you're we're more than willing to to give that to the board for review and etcetera. The issue is going to be those are those are those are those are those can change quick. And as I as I've said many times, some I just wanna make sure that everyone understands that. Sometimes that's not understood well. And if we're saying that you're approving that, the the idea that there's nuance there, it has to be well understood. I think it's a documentation,
though, of where we started and what changed it. We got survey data. We got whatever feedback, and so then we went from this to this. Do you know what I mean? As long as that's shared, I think that's I think the expectation is that what you start with will change based on what you learn along the way. But it's just a matter of sharing that, as it changes too. Trustee Lucui, did you have a comment? Well, I guess I was wondering, are we still planning to vote on this later in the meeting? Because I wasn't sure if I should make my comment right now or if I should just wait until we vote on it.
Are you still intending to have a vote? It it is on the agenda right now, but, that's what I was I was a little confused, to be honest, and see that we're we're being asked to provide feedback over the next two weeks. Plus we didn't get the detail of, you know, like we did in the past as well. So I wasn't sure exactly what the intention was here. Yeah. I I mean, as far as I'm concerned, when I look through I I feel like this is something that really ought to have been a a work session topic back when we were talking about work sessions
and regular meetings. Many of the things that I see on the list are either things that we already do or are extremely vague, which many of you have been pointing out. And it reminds me honestly a little bit of last year's strategic plan and some of the the issues I had with that. I don't have a great understanding in writing about what the actual deliverables look like or how we're monitoring or tracking them and what we're actually doing differently than we do now to improve things for students. And that's why I don't feel comfortable approving it at this point.
There are certain topics I'm really excited about, topics I've talked about for years, like opportunities for high ability and high achieving students or alternative scheduling or, collecting and analyzing data. But, you know, when I see when I see words like explore the academic options for those students, and I think, well, we're gonna go through a whole school year, and at the end of it, all that we've done is explore it, and there's really nothing for those students yet. It just feels like everything is just drawn out so very much. And, so that's sort of where I'm at with the strategic plan.
I would like to see more of a how are we tracking this? How are we measurably improving things for our students? How is it different than what we're doing currently? Trustee Gupta? I think for me, it makes sense to take the diligent time to explore some of these things because they're resource intensive. And until you know the pros and cons and the implications on budget and staff and things like that, you can't really make an informed decision. And so, I will also say that I I I do recall from steering,
mister Russa saying that, we it's on the you know, the strategic plan is on the agenda today to approve if there if we were comfortable with that, but that there was flexibility to that that we could give feedback and maybe, you know, get have another run at it later. So, I do wanna just honor that that was the, the, kind of expectation coming in as far as I understood that. But, I understood that. But, I I I I would be in favor of postponing the vote and, doing a little bit more work on it and then coming back. Any other comments at this time?
Alright. Well, then we are actually moving into new business at this point. Item 9.1 is the renewal of some of the district's memberships. And, mister McDaniel, I believe this is you. Yeah. Thank you, madam president. So this is our annual renewal for the MHSAA as well as our membership with MASP. There is no fee for the MHSAA membership, and the total for the oh, I'm on the wrong meeting. I'm sorry. $11,737.20 Thank you. For the two. So, is there a motion to renew the Michigan High School Athletic Association at zero cost,
the Michigan Association of School Boards at a cost of $11,320 and the Michigan Association of School Boards legal trust fund at a cost of $437 Moved by Trustee Annis with support from Trustee Gupta. And then is there any discussion on this? Trustee Blake. I just had one question, about the legal trust fund. Somebody that I knew know that serves in another district mentioned it to me and asked me if we utilize it, and I said, I don't even know what it offers or, is it anything that offers services that would be beneficial if you know what?
So I can tell you that, the legal trust fund, they have it. You have to apply to be able to utilize the funds and it has to be an issue that would benefit, you know, like all school boards or a large number of school boards, that type of thing. So that makes sense because it was being brought up to me in the context of some of the executive orders and responses and so forth. Okay. Madam President? Trustee Lacui? I'll just make a general statement that I've kind of made before. We're we're governed by Michigan law and the Rye School Code and the Open Meetings
Act. I'm going to be voting no on this for the MASB reason because we don't need to pay quasi authorities to tell us what to do. Most of the time, we can read the law to determine what we're supposed to do. And if we truly need help with interpretation, we've got the district lawyers, and we know how to use them. We don't need to pay $10,000 for another lawyer option or for the ability to take classes to tell us what we should already know or can learn from conversations with other districts and boards. We're supposed to be a local governing body capable of providing checks and balances without
relying on a state entity to tell us what to do. I'll just say that the Michigan Association of School Boards provides a number of resources to us and any other member district. Not only do they have, their advocates and they provide a voice to our legislature, they also provide a host of training opportunities for school board members. They offer, an opportunity for districts to get together at conferences to have conversations, and I think I had mentioned the training.
Not to mention that they have a I think it's two lawyers on staff that any school board member can actually call. While you can't get an official opinion from them, they can certainly answer a number of questions. I find them truly valuable and have been helpful anytime I've had questions, so I will certainly be supporting this. And I think it's valuable for, to have associations. There's all sorts of associations, in all sorts of industries. So, anyone else have any comments at this point? Madam President. Alright. Trustee Lecui? I would just respond to what you say.
You bring up several several decent points, but I would just respond to say that I've found other options for all of the things that you mentioned. And often they're less costly or free. So that's why I'll continue to vote no. Alright. All of those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Those opposed, please say no. No. That is a five to vote, and the motion passes. Next, we have the twenty twenty five tax rate certification action item. Mr. McDaniel. Thank you, madam president. This is the approval of the tax rates that were discussed at the Truth in
Taxation hearing that preceded this meeting, 18 mills for operating, millage renewal, non homestead and then 1.52 mills for debt service and then 1.4425 mills for the sinking fund. Thank you. Is there a motion to approve the tax rate certification as presented? Moved by trustee Gupta. Is there support? Trustee Blake. Is there any discussion on this? Seeing none, all of those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed, please say no. That's a seven-zero vote and the motion is approved.
Next, we have the approval of the annual organization items. Mister McDaniel? Yes. Thanks again, madam president. So, for this year, we've updated titles in the annual organizational items. We've also removed NAGS break as legal counsel because it's been a few years since we've used them and then, reflected the district's auditors, Yo and Yo for the board's approval and then designated SETSEG as our new primary insurance carrier. Alright. Is there a motion to approve the annual organization items as presented? Moved by trustee Gupta. Is there support? From trustee Annas.
Alright. And then discussion. Madam president? Trustee Lecui? I've already notified the board that I intend to vote no on this item, and it has to do with with SETSEG. I'm concerned about them lying or omitting information to the board, which apparently has been an issue in the Oxford School District. I've been talking with board members over there and hearing about their experience and their disappointment in going with that company. Oxford Community Schools had to sue SETSEG for failing to represent the district's interests, most notably for withholding key information from the board about their ability to initiate an
independent investigation in the wake of the shooting strat tragic tragedy. I'm sorry. I can't talk. It's so late. It sounds like the attorney had set Seg's interests more in mind rather than the district's interests at heart. And to me, it seemed unethical and like a breach of public trust. It created a lot of problems for their community. Oxford spent hundreds of thousands of dollars trying to get SET SEG to offer fair settlements to the families impacted by their tragedy. And even after the district won in court,
Setseg appealed the decision. And to this day, many families have received little to no compensation, and it's just damaged the community's trust and morale. And since this is the community's school district and board, I'm just concerned that this isn't how a district's insured insurance partner should behave, especially in times of crisis. And based on the track record, I don't believe that SETSEG reflects the values or integrity that we should expect from someone entrusted with protecting our district and our students and its families.
Trustee Blake? So, I looked into this because Trustee Liquide did raise this to me, and I wanted to find out the facts of the matter. And so I did look into this. And the lawsuit, between Oxford and SETSEG had to do with the coverage for these shootings and the district had $5,000,000 coverage per occurrence. So it was the definition of the word occurrence. Oxford wanted each person who was injured to be considered a different occurrence. So they wanted, they wanted $55,000,000 in coverage from a $5,000,000 policy. And then another argument was raised that each bullet shot should be considered a separate
occurrence, which would have been hundreds of millions of dollars in coverage. So it doesn't surprise me that the insurance company, you know, they said that if we were to to cover for that amount, we would be insolvent. Like all of our, you know, policyholders would be would not have any more coverage. So Oxford, won at the trial level in what I think a lot of lawyers were surprised at the interpretation, And I'm not surprised that the insurance company appealed it. And I'm not taking a position. I'm just explaining what happened. So I don't think the fact that this became a lawsuit,
is something to hold against the insurance company. It was a very, aggressive posture that Oxford was taking and they were asking for quite a lot of coverage that was beyond, I think, what was bargained for. The second piece of it, and I asked, Trustee Lacouille and she shared something with me. I appreciate the When this happened, the insurance company immediately assigned counsel to them and it was, Tim Mullins, this G. E. Marco firm who is known as being one of the best attorneys for defending, school districts and governmental immunity type cases and he apparently,
according to the allegations, advised the school district that they shouldn't initiate, or the board that they should not initiate, an independent investigation because from a legal standpoint you don't talk. You know, you don't say more than you have to. So, I think later on people were upset about that advice. They thought that, from a human standpoint that the board should have done other things. But from a legal standpoint, I guess I understand. And so I guess this is a long way of saying I don't I looked into all this and I don't find this to be a reason to not use
this insurance company. And, mister McDaniel, I'm assuming I think there's a rating out there for insurance companies. Is that correct? Did you Yeah. Review that, and where do they fall? Yeah. Sed Seg is used by, most school districts in the state of Michigan. I do wanna go back to, Trustee Lecuey's point and, I guess, have conversation on whether or not, the board would like additional coverage. So we maintained very similar coverage level for a catastrophic incident like Oxford. We are able to increase that limit.
Right now, with SEDSIG, it is $1,000,000 plus our excess, which is $10,000,000 so $11,000,000 total per occurrence. But if we if the board desired, we could increase that to $15,000,000 which I believe would still include another $1,000,000 so $16,000,000 total. But we kept, for this specific, type of event, very similar coverage with SETCEK versus our current carrier. And our current carrier, is that Hanover? Yes. Okay. So we would no longer have Hanover. Zetseg would be who we would be working with if this is approved.
K. Madam president? Trustee Lacui? Well, first, before getting to another question, I wanted to respond to trustee Blake because I think he has misunderstood what my particular issues are with SAC Seg. I know you mentioned that they had a dispute over the coverage for the shooting. They had to dispute about, you know, what the definition of occurrence might be. Right? That's not actually the part that bothers me the most. They hired Tim Mullins, and I'm not an attorney. I don't really know the reputations of different attorneys around,
so I have no, you you know, opinions one way or the other about, you know, what Tim Mullens is like as an attorney. That's not the issue either. My issue was they had these lawyers, and instead of the lawyers explaining what all of their options were to them, honestly, and then and then telling them, but we think you should do this one, the problem was they withheld the information from the board about what all of their options were. And as it turned out, the the prosecutor actually got on the board's case about this too and publicly criticized the board,
because their lawyers didn't tell them what she had said they were allowed to do. And so they didn't know what all of the options were. Any lawyer that we're gonna have should be able to tell us these are all of your actual options. And if the board is asking, they should get clear answers to that. And then they should explain, you know, what their opinion is and what the best option is. That's at least what I think should happen. I think that's a more ethical way to to conduct yourself. So I was just curious, trustee Blake. I mean, do you think that's reasonable, or is it reasonable to withhold information from your client in the favor of doing
a particular strategy? Trustee Blake? It's not reasonable to withhold information from your client. If I assume that that's what happened, which I don't have the data, but let's just say that that's what happened. That's an issue with Tim Mullins. Tim Mullins doesn't work for SETSEG. He works for a law firm. SETSEG just assigns you to a lawyer. So if you don't if you think that there's something wrong with him as a lawyer, we could get a different insurance company, and they could still assign him as a lawyer. He doesn't work for that insurance company. Well, Well, this was that was in,
articles that I shared with you. Okay. We don't need to decide at this moment, though, about the coverage. That's something you could provide information for at another time if we wanted to go from 10 to 15. Correct. We can increase the coverage. Because we're not really this just assigned to who it was and not what the dollar amount was. And then, I I was reviewing our bylaws, and it talks about authorizing persons to enter the district safety deposit box. So I'm assuming we don't have a safety deposit box? Not that I'm aware of. K. I it was I was just surprised that it was, on there.
And then, I know Hennecke Frame, legal firm is listed. And what do we use them for? And when was the last time that we used them? Real estate and property issues, and we're using them on two issues currently. Okay. And then, the last piece was, like, Troon just lists for general school legal matters, and it doesn't list special education, but I think that they deal with special education at times. So should that be added? It can. Yeah. It can be amended. True. It doesn't say special education. I don't know. I'm just curious because, like, Clark Hill is called out,
so that's why I'm just, you know, I just wanna make sure that we never have an issue where someone uses them and it becomes an issue. I mean, I don't think it's a to have for general school legal matters, I hear what you're saying, president Butel. I think it's fine to have Trudy listed that way. We can add and special education, but that's really vague, I think, purposefully. Then I guess I'll just ask, should Clark Hill say for general school legal matters rather than for business matters slash special education? I was gonna say I I I have never used Clark Hill for anything else in in Rochester besides special education.
So if someone else is using Clark Hill for other reasons, I have not. So I guess the question is whether we need to, before we vote on it, do we need to make any adjustments, or we think it's fine as is? It's fine. Okay. Alright. Any other comments then before we go on? Alright. All those in favor of approving the annual organizational items as presented, say aye. Aye. Opposed, say no. No. And trustee Lausanne, you were one of those. Thank you. Alright. 9.4 is the approval of the 2526 initial budget.
The board spent significant time reviewing the budget proposals during our June 9 meeting, and it was just reviewed at the truth in budget hearing prior to this meeting. We know there are lots of unknowns, including our enrollment, what our per pupil funding will be, grant availability, etcetera. But before we begin our discussion, is there a motion to approve the twenty five-twenty six initial budget resolution as presented? Moved by Trustee Annas. Is there support? Support by trustee Gupta. And then any discussion? Madam president? Trustee Lacui? I move to amend the main motion by substituting the following: that the board direct
the administration to develop an expense plan for the twenty five-twenty six fiscal year that limits the projected deficit to no more than $2,000,000 that this plan be presented to the board for tentative approval at a special meeting to be scheduled prior to June 30, and that the final version of the plan be submitted for board approval within one to two weeks of the finalized state budget. Alright. I think you meant to say a motion to replace. Sure. Yep. So that is moved by trustee Lacui. To replace. Yeah. Is there a, support for that? Trustee LaSanne?
Alright. And then, discussion on this. Madam president. Trustee Lacui? Well, I wrote to all of you about this following the last meeting. I haven't heard heard back much of a response. I wrote back again, letting you know about this motion because I haven't heard any other ideas or discussion about it. We've always had a mismatch between the district's budget deadline and the delayed state budget, but we know that it's particularly problematic this year. We don't control the revenue side, but we do control the spending side. And approving the proposed budget as is means agreeing to overspend by over $6,000,000
which I just don't think is fiscally responsible. I believe that any approval now should be considered tentative pending the finalized state budget. And last year, the district actually spent $10,000,000 more than what we last approved, and that resulted in a $4,000,000 deficit. And I believe we should be reducing the deficit, not increasing it. So that's why I'm recommending that the administration develop a revised expense plan to limit it to no more than $2,000,000 to be finalized at that later point.
Alright. And would anyone else care to speak at this time? Trustee Blake? So the budget that we're putting in right now, which, is we don't really know what we're getting from the state, but it's so it's kind of a guess. But it pulls $6,600,000 from the fund balance. And I do have concerns. I share some of Trustee Lecuey's concerns and concerns I've heard from other people. We knew when we we signed the REA contract that we would be dipping into the fund balance this year. So that is not a surprise, but the amount is a surprise or it was not what we anticipated a year
ago. Having said all that, I don't think you can we can just pick an arbitrary number like $2,000,000 and expect a thoughtful plan in less than a week. If we wanted to do that, if we wanted to make that directive, we should have either done it at the last meeting when we reviewed this or we should have even done that at the you know, talked about that at the SBOC meeting or something. But to to say that we're gonna do that on, what is it, June 23, and then we're gonna have a thoughtful plan, I just don't think that's feasible to do. And I will say this, what you're talking about is a 4,600,000
swing from what we currently have in there. Now, I think $4,600,000 in changes to the budget would probably be meaningful. I mean, I think that these would be things that people, you know, might want to know about. It might. So I think that what I would do is suggest that we approve the budget right now, but I would be willing to ask the administration you're gonna have to tell me how much work this is, to show us what a plan would be would look like that we only pulled $4,000,000 let's say, which I think is about what we were expecting a year ago,
three to four. Or what about her plan for the $2,000,000 What would that look like? What types of cuts would we need to make? What would some options be? I don't know that we need to have every line done like the budget we have now, but just some general thoughts of what type of sacrifices we'd be making if we wanted to dip into our fund balance less. And I also think for next year, what the board should do is many months in advance give the administration a number and say, This is what we're gonna be comfortable with dipping next year.
And I know it's hard to do without a budget, but we should give more notice on this, so that we're not doing this kind of a fire drill. But those are my thoughts and I don't know how we accomplished this or what type of work it would take, but I would be curious to know if we only took $4,000,000 If we only took $2,000,000 what would that look like? I was gonna say that, I don't think anyone wants to, you know, dip into our fund balance by $6,600,000 But I think that it is,
difficult right now without knowing enrollment, without knowing what our funding is, those types of things. I actually have a this afternoon, you know, because I was trying to come up with if we approve the 6 and a half and we don't really expect that to be 6 and a half million, you know, like, like, what what is mister Russo going to do to, you know, make that, a lower amount? And there's a couple of things. We don't know where 24, 25 is gonna end up. That can make big swings based depending on,
where everything falls out here in the next week. I was gonna potentially make a motion after we approve the budget to request that superintendent Russo present options for a budget with no more than a 4,000,000 deficit, assuming the state is finalizing finalized by September 30 with a presentation at the second board meeting in October. So that by that point, he would be able to give us options so that we could determine whether, you know, those were options we wanted to do or we wanted to stay,
you know, at the six and a half. One of the reasons to have the fund balance is to try to absorb some of these items, on the and we knew that we were going to be eating into the fund balance, just not at this rate right now. Well, that's funny because I was just going to say it's funny because we did not talk and we had the same Trustee Lacoue. Well, I I wanted to respond a little bit. First of all, trustee Blake, you said can't expect to have a thoughtful plan in less than a week. And I understand, but you gotta remember what information we've been working with. At the SBOC meeting, we didn't have any numbers in front of us.
There was no time to digest anything. It was basically we were just watching a presentation without having any presentation ourselves to look at. We didn't get the presentation until a few days before the last meeting. And after we had the last meeting, I sent you, you know, my concerns, you know, very shortly after that. And I do appreciate that you actually did you were one of the I think it was just you and Trustee Lozan that actually responded to me out of everyone, and I appreciate that you responded. Although when I sent you back my idea, I never heard from you again.
And I was basically just trying to come up with a starting point to get a discussion going, but it's hard to do that, you know, when there isn't much time. And if you wait until the last minute to give us the information, then it takes time for us to process the information, then you're right. It's hard to develop a thoughtful plan. The other thing that I would like the board to keep in mind is actually what mister Baldick spoke about during that truth in budget hearing when he gave us his speech. Because the number that we approved we had, like, one major budget update in January. And the number we approved then,
that's what the board was comfortable with. The district overspent by $10,000,000 because because the revenue I I don't know. They they projected it would go down, I suppose. And then there's ten minute and that was a question I was gonna have for our next session too is where did this $10,000,000 hit come from? But we approved a budget. They overspent by 10,000,000, which resulted in the $4,000,000 deficit. I'm concerned that if we're projecting a budget, that $6,600,000 deficit, that that could end up being greater also than what we are initially planning for.
So there's a lot of concerns here, and I'm not comfortable approving this budget right now. I've seen problems in other school districts elsewhere where they run into some really big problems. And we keep talking about what other public school districts are doing. We talk about that a lot. And I don't want to take on the kinds of problems that other public school districts are taking on either. Madam President? Trustee Annas? I'd like to hear from mister McDaniel. I believe he he wanted to make a comment. I'd love to hear your feedback on this discussion. Yeah. I mean, it might sound cold, but, dollars 4,600,000.0 is roughly 33 teachers,
a 150 115 paras, Our general education transportation system, I mean, it's kind of the the board's purview. If you want us to cut staff, if you want us to cut transportation, you know, for recommendation, we can certainly, craft one. I don't know that seven days, six days is enough time to do that. And I would also hate let's take the example of the Paris. If we laid off 115 Paris and then the state budget came back different and then we attempted to rehire 115 pairs. I certainly understand that there's a concern.
There's not a budget yet. This is the I've never presented a budget showing a 6,600,000 use of fund balance. But I'm also, acknowledge that our school year doesn't really begin until Yep. August 25, I think, this year. So, some of that is helpful because you're not paying teachers really until August. Same thing with paras, a lot of our secretaries as well. So there's time in July and August to make adjustments if the budget were to come back worse. If you wait longer, then that makes it tougher,
right, because those numbers now we paid out part of those salaries. So if we use that teacher number, right, if we're halfway through the school year to get that same amount of savings, now we're at 66 teachers. Over the next, you know, two months or so, to get a school aid budget approved by the state or even a conference committee report, which is fairly accurate to what the actual budget is going to be, before we make any decisions that might have dramatic implications on our staff or our structure, and would be felt by the community.
We've heard tonight. Okay. Please, no outbursts from the audience. Okay. If you continue, you will need to leave. So please, refrain yourself. Madam President. I'm sorry. Who said that? She did. Oh, I'm sorry. You've already spoken twice? I have a question. Okay. Who is your question for? My question is for you and for our board. And the question is, isn't it also true that, you know, we have other cost increases on this agenda that maybe we should be holding off on? And isn't it also true that we have a huge building carrying steps north on
Rochester Road that has been inefficient in losing money year after year after year? Perhaps there are other options that we can also be considering. We don't have to be laying off teachers. Madam President? Trustee Anas? Yeah. I just want to point out the fact that, you know, this is a very fluid, not set in stone budget. We obviously do not have any numbers from the state. And quite frankly, I think that the budget delay from the state is what is going to impact us the most, and have real consequences for what we do.
And so, giving us a haircut at four million dollars or even at what was it that you initially proposed? 2.2. Ahead of the game, before the school year starts, and then we say we get the state aid budget by the August, before we begin school or around August, and then we've laid off staff, you can't go back. And it's challenging at the beginning of the school year to fill vacancies to begin with. So I think, you know, I am willing to pass this budget.
I also agree with what you said, President Futel. We have a fund balance for a reason. When I look at what that number is, it's still a 15% fund balance, 15.92, almost 16%, correct? From what I'm reading correctly, if it's correct. So this is our responsibility, and I agree that I'm not comfortable with it either. But this is fluid. This is not set in stone. That is the purpose of budget amendments, and we need to keep that in mind as we proceed forward. Trustee Lozanne?
So I kind of want to echo what Carol Beth said. We have some expenses, additional ones that are also tonight. We also have five zero one. That's just sitting there. It's never a topic of discussion. We could get rid of that to help us out. What about, pay freezes if you if we're looking at the salary schedule? Sure. Some people are due for a pay bump, but that doesn't mean we have to do it right now. I have family members that have worked for companies. Budgets were in the known unknown. And while they said yes, you are getting a bonus this year, you're not getting we're not doing it yet.
Come January 1, we we just are not comfortable. Six months later everybody got their bonuses because everything was okay then. But handing everything out right now when everything was in the red and in the unknown I think is very irresponsible and we should definitely be looking at all of our options, what we can do to trim the budget. Carol, that does not mean cutting teachers, cutting transportation, and stuff like that. We have bloated admin office. We have other expenses, five zero one caring steps that we really should be taking a look at. Alright. I have to I have to respond.
Excuse me. Oh, Trustee Innis, I'm sorry. You've already spoken twice at this point. I have. So, Really? Yep. So at this point, we have, we have a motion to replace. So let's take a vote on that. That motion is that the board direct the administration to develop an expense plan for the twenty five-twenty six fiscal year that limits the projected deficit to no more than $2,000,000 that this plan be presented to the board for tentative approval at a special meeting to be scheduled prior to June 30 and that the final version of plan be submitted for board approval within one to two weeks of the finalized state budget.
All of those in favor, say aye. Aye. That's two. Those opposed, say no. No. No. That's five. So that's a two five vote, and it does not pass. Right now, we are back to the original, which was to let me see where I am. Oh, which is the motion the motion to approve the 20 Five twenty six initial budget resolutions as presented. I'm just I'm gonna make a comment. I would like to, replace that or table that motion in order to do this other one first because I am not comfortable with the 6,500,000.0.
And so it would allow, us to request options for a $4,000,000 deficit, no more than a $4,000,000 deficit budget in October. But that gives us the option to determine whether we want to keep it at the 6 and a half million or make changes. Point of order. So Trustee Annas. For clarification, your motion is to not approve this budget and place that motion in place of it? Nope. It's an addition. It's in addition. So I would just want to, know that we were going to be requesting information for a $4,000,000
deficit, no more than $4,000,000 deficit budget before I approved the 6 and a half million budget. Trustee Annis. What is your deadline for that? It was in what I read, and I can pass this down to you too, by the second board meeting in October. The budget meeting. Okay. So And President May, may I come in? Sure. Just for clarity purposes, I just want everyone to know the same landscape Mr. McDaniel, please jump in if I'm misspeaking. But right now, we have a skinny budget passed in case of a government shutdown September 30, which would remove funding for transportation and food service.
So if that if that happens, I just want everyone to know that's where we are living October 1. If something happens prior to under this and so I have a good understanding of what my team does. Estimating conference that's that's or a conference that's coming then that should have that should push people to do this. So let's say we it comes in August. We have a better idea of what's happening. We we could come with options, but I also just wanna be it's it's not, again, again, it's not linear. These options can be mixed and matched, etcetera. Right? Just to the point of it's not just teachers.
It's not just cutting things in central office. It's it's it's about cutting spending and potentially reduction of staff. So I just it's not as linear as we want to look at and I just want to put that. Thank you. Yeah. If I could just add to that, in October is our pupil count, right? So, we won't have that really finalized and reported to open schools until November, so early November. So we'd be making our best guess on that. So I guess I'm going to make a motion that we replace this first one with, to request that Superintendent Russo present options for a budget with no more than a
$4,000,000 deficit, assuming the state budget is finalized by 09/30/2025, with a presentation at the second board meeting in October. Here, we'll pass these down. And then I would need I'll pass those down there. I would need support for that. Can I can I Can I Can I Yeah? No. So I just need okay. So, so I made the motion and trustee Gupta, supported it. And then Trustee Blake, you had a comment or question. Well, I was thinking about doing a motion to amend this to add two options for
the $4,000,000 or the $2,000,000 since Trustee LeCoultre has made that request, that we should be able to see what both of them look like. So it would be present options So you want to make a motion to amend it to To say present options for a budget with no more than a $4,000,000 deficit and eight And a $2,000,000? And a budget with no more than a $2,000,000 deficit. Alright. And is there support for that? Trustee Gupta supported that as well. Okay. Please, if we could stop with the outburst, it would be greatly appreciated.
If we have a shield officer, maybe they can help there. Alright. Is there any discussion on this? Madam president? Yes, mister Martino. I think it might be easier for us to rather than try to project two things to come back with cuts in $2,000,000 and $4,000,000 rather than, trying to play the revenue game too. Right? Because that makes it a little bit more confusing because we've gotta wait for a pupil count. Maybe the governor has one time funding like 35 j or this,
literacy piece that'll come out. I think it'd be easier for us to get out of that game and say, if you want a $2,000,000 cut, here's what that would look like. If you want a $4,000,000 cut, here's what that would look like rather than a little bit of maybe a shell game to say, this is revenue is up $6,000,000 but we need to cut, X amount of dollars. Okay. Was that trustee Luzon? Could just split the baby and do three. I I I think it will be made up of a whole bunch of options. So, I'm just trying to figure out the what the potential wording would be to,
amend this with. Is there a motion to motion to press the superintendent to represent options for 2,000,000 Madam president? Just one second. Is that Trustee Lozano again? Or Trustee Elsbach? No. Yeah. My suggestion is for clarification, you know, if we're going to the worried award it is, present budget options for up to a $4,000,000 cut in spending. So that way, you know, it covers the two, it covers the three. Madam president. Trustee, Liqui? Well, I'm I'm trying to process everything that's going on here. It would have been great,
first of all. You're always you know, you're telling me you don't like surprises at the board table, and it would have been great if you would have I wish I had thought of it earlier, but I didn't just before the meeting? Okay. Literally right before the meeting. Alright. Fair enough. I can understand. Where I'm when I'm thinking about this, I'm just trying to think about our different purviews. And I feel like the board's purview is to set the spending limit, and it's really the administration's purview to decide how do we how do we do that? How do we go about that? And that's what they present to the board. So that's sort of where I was coming with this.
I wasn't thinking, like, we should be necessarily trying to scrutinize what cuts we need to be doing. That's really the administration's job to figure out how can they best run this school district. Their job is the operational part. Right? Our job is to set the strategy and the vision and to say, look, we need to make sure that we don't kick the can down the road and make this problem so much worse next year by running up our deficit too much. So we just set the spending limit, and they decide how they're going to work within that and which roles are most
important. But But Which is what was which is currently what is here, a four providing options for a 4,000,000 and 2,000,000 deficit, budget. So I guess we I mean, we could continue with that. Mister, McDaniel expressed the point that we won't have our pupil accounting, so it is difficult to know, students. On the other hand, I would think we can have a pretty good idea of how many students we have at that point. So, anyway, right now, we have Madam President,
when is count when is count day? Because it's October. First first Wednesday, I think, in October. Oh, first Wednesday in October. Okay. So then we'll have a pretty good idea. Right? Oh, no. We won't, but we will know shortly thereafter. Right. Alright. So what we have, we have, first, we have to vote on the amendment portion, which right now is adding the n 2,000,000 to it. So all of those in favor of adding the N2 million say aye. Aye. Opposed, say no. Okay. So that's a seven o.
Then we're back to the Oh, okay. I'm sorry. Six-zero-one. So then we're back to the, the original sort of motion that's amended, which is to request that superintendent Russo present options for a budget with no more than a $4,000,000 and $2,000,000 deficit assuming the state budget is finalized by 09/30/2025 with a presentation at the second board meeting in October. Madam President, just a question. What happens if the state budget is not finalized by then?
Well, we have a whole bunch of other issues at that point. But I'm just wondering what Well, I mean, as you talked about, there would be no transportation. Dollars without looking. Right. So we'll have all sorts of other things that we need to figure out at that point. Well, I'm wondering if we should just tie it to whenever it is finalized kind of a kind of a deal, kind of like what I was originally doing. Well, just it hopefully we will have something by September 30, and then this identifies when we would get that update. If you don't put that in there or what were you thinking?
Within a couple weeks of when the state budget is finalized, and then you just hopefully, it will be by September 30. Right. But but we have more of a pupil accounting in October, so, I don't think that But if it gets finalized, I'll just first you won't have people accounting. Right. Right. People accounting will be finalized by the time this would potentially. I don't know. Or maybe not. How about September 30 or within one to two weeks of whenever the state is not open? It seems like I just I have to say there's a lot of opinions and not a lot of consensus on a budget that has to be passed
by June 30. And I just want to say that you have the will and the the goodwill and positive intent of the people up here that will come with 2 and $4,000,000 increments of cuts no matter what money's coming in by a certain date. That's how we're gonna build consensus here in order for my team to function properly. So we're gonna go with two and four, increments of two and four, and you give me the date in which you'd like to see that because that's not that'll be independent of any money coming in or not. Well, that just means an adjustment to the the motion because the motion is about a,
no more than a 2 or 4,000,000 deficit is where it stands right now. So that requires another amendment. So, I move that we amend this to be to request that superintendent Russo present options for up to 2,000,000 and 4,000,000 in cuts to the budget by the second board meeting in October. So that's what you're saying regardless of the, it's in the it's I think it's maybe the eighteenth, twenty fourth. I'm not sure. Okay. Okay. So is there a, is there any support for that?
Support. Okay. Can we just vote on that without any additional discussion? Alright. So all of those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed, please say no. Are there any abstentions? I abstain. Okay. So that's a six zero one vote, And that was for the amendment, so we do have to vote one more time on the actual piece. So it's the same thing again. All of those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Those opposed, please say no and one abstention. Or were you a it's no. Not yet.
It it we have to vote on the amendment, and then you have to vote on the actual motion. Okay. Six zero one. Alright. So now there we need a motion to approve the initial budget resolutions, for the twenty five, twenty six year as presented. Moved by trustee Gupta. Is there support? Anyone supporting that motion? Trustee Blake. And can we just vote at this point? We've had a lot of discussion. All of those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed? Aye. Please say no.
No. Trustee Lacui? She said no. She said no. And trustee Lausanne? Okay. So it's a five two vote, and the, budget, resolutions pass. Alright. Moving on to 9.5. This is the approval of the 2425 final budget amendments. Mister McDaniel. Yeah. So this is, the budget amendment that was, presented at the June 9 board meeting. No major changes except the one that I shared in cabinet notes, the debt service budget. There was a tax abated. So we got that late and added an additional 5,000
to the budget for that. But other than that, no changes to the budgets that were presented in June. Alright. Is there a motion to approve the twenty four twenty five, final budget amendments as presented? Moved by trustee Annas, support from trustee Gupta. Any discussion on this before we vote? Madam president. Trustee Lacui? Well, before we vote on final approval, can someone explain how we went a whole year? And people were saying the budget basically looks fine. But then all of a sudden, something changed between the last amendment amended budget and the final that caused the $10,000,000
hit. And what was the cause for overspending? And was there some kind of a surprise or something? Just wondering how that happened. Mister McDaniel? Yeah. I'm not sure I completely understand the question, but let me pull up the budget. It's on slide three. Let's see. It's around Page three of the twenty four-twenty five, fiscal year budget amendment. Let's see. Yeah. She's talking about the 9.9 she's talking about the, I think, the 9,900,000.0 in total expenditures increase, which is offset by the $9,900,000 in revenue increase.
Yes. So some of these, are revenues that will have a corresponding expenditure. We talked about this at the last meeting, but I don't know how deep we dug into this. So you might remember the term SPIDA, software based information technology agreement. That's a wash. That's a 1,000,000 in and 1,000,000 out. So, federal revenue is another, grant. So that's money in and money out. So that went up $1,100,000 And expenditures, also increased $1,100,000 there's a big adjustment to state revenue. Some of that money is the Section 147 money that we talked about.
I think it's about $1,800,000 That was money in for us to give out to our employees for the 3% health care. So a lot of this is money in and money out. And I guess it should be noted too that, the change there's no change to the fund balance between our amended budget back in January or February, whenever that was, and this end of year one. Correct? Yeah. Very, very little change. It looks like a dollar. A dollar. Yeah. Okay. Well, the initial the initial one, like, it it went down. You're talking about this money in and money out.
But I'm talking about the fund balance. The I'm trying to I think The fund balance as after the first amendment in January, February was 43,705,943. And as of this one that we're doing right now, the fund balance is projected to be $43,705,942.01 less. Right. I was looking at the total expenditures where it went from 230,000,000 to 240,000,000.
Right. But it's offset by exactly the same amount in revenue. Yeah. The rev yeah. The revenue actually went down. It started at $2.36, and then in the amended budget, it went down to 226. And then it went back up again to 236. Yep. But you keep talking about a a a change since our last amendment. So So are you talking about that, or are you talking about a change from the initial budget? No. I'm I'm talking about the change from the amended budget that we approved. So we approved the amended budget, and it looked like But but the fund balance is exactly the same.
Revenue increased and expenses increased. I know. Ultimately, the fund the fund balance ended up going going down by four by 4.3. By $1 No. Oh. You start? It's the same. It's 4,300,000.0 after the amendment, and it's 4,300,000.0 after the final amendment. So, like, there's no change. It's the expenses. We spent $10,000,000 more. And we got $10,000,000 more in income. Improved. And we got $10,000,000 more in revenue. Right. Okay. Okay. Alright. And mister McDaniel walked you through many of those changes.
So did you have anything else, trustee Lecui? That we approved the $4,000,000 deficit, and there's a $6,600,000 for next year. Now I think I've got that. Okay. All of those in favor of approving the 20 four-twenty five final budget amendments as presented, please say aye. Aye. Opposed, please say no. No. That's a 5.2, and the budget amendment are approved. Next, we have the approval of the nonunion administrators and executive assistance compensation. Mr. Murphy? Yes. Thank you. I've got two recommendations.
I plan to handle them separately unless the board prefers I combine them. Hearing nothing, I will handle them separately. The first recommendation is the approval of the guiding documents for adoption and insertion into the following manuals, cabinet directors, executive assistants, and nonunion administrators. So this would be approving, the 14 pay grades for the positions, the placement of our positions onto those, pay grades, and then the 10 step salary schedule as listed. You're approving I'm asking you to approve the structure of the recommendation in this first
recommendation. Okay. And I know they were labeled appendix E and F, and that would go into the handbook? Or Yes. Into each handbook would go the salary schedule itself, along with corresponding pay grades that correspond to that particular manual, along with what was referenced before about how folks would progress with steps assuming a satisfactory or above annual evaluation and budget conditions that allowed us to do so. Okay. So then if I have this tell me if this motion is sufficient.
A motion to approve appendix E, the salary structures with steps, and appendix F, salary structures with position grade placement for I'm sorry. Is it the handbook? Is it manual? Yeah. The manual is for cabinet directors and then executive assistants. Correct. You have that correct. Do do we need to put for cabinet, directors, and executive assistant manuals? Sure. Or all nonunion administrators, whatever your preference. Let's go with that.
Okay. So is there a motion to approve Appendix E, salary structures with steps, and Appendix F, salary structures with position grade placement for nonunion administrator manuals. Moved by trustee Gupta is their support. Trustee Annas. Alright. Any discussion on this? I'm sorry. Trustee Alsbaugh? I had some questions on this. This is listed as Appendix E and F. And if you go out to the transparency, there is the transparency reporting where we have our manuals, there is a cabinet manual and there's a director manual that are dated July 2022,
and they have no appendix in them. So I'm wondering where I where we can see the is that manual current? Where could we see the current manual? These appendix naming is from Romberg as a part of the appendix of their complete report. These aren't currently listed in the manuals because they haven't been approved yet. So it will be my job to figure out the correct placement, and then they'll go live online. So that so those April 22 are the actual current manuals?
The ones online right now, yes, are current. Okay. And in those manuals, does it say you had said pending a satisfactory evaluation. That clause is not in what we're approving here. What you had said is pending a satisfactory evaluation and, you know, the district's financial ability. What I've seen before in contracts is, you know, pending, an evaluation of effectiveness and maybe a fund balance that's not below 10%. So, I wanted to verify that you've said those conditions,
but are they listed in those manuals so that if somebody is unsatisfactory, they don't automatically get a step? No. They're not currently listed in the manuals because the manuals don't currently have steps. So these aren't negotiations, with these groups. So the administration, the board, the district has a purview to set those parameters, and those will be set as communicated tonight. I had a couple questions, like just a generic one. What concerns, if any, do you have about implementing a step schedule? Well, it's never a fun topic, right? Because I think when we get to the second recommendation,
when you put people to them to convert to this to begin with, there's always sort of winners and losers at the front end. I think this will make things clearer in hiring. Overall, I'm excited about having the structure there. I'm excited about having, when we post a position, the range already set and not having to say things like commensurate with experience and that sort of thing. Again, I think most of the concern relies on initial placement and how people inevitably compare themselves to one another. And that's just part of the gig.
I get that. I think it's easier to budget for over time as well. It's more predictable. And I think it's really in the implementation, right? How do we handle it if we want to remove a position, add a position, if a position substantially changes in responsibility and then we need to move grades? These are things that I will haven't done before, so I'll have to work through those with the leadership team and with the board as we go. But overall, I see this as a huge positive. I guess I am a little concerned, because this is,
this in future years, this would be a step and a percent increase. And I think that, historically, it seems like, you know, the percent increase is around that 3% type thing. And each step is 3%. And then you're gonna add another, I don't know, 2% or 3% on top of that. So I worry about, you know, how much that growth is over time. Yes. I think the board remains in control of what that percent increase is year over year. The 3% is below the step of a teacher salary schedule,
and that hasn't been frozen in quite some time. So what you're talking about here reflects those other contracts. Not it's not impossible, and it does happen on occasion. But pretty typically, those other contracts realize both steps and increased percentages, increases year over year. I will say that this does not include any additional payment for those at the top step like a teacher contract typically does. So if you do reach the top step or if you're initially placed there because
your position is deemed to have already been paying at that rate, that's where you're at. And if the board decides that there's no percentage increase that year, that person would stay flat year over year. So I do think there's still cost control. But you're right, 3% year over year is more than this group of people has averaged over the past eight or nine years. And I do realize there's some high earners in this group, but they're not all high earners. And this group as a whole has increased a significantly less percentage than our teaching
staff over the same amount of time when you go just by percentages. And then just one more question. What flexibility is there to change a salary if an employee is potentially receiving an offer, like, elsewhere, that type of thing? Is there any? I had not even considered that. I don't know. That would be an anomaly. That would, to me, be not a Dave Murphy directive or decision. That would be a greater superintendent school board conversation. Because in my mind, once established, this is the schedule people are on.
Alright. Anyone else have any questions? Trustee Lacoue? Well, up until this point, we had talked like, we'd asked about merit pay. And we'd always been told, like, we we are not actually considering merit pay right now. This was this would be to move to a step system. But now we're hearing that you can include merit pay within these steps, which, you know, I support having competitive pay and having merit pay. So how does how is that going to work within this system? To say more, are you referencing the just the evaluation hitting a level of above satisfactory or some
other version of increased merit pay based on individual evaluations? I'm not sure what you're asking. I'm just wondering what your idea is about that. Yes. My idea would be the manual, as stated before, that the manual would say anything less than a satisfactory evaluation would not you would not move up a step. You need to have that baseline level in order to get the step that next year. And again, in conjunction with that, I think we want to beef up our evaluation system itself and normalize it and raise the expectations that they become universal in all of these positions.
They're not mandated by law like teacher evaluations are. So I don't they're not done 100% with fidelity across all departments. So I think our goal in that strategic plan is not only to get the tool in line, but also the procedures and the expectations, especially because, in you know, individual salaries in the next year will be dependent on that. And I yeah. Like I said, I support having competitive pay. I'm not necessarily opposed to increases for some of these roles, but one of my concerns is that it's not even necessarily a matter of how
much we're paying people, but it's more a matter of how many people we're paying. And some of it does seem kind of top heavy, and so I'm just that's why I'm hesitant about this, especially with our budget constraints right now too. And I noticed in the presentation, they said that our salary was already at 96.7% of the market median, and he seemed happy with that. And now we want to move up to 99.1%. And I'm just concerned about, is now the right time to be doing some of these things? How much does this cost in total?
And has that already been factored into the $25.26? Right now, we're just voting on the step piece. The next part would be on the individual people. Alright. Hold that thought then. Trustee Annis, was that you who no? Okay. Alright. So, is there a motion to approve the structure as we had discussed? All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed, please say no. Okay. That's a seven o vote. And then next, I think, is there a motion to approve the next Wait.
I'm sorry. It's late, and I'm trying to figure out what we're voting. I think I'm gonna vote no on this because this would this would cause us to have to increase our costs right now, which I don't think is the right thing to do. Right? Alright. Yeah. Six one. Is there a motion to approve the nonunion administrator and executive assistant compensation as presented. Is there, from trustee Annas, is there support for that? Right. From trustee Gupta. Any discussion before we vote on this? Trustee Blake? Yeah, I just To answer the question that was raised last time,
the amount that this will increase is $181,000 is what I saw. Whereas last year when we did blanket 3% raises, I had that it cost $310,000 So this is actually a lower increase than what we did last year. And I wanted to ask, Mr. McDaniel if this was, this increase, was this included in the budget that we just approved? Yes. It's part of the pot of increases. Okay. Thank you. Trustee Annas? Yeah. I I just wanna point out, I was looking at our general fund budget,
the one that we just approved, and, administrative costs administration costs take up about 4.68% of the total general fund budget. So when we're talking about bloat, I just want people to keep that in perspective. It's 4.68% of a $233,000,000 budget. Alright. President, is this trustee Lacuhi? Well, just to respond to that a little bit, in some in some cases, it's about the principle of the matter. Like, I just learned recently that the Lance Cruz superintendent took a $30,000
pay cut or something because he moved into a district that was facing deficits and stuff too. So I'm just saying sometimes when the purse strings are tight, everybody makes sacrifices. Alright. So we have a motion to approve the nonunion administrator and executive assistant compensation as presented. All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Opposed, say no. No. That is a five two vote. And, those recommendations are approved. Next, we have the MGT or has a different name now, tentative agreement.
Mister Murphy? Yes. The let's see if I can get this. The Rochester chapter of the local union number two zero two point six with Michigan number nine two five, AFSCME, or as we call them, the blue group or the MGT, maintenance grounds and tech group. We have a tentative agreement that has been ratified by this group, for a three year contract, which would end 06/30/2028. High level summary, twenty twenty five, twenty twenty six would these, employees would realize a 2.5% increase to their base salary, 26%, 27% a 3% increase, 27%, 28% a 3% increase.
Their longevity would remain at the years of 5%, 10%, 15%, 2025%, but each pay rate would go up by $0.2 per those areas. Also, they're getting one additional vacation day beginning with their eighth year, and we are, reflecting FOIA language in other collectively bargained agreements into this contract as well, agreeing to collect union dues. They've agreed to hold the district harmless in that process. And I believe that's the overall summary of the ask for this recommendation to approve
this three year contract with this AFSCME group. Alright. Is there a motion to approve the MGT master agreement as presented? Moved by trustee Gupta, support from I think that was trustee Annas. Any discussion before we vote on this? Mister McDaniel, I would just ask again, was this, included in what was already budgeted? Yes. Thank you. Any other questions? Alright. All those in favor of approving the MGT master agreement as presented, please say aye. Aye. Opposed, please say no. That's a seven o vote,
and, the MGT master agreement is approved. Alright. Our next agenda item is the superintendent's contract. During our meeting on May 7, the board approved Julie Alspaugh and I, in consultation with legal counsel, to negotiate with the superintendent potential modifications to the employment contract. Over the past six to seven weeks, we've had several conversations and compared superintendent contracts from across the state. Based on these conversations and research, trustee Alsbaugh and I are proposing the following resolution for Whereas, the Board of Education recognizes the critical leadership role the superintendent plays in guiding the
educational vision, operations, and culture of our district. And whereas, we believe that our superintendent has demonstrated a strong commitment to our students, staff, and broader school community and has earned the trust and competence of the board, and whereas it is the board's belief that our superintendent should be compensated fairly and competitively and in alignment with comparable roles across the state, and whereas most superintendent contracts in Michigan and beyond are structured as three year agreements providing a standard level of security and mutual commitment and whereas extending the superintendent's contract
to a three year term reflects our desire to promote continuity, reinforce stability and district leadership, and send a clear message to staff, families, and community members that we expect and support the superintendent's continued service for years to come. And whereas, in a review of similar sized districts within Michigan, the proposed contract would still remain below the average for total compensation for all superintendents and the average total compensation for superintendents with less than twenty four months in the role as superintendent. Now, therefore, be it resolved, the Board of Education hereby approves the new contract for the superintendent,
reflecting our commitment to fair compensation, leadership stability, and continued progress for the district. Highlights of the contract include that it's a three year contract instead of a two year contract, that the superintendent's current salary is 235,000. 26, 252,500 in 2627, and 260,000 in 2728. There's an addition of a longevity payment that is paid during the last pay period of a contract year, assuming that, there is a rating of effective. And that is 10,000
in '25, '26, 15,000 in '26, '27, and 20,000 in 2728. There, in the current contract, there's a tax sheltered annuity of 10,000 and that increases to 20,000 each of the contract years. There was the removal of merit pay, which was 5,000 in the original contract. The required language changes, there were required language changes to the performance evaluation section, and there was the addition of a salary schedule. So at this point, is there a motion to approve the resolution as presented?
Moved by trustee Gupta. Is there support? Trustee Annas, is there any discussion on this? Madam president. Trustee Lacoue? I move to postpone this item indefinitely, given our budget constraints and that the superintendent has not been through a full evaluation cycle yet. I don't believe the timing is right. Is there support for that? Trustee LaVanne? Alright. All of those in favor of postponing, please say aye. Aye. Is there a discussion on postponing motions to postpone? That's a good question. I believe that's a good question. I thought you had already made your comments.
What? I thought you had already made your comments, so, but I'll check to see here if I can't help that we push this out to 11:11PM. Yes. It is debatable. So did you have another comment to make? Well, I have a feeling you're gonna vote this down anyways, but I want to I want to just remind you that we he's in a current contract that he agreed to less than a year ago. And, you know, we entered into the initial contract pretty thoughtfully,
or at least I thought we did, you know, given what happened with our last superintendent and the golden parachute contract. We negotiated on purpose a relatively short term that was still fair as a probationary period just to see how things go and a fair salary. And mister Russo accepted the terms. And because he didn't have superintendent experience yet, he got a major promotion and a $50,000 raise when he was hired. So I don't think that now is the right time for us to justify a $25,000
increase in total compensation, including the longevity bonus, at a time when we're potentially preparing for potential cuts elsewhere. We're I mean, most of this board approved a $6,600,000 deficit budget for next year. And apart from his asking for it and the rest of you thinking that this is a good idea, there's this is not a good enough reason. It's not a good enough justification. And not to mention I mean, I've heard other board members speak before at previous meetings about stability and the need for stability, and we better do this. We wanna pay fairly or whatever.
But we're in a contract. There's no reason to expect he wouldn't honor the contract. If he did choose to leave and go elsewhere, the superintendent search firm even offers us a guarantee for up to two years. If the superintendent chooses to leave of his own accord, then they'll help conduct another search for us for very, very limited, like, travel expenses or something, like, practically for free. I don't see a good reason why we would expect that he wouldn't honor his contract. He knows what we're up against. You know, we've got a budget in the red. We've got there's still more work to be done.
And so my question for everybody, why do you think now is a good time? And what key performance based metrics or improvements have we seen that justifies this apart from what I just told you? Alright. Does anyone else have any comments at this time? Trustee Lausanne? Well, Well, she kinda said part of what I was going to say. I just want to say, I would definitely I don't agree that the timing is correct. Okay. Anyone else? Trustee Annas?
I would just say, stability matters in this district. I know that you think it's overrated, but I have to commend the superintendent to be able to, work with this board, even the most cantankerous individuals of the board, who, quite frankly, I just think, I won't say what I think, but I appreciate his ability to negotiate the landscape of different personalities of this board, and I think he's worth rewarding for that. Trustee Blake? I have a response, but I'll wait for the motion itself.
This is the postpone motion, correct? Alright. So, all of those in favor of postponing, please say aye. Aye. Opposed, please say no. No. That's a two five vote. The motion to postpone does not pass. So Trustee Blake, did you have a comment? Yeah. On the motion itself, I think because there's been all this discussion that it's really important that we set forth the history here so that people know. When we posted for this job, we had a meeting. It was I remember it was a Saturday morning meeting and we talked a lot
about what we were gonna post as a range for this job. And we agreed to post it at 02:25 to two seventy five. That is Actually, I was the one who proposed that number. And we were advised by our search firm that that number was too low and that we would have a problem recruiting for this position. And we knew that. And I think we knew that for what I was looking for was a person, quite frankly, with superintendent experience and if we found that person, we were probably gonna have to go higher than that. We ended up hiring Mr. Russo,
in April 24. He started 07/01/2024. And his first contract, was only a two year contract, which is unusual. It's the standard is three years, but we kept him, I'll say no offence, but on a very short leash. We wanted to kind of try him out and see what happened. His salary was $235,000 and his contract specifically contemplated that we could give him a raise in the course of the contract. There was a specific provision in there. He also got the five ks merit. So we lowballed, quite frankly,
in that first contract. Mr. Russo has completed one year. He has been rated as effective. I'm not gonna comment further on his performance because we're not supposed to do that, but he has been rated as effective. And he now has communicated that he that based on the market he he's or has come to our attention that based on the market he's undervalued. I wouldn't say come to our attention because we already knew that. But we did our research to check this out and see if this was accurate. And we asked him for his research and he did the work and we did
the work. And he was able to substantiate that for salary he was $24,000 under the market average for his position. And that he was 23,000 and so we said, Well what about the fact that he's only a first year superintendent? And so we searched and found information on that and for first year superintendents he was $23,000 under market, so not much different. He was also able to substantiate that for the annuity payment for his retirement that he was $14,000 under the market. And for first year,
dollars 15,000, which I'll add that a little more for first year. He was also so he was also able to substantiate, which we required him to substantiate this, that for his entire compensation package he was $51,000 under the market for his position. And for a first year superintendent, if you just limited it to first year, which he's now gonna be a second year, he was 43,000 under market and that doesn't include what people are going to be paid for this next year. This is what they were paid for last year so he's going to be more
under market if he doesn't get a raise at this point. Now think about that. $51,000 under market. And he proved it! So what we're offering him today still does not make up for that difference. We are offering him salary increases over three years of 4.25% in the first year, 3% in the second year, 3% in the third year. This is for salary. Or, for dollar amounts, dollars 10,000, dollars 7,500, dollars 7,500. That doesn't come close.
We've also instituted longevity pay, which we found out is something that most districts do. And so these are additional payments that he would receive of $10,000 the first year and it goes up after that point. He doesn't get that until the final pay period of the year. So if he works the whole year and he leaves or he is, you know, something happens, he doesn't get that. So we're holding that back until the end. We've removed the $5,000 merit pay that was in his initial, contract. So we clawed that back.
And we've increased his annuity to $20,000 per year, which is still $5,000 under market average. So, frankly, with this increase, provision in there and I definitely, you know, I don't want him to take this the wrong way, but we actually got a provision in there that if we have if we're not happy first of all, if we're not happy with him, all of this is dependent upon him getting effective rating. And we have the opportunity to place him in a different position if we choose. So if we're not happy with him, we can place him in another position and to my reading he doesn't get the longevity. So we still maintain quite a bit of control in this contract.
And frankly, we might be putting the district at risk by keeping our sole employee below the market value for his compensation. But we're trying to be fiscally responsible. We have the $6,000,000 budget deficit so we're being conservative with this. And I will say that when we appointed, Doctor. Alspa and President Butel to negotiate this, I gave them my bottle, my numbers and I still have the text message and they came in exactly at that number. So Mr. Russo knows who he can be mad at for the numbers. But,
I hope that he accepts these modifications in the positive spirit that they are intended, that we are intended, that we are trying to work with you and we want to have a future with you. But I just don't know how you vote against this. How do you justify paying our one employee who has been rated effective at his job at up to $50 below the market. And again, he proved it and we confirmed it. So you can't expect one person to bear the brunt of our budget difficulties. And you can't expect one person to bear it all.
So I also wanna point one other thing. We're a big district, so we have a lot of buildings and so that requires a lot more demands on the part of our superintendent. You know, we have three graduations he has to attend. If he was superintendent like Goran, he would only have one. Or Clarkson, he would only have one. We have events at 13 different elementaries. The job here just takes more time. We are, I believe, the sixth largest school. So I think if we had to replace him, it would be very so you talk about that we have a a or a guarantee. Yeah,
we could do that, but if we had to replace him, I think it would be very difficult to fill this role for $235,000 a year. So, I just think it's important that we put all that on the record so people understand where we're coming from and why we're doing this. And, by the way, at the end of year three in 2028, Mr. Russo will finally reach the average for 2024 for his peers. So, for those reasons, I will support this resolution and the proposed new contract. Thank you. Madam President? Trustee Lacoue?
Well, I guess one question I would pose to you is, I mean, you're saying that that he proved it and he's well below market rate. Are are you saying that the board and our lawyers did a really poor job negotiating this, you know, less than a year ago and that he made a mistake in accepting our offer. I'm saying that our lawyers did a damn good job because they got him for cheap. Not anymore. I mean, while I agree that the industry standard is likely around three to five years and there are plenty of other people who might make more money,
you're also likely comparing mister Russo to other superintendents who might have grown into their contracts. And you're saying he proved it. He brought numbers. But I I remember being with some of you guys, and some of you didn't even realize that only about half of the districts have these annuities attached to them too, which is in addition to the pension payments. And, I mean, I'm I'm wondering how well some of these numbers were checked. I mean, we're we're basically just I I had suggested that if you're going to negotiate, we really should be I'm not sure we had the right negotiators at the table.
And that's something else to that's that's just a different day. But, look, when you You agree to a contract. You honor your commitment. That's what makes sense. It's been less than a year. You said he's rated effective. And you're right. Four months into the contract, he was rated effective at an evaluation. But four months into the contract, we didn't have, you know, hardly anything to even evaluate on in the first place. He got a $50,000 raise upon coming to this district. He's you know, he hasn't been through a full evaluation cycle yet.
So far, all we have is a budget in the red and declining academic scores. I've asked this question over and over. What key performance metrics have improved? And nobody can answer that question. Instead, we're just focusing on, well, I don't think that we're paying market rate. Look, we're already in a contract. This isn't the time to negotiate. We already negotiated. So I've made where I stand on this pretty clear. I think that the board has lost sight of who they're supposed to be working for. You're not supposed to you're not working for the administration.
You're supposed to work for the community and the taxpayers. It's their dollars that you're using. It's our students that we're supposed to be trying to serve. And when we're talking about making sacrifices in some of these other areas, you know, we've got people who are here earlier in the meeting who are upset because we eliminated the behavior interventionist, for instance, people who work directly with the students. And so far, it looks like I'm I'm disappointed a bit too because, you know, that was phrased as an expansion, but it it looks like really we ended up producing a lot of roles there.
And that's what people are nervous about. And when other people are having to make sacrifices, it just it sends the wrong message to be saying, well, we're gonna we're gonna give raises to the people at the top. And that's what this feels like right now because that's what this is. So if it's late That's all I have to say. Trustee Ospa? I think it's very interesting that, you know, we talk about fair market value for our nonunion. And then we see this passion about treating,
another employee differently, I think that is not appropriate. If we want to talk about treating our talent with fair market value, If that applies to the nonunion people, it should apply to all the nonunion people. And I think it's disparaging to apply a different standard to one individual versus the last conversation we just had where we did say that we think we should be treating, we should be paying market value. I think that's very I think we shouldn't be treating one person differently than we did the rest of the nonunion people.
I'll just say besides what was in the resolution, that I think it's very shortsighted if we decide not to compensate our superintendent, fairly. And that there's a shortage of superintendents out there. And, I mean, quite honestly, he could probably go and apply someplace else. And, I want, stability in this district, and I want you know, I don't wanna continue having a changeover of who is at the helm from a superintendent standpoint for our operations.
And I think it's important that we, at least make these changes and move forward. I think last year when we initially negotiated this contract that we had a lot of board members who were, you know, very concerned, after having a superintendent who had such a long contract and a larger contract. And so I think we were very conservative on what we were willing to support. So I think this, this is something that's needed. Madam president. Trustee Anas. I call the question. Okay.
Well, now there is a motion to call the question. Is there support for that from trustee Gupta? All those in favor of calling the question, say aye. Aye. Opposed, say no. No. That's a five two vote. Alright. Now, so the motion is to approve the resolution as presented. All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Opposed, say no. No. That's a five two vote, and the resolution is approved. And the new superintendent contract begins on 07/01/2025.
Now so the next agenda was supposed to be the strategic plan, but I think from our prior discussion, we're going to hold off on that. So that brings us to, additional comments. Are we do we want to pass on additional comments from the board? Or I have something to say. Alright. Well, then, I guess we I will read this then. Members of the board of education, this is additional comments by members of the board of education. Individual board members may use this time to share information about school visits, updates from committees or organizations they're assigned to, or express their personal opinion.
Each trustee has three minutes, and there's a timer on the smart board for your reference. If you run over that time, I'm happy to ask the board if they're willing to extend the time. With that, Trustee Lausanne? Sure. Tonight was a very important meeting and honestly, I'm not surprised about the way it turned out. Just like we expected, the majority of the board passed a budget that spends more money than we actually have for a second year now. This is not careful planning. This is careless. On top of that, we voted to give more money to our superintendent and central office staff without really
knowing if those raises are well deserved. Earlier tonight in the closed session right before this meeting, we finally received some updates on other contracts that are in negotiation. While I'm glad we did get the information, it came very last minute in the budget process. What's even more frustrating is how often good ideas get ignored just because of who's bringing them forward. When Carol Beth suggests something thoughtful and helpful for the district, why is it dismissed so quickly? This is not teamwork. This is politics. We're supposed to be working together for the students, family, and the staff. We were elected to make smart choices and take care of this district.
It's not what's happened. If we keep spending more than we have and adding to central office while cutting programs and support in classrooms, we're heading in the wrong direction. It's the students who will end up suffering. I hope more people in our community are, are starting to pay attention. If we want to keep this district strong, something has to change. I have serious concerns about how we are prioritizing spending and what this message is sending to our staff and community. Thank you. Trustee Lecui? Well, when people don't pay attention to who they're voting for, they often get exactly what they voted for,
good and hard. Community, I hope you're paying attention because if we wanna keep RCS strong for our students and for the staff who work closest with them, this board needs help and to be held accountable. Let's be clear. The board owns the budget. No one else. As trustees, we have three main responsibilities: setting policy, overseeing the superintendent, and approving the budget, which is one of the biggest ones. We don't control revenue state. But we do control spending. If we approve a budget that spends more than we have, that's reckless. Last year,
we approved a budget that allowed the district to spend right up to the limit, and they did, And then they overspent. And mister McDaniel warned us if we do this again, we'll get a letter of warning from the state. So for the 2526 school year, we are approving a budget that overspends to a greater extent. And, you know, there was there was no admonishment for what's going on, and that's unacceptable. This board is supposed to set spending limits, and it's the administration's job to manage within them. That's the operational part. If we keep approving bloated budgets and allow overspending, we're not doing our job.
Remember, our budget actually increased from 2018 from $174,000,000 to over $230,000,000 The elephant in the room is headcount. Since 2018, we've added hundreds of employees, many of them non instructional, to our payroll, even as student enrollment dropped by nearly a thousand students. So we know we're spending a lot of this money on extra personnel. When I've asked whether some of these newer, non instructional roles are essential, I often hear explanations like, Other districts have them. We should, too. And that's not good enough.
Other districts also have serious financial problems, and I wouldn't wanna take on those either. But meanwhile, our board disapproved giving our superintendent a raise less than a year into the job, supposedly for the same sort of a reason. They they believe that what they negotiated before wasn't fair. Without ever ask answering the question, what key performance metrics have improved? We have a budget in the red and declining academic scores right now. I'm hoping that can turn around, but this is not the right time. There are budget constraints. The point is we can't keep kicking the can down the road.
We need a real plan to reduce expenses or next year's situation will be even worse, and our students, staff, and taxpayers will be the ones paying the price. Trustee Annis? Thank you. I'd just like to say that, yes, while we are responsible for fiscal oversight decisions, and that should be made in partnership with the feedback, input, and counsel of our superintendent and his administrative team. They are the operational arm of what we do. And these aren't just black and white decisions either. There's a lot of nuance in the impact that our financial decisions made at this
board table will have. I'll also add that we aren't a local arm of DOJ designed to make performative cuts that will have real impactful and negative consequences on the work this public institution is charged with doing. But let's look at the unprecedented position the state puts public school districts in on an annual basis. Budget delays from the state comes with real costs to local governments, school districts like ours, and public agencies who depend on knowing what funding we'll receive,
and when. Without a timely budget, we are challenged to plan, hire or deliver services effectively. Budget delays also introduce political uncertainty that can spook employees and employers. Governance requires prudence, but also timeliness. The continued future focus or excuse me the continued future success of this public school district depends on smart, forward looking investments, not reflexive belt tightening that ignores context. This includes delays in our budget process or not minding our human capital that leads
this district under the guise of fiscal prudence risk, undermining the very stability and progress our students, educators, staff, and community deserve. Thank you. Trustee Blake? So we covered a lot of ground tonight. On a positive note, I think, we have some exciting projects in the strategic plan coming up for next year. I felt like there's some weighty stuff in there that's a little meatier maybe than the first year, so I'm looking forward for some of that. We do have some financial pressures, clearly. And the way to deal with them is to be thoughtful and to be comprehensive
and to be collaborative. It's easy to use, you know, words like transparent or we're not being transparent, but what does that mean? What do you want to see that you're not seeing? And it's easy to say that we need to cut our budget. We need to cut it by 4,000,000, 6,000,000, 8,000,000. But the hard part is saying, Well, what do you wanna cut? Because our budget is mostly salaries. You heard only 4.6 is this bloated central office. You could cut the complete central office out. It wouldn't substantially change the budget.
So when you say you wanna cut headcount when somebody says that, who do you wanna cut? Like, who's not important in the district? We we recently got rid of nine behaviour interventionist positions and the blowback has been intense. People are upset. And it will be that way for almost every position in the district because honestly, everybody that we employ does something of value. It's just not true that we have a room with a 100 people sitting in there playing cards every day. Everybody that we employ does something that affects people.
And so anybody that And so these are weighty decisions that we make and anybody that tells you that these are easy decisions, they're not giving proper consideration of what they're doing. They're not looking at the nuance of of the situation. It wasn't easy to close the daycare at Caring Steps. I think it was the right decision, but families were impacted by that. It wasn't easy for the district to remove these behavior interventionist positions. Families were impacted like that by that. And so, I admit, it bothers me to see people on their social media or at the board table
or wherever acting as if it's just so obvious what we need to do and for some reason all of these people just refuse to do the right thing. The truth is that every single person on this board or in this cabinet wants our schools to be the best that they can be. It's a complicated job running the sixth largest school district in Michigan with a $225,000,000 budget, 15,000 kids, over 1,000 employees. More productive and collaborative conversation and less finger pointing would help. Vilifying the people that are doing the work is counterproductive.
So we need to work together to captain this ship, not pursue our own axes to grind. So everybody who there's really nobody left, but everybody who's watching, have a great summer and keep cool out there. Trustee Ospa. So I want to ground us back to our students. In order to serve the students and the students of this community, we need to have talented leadership. And we are a large district. There's a lot of nuances to guiding a district like this, both at the superintendent level and at the cabinet level. And I'll be honest with you,
we're a difficult group. We're a difficult group to report to at sometimes. So I think we need to respect the professionals that we have that allow us to serve the students and provide the students with a great experience. With the 'twenty five, 'twenty six budgets, it's a more nuanced situation than people are going to simplify it to that we passed a budget with a deficit. We are being responsible and this will be addressed, but it can't be addressed until we have numbers from the state, like Trustee Anna said,
and until we have enrollment. Now, you know, like Mr. McDaniel said, we won't have count by that time. I've done count many times, but we'll at least have a better idea. We did have an SBOC meeting since the last board meeting. And I want to thank Mr. McDaniel, and you'll have to forgive me, I don't know her last name, Beth, who spent an hour to an hour and a half with us answering all of our questions. There was a lot of information. The board members that were there, not only did Mr. McDaniel and his team schedule around our requests that we could all be there in
person, they spent the time to answer all of our questions. And their team was, responsive when we had asked for the fund priorities in each budget. So what are the budget priorities in each of the funds, the additional detail we were looking for? And they were responsive. And you can see when we did that budget presentation, we even had other members of cabinet chiming in because Mr. McDaniel is the numbers guy. He's not necessarily the ideas and the curriculum guy. So I appreciate that cooperation from Cabinet, and I think it's important that we treat our professionals,
with respect and we compensate them at market value. Thank you. Trustee Gupta? Well, it's always fun, to be demonized, misrepresented, disrespected for years from some at this table and then be simultaneously lectured about how we should be more willing to work with those doing that demonization in the spirit of teamwork. There's nothing political about believing who people are when they show you multiple times. It's basic common sense, and if someone wants to work collaboratively, in good faith, they will bring that energy to the table.
Not secretly recording conversations, or making baseless accusations, or looking for gotcha moments at every turn rooted in creative presumptions and imagination, that's not a way to build a teamwork type of dynamic. And no one in their right mind would willingly continue to subject themselves to that level of engagement. So to the point if somebody would like to make a change in how they want to approach engagement, I'm open to that. But until there could be trust built in that respect, no thanks.
I want to take a moment to recognize the incredible amount of work that went into this meeting and, more broadly, this past year. Our agenda was long and each item represents hours of preparation, planning, and effort by our RCS staff. This year has been filled with significant change and at times real uncertainty, whether due to shifting executive orders or the unknowns surrounding next year's budget. Despite those challenges, our superintendent, cabinet, and staff have remained focused on our shared vision and continue to move our district forward. For that,
I want to extend my sincere thanks. As a board, our role includes asking questions, not to challenge the dedication or professionalism of our staff, but to help ensure that we and our community fully understand the decisions being made and how they will impact our students, families, and staff. While we may approach things differently, I truly believe that every member of this board and every employee in RCS is working with the same goal in mind, doing what is best for the students we serve and the district we all care about. Thank you again to everyone who has contributed to this year's progress.
And to our students, families, and staff, I wish you all a safe, restful, and fun summer. You've all earned it. And now we will move on to members of the administration, and these are, comments. They are, not discussion items. Or you can pass on them, mister Russo. Thank you, madam president. Miss Grange? Thank you. I'd like to remind the board and the community that, the new, addition, the the spring summer edition of the community update will be coming out this week. It's, an insert in the Rochester Post. Please look forward to it.
Thank you. Mister Murphy. Yes. Thank you. Just wanna express a little gratitude this evening. First, to welcome, reflecting, president Butel's welcome earlier, our new administrators, Mr. Boukama at Rochester High, Ms. McGuire at Van Heusen, Ms. Reinke at heart, and Mr. Negotiain, our new athletic director at Stony Creek High School, and Ms. Adrienne Walker as our new auditorium manager as well. I want to thank, the bargaining team, especially Jennifer Arsenal, who's the sort of the quarterback for these two support staff,
negotiations, the one that you voted on this evening. And we have a tentative agreement with our para group as well, which she, was instrumental in. I want to thank Joe Duda. He spent two years with us, and he's leaving us for a tremendous opportunity. And I've tremendously valued his, partnership, his calm, his wisdom. He's done an excellent job. And although his time in the district ended up being fairly short, he had a tremendous impact, and I want to thank him for that. Also, thank Steve Carpenter, president of the MGT Group, who we were bargaining with,
and June Nickelberry, who is the representative from AFSCME, and Jeff Romberg, who was a pleasure to work with and brought a lot of expertise and guidance my way through this process. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Murphy. Mr. Medina? Of course. Thank you, Mr. Russo. So, reflecting on a couple of recent comments from our board members, I would like to express my gratitude to Beth Pereira. She's in the details with the budget and, you know, has made improvements in her just over two years, here with Rochester. So I think we're positioned well moving forward to be more accurate and more timely with
budget amendments and having the right and accurate information. And we can in reflecting on president Butel's message of gratitude, just for this school year, I'd like to acknowledge, our executive assistants, mine, Meg Remy, Lori Schneck, Audrey Smith, and Christina Whitmore. She made comments about the Board meetings. I was thinking about all the work that they do, on my behalf or our behalf to make changes and adjustments to the Board packets so that when we sit here on Monday nights for six hours, we are all set and ready to go. Thank you. Ms. Cautier?
Doc? Okay. I'll just say a few things, just to make sure that I'm holding us over longer. I do want to say thank you to our to our board for the support in terms of providing stability for the district. I'm excited to I'm still excited to be here. It's been a year, and and I love this community, and I love this school district. And there's no question that we're surrounded by great teammates. So, I wanna thank everyone in terms of just your support of that, meaning the board, I'd like to thank. Miss Whitmore and miss Smith, I wanna thank you for the year long of setting this up and for doing
things that we didn't even know were happening, and getting us prepared. And lastly, to our team, I'm going to say two things to the team here. Well, three things. Number one, mister Cuzemano, he took a sick day today. It's actually worth two sick days today because it's a little it's 12:00. Put that on put that on the make sure. And then, I I do wanna all all kidding aside, it's been a great year, and I wanna thank, doctor DeLuca for graduation ceremonies, having the chance to do that. They are something spectacular. Every time he tells me that I'm gonna be blown away, he's right. He did a wonderful job in setting that up.
And and lastly, I wanna thank the parents and students for a great school year, and have a great summer. Thank you. Thank you. Just two announcements. On July 24, the Board of education will have a special meeting. This will include the superintendent midyear evaluation and a board retreat. The location is yet to be determined. And then on August 18 is our next regular board of education meeting. It's at 6PM, and watch for a location closer to the date. If there is no objection, we will adjourn at 11:40PM. Seeing none,
we are adjourned. Thank you for attending, and have a good night.