Good evening, everybody. Welcome to the Tuesday, February 24 Board of Education meeting. We usually start our meeting with our 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. All right. Our next item on our agenda is the recognitions. Yes. Thank you, miss Anik. We are very fortunate to have two items of recognition this evening and it's really nice to see so many folks in the audience tonight.
So, we're gonna start with our all state athletes from the fall of, 2025, mister Jansen. Doctor Richevski here looking forward. Thank you for having us here this evening. We have two weeks left of winter sports, and then literally spring sports start the next Monday. So, we're open for our weather together, but tonight is, meant to be able to recognize our Allstate athletes from this fall. We have about 15 of them. So Allstate athletes, as I call your name off, please come up here. Our board members will pass out their certificates, and for recognition, take a picture. That's why we'll read them off.
Our next recognition tonight goes to Roha Nagaram who is a junior in Athens, also All State voice tennis playing her coach. Our next student athlete, who I do do not believe is here tonight is Daniel Cadoux, who is a senior at Athens High School, for boys soccer, who played for coach Kevin McCombs. Next, we have Camila Inadevski, who is a senior at Athens, who made Allstate the girls swim and dive, for coach. Our next athlete is Nate Linden, senior at Athens All State Boys Cross Country for coach McCann. Next athlete is Neil Nadapala,
senior, Troy High School, All State boys tennis for coach Miska. And our next student athlete is Biroj Yaletti, sophomore, Troy High School, also All State Boys Tennis for coach Miska. Next All State athlete is Derek Kim, senior, Troy High, boys tennis, Coach Crystal. We have a lot for boys tennis and their dad is a reminder. They were All State there or, they they All state this year. Congratulations. Jesse Powell, junior, Troy High School, all state boys tennis for coach Misker. Next, all state athlete, Sarish Dururi, sophomore, Troy High School, boys tennis for college basketball.
Jackson Crops, sophomore, Troy High School voice test. Nate Wallstreet, senior, Troy High School voice test. Switching to a different sport. Nick Kalaguga, senior, Troy High boys soccer under coach Vance. And last but not least, Austin Hsu, senior, Troy High School boys soccer for coach Banks. Do not attend tonight to make sure I didn't miss any of them. Make sure we get that in here. So I love this. Congratulations to each of you for representing your high schools very well, representing our district. If Yeah. Make sure they're right side up. All stayed on three. One,
two, three. One more time. Congratulations to the group. Congratulations again to our Allstate athletes. Thank you, Mr. Janssen. Our second item of recognition is our TSD mission moment. We have some students here from Schroeder Elementary and we're gonna, celebrate, several of them, for putting together a persuasive essay, that has been shared with the board. Missus Griefer. Good evening. Tonight's mission moment celebrates something powerful happening at Schroeder Elementary School, student voice in action. Through our units of study writing curriculum, students are studying their school community and identifying areas of improvement,
researching solutions, and crafting persuasive pieces designed for an authentic audience. So tonight, that's you. Under the leadership of miss Keegan, our principal, and alongside our dedicated staff at Schroeder, they believe deeply in the voice and agency of students who are simp and ask a simple and powerful question. How can we make our school better? They considered school supplies and homework assignments and other improvement ideas. And then, because they're brave and practical thinkers, they're here tonight to talk about Schroeder restrooms. All of you.
So student restrooms at Schroeder are a hot topic, and you'll hear that tonight. And after the presentation, they're going to invite you to ponder, their proposal and even participate in a mock vote. We say mock for the the audience. Because when students write for a real audience, the word rises to a new level. It's my pleasure this evening to introduce principal miss Keegan, who will introduce the authors and advocates. Thank you. Thank you, doctor Nachesky and members of the board. We are so excited to be here tonight. As missus Griefer said, we are excited to share our love of learning and writing with you all tonight.
A special shout out to our amazing third grade teaching team, missus Allen, missus Fraga, and missus Brzozowski for supporting their students tonight. But, Our goal as educators is to show our students that writing is more than an assignment. It is a powerful tool that they can use every day for the rest of their life. They can express big ideas. They can be advocates for change, and they can also contribute to their community in meaningful ways. Their voices matter. We have, maybe when we were growing up, the idea of publishing was, let's make this really tight and pretty. And we are really trying to shift the idea of publishing to be,
opportunities to share our thoughts beyond our classroom and with the world. That's something really important to us. So this was our unit called changing the world in third grade. This is an argumentative unit, brand new this year. And the unit started with our students convincing me that they needed new writing supplies for their classroom. So I came into each classroom. They were very successful in persuading me for the many sticky notes and flare pens that they needed. And then this was then expanded to thinking about what else we need in our school. So other persuasive essays included,
we need better lunch food choices. We need longer recess, more playground equipment, lockers for everyone, instrumental music should start earlier. These were some of the powerful ideas. But, of course, a very hot topic was improving the Schroder bathrooms. So that is what they are going to share with you tonight. So I am going to invite six of our dragons up. This represents just a snapshot of some of the work that was done by all of our third graders in this unit, and this was a shared essay that was created. Alright, dragons. Do they have a mic? They are wonderful. Okay. You ready? Sure. Sure. Yep.
Are you ready? Picture this. It's your first day of school. Imagine you're in class, and there's a rumble in your stomach. You need to go to the bathroom. You ask the teacher. She probably says yes. So you walk to the bathroom. You notice the toilets are dirt beat up and dirty. So you do your business, walk out, and wash your hands. You tap on the sink. It won't stay on, you scream in your head. You get a paper towel. Why is the trash can so far away? You think to yourself. You walk out and go back to class feeling frustrated. I strongly believe we need to redo the bathrooms at Schroeder Elementary.
One reason Schroeder students deserve a new bathroom is because every single bathroom has something broken inside. This isn't first, there are cracks and chips in the tile on the floor. This is a major tripping hazard. One time, Nicholas and our class tripped on a raised tile and almost fell on the disgusting floor. Would you want to fall on a bathroom floor? I know I wouldn't. Yuck. Also, there are many broken sinks. For example, when I tried to push the button on the sink to wash my hands, it doesn't work. However, in the boys bathroom, the sinks keep running.
You're not just wasting water, you're wasting money. Just think about all that water bill. In addition, some of the stalls' locks don't work. This is very frustrating. We all need privacy. And when a lock doesn't work, no one wants to use that bathroom, causing long wait times. The last thing is there are many holes in the walls. These holes could lead to mold, bugs, and disgusting bacteria. There are many things broken in every bathroom that needs to be fixed or replaced. Another reason that Schroeder needs new bathrooms is because they are dark and ditchy, which is not fit with the clean and positive vibe of our school.
If you walk into Shutter, you feel the positivity of her school right away. You see bright clean walls, new floors, colorful colorful student work, and inspirational bulletin boards. It makes you feel good and ready to learn. However, as soon as you enter the bathroom, that mood changes. The first thing that you notice when you walk into the bathrooms is that they are dark. The lighting is very low, the stinky brown tiles on the floor are cracked, and the wall color is mismatched, gloomy, pale yellow light you can tell is old and gross. The walls are totally blank. There's nothing to look at other than cracks and dirt.
Sometimes when students go to the bathroom, it also acts as a brain break from learning. The bathroom leave leaves us feeling yucky, feeling yucky and gross instead of inspired to go back to class and learn. According to the article that we read, the lasting impact clean school bathrooms, it says clean school bathrooms can constructively influence students and contribute a high level of well-being, thus fostering a positive learning environment. This positivity can help students perform the best of their ability. Wow. This proves my point that clean school bathrooms can help a student feel more positive
about their school and their learning. Our third reason we deserve new bathrooms is because the bathrooms are not big enough for having enough stalls. The second graders at Schroeder used two individual bathrooms, one for the girls and one for the boys. 68 kids must share those two bathrooms. That's crazy. For the third, fourth, and fifth graders, there are only four stalls in each each bathroom. That's 226 students using needing to use a total of eight stalls. We interviewed a fifth grader who said the work time of the day to use the bathroom is during fifth grade lunch.
This is a busy time when everyone needs to go at the same time. Kids are trying to hurry to the bathroom to get to lunch, petrol, or recess, causing big backup. Having such little bathroom stalls is not fair because it can cause long lines when there are lines in the bathroom. Kids are missing class and important instruction. No one wants students to miss important learning time. Right? I know you might be wondering, what should we do? It's a really simple fix. Let's get more lights, paint the walls in a brighter color, fix the cracked floors, install a bigger mirror that allows us to look at ourself and see what we
are capable of. Adding a few stop or two to each bathroom would especially be helpful. If you're air freshener, it might be a nice touch too. In addition, you could add some inspirational quotes that we can repeat to ourselves, like, you could do hard things, or you got this. Maybe even a painting of a beach or someplace relaxing will help student leave the bathroom feeling inspired. If you were to come to Schroeder, you would feel warm and welcome the minute you walk through the door. We have clean hallways, bright and inviting classrooms, and colorful bulletin boards.
A quick tip though, you may want to use the bathroom before you come. As you can see, shoulder third graders are passionate about new upgraded bathrooms. We hope we have convinced you to consider helping the kids in our building. Thank you for your time. Alright. Doctor. Machesky and members of the board, we would love your feedback on the possibility of some renovations in the shrubber bathrooms. You present a really good data based, argument for new bathrooms. It I'm trying to do the math. 68 kids, two individuals. That's a lot of people needing to do their business.
So very powerful argument. Thank you. I loved how descriptive I can picture Schroeder, the colorful, beautiful entrance. And then I picture the bathrooms, and it kinda makes me I wouldn't wanna go in the bathroom there either, so I will definitely go to bathroom before I go to Schroeder. And I love that point. They said you're wasting water. Holy. I'm quite excited. Love to save water and then. Love that. It was very descriptive. There's a lot of pressure on us, you guys, to improve these bathrooms. They want quotes, inspirational quotes, bright colors. It's not a whole lot to ask.
I don't know what kind of I love the inspirational quotes. I'm kind of thinking I should put some of those in my bathroom too. So, yes, I think we can get what we want. I think what I liked about what you did is you have a number of very different compelling reasons. So there's, like, at least three or four really valid reasons you use data. The fact that, you know, you went and you looked at the the impact of, you know, a kind of a dirty, gloomy environment on your your mental well-being and your,
you know, your inspiration, your ability to learn. And the thing I really love about this, because a lot of times, people wanna persuade you to do something, but then they don't give recommendations of how to fix it. A lot of people like to complain about this isn't right. This isn't, you know, doesn't work. But this gives some really concrete recommendations of of how to improve from your perspective your bathroom. So this is really well done. I'm convinced. Yeah. I was very impressed,
that you looked for scholarly articles to support your, your persuasive, essay here. I have to say, I I don't think I've ever heard an essay from from this age group that did that. So, that's a first for me. I also appreciate how you talked about, the the cost piece because as a board of education, budgeting is one of our responsibilities. So, in addition to wanting to make sure that we're treating the environment properly, when a toilet's constantly running, that's, you know, money that we could be spending for other things.
In this case, let's fix the toilet and let's spend the money on some of the other things that you wanted in there. So excellent job. And then my board member said a lot of the things I was going to say, but I think one of the biggest things is you can tell you worked really, really hard on this article. You used the right choice of words. You built your argument. It looks like you brainstormed a lot. So you can tell just by reading that that you put a lot of thought into it, and that makes your argument even better in a lot of times. So thank you for that. I don't know what else I can add. To be honest, though, I mean, I it doesn't look like third graders wrote this.
I don't know if I could write this good. Maybe AI would write it, but, you know, you guys did an amazing job. You know, the thing I like the most and you know how to persuade adults because when you said you could finish using the bathroom because there won't be long lines, you said you want to get back to instruction, not more recess. That's how you get the adults. You know how to get the adults. Right? That's that's amazing. And I also love the fact that you wanted what is that? Be beach paintings in the bathroom,
jewel bags? I love that too. Nice. Nicely done. Well, based upon the input from our students today in this persuasive essay, would I have the support of the boards of the of the education that we do the work on the bathrooms at Schroeder this summer? Yes. Yes. Alright. Congratulations. You are so persuasive. We're gonna go ahead and do that work this summer. So when you come those of you coming back to Schroeder in the fall will notice duly renovated restrooms. So congratulations. They can all turn to you. Amazing. For them. Thank you. Dragon, can you walk in pictures?
Parents, if you'd like to come and get, photos, please feel free. We've got some certificates for them as well. If we could have another round of applause for our students and our staff. Do you need them? Yeah. Let's break so they can leave. Alright. We're gonna take a couple of minutes, five minute break so that all of you guys who are here for recognition, if you wanna leave and go on with your everyday work, you're welcome to leave. But you can you're welcome to stay as well and watch us finish our work as well. So we'll take a five minute break. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. Next item on our agenda is additions and deletions.
Doctor Majeski? There are none this evening. Okay. And our next item is public communication on agenda items, and we have one. We have one on agenda items. Yes. Okay. Mister Fabrice Smirlasquez Smirlasquez. Go ahead. Thank you. Troy resident and and parent of the Troy School District student. I want to speak, on an item on the agenda, which is the school millage school enhancement millage proposal that you'll be voting on to put on the August ballot. And I encourage you to please vote yes to put this on the ballot to fund Oakland County School operating costs.
Please give me, as the voter, the opportunity to weigh in to decide if I want to increase resources for students in our school district. By voting yes, you're not saying that you condone necessarily, for the voters to vote yes. You're simply offering the voters an opportunity to vote yes to increase their millage by 1.5 mills to fund Oakland County Schools. And so this is just giving voters the opportunity to to make their voices heard. And if it was passed by the voters, as I understand, this could increase per pupil funding by $781 in Oakland County Schools.
That would be huge. And we really must take every opportunity we can to, increase district revenue because it's hard to come by especially, with tight state budgets, as we've seen in the past couple of years. I will also note that, at least as of Sunday, I believe every single Oakland County School District that has voted on this measure has voted to pass this and to put it on the ballot. So it would really have to be, a unique idiosyncratic Troy reason not to, vote to put this,
on the ballot. And I'm not sure that, there would be, a good reason for Troy to to vote against other districts, for the opportunity to increase revenue in the district. I'm not sure if that would distinguish us in a good way. I'll just add one. So that's this is the point I want to make. I'll add a second thing, which is, a little bit later, you're gonna be hearing from, Walt Cook who, he has allowed me to, spill the beans. We'll be running for school board, and I want to say that I support his, candidacy. Walt is dedicated to the district.
He comes to school board meetings. He offers to volunteer on school board committees. He's committed. He's guided by the same values that guide our district, which is, a desire for excellence with equity. And I think he has the experience through, working in, Detroit Public Schools, and the the insight really into district operations, into education policy research as to how to improve outcomes in our district, as well into teachers and and their job and their,
sort of opportunities. And with the struggles we have to recruit good teachers, this is something we need. The insights we need to sort of guide this district for, continued success and improvement in the future. Thank you. Thank you. Next on our agenda is the general consent agenda. We are asked to vote on the we are asked to consider passing the minutes of the 01/13/2026 board of special board of education meeting minutes and the minutes of the 01/13/2026 closed session meeting,
minutes of 01/13/2026 Board of Education workshop, minutes of the 01/20/2026 Board of Education organizational and regular meeting, and the treasurer's report of December 2025. May I have a resolution, please? Ms. Steinle. Be it therefore resolved that the Troy Board of Education takes action to approve items A through E of the consent agenda. Support. Any questions or comments on any of the items? And to ring no questions or comments, all those in support of the consideration,
please say yes. Yes. All those who oppose, say no. And the resolution passes. Alright. Next. Next, any personnel, doctor Machesky? There is none this evening. Alright. And the next on the agenda, any curriculum? None this evening. Alright. That brings us to the business items. We have next on our business items is the countywide millage. Mister Trudell. So I've asked mister Trudell to go through a presentation, similar to the presentation that the board saw at the workshop, to give our our audience, and and in particular those that might be, viewing the meeting afterwards,
additional information if they they so, are interested in in knowing a little bit more. So provide an opportunity for board members to ask any questions or clarify or, seek clarification. Alright. Here we go. So we'll go through this. It's, I would say, less than 10 slides. So, as I go through this briefly, obviously, if there's any questions, feel free to ask as we progress through this. So what is a regional enhancement millage? So, since 1994, as we, look at proposal a being the the modification to how the state of Michigan upon schools. Part of that proposal a was an ability for local districts,
in partnership with their ISD or their local intermediate school district, to levy what is called a regional enhancement millage. So, what this is is it's a way for local districts to generate additional money for operational purposes. So we have sinking funds, we have bond funds, that all generate capital project funding, but we don't have any way as a district, solely as a district to generate additional money, locally for operations. So what this, allows the county to do is partner with all 28 districts across the county in conjunction with the boards of education,
to essentially put this on the ballot, for the voters to ultimately decide. So that is a county wide vote, at that point. So to get to that point, the resolution that you'll consider tonight, every district has to have, their boards take action on this and then submit it to the ISD. And then at that point, if there are districts representing at least 51% of the total student population across the county, the ISD will then forward that ballot language to the county and then they would put it on the ballot. So, we'll talk here in a minute about the exact timeline, but it's a yes or no county wide.
This isn't if Troy residents vote yes, they get it. But if Rochester votes no, they don't get it. It's all county wide vote. So it has to have 50% plus one vote in order for it to pass. And then if approved, that money then will be all collected locally by the ISD and then redistributed on a per pupil basis across all of the, students across. So that would apply to public schools and public school academies, per student basis. And then at that point, every district has their own control in terms of how they wanna use those funds, much like we do when we get state aid,
unrestricted state aid, I should say. So this is just a brief highlight of different counties that have enhancement villages. So you can see Wayne County was one of the first, all the way back to 2016. They voted in, as a county, and that number originated around that 360 per student mark. It has since gone up to over $400 per student. They recently renewed that one in November 2024. So they are renewed now through 2033. And then likewise, Macomb County, they voted, right before the pandemic in November 2019.
So they started off around $400 per student and now that has gone up to a little over $600 a student. And then you can see the various other counties across the state of Michigan that do have, local hand enhancement millage as well. So about 44% of students in the state of Michigan, are in the school district that is receiving this funding as of today. If Oakland County does adopt this and the voters say yes, this would jump to over 50% at that point. So the proposal is, for the August. So that's our primary election. And then it will be,
the proposal is one and a half mills. That will be over a six year period. So as mentioned before, about $781 per pupil annually is the average. So it would start just below that and then with inflation, that number typically would go up a little each year. But the average is about $781 per pupil. For a a home in this district, averaging around a $400,000 value or taxable value of about half of that at 200,000, that would be about $300 per year tax increase, for those homeowners. And And then if it is successful,
this miller's would be collected because the vote is in August. They would be able to get those on the winter tax bill. So you would actually start seeing money in December 2026. So later this year, if it does pass. So timeline, as we mentioned tonight, you'll see the resolution up for consideration. So all school boards across the county are in the process of adopting those resolutions. At that point, if it goes to the ISD with enough support over that 51% threshold, then it would go to the Oakland County Clerk. And then at that point, it would be placed on the ballot, for the August. Here we did link a a case study,
that that was done by in partnership with Kent ISD and then a couple school districts on the West Side of the state just to talk about the challenges and planning for the future and the importance of this enhancement village. And then this just is a a nice visual. So you can see here, starting off just over $720 per pupil in year one and then escalating up to about $835 a pupil in year six. So average is $781 per pupil over that six year period. So how will this impact our district? So looking at, just from students to teachers to district wide.
So obviously maintaining class sizes as they are today, that's important for us. If you wanna save costs, you have to adjust your class sizes. So for us, being able to maintain the class sizes we have, today is very important to us, and then continue to focus on student safety and wellness. Those are dollars right now that we're getting from the state of Michigan. But as we know, the state funding is is a billion dollar short in the general fund as of January. So, what we're starting to hear from the local legislators is is not a positive outlook. So, we wanna make sure that we can continue to support those students.
We have a number of social workers and psychologists that are funded through, some of those additional monies that we're receiving as of today. And then stabilizing special ed funding. So as you guys all know, the, IDEA funding does not meet the need for what we have, to service our special needs students. So this potential, revenue stream would help us in stabilizing and being able to support those students, at the rate that they need. And then looking at our teachers, obviously, we try our best as a district to make sure that we're providing somewhat of an increase to keep up with the rate of inflation.
That's not always possible, with the the revenue that we get from the state of Michigan. So, this would enable us to make sure that we're compensating our staff fairly, making sure that they're being paid a competitive wage, which also leans into attracting and retaining those talented staff members as well. And then staffing supports that kind of ties in with our student safety and wellness. We wanna make sure that we have the money that we need in order to maintain those supports, which ultimately help our staff in the in the classrooms. And then providing professional development. That's one of the first areas to go when you have a funding,
shortage in any given school year is to just cut out a lot of the PD, which isn't beneficial to not only our teachers but also to our students. So we wanna make sure that we continue to provide those opportunities, for continued professional growth on their part. And then lastly, district wide, just looking at all the programming across the district, maintaining all the electives that we have today, maintaining all the different programming that we offer, before and after school. And then transportation, I think that's a big topic that we've talked about at this table. Being able to adjust start times to accommodate a potential later release or a later
start, I should say, at the high school level. That all ties into that conversation, in terms of transportation. And then lastly, just decreased out of pocket cost for families as we look at paid or participate in club fees, sporting events. If we do have this additional revenue stream, those are cost that we obviously wanna push back to our families, which indirectly would help offset some of the tax increase, for this proposal. And then as I mentioned, just looking at inflation for this chart we'd like to show, as we kinda make our trips around talking to PTA groups and staffs just looking at inflation. So you can see here the blue bars that represents our foundation allowance all the
way back to 2005, 2006 school year. And then the yellow line represents if the state would have just simply given us an inflationary increase. So you can see over the course of, almost a 2021 period there, we would be at just over $15,000 per pupil had they just simply given an inflationary increase. So for us, that's equivalent to about $51,000,000 annually that we don't get in our budget, because the state just simply has not kept up on the foundation side. And then lastly, just the resident of resolution in general. This is not an endorsement.
The resolution simply states that we want to give voters the opportunity and the voice to make that decision, on their own. So we believe as a district in empowering the community and and soliciting their input and their voice and, through this resolution, that's ultimately what it's doing. Thank you, Dan. Any questions from anyone there? Comments? You know, I also think it's important, for the community to understand because the neighboring, counties have the millage, we are starting to see some losing some of our staff because they are able to pay more competitive wages.
And for certainly as long as I've been on the board, we've really prided ourselves in being able to have competitive wages so that we can get the best instructional staff. And some of that is being eroded because we're not keeping up with our neighboring counties. Wonderful. I do have a couple of questions. If first one was, if you go back to the slide where it shows the other counties right, that one. Yeah. As you can see, all the other counties have done it for a while since 2016 and just curious. Do you know why Oakland County hasn't done it so far?
Any thoughts? Yeah. So Macomb County passed theirs November '19. Oakland County was also in conversations at that point in time. So they I believe the initial talk was and doctor McCheskey can correct me if I'm wrong, but the initial talk was potentially that November after, and then the pandemic happened. Okay. And it really changed the dynamic and the conversation and focus, I think, for a lot of school districts and county. And then you saw a surplus subsequently of federal funds coming in to help support districts through that time. So it just kinda got tabled for a number of years.
But as we've entered that fiscal cliff of federal funding ending and then now looking at the state and the lack of funding coming out of, Lansing right now, it just reignited this conversation. Wonderful. Thank you. So indirectly, Oakland County voters benefited from kind of the pandemic, I guess, not having the additional millage. The other question I have was how did Oakland County come up with the 1.5%? Any thoughts on that one? Yeah. So they they worked with an outside firm, who essentially solicited feedback from various voter groups all across the county.
And then from that, they kinda waive, you know, with you can, by law, under the proposal, you can only go up to three mills. So that's that's the maximum that you can go. I see. So they were looking at one, one and a half, two mills, kind of gauging input from voters. And then from there, they look at what are taxable values, what would the average tax bill be, and then ultimately, what would the dollar amount of revenue that would be generated. And I think through all of that, they kind of balanced it to say, okay, one and a half. I see. Seems like an appropriate amount, which is slightly less, you know, than you see some of the others here, but Oakland County has a very strong taxable base.
Right. So you can levy a little bit less in order to generate a similar amount. It's probably in the average of all those millages too. There's some that are 0.8 kind of. Wonderful. Thank you. Thank you, Dan. So we are asked to consider a resolution to request for regional enhancement. Oh, sorry. I'm so sorry. Just for the public's sake, when was the last time we had a millage ask? Or when was the last time we do we know? Any type of development? So November 2022, we did our hold harmless, renewal at that point.
But like this this type of millage, like, when was the last time we had An enhancement millage specifically? Yes. We have not ever had. So we have not had a millage enhancement. Yeah. Okay. Not at the time. Yep. And then because this is not an endorsement, it's not an endorsement or a no, we're not like no one's putting it in our hands to pass us or whatever. But we are not going to also spend any of our money like advertising this and saying this is what we're asking our voters. Do we know this? Like are we putting it on our website?
Are we putting out flyers? So as a so as a as a district, we'll we'll as we would with any, any millage, we we're limited to factual information only. So we will provide factual information to the community, utilize our resources to provide that factual information, but there would be no district, resources utilized for any Right. Any type of, advice. Advocacy. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I will add that, as a district, we can't do it. But us board members, as individuals, each one of you can choose to do whichever way. Mhmm.
That's yeah. Okay. And and, you know, parent groups can form Can form and do. Yes. Can be community supportive of those. Correct. Finished receiving your play. Okay. Okay. Alright. Okay. Go ahead. I guess we can go ahead. So again, we are asked to, vote on a we consider a resolution. Again, to clarify, this resolution only if it passes would send it to the voters to be put. If we get 51% of all Oakland County districts, students of Oakland County,
I think, pass only, then it will be on the ballot for the public to vote on on August 4. So alright. So, I will read out this, Section seven zero five of the revised school code authorizes an intermediate school district to levy a regional enhancement millage, if approved by the voters, to provide additional per pupil funding to constituent school districts for educational operating purposes. Similar voter approved regional enhancement millages are currently in place in our neighboring counties,
providing enhanced educational opportunities for students. The Board of Education believes it is in the best interest of the district to allow Oakland County voters the opportunity to consider a regional enhancement millage proposal of 1.5 mills for a period of six years from 2026 through 2031. We have a resolution, please. Ms. Potts? Now therefore be it resolved that the Board of Education hereby request that Oakland Schools place a regional enhancement millage proposal on the 08/04/2026 ballot,
contingent upon the required majority of constituent districts making the same request by 03/31/2026. Be it therefore resolved that the formal resolution shall be included in its entirety in the official minutes of this board meeting. Support. Okay. Resolution by Ms. Potts, supported by Ms. Zendler. Everybody in favor of the resolution, please say yes. Yes. Anybody who opposes, please say no. Resolution passes. All right. The next item on our business agenda is floor replacement.
Mr. Trudeau? So up for consideration this evening, as we talked about in our workshop, we'll see flooring replacements across the district. So this is something that, we do every summer. We do planning throughout the winter months in order to try to, get these projects done over the summer before a school year, begins. So, the projects at the end this summer, would be for Bemis Hill, Morris, and Troy Union Elementary, and then some work over, an attack at Athens, and then, some work at, International Academy East and then TLC as well. So low bidder came in,
low qualified bidder came in. So the total project with contingency, is $582,250 and then this will be, funded through the twenty twenty three capital projects, and then another building site Instinct fund as well. Wonderful. Okay. We are asked to consider the resolution for floor replacement and polishing project. May I have a resolution, please? Doctor. Philipard? Be it therefore resolved that the bid for flooring replacement work be awarded as follows and that this amount be approved as an expenditure of the Building Site and Sinking Fund, the contractor Conventional Carpet,
Inc, for flooring demo replacement and contingent for flooring demo replacement for an amount of $532,250 with a contingency of $50,000 for a total award amount of $582,250 Support. Okay. Moved by Doctor. Philipard, supported by Mr. Haft. Any questions or comments regarding this? Seeing none, all those in favor of this resolution, please say yes. Yes. All those who oppose,
say no. The resolution process. All right. Thank you. Moving on to the next item on our agenda, our favorite topic, abatement, asbestos abatement. So, as we prepare for the Boland Park Middle School renovation this summer, which those bids came in last week. So those will be hopefully coming to the board at our March workshop, for your consideration. But as part of that process, we are required by law to remove any asbestos in that building. So any project that we have, we work with an outside firm, NOLA Environmental. They kind of go into the building, they assess, they do testing,
and then they provide us with a recommendation of what needs to be removed in which areas. At that point, they build out a scope and then they they bid that out to any contractor that's licensed to remove asbestos. So in this case, Midwest Environmental, who we've used before in the district, they were the low qualified bidder. So the bid came in with contingency at $43,000, and then this would be funded, through our 2023 capital projects fund as part of the Bowen Park renovation. All right. We are asked to consider the asbestos abatement. May I have a resolution,
please? Mr. Hao? Be it therefore resolved that the bid for asbestos abatement be awarded to Midwest Environmental in the amount of $43,000 and that this amount be approved as an expenditure of the capital projects fund. Support. Was that Ms. Potts? Okay. All right. Moved by Mr. Hopes, supported by Ms. Potts. Any questions or comments regarding this topic? Seeing none, all those in favor of this resolution, please say yes. Yes. Anyone who opposes, please say no. Resolution passes. Thank you. The next item on our business agenda is Athens
auxiliary parking lot. So the last item for consideration this evening relates to the, front parking lot at Athens. So as you may recall, we purchased the one property, right adjacent to our existing lot that was demoed last summer. So it made way for this project to expand our existing parking lot, into that new property that the district acquired. So, bids went out, and then Tianna Maspalt who, was the low qualified bidder, they've also done a lot of work throughout the district, so we're very familiar with them.
They will be performing all of this work this summer. So with the 6% contingency, it came in at $289,131. Six percent, I think, is a fair number given that we've already demoed and excavated. So we don't have a lot of work to do there to warrant anything higher. So, the district's comfortable with that. And then this project would be funded through our capital projects fund, as well. That's the 2023 capital project? Wonderful. Okay. We are asked to consider the Athens Auxiliary parking lot. May I have a resolution, please? Doctor.
Philipard? Be it therefore resolved that the bid for the creation of an Athens Auxiliary parking lot be awarded to T and M Asphalt Paving, Inc. In the amount of $289,131 and that this amount be approved as an expenditure of the capital projects fund. Support. Okay. Moved by Doctor. Fulopart, supported by Mr. Hart. Any questions or comments regarding this? Just for clarity for the public, this parking lot will not be redisturbed at Athens, right? Correct. Yes. This is on the north end of the existing lot, and then no addition is planned for that area.
So, the rest of the lot would be done at the time of renovation, and then when they expand it a little bit, less. Thank you. As a follow-up to that, I know you guys are still working on the plans for the new Athens and all the work, associated with that. Is it pretty relatively solid that that section will not be changed once the plans are in place? Yes. This is primarily because when the addition does start, in '27, we will be losing a little bit of parking in the back there. So we want to make sure we don't have a good parking.
So this will just expand the, along John R there. Okay. Wonderful. Very good. So we are asked to vote on this consideration. All those who support this, please say yes. Yes. All those who oppose, say no. The resolution Finish the airplane. Resolution passes. He doesn't get a vote. Yeah. She doesn't get a vote. Yeah. She doesn't get a vote. Know what? That was a lot. That pretty much finishes the business items on our agenda. That brings us to the public communication on non agenda items. We have three public communications. I'm going to call your name and
Yeah. I got you. The three minutes. Mister Walter Cook, please. Good evening. My name is Walt Cook. I'm a Troy resident and a proud port of TSD parent. Thank you. First, thank you for approving the enhancement military resolution. I look forward to supporting it this summer. Tonight, I have officially announcing my candidacy for Troy School Board. For the past fifteen years, I've worked as an educational policy researcher and an economist of education. I've studied the challenges and opportunities facing public k 12 education, including achievement gaps, chronic absenteeism, early literacy, school finance, and school mobility and choice. At Detroit Public Schools, I was a leadership team member in the office of strategy.
I'm very proud of my accomplishments to advise the superintendent and inform strategic decision making. Informed by my experiences in the educational sector, my campaign will be built on a focus on strategy, data, and accountability. I'm running with a data and research driven strategic plan proposal for TSD based on four objectives. First, improve attendance. Second, restore academic achievement to pre COVID levels of excellence. Third, to stabilize our district's enrollment. And fourth, support staff effectiveness. I believe these four strategic objectives are the foundation for our district's path forward, and I invite you to see the details on my list my recently launched campaign
website at waltfortsd.com. That's walt,numeralfour,tsd.com. Finally, I'd like to say that as a long time observer of the Troy, school district board meetings, I have developed a deep respect for your collegiality and your shared commitment to improving our district. While I have some ideas on how to approach these challenges differently than the past, I don't want to negatively campaign against the current board as I run for the open seat. Please do not perceive my efforts to selflessly elevate the urgent need for continued progress as diminishing or undermining your hard work.
Over the course of my campaign in the coming months, I want to earn your confidence as a future valued colleague in partnership with all of you. So please know that I share and respect your collective commitment to the success of all stakeholders in the Troy School District, our students, our families and our staff. Thank you for your time. Thank you, Mr. Cook. Next is Mr. Patrick Shaw. Hello. My name is Patrick Shaw. I've lived in Troy for over thirty years. I work as a production director at a software company. I have two children at Troy High School, and I serve as a mentor on the Troy high robotics team.
I'm also a member of the Troy Robotics Foundation. I'm here to talk to you about something that's happening that's extraordinary in Troy, the Troy district. Robotics in Troy is not some small little club. It's not some niche. It is one of the largest student activities within the district. We currently have nearly 600 students participating in elementary, middle school, and high school programs. 75% of our alumni are now in STEM fields, far above the national average. We are feeding local partners such as Magna, Aptiv, and GM with students who are understand project management,
engineering, and teamwork. Teams have won numerous competitive events, including the prestigious impact award, which recognizes our ability to reach out and educate our community about stem. Not only that, we've won it consecutively for many years. However, we are operating a varsity sport without a stadium. 85% of our teams operate out of, resident homes. We are practicing for events in cafeterias. We are building robots in in basements. We are transporting tools and industrial equipment from house to house. We lose many hours every month having to set up and tear down fields every
night. Time that could be spent teaching engineering, coding, and collaborating, the very skills that are outlined in the district's portrait of a learner. Our peer districts such as Lake Orion, Rochester, Royal Oak, and Bloomfield all have dedicated robotic spaces that are attracting students and sponsors. Troy is an outlier in this area. So tonight, we have a simple ask. We would like a dedicated robotic space in Troy. We are not asking for additional funding. We will we're prepared to bring grants, sponsors, and operational funding to this. We're just asking for a space where it give us a home for our program
that already brings prestige, member measurable outcomes, and workforce impact to Troy. I'd love you all to come and see it firsthand. We're having a sponsorship, showcase on Thursday, February twenty six at 6PM. I have invitations that I'll hand out to you all before, we leave. I would encourage you to meet all the students, see what we're working on, see the robot that we're building for, Troy, see our shop, and see the great things that we're doing. Thank you for your time, your leadership, and your partnership on this matter. Thank you. Thank you so much. Next, mister Jeffrey Schweitzler? Sweetlike.
Sweetlike. Sweetlike. Sweet lick. Oh, I'm so sorry. No. That's okay. You know, I usually hear sweet lick, and I gotta say, we definitely picked the right school district based on the size of this, city council meeting and, you know, the public comments I'm hearing. I know that they they can be pretty contentious at other places. I'm gonna start with good stuff, and I know it doesn't mean as much when you say the good stuff before you say the thing that you want. But, I do wanna say that, we are extremely happy at Hamilton. We were very, very impressed with miss Bosio. I really like her classroom management style. She's very strong educator.
I know because I've been in education my whole life. I was at Troy High for a long term sub back in 2017. I currently teach at Grosse Pointe South. And I was very impressed when I was at at Troy High, especially with your two eight eight chem teachers. They had some gray hair. I think they may have I think they may be retired by now, but they were they left an impression. I'll say that. I'm here today for just a really really small item. It's not a huge deal. In fact, you know, if I don't get my way on it, I'll probably never come back again. And and to be 100% truthful, it's kind of one of those things where I wanna be able to tell my
kid there's you know, I wanna teach them to get involved in politics and to come down and not be afraid to participate in their democracy and to participate in public comment. So that's maybe a little bit of the reason that I said I could come down here and set it. I'm gonna be giving a enrichment class on teaching our kids how to play Pokemon cards. My original intention for the class was to do it for free. I kind of thought of it a lot like coaching, you know. A lot of coaches, they don't get paid. They just it's something they do to give back and that was kind of my
mindset mindset on it. Was it gonna be a big thing? I think I was gonna offer it maybe four or six times at Hamilton and and only, you know, give it away for free. I was told I couldn't do it for free. I said, okay. I'll do it for a dollar. I was told I couldn't do it for a dollar. I said, okay. You know, what is the minimum? Minimum $16. That seems like a lot to me. I really don't wanna charge the kids $16. I believe that $16 policy minimum was was created ad hoc for me. And the reason I say that is because it is not in the official policies.
It's it's nowhere in those documents. It doesn't appear to be documented anywhere. I've asked some follow-up questions for our administrators about it. You know, how long has the policy been in place? Was any numbers crunched? Any accounting? I did receive I did get a reply about the rationale. I was told it was cost recovery, and that makes a little sense. But $16 is a lot. I don't wanna charge these kids $16. All I'm asking for is you guys, you know, spend five minutes on it. Just, you know, have a conversation. If you can't get it down to $1, if you could just bring it down, I'd really appreciate it.
And with my last couple of minutes, I don't wanna mispronounce your name. Is it Philip Park? Philip Park. Philip Park. To address your question about recruiting teachers from other districts, you guys are in a great position to do that. We are a spectacular district. It is not like it used to be. Teachers are more fluid. When I was a kid, a teacher taught where they taught, and that was what they did. They they stayed in that community for a little bit. It's not like that anymore. Teachers look everywhere. What I think is hurting us is not willing to honor steps. I don't know if that's still the case. My wife, also a teacher,
she was in the market about about four years ago. Mister Swadlik, I wanna be fair to everybody. Okay? I'm so sorry. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. Appreciate it. We we can talk afterwards. Alright. Thank you. Alright. That finishes our public comment section. That brings us to our student reps. Alright. Let me see who wants to go first. Who's here? Isabella, do you wanna go first? Sure. Good evening, everyone. Happy February. It has been a very powerful and meaningful month at Troy High School defined by service,
achievement, culture celebration sorry, cultural celebration and continued school pride. So to begin the month, we started with one of our most impactful traditions, which is activist week, which is just essentially our charity. It took place from February 1 through February 6. A huge thank you to all of the student government kids, leadership students and advisors. The week was an incredible success for us. So the event I'm sorry. The week, during the week, we had events like CPR and ice cream bar where, there were some students who were trained on how to do CPR. And then during lunch, we had a lot of students that came in.
And so it was student taught. So the students taught other students how to do CPR, and they got ice cream after. A pickleball tournament, which is new this year, Splash Bash, Troy has got talent, Powerpuff, and many other school wide activities. So at the end, we were able to raise around $45,000 This year held, a lot of significance. Obviously, we we're honoring one of our very beloved members of our community, Beloved, who, did unfortunately pass due to heart disease. So before the week began, our executive board, on the student government, we came together. We made,
like, red ribbons because it's also heart disease awareness month. So if you guys see any pictures from our activist week, we had, everyone was wearing, like, these red ribbons every single day. We were passing them out to all the students and staff. So it was just really nice to see, our community honoring him and everyone else who's also been affected by heart disease. Yes. We're deeply grateful to be donating these funds to children heart checks and scholarships within the choice school district. I would also like to give a very sincere thank you to miss and mister yeah. Miss missus and mister, Ahmed for trusting us with Bilal's legacy. Obviously, it's like a very big thing, and we thank them for their continued support of Troy High.
They came multiple times during the week. And then on the first day of Ramadan, their family also did bring food, for our staff as a gesture of thank you. So on that note, Ramadan came in to anyone who is celebrating and observing this month. In addition to hosting after this week, the try high student government was recognized at a state level this past weekend, earning three major awards from the Michigan Association of Student Council and Michigan Association of Honor Society. So we received the award of excellence, which recognizes programs that go above and beyond and required an extensive multi part application. We also earned the quote award,
which recognizes schools for their efforts in diversity, equity, and inclusion, as well as exceptional service project award for the senior citizen prom event that we held last spring. February is also Black History Month, so our Black Student Union is hosting spirit week to celebrate and honor Black history and culture. There's been a lot of participation these past few days, and tomorrow's gonna be quarter zip Wednesday. Thursday will be throwback Thursday and then just a blackout for blackout Friday. During our activist sweep pep assembly, we also did have students that honored Black History Month by recognizing the black national anthem. So we're proud to celebrate the voices and achievements and contributions of black leaders within
our school and beyond. Looking ahead, LEAP applications for next year are currently open. So the prac program for next year plans to select about 150 underclass sorry, upperclassmen to serve underclassmen. We wish all the applicants best of luck. And as someone who joined last year, it was like the first year for leave. I'm really excited to see how, the club continues to develop and bridge the gap between upperclassmen and underclassmen. Pre remediation is also launching, a school wide march madness trivia, during all lunch periods, so the sign ups are out right now.
Also, at this year's Regional Science School, Troy high teams advanced to an old Troy final round and a historic finish separated by 20 points. So Troy A team got first place and then Troy B team got second place. And to my understanding, it's just Troy high students split into two different groups. So Troy A team, is they earn an all expenses paid trip to Washington, DC to compete in a national level sorry, at the national levels. And arts members of Detroit High Symphony Orchestra represented our school at the thirty first annual high school chamber competition.
It's a very big accomplishment, given the very, like, highly competitive field. In athletics, we wish our girls basketball a lot of luck as they compete against Athens tonight. Hopefully, as well, I haven't been on my phone. Our hockey team continues, an outstanding season, and they will be competing on Saturday. And so far, they've had a very impressive season with 25 to two. Yeah. So overall, February has been a month marked by compassion, excellence, culture celebration, and achievement. And we thank you for your continued support of our programs, and I can't wait to update you guys next month. Alright. Thank you.
Any okay. Sarah, how are things at Athens? Good. I'm thrilled to share some of the incredible highlights and memorable moments from this past month at Athens High School. As the winter sports season comes to a close, we have so much to celebrate. Our athletes have been amazing with wrestling, competitive cheer, hockey, and skiing all securing league titles. A special shout out goes to the Athens tier team for being named league champions for the second time in school history as well as our United hockey team who delivered a historic season, finishing with a phenomenal 25 to two regular season record.
Moving on to the most anticipated week of the year at Athens, Charity Week was an absolute blast. The week was packed with events that truly showcased our school spirit, including pancake breakfast, the hypnotist show, Mr. Athens, the parent cook off, and so much more. Together, we raised an astounding $100,203.33 to support the New Day Foundation. And even better, this incredible total was matched, allowing us to donate over $200,000 to Michigan families facing cancer. Our Red Hawks also continue to embrace amazing opportunities outside of the building.
Our Science Olympiad team competed fiercely at the University of Michigan tournament with two of our groups placing in their events. Three of our Japanese students presented speeches about their favorite Japanese books at the Michigan Japanese Speech Contest at Washtenaw Community College, with one student earning an honorable mention. And finally, sophomore Gabriela Murphy auditioned against over 1,000 other musicians to earn a coveted spot in the MSBOA All State High School Orchestra, performing beautifully at the Michigan Music Conference. These achievements are a true testament to the hard work of our students and the unwavering support of our parents and staff.
I couldn't be prouder of what we've accomplished together this winter, And I look forward to sharing more great news with you next month. And always, go Red Hots. All right. Thank you, Sarah. Ayum, how are things at AA? Good evening, everyone. So AAU has had an amazing month so far in February, and I'm really excited to share some of the highlights. So first, on extra or extracurricular sizing, our clubs have been so, so busy. So first, our science Olympiad team competed at the Plymouth Kansan Invitational, and our team placed third overall at the competition from a total of 40 teams
around the state of Michigan. And we also just recently competed at the University of Michigan Invitational as well. And so we are now wrapping up the competition season with the regional tournament taking place this Saturday to compete for a spot at the Michigan State Science Olympiad tournament. Now our students in the Science Fair Club have also been working equally hard on their Science Fair projects to present at the Science and Engineering Fair of Metro Detroit, which is happening next month. So we have a range of research projects this year from engineering to lab based projects.
And through science fair, students are able to lead an independent research project in a field that they're interested in. And so we're really excited for the competition meeting. So our forensics and model UN club have also been incredibly active as forensics has been competing in several invitations like Bridge Run and HONG KATOII where many IAEs, students placed the top five of their events. And the Model UN Club recently traveled to Chicago to compete at the Model UN Conference at the University of Chicago where one of our students received an honorable mention.
And our Red Cross Club, just a few weeks before break, held another successful blood drive as we had many students and teachers donate for the college. So as you can see, our clubs have been very, very busy. Now on the school wide side of things, we actually just had our winter Olympics. And so, obviously, Olympics is one of, like, the best events that I used where students from all all grades get to, like, take a break from class, and studying and just have fun with friends for, like, game day, like volleyball, cup stacking, and stand up comedy. It was a day filled with so much school spirit because everyone was,
like, dressed up in their house colors and, like, all, like, spirited. And so it was really fun. So coming up in the next few months, many of our students are competing at the state HOSA conference taking place in Traverse City, and our juniors are also preparing to take the school SAT in April as well. So I'm very excited to share more about the happenings at IES next month with so much more to come. Thank you. Wonderful. Thank you. Chloe, finish it up with how are things with TCC. Happy Tuesday, everybody. It's been a pretty exciting past month at Troy College and Career per usual.
So I think I'm just gonna jump right in preparing students for the preparing students for their futures. Most of our students attended a field trip at OCC where participating students toward the whole Royal Oak campus, getting in-depth getting in-depth presentations on classes, scheduling how tos, what not tos, and all of the above regarding attending college at OCC. While talking to my peers, the HVAC, heating and cooling, as well as the auto shop areas were the most attention grabbing,
but not but not as attention grabbing as miss g in her business map. They're really grabbing and holding attention with all their new school shirt designs as well as senior hoodies. Saving, editing, and making new updates every day in hopes to start a new school business. Bringing in another brand new skill set to students at TCC, our art teacher's close friend Thomas King came in to give a presentation to students all about career all about the career of filmmaking and art and producing,
hopefully bringing and including this into the rest of the district, especially during the filmmaking process. Then I just wanted to add in a special recognition to our senior girls apart, the Woman of Tomorrow program, their consistent applied efforts and hard work they put into completing their scholarship applications. I know me and my friend were, like, on FaceTime doing the thing, but doing the applications. So I went up to her. I was like, what should I say at the board meeting? She was like, write in thank you to everybody for doing the applications.
So, yeah, we both worked pretty hard on that. So, anyways, for anyone unfamiliar, TCC runs their classes a bit differently. One, to fit in more credits in a shorter time and two, to expand students' educational and experimental opportunities. Given that, our teachers and teachersstaff enjoy recognizing our hard work and efforts throughout the past quarter by having an annual award ceremony. We held our second out of four each year award ceremony two Fridays ago where we also took the time to recognize our counselor and school police officer and all
that they do for us. Also, to add a personal flex oh, also sorry to add in a personal flex to this, but I'm pretty proud of myself. So I did receive an award for embodying the mission of TCCHS. Anyways, my favorite parts of t of my speech to talk about, what are student councils up to? Valentine's Day week slash the week leading up to midwinter break, student co was very busy with a bunch of engaging plans and events like spirit week. Monday being hat day,
Tuesday being Valentine's color day, Wednesday being duo day, Thursday was throwback Thursday, and then Friday was fancy Friday, as well as, you guessed it, another food potluck. Can you tell this is our new favorite thing? Going back to this going back to earlier that week, we had a couple fundraisers, completely student ran, to make money for our full school, noneducational field trip that we will have yet to make a 100% decision on. Those fundraisers include a bake sale and coin war where we raise about $200 to
$300 Thank you for listening, and happy late Valentine's Day to everybody. Wonderful. Thank you. Board members, any questions to anybody on the any of the students? Okay. A lot's going on. Yes. Wonderful. Very good. That brings us to other other. Ms. Zengler, do you want to put it back? Yes. Super briefly. First, I'd like to thank the Troy African American Parent Network that met with some of our board members earlier today. Like one of our public speakers said today, it's an important piece of the governance process to state your wishes,
desires and concerns to your governance people. And that's us. And, I can speak for my colleagues and say we were glad that you demonstrated bravery to be very honest about places where we can grow and continue to do a good and better job to support all of our kids. So first and foremost, thank you to them. Blessed Ramadan to all who are observing as well and, of course, Heart Awareness Month. And last, certainly close to my heart is, for those of you who don't know, Rare Disease Awareness Month. That means, diseases that are held by less than 100 people.
So there are thousands of rare diseases in the world that are held by few numbers of people, and many of those folks do not have either diagnosis or any form of treatment. So if you know or love someone rare, please reach out to them. Rare Disease Week this week. That's all. Wonderful. Thank you, Ms. Simmel. Ms. Potts? I don't know if I have a whole lot. Happy Black History Month. Black history is American history. Bless Ramadan, too, to our community that celebrates Ramadan. Nothing much other than that. I think I'm going to keep it brief this month.
Thank you. Doctor. Filiqua? Just one item for me. I had a chance to experience the new visitor online registration system. I was at DCCHS earlier today. Other than the fact that you have to figure out where to scan your license, it was pretty seamless. So Very good. And they said that we were the first people the first visitors in the building to actually try out that system there. So I think it's going to be fine. It just takes a little bit of getting used to.
Wonderful. Is that the first building that implemented it? No, there are several. Oh, several of them. That are currently implementing. Okay. Starting with the high schools, we'll move to the middle schools and then at the elementary. Okay. Wonderful. Doctor. Malphin? Yes. I was just going to give a couple of plugs for events that are coming up shortly. One, I'm sure we're going to hear about from our IA student representative probably next month is the Shamrock Shakedown. I was unaware of this until last year when Noreda made the video that we were able to see.
I know Mr. Chnowski is heading that up, and he sent us an e mail. And the video is in the e mail. It's coming up next week. It's during the day, but I know I'm planning on attending. I think it's really exciting, and it's an opportunity that we get to see what's happening at two schools that we don't always have an opportunity to access very often. So I'm really excited to see how that plays out. And then we've got Les Mis coming up, which is exciting because it's the new kind of blend between our Troy and I
and his theater groups. So I'm looking forward to seeing that. And then also, later in the spring, I know our administration had talked about getting feedback from the kids on how all that played out. And we're looking forward to hearing how what their thoughts were on it. So two events coming up. Wonderful. Thank you, Wilbur. Mr. Haupt? Yes. So, I missed the workshop a few few weeks ago because I was in Washington DC. So I just wanted to give a just kind of brief brief update on that. For those of you that don't know, there's an advocacy conference in Washington DC. One of the days is we're actually on Capitol Hill talking to the representatives.
The day that I went, the representatives had a pretty important vote on funding the government or something. I don't know. So we talked a lot of two of the staffers that time. But the staffers are are great individuals, so it's it's good to give the information to them. But some of the topics we talked about was first IDEA funding. We talked we heard about it today. That's a sore spot that's been something that we've been fighting for the last decades. So, and one of the figures that kind of jumped out to me was that Michigan as a whole has a gap of about $900,000,000 of special education funding.
So just think of all the possibilities we could do with that money. And then other things that we talked about were student vouchers, the teacher shortage, career technical education, cybersecurity and then school safety and mental health as well. So there's a whole host of topics that we talked about and the staffers really took them to heart. So hopefully, we see some movement. I did forget to mention in the beginning of the session that our Board member, Ms. Alish, is not here, so she's not able to make it today. Okay. I guess, it's up to you. Yeah. Doctor. Machesky? Yeah. Just a couple of items,
on the on the, point of advocacy. I'll be at in Lansing to tomorrow, for a legislative day. That's the the K-twelve Alliance group of of, school districts from our and counties from across Southeast Michigan, who come together to lobby collectively, for various within various areas, in support of public education, specifically, from a budgetary standpoint, making sure that we're still advocating for full funding of IDEA, make sure we continue to focus on increases in foundation allowance, moving categorical funding and account and the foundation allowances and so forth.
We'll be doing that tomorrow. The, the legislators will be staying over tomorrow because of the state of the state address that will happen tomorrow night. So with that in mind, we take that as an opportunity to meet with them. So I'll be I'll be going on our behalf. I'll be there tomorrow. I and thank you to, mister Shaw, the Hammerhead, sponsor showcase. We'll be I plan on being there on Thursday, so thank you very much for that, for that additional information on that. That's 06:00 at Troy High School, the media center. So I'll, you know, I'm planning. I don't know that invitation went out to to board members. So some of us may be able to I I will definitely be there on
on Thursday and look forward to that opportunity. Our school finance engagement group has now met twice. We have talked about general funding, across so in other words, where do where does money come for schools in the state of Michigan? Our second, meeting was about our second, gathering, if you will, was about revenue. So so what revenues look like in the school district the next time we get together. In just a couple of weeks, we're gonna talk about expenditures. We're gonna talk about where expenditures within the school district go, and and so forth. And then we'll follow that up with two additional meetings, where we'll talk about,
some of our special revenue funds, and we'll get into bond, bond programming and things along those lines. And then we'll follow-up with advocacy because this is this is about a group around advocacy. We're a follow-up with, final we'll finalize with advocacy, talk about how we can engage the legislature further in in in, in in terms of making sure that we're continuing to adequately fund schools at the minimum at minimum the rate of inflation on an annual adequately fund schools at the minimum at minimum the rate of inflation on an annual basis. So I look forward to that. Mister Trudell and I, with the help of mister Butcher, have put together follow-up videos from each of the sessions that we've done.
So for the community, that will be available on the district's, social media channels. We will have there will be two two videos, that will mimic essentially what was provided, what information was provided in both of the sessions thus far and then we intend upon doing that for the sessions moving forward so that the general public, has an opportunity if they wish to view those are welcome to do so. And then, lastly our cap program. We're, we're very excited to have to have a 100 students as part of our CAP program this year. This is our pre internship program for juniors. They'll be working at twenty hours in a pre internship with a business located and
or around here in Troy. Over 40 businesses are participating with us. We're very excited that in about a week or half or so, we'll have cap we'll have match day for those students will be matched with the business that they'll be that they'll be shadowing, that they'll be, engaging in that pre internship. So we're excited about that. Huge shout out to, missus Montante, and her team for helping to pull that together. Misty Pilato, Mike Monaco for helping pull pull all that together and provide that, that opportunity for for students here and across Troy. K. That's it? Yep. That's it.
Alright. I'm just gonna add only a couple of more things. Pretty much everybody has spoken. So I hope everybody had a good mid winter break last week and got rested and came back, came back well rested. And I wanna, I guess, anybody who's observing Lent and Ramadan, wish everybody best wishes and Black History Month. And I'm glad to see the Troy High students do the fundraising for heart disease awareness month in recognition of their own, one of their students, Bilal, who we lost last year.
So, I'm sure if Amina was here, she would definitely mention that, so I'm gonna say that. I do wanna bring up a little bit about the, the funding, especially since we had passed the resolution. One of the things, as we always talk about that school funding never matches the inflation rate and even the governor's governor's budget that she came out, still increases only by 2.5%, which is, again, less than the inflation rate. So it's important to put this vote to the,
voters, and they can decide how they want to vote and decide what's best for our district. So that's that's all I have. Next meeting, our next workshop is March 3, which is next week, at 6PM in this building, and then the meeting is March 17 at 7PM again here. Retreat. Oh, we do have a Saturday, March 7, our retreat, where we're going to deep dive into our, budget and school finances. And That'll be 08:30 in this building.
08:30AM in this building, which is March morning at 08:30AM. Alright. That pretty much finishes meeting. Meeting adjourned. What time? 08:29. 08:29. Uh-huh. Thank you. Meeting adjourned. Do I need to do this?