Good evening everyone and welcome to our Tuesday, December 9, board of education workshop is our call. Trust these. What was it? ASAP. So we are connected now. Yeah. So with that, we will start a meeting. Normally, we would have public communication. We don't have much of a public tonight. We don't have any goal neurons. So we'll move right into our first agenda item, which is, teaching and learning update and to look at our resources for AP French and AP Spanish. Thank you. And doctor Philpards,
and provided to the board earlier, was the presentation, that we, we have this evening. We're gonna go over just a couple of the slides for you to highlight, the process. Christine's gonna talk about process, and then we've got three, of our, advanced language teachers here that will will introduce themselves and talk they wanna talk about the, the the materials themselves and the opportunities that the materials provide. And then at the end, I'll provide a, an update on, costs for for the materials that we will be bringing forward to Mhmm.
For your, your approval, on the sixteenth. David, doctor Recker, excuse me, would normally be here. Unfortunately, he is home with two sick ones, and he they caught up with him as well this evening. So he is he is down the hunt for the evening. So little sickness going through the Recker household. He, is disappointed he couldn't be here, but, the most important people are here. So alright. And I know he would say the same thing. So, Christine, please. Thanks, Doctor. Pacheco. We are, excited to be here tonight. Three outstanding world language teachers joining us. Sister Tyler Knecht, who is, our our who is our, AP French teacher.
Sabrina, who is Spanish. And who has Lisa Lopez, also Spanish. They'll be able to speak more in-depth to the process. I think it's important just for the board to know that when we think about, AP resources and the the resources for world language, some of the things that were identified on those slides were really that, we're we're talking about, currently having resources that are more than ten years old. So, the resources that are currently being used in ours, in our AP classes are twenty fourteen. And we've also done quite a bit of work, here in the district on alignment between our buildings. So when we think about our PLC structures and we think about opportunities for kids
across the district, one of the other fails in having the conversation about curriculum adoption is alignment. And so those are two key drivers when we think about the why behind, adoption of these new resources. Also, I think it's important to know that the process for, this adoption did involve partnership with Oakland schools. So, we have a wonderful resource in Jen, how who has been not only a part of the conversation with our AP level courses, but also our first through four one through four level courses. So we've had an opportunity to work with her Specifically, these fine people have had an opportunity to work with her,
to look at a variety of different resources, and evaluate those independently. And so I'm going to turn it over to the three of them to talk more in-depth about the the materials themselves. Sure. We can jump right in. So while we were looking at different AP resources, there are a couple major programs that are offered. And when we looked individually, as you can see, we have, a couple different programs mentioned, like Wayside, we have CLET, and we also have Vista. Some of us have a background already with Vista, so we knew a lot about the program and the scope and sequence, how closely it was aligned to the AP College Board website.
So we were pretty familiar with them going forward. So we really dove into seeing what they could offer us and especially with their updated resources. So, we have highlighted some of the resources for you as you can see here in a second, and how they kind of work for our students. And so, here are some of the features we wanted to kinda talk to you guys about. So, one of the things we love about this resource is for AP French and for AP Spanish, they have extremely culturally relevant resources, which is really, really important because it's a major part of the AP test. So here you can see that the French AP French students were reading a little
blurb about Tahiti. There's also two little other blurbs that talk about, I believe, Madagascar and the island of Reunion. So they get, like, a really big world view of how French is spoken throughout the world. Another resource is a little, short film that students are able to watch, answer high level questions on. So it really just, like, puts them into the shoes of a native French speaker. So they're able to actually watch culturally relevant, amazing short films. One thing that I really like too about the culture is that, it's finding actual resources that are from the Spanish speaking or French speaking countries.
It's not something that a book creator is making. They're watching news stories from actual news in countries. They're reading short stories and poems from actual different countries, so it's really putting them in the authentic material. One of the features that it has is, part of the AP test, which is called the cultural comparison. And what they have to do is compare The United States with a Spanish or French speaking country. So they gave a present presentation, and this new, test allows them to practice this. So I'm not sure if you can play the video. This is from one of my students,
Maya, and she's practicing. Which is great. We can study much something. So, this website has a lot of new technology that our previous folks did not have. So, for example, I am going on medical leave on Friday, unfortunately, and I can now assign things to my students to help them practice their presentation. It allows them to do the work. If I'm not there, I can see that they're practicing the Spanish, which is wonderful. Also, the test for the AP Spanish and French is changing next year.
This Visa has said that they will change the updated books for free for us. So when a new test comes out, they'll give us all the new things. And one of the new parts of the test is doing, but similar to AP seminar where they have to present culture. It's a little bit longer video, so they're going to present about culture, to be as part of the AP test. This gives them the opportunity to practice speaking because that is the exact format of the test to practice speaking in a AP seminar style presentation. So even though it's not,
the current test that we're having this year, it's already given the best practice for initiative. So, I love that their resources will continue to be relevant once the test changes. So going on to the next slide. Another wonderful feature is that the platform itself utilizes, the interaction that the students will see on the day of the exam. And so, if you could press play here, this is an example of one of the activities that is very meaningful, purposeful. This is on slide 14. Mhmm. This is what we call a, simulated conversation, and this textbook has activities set up exactly like the tasks the kids will have
on examidations. This is a prompt in the text. This is what emotion can so I can before presenting So the students then can record their voices and interact with the tech, the the platform. Excuse me. You'll have twenty seconds, then you'll hear another beep, another prompt, and then the students will record. We then can go in. We can stop it. We can highlight. We can annotate, and we can help them develop their language skills this way, which is a really great great, factor and great element that VISTA provides.
In addition, if you go to slide 16, our students practice daily in class using interpersonal conversation, two way conversation. Let's say if we'd like to assign something and, as Sabrina said, if she she'll be gone next week, she can still assign an interpersonal activity with the kids, conversing. And you'll see once Christine plays the button here, they're speaking side by side, talking, engaging in that meaningful conversation. And then you can see here, they can even do it from home, which is wonderful. This is a great feature.
This would have been wonderful in during COVID. Yeah. And not only that, but, of course, they speak in class. But this allows the kids to have that low affect filter. It gains confidence. It prepares them for the exam. And it's also it's fun for them. Yeah. And we find they speak longer when they're recording and doing this. And it's really great to see as a teacher. Can we do it back one slide, I believe? Our other AP French teacher, Ashley Blayton at Troy High, she posted in here on the presentation a really good activity for students who maybe
have a five zero four or an IEP and how the text sort of, not the text, but the resource itself really helps give accommodations to students. And so, in addition, there is a super awesome listening activity, which is called in French. I'm not quite sure what the name of the Spanish is. Maybe it's by by step. Mhmm. And so it breaks down listening resources by step for students. If they're having trouble, if they need a little bit more review time, if they need to have, if they need to have, I don't know, another chance of listening to it, if it needs to be scaffolded differently, it's all featured there for the students.
So we think that's a great resource, especially for our students with five zero fours and IPs. Do you want me to play this one? She kind of explains it a little bit in the video, but I I kind of just gave a Okay. Perfect. Very quick generic overview of it. And just so you know, 50% of the AP exam is a free response section. And so the students do have to offer two free responses speaking, which the tasks are not easy. They do need a lot of practice. And we love this because it, the platform has everything available. Branch, I think you might go right to the financial components. Yeah. So you can see,
as was provided, the total request for materials that will be brought forward, is just under $40,000. And as as was mentioned, the, Sabrina mentioned the, there's a recognition, by Visa that, as the exam is going to change, they're willing to provide the materials upfront and then make the adjustments to the materials when we have that change in the AP examination solved. Also, Vista controls 85% close to 85% of the market, in the in the world language, AP market. So they're they're a tough one to beat.
This would be for a seven year license. Yes. For a seven year license. So $40,000 for a seven year license. Tough to tough to beat them, in that they have the majority of the market and their materials are, according to staff, superior. So what questions might you have? So this is, only for the AP French and Spanish. What about the for whatever reason, I was under the impression, that it would be the world languages as a whole. So when are those up for review? We're currently piloting. Okay.
And so we will be adopting a new series, for next year. Okay. Our Japanese program is currently not seeking adoption process of a new text currently. They worked out a deal with the publisher to kind of extend their contract, and I believe the AP Chinese program is in the same position. We currently do not have an AP German program, I believe. At Dry High. Right? We don't have that? Not this year. Not currently. So, that's the only reason why we have the two of or, I guess, the two languages offered here. Also, the Spanish and French file the same format, whereas the Chinese and Japanese are a different format AP test.
So we are trying to align ourselves because then we have some people to collaborate with. So Tyler and I both work at Athens. Although we're teaching different countries, different languages, it's still the same themes. It's still the topic, so we can actually collaborate as a full, language department. Yes. The all the world language teachers last year began work on on in recommending, around piloting and recommending tests. We didn't get there by the end of the year. There was some there were some differences of opinion in terms of which text would and we wanted to choose one text for the entire departments.
And so with that in mind, they decided to give it another year, and give you one through four and five. Four. Yeah. Just four. Okay. Yes. It's just that the AP group is ready to go. So we wanted we wanted to get that out of the way now, and then we'll be bringing back the levels one through four. So it's not, I mean, I guess this will be the first so so it it it's not necessarily necessary for the, you know, the one through AP set even be the same No. Textbook. Okay. And then, I know David mentioned that, I I did notice in the presentation that there were some you know,
large students that had tried out the the program that you're recommending. David had said that there was a survey that was gonna go out to parents and to students. Was that for the one through four, or was that for the eighth? That's for eighth. For eighth? Okay. Later in the semester, I think, start of semester two, middle semester two, we will start sending out surveys to families about the one through four program. Okay. But the one feature in this presentation is just for AP. Overall reviewing, the parent survey, the the parents did enjoy our book. There was no complaints by any parent. A lot of them really liked the online resources.
That was probably the number one thing mentioned with, online resources were nice because it really allows them to work at home. As much as a book is nice, it doesn't give you speaking or listening practice. So they were able to review the text. They gave them a link to review the text. And, overall, it was a very positive thing. And just on a personal note, Sabrina and I are both Troy parents with middle schoolers and high schoolers as well in the world language program. And so we understand that most of our students do not have parents who can help them with their subject matter.
Yeah. Yeah. It's vital. It's vital for the kids to have a resource. You mentioned, one of the reasons for adoption is alignment. Mhmm. So talk about how this will create that for you. Like, it sounded like you're not either alignment through school, like, school to school or One one one one to the AP alignment. Mhmm. We really have never had a set AP program and resources. Literally, we have been pulling this is my my twenty ninth year in the district of first year AP. I've taught Spanish for for twenty years. And, it's been a struggle to find resources that are authentic at level for students.
What's nice is that this series allows for that across languages. And so it's it's a huge plus, which is why the company is very tight on giving any resources away. Some of their writers are AP writers, college board writers. And so, honestly, I feel as though our students would be at a huge disadvantage at this point if we didn't adopt this because, they're the ones Right. Who would be looking at exams. And there's, I assume, integrated assessment. Integrated assessment. And all of the resources we're looking at now for levels one through four, they have similar themes.
They have similar activities, just not at an advanced level. Mhmm. Thanks. Mhmm. It's good to hear you have a place to collaborate and a Yeah. That thing. Working really funny, like, for me to collaborate with a Spanish teacher because any the grand scheme of things, it makes it seem like it would be impossible because we don't speak the same language. But when the texts are so similarly structured, it's been really beneficial for us, which has been nice. Yeah. I have a bunch of questions. The very first one was it, of course, I'm assuming when you put the very first, presentation slides saying that it's been ten years since we had reviewed the curriculum,
I'm assuming it's all of it, not just the AP one. Right? So, what was surprising to me is that we are adopting the topmost, not the building blocks, not the middle school or the high school Spanish one, two, three and four or one, two, three and four. And, why did we decide that? So one, two, three, four in process. Right? So that will come to the in the spring this spring. They started that process last year, and they're not able to come to resolution last year. So the goal is to have a refreshed resource for all of our world languages
one through AP. But the AP is so specific and so clearly guided through that assessment that it was very I wouldn't say I wouldn't say easy Easier. But easier, I think, for their for this team to find cohesion around the source that they would like to purchase. So we didn't wanna stand in the way of that moving forward so that they could start planning and preparing and using that sooner rather. But but for that, what do you anticipate when one through four levels are making their adoptions? Do you anticipate, oh, we needed this.
We didn't go through this until we got here, so we need to or make changes appropriately. I think that right. So I'm piloting both Spanish two and AP Spanish. I'm doing both at the same time. Those are the two levels that I teach. With AP, there's a very limited amount of resources. For French, for example, there was only two books to choose from. Yes. With Spanish one through four, I we looked at probably seven, eight series. And whereas we have three people to decide, we're looking at more, like, 20 people's opinions.
So it just took a longer process. However, when we looked at resources, this was the only resource that really had test practice, and we really want our kids to have that test practice going into the test because as authentic as some of the other resources were, it didn't have any test practice. And without that practice, the kids weren't gonna succeed. So this was the really obvious choice. So now as we're going and adopting two, as an AP teacher, I have the lens of, okay. What in this two book is gonna help my kids get to AP and where
they need to be? So I know the end point. So now I'm kind of almost working backwards to say, okay. Well, you know what? This would be a helpful building block. This would. So it's helping evaluate it in a different lens if that helps. Okay. Can I add to that? For the the top down model approach, we've always pretty much used world language as well. I'm sure we've probably trained all of us in looking at, the world language program from that perspective. And it's in it's intentionally at Troy High we schedule so that our world language teachers, at least in Spanish,
have an upper level class and a lower level class for that purpose so that we can see the entirety of the program and know exactly what our students need, maybe what they're deficient in so that we can close those gaps. And one question about the cultures part of it. And is that part mostly because of AP that we're doing it, or would one through four also have the cultures element to it? Has he always had them? Or Language my language program is based on the it's under the umbrella of culture. Language is part of that.
Okay. And that's really what connects our students to the language. It makes it interesting for them. We have national standards that we also need to be aware of, and culture is a big part of that as well. Last question, and this is a very simple question. When my daughter was taking Spanish, and this was twelve, fifteen years ago, one thing that their teachers and I had to put up with this was she would turn on TV with Spanish language as a secondary language, and that's all I watched for months and months,
which I didn't understand. Do kids do that still? Yeah. We hope. Okay. Because they at least, her teacher used to make her do it. And now with Netflix's and Amazon Prime, which have all multiple languages, they could watch it in any language they want. They could. And I can't tell you how many parents I've had at Open House who told me they learned English by watching Friends. Mhmm. It's it's definitely helpful. Sure. It's good. Thank you. Alright. Any other questions? Thanks for doing such a thorough review. Yeah. Thank you. Working together. And It's been nice. Passionate about our Spanish and French. Yeah. Alright. Thank you all.
Appreciate it. Thank you so much. Thanks for all your work. Of course. Thank you. Appreciate it. Dean. Now David appreciates it as well. We appreciate David a lot. Finish your plan. Alright. So, technically, I'm different. Something that you time. Time. Yeah. It's home. Yeah. Matt, you're you're you're a man. 10 timer. Column two. Accessibility. Job job. Local time. Clock Accessibility. Thank you. Yeah. How are you doing, bud? Good. How are you? Well. I'm well. No more voice. Thank you. Thanks, Dan. Alright. Matt, are you you're are you you're casting? No. No. She was gonna keep all that up. Alright. I was just checking.
So, we we, asked Matt to Christina and I had asked asked asked Matt to put together a presentation around, our athletics program. There had been some questions about, you know, how how much of our budget, for instance, goes to, goes to athletics. We touched a little bit about on that when we talked when we when we did the audit, but pop up would be nice to circle back and talk a little bit more in, around specifics, like the number of sports that we have, the number of students that participate since we're tracking that number now as part of our dashboard, and the types of sports,
what's what's coming, what's what's on the horizon with respect to to athletics and so forth. And, Matt is on this very, well, we have known Matt, know him to be a very passionate individual, and he'll introduce he'll introduce Karen and and Todd in the back who we who we know, well, as well. But appreciate you putting this presentation together, Matt, and sharing a little information a little additional information with the board and the community. Well, in athletics, we're all part of team. So tonight, Christine, Rich, and board, thanks for letting me be a part of the team here tonight. So, it's going through this. This is our agenda, and I'm gonna go through each one of these individually here.
But, let me just talk about one of the teams that I get to be a part of. Karen Baird and Todd Hu are athletic coordinators at Troy High in Athens, and they are both all in for one Troy in our athletic department and in leadership. Karen, has a great background in sports and does a phenomenal job, and, this is the first year that we had two years in a row where everybody in the department here is consecutively a little while. And I know you don't take that for granted because we're able to really hit the ground running. And Karen does a great job at Troy High, and Todd does an amazing job at Athens, and really has some great institutional,
knowledge and history of what's going on at Athens with his role that's been there. And I'll talk more about that in a second, but very grateful for them both being here tonight as we meet once a week. And, you know, we are fortunate that we're the only three that are in that part of what we do in the district. And I also meet every three weeks with Christine to talk about challenges that may come up or visioning and planning for what we do. And, with my elementary background, Christine has been a huge support in regards to connecting the secondary piece to that. But she said, well, that's a little elementary. Let me think of this right.
It's just it it goes really well, so I appreciate the the the coaching. Hey. Here's just a a quick thing on some fall sports updates. Fall sports are done. We are in winter sports, and, I mean, we are rolling this week. We have four nights at each high school, not if there is an event, it's how many events are going on. But taking a look back at the fall, we had a great athletics fall here in Troy. Troy, hi. Let's start off with with the state championship boys, varsity tennis, and they'll be joining us next Tuesday night here at the board meeting. Athens boys high school, varsity soccer made it to the state semifinals,
the final four. Troy United boys varsity water polo team, you wanna talk about the final student athlete. Every single member of our water polo team, which is a united team, is made academic all state. And you just take a look at that. In the two years I've been here, that's not happened yet and asking back of previous athletic directors, wasn't sure if that's ever happened, that they can recall. Troy High athletic coordinator Todd Hugh, two weekends ago was inducted into the high school Michigan High School Sports Hall of Fame for, his contributions to coaching soccer,
both at Rochester High School and at Troy High School with multiple state championships. So congratulations on that. And then getting into Athens and Troy, you know, in soccer, Oakland County is king in soccer, and they all play each other in districts. Well, this year, Troy and Athens were able to get in two separate districts, and they won their district, and then they faced off in regionals. So the great part is with the design of where things landed in the tournament, they were able to meet in regionals not in districts and two of our teams were able to get further and Athens made one step farther, but both schools did an amazing job this fall.
And then one of my favorite things this fall is that we piloted our Girls Flag Football League. It was awesome. We had 48 girls come out at Athens for it in an inaugural year, and we have 48 Troy High. We are definitely gonna have to get more jerseys for next year, as we go through this, but it was completely funded by the NFL, and by, the Detroit Lions and and Nike. Nike gave us free uniforms, both schools, and the NFL provided all the equipment. So earlier, it was great. Be excited. Much been here or do should I wait to You know what? I I'm good either way, but I'm happy to present and handle things at the end.
Let's see. Let's see. Let's see. So as we're going through it, one year from right now next year, we will be done with all parts of the Sports Bomb Complex at all sites. And, to take a look at where that it's really exciting. I mean, we've had the pardon our dust signs up a lot as we work through that, but, that kind of segues to the next slide here, and I won't go through each one of these, but these are all projects that were done in the bond, and so grateful for these additions. You know, what's coming here at Troy High this summer is the final piece that's done there at Troy High is they'll be getting the new track,
and what we've done throughout the time of the bond here in the early three years is that what happens at one school, we do something at the other, and then it flip flops back and forth so that we can get them done with contractors, but it works well. And then it happens this summer. They will be getting a new gymnasium floor, bleachers, and then just wrapping up those baseball and softball fields that are there, which look amazing, and both athletic coordinators have been, part of designing our fields at both sites and parents the feedback specifically on all the new artificial turf surfaces, they're as good as any place in the country,
and I will say right right now with the school district here in Troy, you walk through these and you feel like you're on a college campus and it is really really cool so thank you for your support in that regard. So Troy Sports, what do we offer? We offer 31 varsity sports. So on the left of this screen here, you'll take a look at our boy sports and girl sports, and it looks like we have 14 boys and 15 girls. So when it comes to Title IX compliance, we have to make sure that we have equal number for each, but also on the right hand side we offer club sports. Some of those are all our varsity sports as well,
and we might call those legacy sports that have been around long enough before we said the only ones we're going to support, Troy, are the ones that are the MHSA sanctioned sports. But so water polo, is a club sport, but we we do fund that one, same with synchronized swim. And, when I take a look at the district's vision of belonging, for every student and every, staff member to feel as if they belong, Sports is such a great avenue for this to take place, and I'll show you some things in our budget here where I think we're getting a lot of bang for our buck. But these are, teams that they are a part of where when it comes to belonging,
they immediately have a circle. They have a group that they can identify with. They wear that jersey up Athens or Troy High or one of our middle schools, and they publicly say I belong to where this is at. And they also have a coach, which is an advocate, a mentor, an educator, someone that they can go to, and their teammates usually aren't just for season. For any of you who've been in part of sports, you know that teammates are for life, and you have these great things. So what we have in Troy of 31 varsity teams, 10 club sports, over a 100 teams at the high schools, and this is just the high schools,
approximately 1,700 unique student athletes annually and over 250 coaches. You you know, take a look at that. Working with Karen and Todd, it's our goal to support each of them, and I think we're doing a pretty good job of that. Participation rates. I wanted to go back about five years to share a little bit with you to show you how many students participate in athletics over time and where we're at. First of all, look at the left hand side, 40% of our high school students participated in athletics last year in 2425. Now out of that number, 4,280
students, that is not just Athens And Troy, that is also IA East, That is TCCHS and our online students as well. So when we see, like, well, that why doesn't that seems like that's more than what we have at Athens and Troy. It's all of our secondary students. And then middle school is really kinda cool. Like, I mean, so seventh and eighth grade, 50% of our kids, basically, 48% participate in athletics, 950 out of 1,990. So if I were to go back here, we you know, none of us want to go back to twenty twenty twenty one, but that was our year of COVID,
and you could see that was probably the record low ever of the number of students that are gonna participate in sports. But then we had a quick rebound, of a 36% increase, and and you can see, specifically 2,408 students, student athletes participated, and those are unique. That's not like, you know, we're counting single athletes and then multiple sports. That is total, like like, anyone that participates. And then we had a 2% increase, 4% increase, and another 4% increase. So while our enrollment is either, you know, state level or even maybe going down in some areas, sports participation continues to go up.
So one of the things I'm gonna show you in the next couple of slides is that when you take a look at the budget for athletics, 1.4% of our, you know, act or or choiceful district budget goes back into these student athletes, and I think that's a really big return on investment. So when you'll take a look at athletics, you know, I I hear Christine and Rich or Chris, talk about at at the building levels when they give their, you know, fall updates or spring updates. We talk about we're a people business. Athletics is very much, a mirror of that. So we take a look at our budget being,
you know, basically 2,700,000.0. 1,300,000.0 goes to coaches, and and take a look at where we're at. And then we take a look at officials. We have a 166,000, and we had about a 40% increase in officials rates as the rates for officials are renegotiating with all of our assignments. And we're gonna take another hit on that. It's next year for middle school. And the following year, when our contracts are up for high school again, the West side of the state pays their officials much higher than what we do, and that will go into the negotiations that we have. So that those costs for officials aren't gonna come down, and in some sports,
there's additional officials added, to to what what's going on, and they get paid the same. So it's a multiplier effect of what what we have to, be able to pay. Our athletic training services, and we are very fortunate to have great trainers at both Troy High and Troy Athens. That is their salary, that is the equipment they use, and that's also our CPR and first aid certifications that we pay for to have our coaches done. I'll talk more about that in a moment. Our game management staff, the people that work the gates, whether it's cold outside, raining outside, or dry, or dusty, they're out there standing through all of that and managing things.
And then our expenses and you know sports are consumable, When we take a look at what we have whether it be simple things like basketballs, footballs, hockey pucks, we could then get into you've got uniforms, you've got equipment that that just over time has to be replaced For example, like, last year, for the first time in over twenty years, we had to get new wrestling bags. There's $20 right there. You know, things just add up over time as we go through these things. But our return on investment, again, if I take a look at that, you know, 1.4% of the budget is benefiting 2,647
student athletes in grades seven through 12. So I'll talk a little bit more about the finance and, you know, so all of our pay to participate fees are on the side there along with our athletic entrance fees. But when it comes to revenue, athletics is unique in the fact that it does bring in revenue. So we get three sources of revenue, pay to participate, gate receipts, and athletic event passes. So So, if I start with pay to participate, you'll see that from 2122 through 2324, we were about the same. It's about 355,000 to 364,000.
And then in twenty twenty four, twenty five, it went up to 407,000. And you'll see the other two below have a similar pattern of where things are. So we increased from 2324 to 2425 to $112,000 of extra revenue that came in from athletics. So, when you take a look at the net budget of athletics, being, you know, what was the budget is 2.7, it goes down to about 2,000,000. So that would then change that percentage to be 1% of the district budget benefits these student athletes. So, we we take a look at making sure every single dollar goes right back to
where we are. One thing I did want to mention going back here, I forgot this one, on the bottom on this slide here, transportation. Transportation is not in the athletics budget is in the overall district budget, but I wanted to know what it costs to be able to provide transportation for athletics. And that's 85,000, and we usually give one way transportation for everything, and then parents, do that and we're very fortunate to still have that some of the districts around us are not providing transportation for athletics, and I think that 85,000 piece of being able to provide safe, travel for our student athletes specifically at middle school when those times of getting out
of school and those gains are so quickly afterwards. We're not, doing things to parents' schedules that make them have to get out of work early. It's just usually on game day. So that that's the budget piece and the finances. One of the things that'll be coming to you this spring, things to come soon, is when I took this position, I noticed that our student code of athletic code of conduct has really not been touched since 2015, and there are so many places that it's outdated. And so we were taking a look at going through and revising.
And this is another thing that working with Todd and Karen, and then other stakeholders throughout the district, we are taking a look at doing a full review of this, and we've got a lot of it done. But we haven't had it looked at. And when I say it was revised in 2015, speaking with our former, athletic director, my predecessor, it was lightly touched. So it's really been, twenty one years since it's had a good review. So we're getting input from director of athletics, our athletic coordinators, principals, coaches, parents, student athletes. Christine has looked over this, and it will be coming to you this spring for your approval.
But things that aren't in in there that need to be included, like like, you know, we need to have it updated with the MHSA handbook, and there were so many areas that we were it's not that we were out of compliance, it just hadn't been updated. And that's really the major piece of what we have to do is go align with the MHSAA. And then our coach, player, and parent expectations, Amina, we met last year and talked about some of those things of what's the expectation at middle school? I'm going to show that on our next slide here. And then our cat pack that was developed to be able to say if there's, an issue, what does that look like?
Where that's at? That's not in the athletic hand, but we'll put that in. And then final forms is something that we've had for about seven or eight years now, and to make sure that that's a part of where that's at. So it's communicated how it's used, what it's used for, and to be able to explain that. So that'll be coming. The one thing I will say is that the student athletic code of conduct has been confused a lot with the district code of conduct. So we have looked at one of the first revisions was to change the name to the athletic handbook for students. So just so that there's not confusion, and that is also a pattern of when we had looked at other,
code of conducts or athletic handbooks, we pulled them from all over the state to take a look at this, to to compare where we're at. That is a trend of what they're changing the names to. It's just so that there's not the confusion, but that'll be coming to you this spring. This is what I talked about in regards to expectations. So Amina, when we talked a little bit in regards to, you know, feedback from the community of, you know, what are the expectations by grade level, or by level of sport, you know, we take a look at middle school, freshman, JV, and varsity. You know, what is that philosophy? Well, we start off at middle school where that philosophy is really about skill development,
fundamentals. It's about teamwork, but it's really about, you know, when we hire someone and I interview someone for a middle school position, it's what is your goal to be able to accomplish? And what you're looking for is to grow their love of the game. You want them to come back next year. That's what our philosophy is at middle school, and to get as many kids participating as possible. And then you go to varsity where you say this is our most competitive level, you know, the best talent and the best teammates will be the ones that are on those teams, but it's an enhancement of excellence, teamwork, defining their roles, and and sportsmanship at its highest level.
But then we've gone through with our coach expectations, player expectations, and parent expectations, and really said, what does that look like at each level? And I think that that's something now that I shared this with, Todd and Karen, to our coaches because we also meet with our coaches for a a fall coaches meeting, a winter coaches meeting, and a spring coaches meeting. So our fall and winter coaches, we've gone through this with them. Our spring will be having that this year. So we'll be all on board with everybody being able to have that, and our coaches are starting to use this language with their parent meetings when they
have their program meetings by season. We've also added in there that, we would not have Sunday practices before 2PM to be able to take a look at some of our faith based pieces that are on Sunday, even though I realize that that can be done at any time with services. So parents can go and have fellowship or or take their kids to church or or whatever their faith is. Athletic department communication, this was also something this last year that Karen and Todd and I worked collaboratively on, and I'm gonna start by jumping right to EventLink. EventLink is a partner with the MHSAA, and the MI triple a was an association of athletic directors in Michigan that is
growing in regards to, the services that it offers within our state. One of the services is that it does websites. Our websites were old, antiquated. They were not ADA compliant, and we needed to get a massive update. I want to thank Karen and Todd for the amount of work that they put in in summer. Let's say there are four seasons to high school and middle school athletics. There's fall, there's winter, there's spring, and then there's the off season, which includes, your off season workouts, your team camps, your, you know,
sports camps, everything else in what you're gonna do, skill development. But, having everything in here, they worked really hard to give a brand new Troy High website, a new Athens website, where you can get, we wanted to have an all in one, shot where you don't have to go any place else. So you've got your schedules, you've got updated rosters. It it it is ADA compliant. They we use EventLink also with coaches for scheduling. They can put their own right on their phone, they can put their own practice schedules, scrimmages, anything in there, and the cool part is we the only reason we chose EventLink is that it
pairs with the district scheduling system, ML schedules. So when they put something in, it uploads right into ml schedules so that it shows, so when it comes to scheduling or for rentals, we don't have any overlaps. And again, I always say the Brene Brown quote clear is kind, unclear is unkind, and we want to be as clear as possible with our scheduling. Another piece that was brought up is how we might clarify what does that mean for blackout and voluntary dates, and how does that pertain to a district that has put all of this work into having a culturally, you know, sensitive calendar for everybody.
Well, blackout dates aren't necessarily on here, but you would be taking a look at New Year's. You'd be looking at Thanksgiving Day, Christmas Day, some of those traditional pieces. But when we get into some of the other parts, we say, you know, what does it look like when we have a lot of days that are on our calendar where we are in school and that holiday is celebrated by that family? If school is in session, practices are voluntary and players can't be penalized for missing. So if they have anything, we try to work around those to the extent possible, but when we have those pieces they need to know and it's communicated that no student athlete will ever be penalized if they have to miss for a holiday or
a cultural observance. And then when you have some of the other ones where we have our national holidays like Labor Day, Memorial Day, there's no not Thanksgiving Day, but the rest of Thanksgiving break or winter break. What does this look like for spring break? It doesn't mean that practices can't take place, but it does have to be voluntary, and it's not mandatory on anybody, and we are working hard to communicate that with coaches, as there's been soft conversation and language about that in the past, but nothing official, and now that is something that is set moving forward. Another piece that changed at the state or at the MHSA level in 02/2425,
there was a mandate to make sure that every head coach is CPR and first aid certified. That has been a challenge as a lot of districts, in the state, sometimes with less means, have a hard time funding that. Our district, we have put that as a priority. Every head coach at middle school and at high school, whether it's freshman, JV, varsity, seventh, eighth grade is CPR and first aid certified. We also offer this to all of our assistants even if they are voluntary, we will pay for that. It costs less than a $100 to get a coach,
CPR, or first aid certified. They take an online CPR course, and then they take an in person skills test, so it's a hybrid version of this, and they do that with our athletic trainer at Athens, who does a great job with that. But, with this one, we we are, paying this for everybody, and that was that part in the budget that goes along with our athletic trainers. With that, the importance of that is, to me, in sports, you're not good unless you practice. So with that, we have started a new process last year, and that is I have asked every coach at every level to run two EAP
drills throughout their season, just like we run tornado drills or we run a shelter in place drill or we run a, fire drill or or a crisis drill. We have to practice an EAP drill. So with that, I ask coaches and we do our training with them. They get their certification, but they have watched what it looks like to see somebody in a volleyball court in real time go down, and what it was like to have the appropriate response. We want them to visually see it, we talk about it, and not that they have to go through it at that level,
but the main things about those drills are they need to know where the AED is, not just the coach. Because if the coach knows goes down, the players have to know. The coach doesn't run the drill on their own. Karen and Todd will participate in those, but our trainers are there to really go through who we bring in through Poor Well Health and they are there to assist in those drills where if we had an incident and we did have an incident last year at Troy High and while it wasn't athletics, I can tell you our varsity basketball coach was on-site,
he went in to get the AED. Our athletic trainer was there, he came in and was rotating with the former athletic director and current assistant principal, at Troy High, giving compression and going through an offer and administering CPR. We need to be there to be able to handle this. Our team responded quickly, promptly, and gave that young man his best chance. With that being said, we're gonna do this because we need to practice. It's the norm. If you do two in every sport you're in, seventh grade, eighth grade, freshman, JV, varsity, you realize what we have to do,
how we have to get it. I've also purchased, within our budget, AEDs so that every high school has four additional outside AEDs. Two of them go to the golf courses. The JV and the varsity golf coach each have one on their cart and it's mandated that they have to have them. We also have them for our cross country coaches in the fall as they take them and where they're at and those are our two biggest concerns right because they're out away from things compared to being in a gym where we would all be able to get there, but we are we plan these things,
we talk about these things so that everybody is prepared for them. We've also purchased additional AEDs for our middle schools, so they have that to be able to have for all of their outside sports and taking safety, seriously. The last thing that I wanted to talk about was when I came into this position in the interview process that was right in this room two years ago, is that I really wanted to take a look at what can we do to bring a level of learning to our community. And I also wanna, talk about Todd and Karen on this one, and we talked about what do our student athletes need, what do our coaches need, what does our community need.
So two of those things we've addressed this year at our fall sports parent meeting and then also in our winter sports parents meeting. So the first gentleman here in the center, is Jeremy McCall. He is a sports therapist, and they talk about a lot of student athletes might get anxiety with performance. And you do great in practice, you do great in a summer league, or in a scrimmage, but then all of a sudden, you get out there, you're wearing the jersey, and there's student sections, and all your parents are there to be able to watch things. And and you can have a little bit of stress, or it's a stressful situation.
So bringing in, like, what what kind of signs should a parent look for? What is that like? Giving them that resource. This is and when I communicate this, this is not the only resource. It's a resource. And then the second one that we brought in for the winter parents meeting was, right here in Troy also, Sean Connolly who works with team rehab. We have three team team rehab facilities right here in our community. He works at Troy three, and he is also a professor of nutrition at Wayne State, and does all kinds of things as being a health coach, but he came in and presented on,
nutrition and shared a lot of things in regards to what's the dangers of bacon and specific to sports, what is the danger in regards to energy drinks, and that there's really not one that he'll endorse other than black coffee, in going through that, but he had a lot of things that he put in common language for parents, for the student athletes that were there, and we'll continue to put resources in front of our community so that we could help educate them to give the best opportunity for our student athletes to be competitive, safe, and and feel as if they belong in our district. With that, that is what I had to share with you a little bit about athletics.
That's just a drop in the bucket of everything that takes place, but, again, I wanna thank Christine for her support doing this job, Rich and the board. I think we've got a really good system. The ad life of an athletic director is not easy, and I wanna talk specifically about Karen and Todd and their commitment. There are 754 member schools in the MHSAA, and over the last four years, 527 of the ADs have either resigned or retired. It is tough hours, hard to find coaches. There are a lot of constraints that that come into this. They are all in.
They are at every event that they have. They are leaving here tonight to go take care of events at their buildings, and I'll be heading over to Athens to watch our varsity girls basketball team compete tonight after this as well. But they are all in, and where we're at, and I couldn't be, happier with the time, the effort, and the intelligence that they have of what they come in here for a one Troy attitude, of collaboration every week when we meet and servicing our families in this community. So any questions you might have for me? Hey, Lydia. I'm gonna ask. Yeah. We'll go down the table.
Oh, I was just curious. Is there some sort of tipping point when the club's sport becomes, an MHSA official sport, like, with the volleyball and the black football? Great question. So in order for a sport to become a sanctioned sport within the NHSAA, they talk about having 64 teams. It's 62 or 64, but right in that ballpark. So for instance, when it comes to boys volleyball, they were able to get to the part where they were getting enough teams to be able to be over that number. The one you know, just to give a specific sport like girls hockey, there are 24 teams in the state.
So there's this part there, and it's been flat. There's been no growth in that in the in the last five years. So you have sports where they take a look at having membership participation, getting to that number of in those low sixties, and then once they have that, you're able to go from there. We've taken a look at we will introduce any sport as a club sport, but never jump right to an MHSAA or sanction it here. And then those are also pieces that we negotiate as part of schedule d within the TBA contract. Thanks. You got it? Good question. So my question is that the pay to participate fees,
have they increased over the years? Or So just before I took this position, you know, my predecessor and the assistant superintendent business services looked at, like, where we were knowing that we were gonna face some increases in cost. And part of that was gonna be with officials. But we had everything's costing where in where we're at. So they bumped that up. So in those fees, that was prior to last school year. And what I would add an echo on there is my main thing is anytime you up fees, you don't wanna see participation rates go down. And what we saw is it actually went up higher,
than than the previous couple of years. So, it didn't reduce that, but our rates did go up, and it has helped offset the costs of athletics. And, in no way does it cover athletics, but it offsets the cost. Okay. Perfect. And our kids who have better, free and reduced lunch, they they get support with those fees. Correct? Correct. So if someone receives free lunch, they have no fees. If they have reduced, a lunch, then they only have to pay $50. So just to to to go off what Audra asked, I know last year were at some point,
Richard, I had talked and, you know, there seems to be, for example, less participation in softball maybe, but it's kinda going up in lacrosse. So what is our process for evaluating when to potentially retire a sport, add a new one? Right? Because, you know, it's not like we can keep adding and having forty, fifty, 60 teams. So is there a, and I'm not asking about softball, you know, specifically, but that's just my example. So, what is the process for us to look at whether it makes sense to add
something as an official team and potentially to to, I guess, retire one. I mean, what I'm looking forward to to you? So I could say a a lot of that, we would take a look at first following what the MHSA is doing. First of all, the trends you noticed are literally not just in Troy. It's across the state. We did not have a JV softball team at Troy High for the first time in a long time last year. But in the OAA, that is a pattern. We are seeing less participation in some areas. When you take a look at the state, the number of girls participating in softball has gone down.
However, the popularity of lacrosse has gone way up and the number of girls that go out for lacrosse. And and part of the reason we did girls black football in the fall was looking at where those participation numbers are in where we are. If the MHSA comes back to us and says we're thinking of right now, that number of 62, 64, we're dipping below that, They may no longer sanction that sport. That would be the first thing for us. Would trigger our conversation from where we're at. The second would be participation, and Christine and I talked about that, at those meetings that we have in regards to,
hey. This is where our participation numbers are in some of our sports, and, do we wanna take a look at where we're going with to continue this? So I would say it starts with the MHSA. We have conversation. We haven't had a had to necessarily get to that part yet, but we are having conversations in a few of our sports. Brandon, side note, this might be a Kendra question too. I went to the winter parent sports meeting. This is really helpful because I'm still going to the whole website. So so, you know, is is it possible to take down the old athletic websites? Because or whoever can answer it by the way.
So in going through that and, Kendra, you're welcome to answer this one, but I'm just jumping in because we've literally just talked about this last week. Because I don't know which one I'm supposed to go through. On our websites, the only link that we have is to the new ones. However, if you Google And, you know, I still Troy High athletics, the old domain is still out there, and it's attached to our GoFan, account that we use for ticketing. Okay. With that, they took that on because they bought out the old program, BNN. To make a long story short, we have requested that they take that down.
Okay. Because I looked at and I and Yes. Because there were still a schedule on there for, like, the world's winter basketball season. Like, damn, these days look really weird, but I guess what they you know, that's what they are. I think it went to the paramedic, and I was like, oh, I was like, completely different schedule. So, I imagine I am not the only the only one. So that was one question. And then, I I guess I'll give feedback as as a parent too. I did find the winter sports, athletic meeting that you guys have for parents, really helpful. I did appreciate that Sean explained that that,
the athletic drinks, like, the, you know, the Gatorades and all that are not necessary so that we have to go home and then, you know, explain that to my 12 year old. But as a parent, you know, I have a kid who plays basketball. So I I've been able to see the difference between this year and last year. And so, you know, I would say that the three levels are now being treated very not very differently, but are being treated differently. So the expectations of JDB team are different than the, you know, than the varsity team. And the, you know, the coaches have have taken these rules very seriously in terms of,
you know, holidays when practices are required. There's yeah. So so that is I I've seen it implemented. Thank you for that feedback. Patel? Cool. I have a few questions. First one is a more a comment. You mentioned about, all the athletes in the, you know, by by voice, what a quality team were all have star athletes, I guess, is what you said. How many students are in? I believe there were 14. It it's about that amount. Alright. And flag football, how many? You said it's completely fund funded by NFL,
I'm assuming. So the equipment was. Oh, okay. Yep. Yep. The so the your jerseys were provided by Nike. And then when it came to, like, you know, the cones, the flags, all of that, that was given by the NFL. I assume they did that for many other high schools in the building. Are nationally. So the the the n f the one thing I will say, like like, the NFL really wants to do their advertising for NFL flag football. It's good PR for them. Yeah. Well, in a lot of states that are trying to start taking a look at sanctioning it, once it becomes sanctioned, they cannot use those athletes,
their, advertisements Okay. In where that's at. So right now, you have they're okay if it not it doesn't become a sanctions sport. And I will say this, our girls had fun. Yeah. They practiced two days and played one. It wasn't like a six day a week commitment. There was a balance there. It was just fun. And I I really felt like we hit lightning in a bottle on that one. It was I don't know. Like I said, it was one of my favorite things this fall. It was awesome. Yeah. That's awesome. That's good. My next question was, you had 250 coaches approximately. Are they both middle school and high school? Artist is,
believe that. No. That's that that's both levels. Both levels. Yep. So we have about 25 sports for boys and 25 for girls. So do we have multiple coaches for, for sport, and is that why we have that many? We yes. So, like, a varsity let me give you, like, a varsity soccer program. You'd have a varsity, a JV, a freshman, and then they may have do some fundraising. They have assistant coaches, and then we don't have that as a middle school level, but for other sports, we have high school. Alright. Now you mentioned that for, our for the officials, the rates have increased.
I I was wondering about our coaches and how many of our coaches are our own teachers and Mhmm. Are we paying them also appropriately? Approximate statistics, when we look at the middle school level, 80% of our coaches, a little over 80% of our coaches are teachers, which is great understanding, development of middle school age students, it's high on participation, you know, again anytime you can get somebody to building at any level, it's great for recruitment and making kids aware of opportunities that are there. At the high school level, that drops down to about 25%.
In part, it's a lot harder to approach at the high school level, where a middle school season might be eight weeks and high school season is sixteen weeks. So there's a lot of different reasons for that, and then high school season, if you're a varsity coach, it's not just the season. There's preseason, postseason workouts, off season workouts. So there's so many layers that come to that. So, it it it's a little bit different at the high school level. But we feel like the update is pretty good. So I I'd have to ask Dan to confirm this, but I know in the last contract, our teachers or or in that contract,
there was an 11% increase to the schedule b, coaches Okay. Salaries or stipends. That is I I figured that, but since we are doing yearly for the for our officials, I'm under Yep. That Yep. So our officials are a three year contract. So we had that last year as year one. This is year two. So at the end of next year, we'll have to renegotiate. Adequate this contract or officials? They we have an agreed upon stipends or or a set amount that we pay for officials across Southeast Michigan. So, one of the committees I'm on, the SEMLAC Southeast Michigan League of Athletic,
coordinators or or athletic directors, and we meet as a committee to talk about those things so that we have the same rate in Macomb Township, in Troy, in, you know, anything around us so that we're not well, if Troy pays $20 more, then we're gonna get more officials and we shortchange another district. We have to be fair to be able to go to all student athletes. Okay. Cool. The athletic handbook, now you renamed it from code of conduct. One of I'm on the wellness committee, and we've talked about, you were on it too. Yes. Right? You were there.
So Good to see you. Yeah. We've talked about not just the code of conduct conduct. We also talked about who is of living, what is healthy as an athletic athlete, like, and those things. Are you planning on adding that part also into the athletic handbook now that you removed the code of conduct part of it? So I would say in part of that, that it's an initiative that we have. Okay. And and, you know, in that athletic handbook or code of conduct, as you can see, there's a reason we changed the name.
There's parts that talk about healthy living and the expectations of an athlete. At the same token, the main part with that committee is the initiative of educating our community, bringing in the nutritionist, those types of resources to be able to build up the knowledge base that benefits our student athletes. Okay. Two last questions. One is the holidays. You said no practices are not not holidays, observe days. Do we have games on those days? Because other schools may not observe those. So as we go through that, we try to move all of those that we can.
Yep. And and as we have that, like, we've had some holidays that have fallen on Friday. Not this year, but the previous year in the fall football season, we moved that game to a Thursday. So in both situations that I'm aware of, we tried to make those arrangements and make those moves. And if it was something that was prescheduled, the following year, we're trying to schedule it so it's not at those those times. I'll tell you from my kids' experience, even though it is optional and you are not penalized, kids are pressurized. I mean, they're like, I'm not gonna mess with this. No matter if it's a Diwali or a need, I am going to go to practice.
I am gonna go to do this. Doesn't matter. So indirectly, they're already pressured as to what I'm They are. We're fighting tradition. We're fighting time. And it's that piece of if we can commute I've always said, if we get it right with adults, we have a better chance to get it right with kids. So let's start with leadership. Let's start with coaches, Lynn, and then let's let that trickle down and get it right with parents. Get it right with adults. We have a better chance to get it right with kids. Cool. Last thing, broadcasting. Do we still do the broadcasting of games, like, we used to have those cameras in, high school games?
So we have the pixel lots that are through the NFHS network, and those broadcast any game that is on our stadium fields at both high schools and in our range gymnasiums at Troy High at Athens. And and do we have any say in the pricing of those? Because they were So that is done by a national network, and I I I'd have to look at that. I don't remember. I don't know if it's $75 for a a a license to be able to get that, but, it it it could be more than that. I don't remember it better. So It's very exorbitant for people to even watch it. No. They don't have any control over it. Okay. I'm gonna move to Okay.
The car. It's safe. Oh, yeah. That that's a lot. Sorry. Sounds okay. So the girls flag football, is that gonna be, like, an official thing then? Hopefully. So right now, I think that there aren't enough teams to be sanctioned yet. It is growing. What I mean is, like, are we gonna offer that again in the Oh, in the fall? Yes. We are. So I can tell you last week at the OAA meeting. Karen and Todd and I are there. We go to that once a month. That is you know, we talked about it, and we had six teams this year. All six teams returning. We're already up to 10 for next fall,
and it will likely grow within the OAA. Our goal is to show that it can be done in the fall. Just look, if we put this in the spring, if we pull two girls from each softball team or we pull two girls from a soccer team, we're not gonna have a JDA team or b team in soccer. We won't have a JV softball team. It dilutes. And you look at the kind the the girls that are out there in sports that they play in the spring. They would have to play two sports at once of which we are open to. At the same token, that's a lot of work on a student athlete's body, and it's time away from their studies when we're talking about student athletes.
Yeah. For that flag football, did you I'm I'm known. Like, Aaliyah tried out for it. She was so excited, first of all, because she stopped playing flag in, I think, fifth grade. Because after fifth grade, no one said middle school or whatever, she she missed it so much, so she loved it. Were there, like, cuts just because it's new. Right? Was it just, like, based on the availability of the kids? Like, how many could make each game kind of thing? Because I know she told me something like 60 kids went out for So we only got 25 per team because that's how many uniforms we had.
And from the standpoint of when we take a look at, it's not like, the boys football where 11 girls are on or guys are on the field at the same time. We're talking about seven being on the field. Right. Getting all of them in because it's club. We want every single one of them that's gonna pay a fee to be able to participate. In year one, we said, let's do that. We also as we were going through that, the message was, you're not cut. We want you to go out for powder puff. We want you to enjoy that. We want you to know that we're gonna take a look at expanding this in the future. So, we started with a number that so how our coach is also an inaugural time,
a first time doing that to be able to get our feet wet, and get started. I just have to say, Aaliyah loved it. That was like her she wanted to practice every day, to be honest with you. So if you guys wanna move to every day, Always leave a hungry tiger a lot more. And just out of curiosity, what are what are our athletic trainers' credentials? Like, what are they, like So we hired them through Poor Well Health. And so, like, right now, one of the things we do have is our, trainer at Troy High, Mike Sun, has taken a position at his in Grosse Pointe where his kids go are gonna go to school. So he's cutting off an hour drive each way and getting more family time,
and he's he's a stud. Right? So but what we're losing a great one, but that that posting has gone out in that, they have whatever that their licensing is. They have to have that to be an athletic trainer. Okay. And then they also have the services that CoreWell Health provides as they have ongoing training. Stephanie. First, I wanna say thank you. This is super refreshing to see if sports and data together is really in a way that, you know, makes sense to me. Sports has a little bit of data to it. Data. We have this So I appreciate it.
It certainly demonstrates, our district's commitment to belonging and your commitment and your team's commitment to belonging both as a group and for our students. So we appreciate it. Thank you. One quick question because you've been on the hot seat a long time. I was curious about as I remember it, back in a few years ago when I had kids in sports, the varsity requirement seemed different sport to sport. You know, like, you have to do this to get your letter in this sport and this. Is that gonna be addressed in the new, handbook, or has that worked? Great point. So as we go through that, traditionally, that's been something that's been defined by each of the coaches.
We are having conversation to get that more consistent. Bottom line is we believe that if a student participates on a team for a season, regardless of anything else, they should be getting the letter. Gotcha. The big question we always get is, well, if it's a district sport or a club sport, which one do you get the letter in? And we're making sure that we're very clear on each of those. Gotcha. So good question. Thanks for all of it tonight. Absolutely. So my last question is this. Are we allowing students and parents to provide feedback to coaches?
Is there what's the, feedback process? And then how is that feedback used, you know, developmentally as opposed to Great question. So we there was a system in place, by my predecessor with surveys, that would go out to parents and to student athletes. We have used that exact same survey. It had taken a little bit of a break in COVID because basically it was, you know, hey. Let let's try to make sure we can manage sports. We brought that back. We created a three year rotational cycle, because I don't believe we should evaluate one sport every single year.
But, yeah, again, if you're in a program for four years, you'll have the chance to do that twice. Mhmm. So as we go through it, it's every three years, and the coaches that go through that, like this fall, will do boys soccer for both high schools. If you're having great seasons, again, you get a lot of great feedback, but we use that. Karen, Todd, and I sit down with every varsity coach at the end of their season. So I'm the administrator, and I'm the one that's in charge of their evaluations. We work collaboratively on that, but they do get an evaluation. And with that, we give them that feedback ahead of time from the survey results.
There's a Likert scale in about 10 areas that go through. Are you satisfied with the coaching and his relationships with players? Are you satisfied with their knowledge of the sport? What's the equipment that the district offers? Those things are put in there. We give that feedback to the coach, they also have two open ended questions at the end. What are some strengths that you saw in the program and what are some areas of improvement? The survey process is not meant to get rid of a coach or to fire a coach, it's meant to improve a program and improve all coaches in the program as we all want to get better. So that is what our survey process is,
it's consistent with what we've used before, and our coaches know what year that they're up on as they go through that, so they know ahead of time, where that's at, and parents do as well. So and we've communicated those out at our meetings also. And do we get pretty good participation, for and is it student Some sports, we get really good participation. And some others, it's it's almost like they take it for granted that they have such great coaches and we don't get a lot of feedback, but it's it's specific sports specific when we get that. Mhmm. Okay. Is it, students and parents? Two separate surveys, but yes. Sure. Yeah. Because we want the students to have a voice.
Yeah. That's right. That's great. Thanks, Matt. Okay. Alright. Well, thank you. So I got it. Thanks, Matt. Really appreciate it. Happy holidays to everyone. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Go enjoy your games tonight. Yeah. Thank you. Try staying. And Go Hawks. Yes. And go both. Yeah. Alright. So why don't we do our schools of choice to, you know, show them that before the regular Yeah. If you need it. To give me the queue when we met her. But oh, shall we do that? I shouldn't have actually Goodness. Awesome. Why don't we do school with you twice and then we can take that? I I we don't this doesn't have to be,
really long. Provided the presentation, this is a presentation that you have seen that you would have seen in the past. We we, we have you will notice it's been upgraded over the course of many years. So this is probably what this is actually at the one of the most consistent, presentations that we've provided. I'll just jump to, based upon for '26, '27, based upon, projections from last year. So we have not gotten projections yet for this for this school year. We'll you will see, updated projections in February. Dan and I met with Plant Marang Pressa.
They understand what we want, in terms of projections. So they have first they have first, they have October count. They will wait for the February count, the unaudited February count. They'll blend those, and they'll give us our they'll give us our our unaudited number, but it'll be pretty close. So you can see, for 2627, we're anticipating about most likely seven hundred and sixty sixty six kindergartners, seven hundred thirty nine first graders. As I've said, we've updated this chart for for the last, month since even since before I became superintendent,
I think we were providing this particular breakdown. So you can see exactly, what we, what we offered and then how many students we actually took on a given year, both in kindergarten and and first grade. And that's in your presentation. How many students that are currently enrolled as schools of choice per grade level. I mean, excuse me. We do both both by school and per and and at grade band. I as I looked at this, it I but, you know, it might be more helpful to actually see that as a percentage of the building. That is provided as a percentage of the building in a chart that and I
think two two or so more slides. So you'll see what it is as a percentage of the building, and then, not by by grade. Dan, so, obviously, you can see when we've talked about aging out of our our schools of choice, the largest percentage of our schools of choice numbers are aging out. Those are at the ninth grade level, so they've made it to the high school, which is another reason why we've seen those high school numbers remain higher. Low school numbers over the course of last couple of years, and then the high school numbers have remained fairly consistent. We haven't seen the same, level of decrease that we've seen at at some of those elementary levels.
You could see the percentage of schools of choice, as I mentioned, to the left by elementary building. You can see percentage of schools of choice. So it breaks it downhill. It's the largest, of course, and then followed by WOS at six six point three five. But none of those percentages, are are are alarmingly hard high. Excuse me. What what we, did not provide, is the percentage by building at the high school level. So I think we'll update this presentation to include that, k, just so for for your reference. It's percent change h g then?
Yeah. Percent change over time. Yeah. So it's from year to year. What what what how much did it change? Did it go up or down? Four how many years? Four from year over year. Just like one year? Yeah. One. Okay. Gotcha. Yes. Year over year. Thanks, Doug. And Appreciate that clarification. And then, again, you can see our role history. One thing that, no. I'll get to that at the end, but that is provided for you. We are, the recommendation this is the recommendation where, so we have there's a 105, which is within county. There's one zero five c, which is contiguous counties, which would be Wayne and Macomb.
We're recommending a very small number of one zero five c in in in the resolution would be a a very small recommendation for one zero five c. Those will be for only current sibling of schools of choice families. So if there's a sibling currently if there is a school choice family that is one zero five c currently in the district, we offer the opportunity for that that sibling to attend. So that number that number you see it looks odd, y four, y one in first grade, and y one in middle school.
That's because we do a survey. So the enrollment department, puts out a survey to all current schools of choice families and that asks, do you have a sibling that will attend if given the opportunity? So this is specific to the ones we know wish to attend of a and then the one zero five, is, would be sibling of those that are currently in the disc or in the county. So there are eight schools of choice families that live within Oakland County that indicate they have a kindergartner that would attend that would like to attend choice schools next
year. So that's why we have that number at eight and two at the middle school level. So those are the numbers for the current schools of choice families. We're recommending a 100 total slots. You can see 75 for kindergarten, 25 for first grade, plus then the 10 sibling number. So a total of 110 is is the recommendation. Nancy, this is the the same recommendation here. Nancy had asked, what if we were to add that 100, what would it what would it do to our enrollment? So I'm gonna show you that. Right? So you can see what we did is it so we just took a 100.
So if we were to add based upon what our projected enrollment now this is this is projections going off of last year's numbers, again, because we don't have the overall we don't have the the new projections. So we just took last year's numbers from Planner ran, projecting them out, what they projected out, and then added a 100. If we were to add a 100 students in the 2627 school year, you can see what that does to that number. And then if this is just if we were to add a 100 and every
year thereafter, you could see what it does begins to level. That's not Yeah. Why not not suggesting that's what we would be asking for. Obviously, we would hope that the in in district numbers would we those. Right? We're we're built with would grow. One question I do get very often, and it's in every presentation, and I'm sure it's not just me. It's the team when we do our presentations around enrollment is, well, what about all of the, what about all of the developments that are going in around Troy? There's development across the street from from Leonard.
There's one going in just down the street at the church. That is gonna be a Mondrian, development. There's one very large building off of Corporate Drive, and so forth with multiple units. So I we have asked Dan and I asked, for a plant memorandum to make sure that when they provide our updated numbers that those are factored in. So when we see those numbers in February, we will see what any development that is currently permitted will be factored in. But you'll recall when, when Paul Wills, has done his presentation for us, for any any new development,
the percentage of student that would get out of that development is still rather small. And, I mean, if you look at just the the development going in down the street at the church, the Monterey development, that's you know, those will more than likely be $7,800 plus thousand dollar homes. So that's not where we're seeing the younger families coming from. Maybe those are families small mature families that are moving in with middle school students or high school students, which would be great, especially if they're moving from a smaller home, which might be a a nice opportunity for for a a younger family,
to to to to move in. But so that's our recommendation for next year, and only for next year at this point. We'll take this a year a year at a time. And, concur Chris has has looked at these numbers, and she's looked at her class, our size and said the elementary was comfortable that we can that we can sustain that number. Couple of questions. Sure. Oh, shit. Thanks. I can't recall how this has come into play with the our recommendations, or maybe we haven't talked about that yet. I was just curious because, like, Hill and Moss at 106% feed into Larson,
but I think we were trying to get kids into theater pathways to Smith. So is that gonna impact where these schools of choice kids would go? Yes. So Martell, Leonard Okay. Those those, two in particular where there where there are availability, the pathway would be hill, would be Smith, Leonard, Martel, Smith, and then to Adams. So we'd see those percentages start to shift over time? Yes. We should see those percentages shift. We have already made the shift, principals at the elementaries, for the Somerset students, for instance,
have already made the are are in the process, I should say, of making communications with those being in communication with those families, letting them know, that their that pathway for them, if they don't already have a sibling, in at Olin, that their pathway will be shifting. So we should already begin to see those numbers shift, into next year. And that's the real beauty of, you know, how we manage schools and choice over the years is it becomes really a leveler. Mhmm. So you can move those kids because they're Yeah. Not gonna have transportation anyway.
You can move those kids to health level out. Mhmm. So which I I have a couple of questions. One was, maybe explain to me and maybe others. Okay. What's the difference between one zero five and 105 c Sure. And why we should only pick 105? Why not open it to 105? Why are you only recommending 105 and not 105? Well, there's there's a couple of reasons for that. 105 particularly because we can target by by having more slots available with 105, we can target those communities that are that are Troy communities that,
that are not assigned to the Troy School District. Okay. So that provides us an opportunity to to offer more provides more opportunity for those families to take advantage if they wish to. So that would be having to have a one time Okay. Those that live in Troy. Mhmm. We'd like to give them that opportunity. Because we do hear from those families regularly that they would like to have that opportunity Okay. If given to come to Troy. And the other is, special education. If if a family, has a special education student and they wish to come, if they live if it's a one zero five c scenario,
the the the funding so we get PA $18 from Oakland County. That is those are for students that will that live in in Oakland County that flow through the ISD back to us, reimbursement, for special education students. If if a student is out of the county, and in Macomb, for instance, those monies will not flow to us. Okay. They would have to be a cooperative agreement that would be written, in order to do that, and then that's a difficult thing to do. So, it it makes it easier, cleaner for us, to target those families that are that are already in Oakland County.
And my other question is help me understand. So last year, we've opened up 52 slots for kindergarten, for example Mhmm. But only filled in 37. Yeah. So part of the yeah. Part of what happened last year was we got a late start. And and if you recall, we we made the approval, I think, around eight was it March or April ish time frame? Day. So we were late to the game, if you will. And for many schools, many families are making that choice much earlier. In fact, in many cases, they're making it, right in in in that January time frame,
which is why we're bringing the recommendation in December so that Kendra and her team can get ahead of the advertising while, while, other districts are doing their schools of choice advertising. So we were just late last year to the game because we didn't make that decision until later, and many families had already made their decisions. My I also heard that, because we opened up, let's say, only Martell and maybe another school, and these parents were in Warren Khan District. Warren Khan District are in Anne Aule, Phil, and I look quite far from the schools that we are opening up,
and that's why they did not choose to come in. And and do you fear that kind of thing can happen, especially because you're targeting those districts, but the schools we are picking really are not convenient for them. Yeah. That that did happen. You're you're you're absolutely right when we talked about one family in particular. And and then it it's really a a matter of of fairness. So for instance, if we have if we have schools in the district that are closed to open enrollment, so Shroeder, for instance, is closed to open enrollment in the school district.
So as a family, family cannot open enroll that is in the, Martell area of talking to Schroeder where that is closed to open enrollment. To have a schools of choice family be able to go to Schroeder, for instance, when in district families don't have that opportunity to make that decision if they're gonna put in that attendance area. We just didn't think it would be fair. And so the the decision was made to to we we do try to, to put families as close as possible to the closest school as possible. But if that doesn't fit with their,
with with their transportation or or whatnot, that's the decision they have to make. If it is one of our district, so they are South Of Big Levo, East of town or or whatever, that area. What would be the school that they would be allocated? It depends whichever school is closest and has avail and has appropriate availability. So we we have we don't put, that Costello. We don't put a lot could could be Costello, and we don't put, many schools of choice students at Morse, for instance, because Morse is one of our, is a building that we we get we get quite a few move ins into.
So where where Morse, for instance, might be closer for some families. Okay. We're very cautious of that because we we get a lot of influx of, district families in that in that area on a on an annual basis. So it could it could, yeah, could be Costello, could be WAS, and you see the numbers that WAS, could could be milk. Completely, but it wouldn't be Like, of, like, of bottles or a Barnard first because those feed into, like, a baker. Yeah. Like, when you're kind of private That's what I was wondering. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. I'm sorry if I That's okay. Misrepresented that. Yes.
Our goal now is to look at those schools that feed the middle schools that we we look to like to prop up those numbers. Right. So that's the goal first. So the default would be Barnard by the Could be. Yeah. Depending upon the probability. And we also have similar default for, Avondale area kind of debts. Yeah. Alright. Questions? I had one, but it's gone. It'll come back if it's not shared. I'm sorry. Alright. If you haven't I mean, if you haven't finished, go ahead. But I do wanna I do have other people. Some I told them to tell you that.
We I'm really confident that we'll get the 100 and w of that. On your topic, I think. We're getting out as early as we are. Yeah. Very confident. Mhmm. Okay. You know, we'll get past things we've always had. We haven't really done this. So k. Cool. I remember that. Okay. Okay. So to August point that we're trying to, strategically back to our middle school enrollments, which is where it's gonna drive, I assume, our elementary team said, how do you think that'll help with and I'm not trying to get too far into the weeds here, but, like, hill, high cars Yeah. Of, like, 10% high Right.
Of school choice. And that would be not a place to backfill. Right? Right. So how it would otherwise prop that building up because it's already kinda tiny about that. Yeah. So real good. Actually, what we're seeing Yeah. Yeah. Hill is one of those buildings where we're actually seeing an increase of of district involvement. Almost Yeah. That that community that that neighborhood started to turn off. We're actually seeing more. And in fact, to the to the point where we're actually gonna be moving out some of the ancillary programming from that building to make room for additional,
in district enrollment. So I'll let them breathe a little bit. So they're actually it's actually, what, three four each right now? Three four inch? It's not a small space. It's not a small building anymore. Okay. Martell. One one thing I think that is important that I asked Rich because, you know, there has been at least a segment of the community where schools of choice became a bit controversial. And so we very planfully asked in the ARC survey Mhmm. You know, if there was a trade off between closing a building or bringing on schools of
choice. And you do know what the number 29 just what the numbers were. I mean, because I think it was a polls around me. Yeah. It was well over 60%. Yeah. I think you know that. Right. In number off hand. These are pretty good fax numbers. Dollar number off hand? Henry's gonna look it up. Yeah. Okay. We'll look it up in So I think any other helpful. I don't think we'll necessarily, you know, there may be, you know, a few mobile members in the community that seem to be more out of the hand to the, area. Gotcha. But, I think that's important, you know, that I I do think we have the community to strengthen them.
So I think we're we're doing responsible things. But I think the great thing with this is next year, if we get feedback at is not it causes the board to think differently or Yeah. Why it differently. Yeah. They shut it up. Just Yeah. And that's the nice thing. Yep. I I will say, just as an FYI, there is a a bipartisan bill that an independent viewer paying I actually wasn't paying attention to this one that came and caught me by surprise. It was a bar bipartisan bill dropped last week, in the house, to, take away this a school district's right to to choose to be a part of
schools of choice. In other words, is that there there's a movement afoot at the state level to require districts to participate. Right now, you have to opt in. The the legislation would suggest that you don't you you you have to demonstrate how you could opt out by posting your trying to find out. Trying to find out. Is that what you're trying to do? Right. Get around the voucher. Force. Trying to force this to submit your signal. Everything bipartisan. Now it doesn't mean It has legs. I have no idea. But just as an FYI, that's So if that happens,
it means we Must. If there are 300 applicants, we have to take 300 applicants. Means is you have to you would have to make a case for you you have districts have to participate. Yeah. You would have to make a case for how many spots you have and or don't have. Yeah. And you would have to have the data to prove that I only have one seat available. Those capacities. Building to arc of bad x percent capacity. Mhmm. And it's available on your website. And the problem with that legislation, I mean, we have always been very purposeful with our school with choice of saying we wanna bring kids in, but we wanna dwell in our system.
Gravity. And we got rabbit because you'd have kids bouncing in and out with all grades. Oh, I know more about that. So Yeah. We've been That surprised me last week. We better watch that. Not not that it's a big issue, but I've also I've noticed in these numbers that there is a decent amount of, like, special ed students in the schools of choice kids, but I wondered if we looked at it. I assume we get paid the extra money to take care of special ed students along with the school of choice. Do we? Yes. We take care of their opencom.
And that's why it's important that that that the Oakland County residents because that additional funding assured we're assured that that additional funding comes with us. Okay. And I think it goes without saying, you know, we don't take and share the students for that. Even if you're not you get whoever gets pulled in the office. You never know. Stressful to home. Alright. Do you guys wanna take a quick fire? Yes. I will. Okay. Five minutes. We'll take five, and then we'll come back and go through Dan's stuff and our other. Okay. Let's keep going. Dan, you are up with our business,
items. So we had four items on the agenda. That's it. They were pretty straightforward. So, these items in particular are items that are kind of recurring each year. So the the food service one, that one's just primarily an extension of the the Troy High Kitchen project. So we had some new equipment in the cafeteria. This bid was really to just make sure that we have some cabinetry to surround that new equipment with the ability to lock it in, and then it'll have the new point of sale, cabinets to put the actual computers on. So that one's pretty straightforward. It just was over the bid threshold,
so I just said, we'll just bring it to the board, get it approved. And then the electrical and utility gear prepurchase, that's for the Athens edition, Poland, and then we're also gonna order the Larson one as well. We won't order that just yet, but we did get the pricing included. So we may wait just a little bit longer to place that order. So these are the main electrical, pieces of equipment that typically range from eight to ten months to get, depending on the piece of equipment. So it's something that we like to do as early as possible. That way we can get it installed, and then recall on the same percent project. We we did the prepurchase on that by about two years Yeah.
Actually, because that was post COVID, and the wait time, It's gotten better. It but years, two years, what it is, and, and so forth. Pretty significant. So And and do they just it's just the where do those get I mean, we don't take delivery of them until we actually remove them, so they get hired. Yeah. I've ordered Malibu and store. We typically store it on-site once we do get it. Okay. But it's it the lead time we even get it is eight to ten months. So Okay. You place the order today, and you're gonna get it hopefully by summer. Okay. So, and then there's always fluctuations.
I've I've ordered some ahead of time thinking I was good, and then it was three months after that even. So it's just it's a constant variation. But, we wanna get all that's why we're gonna get Larson included with this as well just to make sure that we do have it on time. So for the electrical, that was it that included Athens. Right? Mhmm. Then we Three of them. Yep. Yes. Both Anderson and Athens. But that one is not gonna I think the letter went out. Did it go out to the community? That or that's Yeah. But yeah. I I read some of the ones I put in my mold. Where's the stuff? So so Athens will with you to start this spring,
but instead it's gonna start okay. Yep. So we don't think it's too early for Athens for this No. And and the the equipment at Athens is also significantly more than what would be at Boland and Larson, so there may even be a longer lead time on those as well. So we'll get more definitive lead time. We have estimates right now based on other jobs that Bart Mill has done. K. So as soon as we get those but a lot of these, electrical contractors too are willing to store it for us as well. So I know Bartonell has space if we needed to. They have warehouse space. Okay. So yeah.
I was just gonna have to have a couple bigger of these things. So a lot of them are just yeah. I mean, side of this table. A lot of them are the the main panels that go where all the feeds from outside come into the building. So And and these electrical stuff, I don't know enough to know this. But so electronics in general, they get outdated pretty easily. We'll be all getting one year ahead, and the electrical stuff usually doesn't do that. Or Yeah. You don't really see much change. I mean, there's a pretty solid market, I would say, in terms of the vendors that provide breaker panels like this.
Mhmm. So, it doesn't typically change throughout then. Okay. So, the food service project, that's funded out of food service. And then the the electrical prepurchase, that'll be funded out of our bond program. And then we had also roofing and paving on time as well. So that's just in line. We have a kind of a ten year running plan where each year we kinda go through the map and pick the next area based on our projections of what we need to replace. So, the roofing and the paving are I'm sorry? Always surprised by how much the roofing cost. Yes. And by the time we finish the whole district,
then we're back. Yeah. So we're yeah. To the bank. Both of these projects, though, will be kind of funded split funded between the bond fund and the sinking fund too. So How can they go under the bond fund? That was all part of the the ballot language to, yep, make sure that we address those. So we typically, as we plan for projects and if a certain project is over or under budget, that'll kinda dictate how much we wanna push in this scheme fund. So it just helps us with our overall budgeting process. So You said both will be split? Mhmm. Yep. Thing in? Yeah. Most essentially,
all of the bond and it's all eligible to be a 100% funded by either. Mhmm. But we like to make sure we're just kinda looking at both and balancing how much we wanna charge to each project. So, and then so all of these were lowest qualified bidders. There's no issues with bidding or anything like that. So roofing and paving, that'll take place this summer. And then the only thing I will mention is on the roof replacement memo. I don't know if you caught this. One of the the smaller packages about 30,000 just wasn't included in Rob's memo, but it was included in, like, the original bits ad.
So we'll have an updated copy, for next week's board packet. The totals were right. It just didn't listed out the actual specific amount. So Down in the roof, in that spreadsheet, there was a delta. What it I couldn't understand what the delta was in the last column. And what else? Yes. The very last problem is that delta one minus two, and I didn't know what which one and which two. There was no column in the long history. This is for the roofing? Yes. Let me check if that's just something with the workdays. Yeah. And it's not it's not that important, but if you could help me explain.
Send me a separate note. I Yeah. I didn't understand what the wording meant and what why I was supposed to look at with that delta. Please, please. I'll have to ask profit about that one. Thank you. K. Any other questions on any of these four? Because we will see them next week. No. Okay. Thank you, Dan. I'm really good. Yeah. I'm sure it's sweet. Okay. So let's move into other. So our first item of business in other business, I think, about board officers and midi assignments. So this will be, part of our organizational meeting on the '20 I think it's the twenty first or
whatever the Tuesday is in the January. So I will start by saying that I think because I am you know, going to be off the board at the end of next year, that it would be very good to get our officer slate set up, for succession. And I am happy to play the role of sage and mentor to any of the officers. But I do think, you know, in terms of, you know, cut cut continuation and sustainability for the board,
that it would be, good for me to step back. It was certainly a joy and a pleasure for doing it this year under the circumstances. But my recommendation would be that we go forward with our plan. For new board members, I will tell you there's nothing like just jumping in, to, you know, so you may feel like you're not ready. I think I was two years on the board before I jumped in in an officer's position, Again, just because of, you know, there was a need. So particularly, given the fact that we have an honor board that people have taken training,
have taken the the, you know, the training seriously, and really spent time. I believe all of you are prepared, you know, to take to take the next steps. So let's talk about the chat first. Oh my god. You put me at this side. I wouldn't mind doing one of the positions. How about the president's position? Is there anyone else interested? I don't even know other than the president yet. But And I don't need to worry about it yet. And and I I would say you are ready. I'm just gonna I I don't understand. Yeah. I don't understand. Yeah. But You have I need to get a response from high school.
I do, also, as a part of this discussion not to skip ahead because we we didn't quite ever finalize this. Yeah. We're gonna talk treasure. Right? Well, we're gonna talk treasure. Okay. So that always sounds it. Yeah. But in my mind, the president is kind of Yeah. Making sure we have a plan for that is is really important. Mhmm. Do you feel that you I mean, you've worked been like I don't know. Yes. You've been the heir apparent and then the number two spot. So yes. Yes. There are many times I feel like I'm not ready,
but I'll like you just said, I can try and jump in and see. And you will be there and tell to me, and you will not like you said, be the sage. Mhmm. Yes. Absolutely. Okay. Good. Going. Gone. Gone. In case anybody else does know all those things. K. I don't like being the number two spot. Okay. You know, if if everybody's okay with that, I have I feel like I have I have the bandwidth for that. I know every once in a while that Patel can't you know, if not here, I can jump in. But, I mean, realistically speaking, the president does have a lot more involvement with day to day and,
you know, with the superintendent and everything else. But I feel like if she's better confident with that. Okay. So then we have secretary, and then we need to talk about, treasurer as well. Why don't we do secretary since that is a main position unless there's somebody who said, I really wanna be treasurer, but I'll take secretary if they're if we decide not to do a treasury. I mean, I don't mind taking secretary. I think that to be with the response. But, yeah. So I mean, if anybody else wants to Fight for it. I don't wanna fight for it, but I do want to have some mentoring to an officer position.
So I'm gonna just put that out there. So you can have it, but I just wanna put that out there to, I guess, you and you. Mhmm. Alright. So You're gonna need it anyways. I mean, it Yeah. You know, it it Your time is coming. Your time will come. So are we okay with Matt as being secretary of Yes. With Matt. I will teach you how to work hard. How to answer answer answer double check this meeting. Answer double check. So let's talk about pleasure. I mean, let's just go around the table and and kind of every person, and then we'll start on this side,
even through Stephanie. Thoughts on treasure. Let me see my my number. We can see. I'm usually blessed. I'm trying to even it up. Totally done. So I did some research when we we first came on to the board. That was one of the things, like, oh, who is your colleagues around the Mhmm. County and I've been attending those post OSCBA meetings. And to be honest, most districts have a transcript. They do. Their job roles fluctuate. Either way, it provides it appears to. I'm not saying I know because it's clearly don't. It appears to provide a level of communication and transparency between district money things and
the community. And I would say it's about half and half of people who I didn't know if this was called when I asked committee of the whole, let me do it, and then finance committee. So I don't and and there was no, rhyme or reason, oh, we have a treasurer and a finance committee or we have a treasurer and no finance committee. They they don't they didn't seem tied in terms of one or the other. Did you ask the question, though, finance committee workshop model? Yeah. Okay. What is that? Yeah. So we have a workshop. But there are many boards. Yes. Like, but there are many boards who do not.
They don't have a session like this, and they parse their work into commitments. And one of the things that I'll share in the MAS my with my MAS because I did go to this, very interesting session on committees. And it was amazing to me because there were boards that, like, had 10 committees. And there were a couple superintendents in there. And I don't know who the one superintendent was, but he talked about, you know, every committee you have, you multiply the board for the time. So because then you have to communicate to the whole.
Right. So the interesting thing that that I think the more relevant is, those boards that have all these committees, do they use a workshop model? And from my from the discussion we had in the MESB session that I went to, that was the missing link. They did not have a workshop on it. Which kinda creates the committee of the whole concept. Right? Exactly. That is the committee of the whole. Yeah. Because the one district I talked to at OSCBA said they had a board treasurer, but they also did committee of the whole.
Mhmm. So so like I said, it was sort of mixed, like some didn't, some didn't, whatever. And at that time, I knew, like, that was an important value of ours, was to maintain that communication full board, which I agree. I'd hate to be the person not on the inside, like, not gonna know what's happened. Mhmm. But by and large, most districts do have a threat regardless of how that works. Yes. K. So answer? Thoughts? I mean, personally, let me and if you were looking for a treasurer, I would definitely not be it. I have no interest in doing something again. I think Dan does a great job of reporting all of our financials and things,
so I'm not I'm still not completely clear what the role of the board treasurer looks like. I I'm not do you know what I mean? Like, I'm not certain what that is that treasurer then meeting with Dan once a week and according to the board, or are we and, you know, with this withhold, engage what's it called? The Oh, my hand committee. Engagement committee committee. Is that a Mhmm. I mean, I think he's that defect. Did you see that on a jar? Which is not I mean,
yeah. Like because I did did that yeah. Because that was in the Yeah. There. Yeah. I I don't envision that being a that's really just kind of a finance one zero one for community. That's yes. I understand. The deal more so. I mean, I guess I just I I Personally, feel like, for me, that would be, like, getting in the weeds a little bit too much for me. Nothing that I think we need. I would say that the districts I talked to said those that had them typically attended some sort of financial thing on a regular basis, but they were certainly come at you one of you,
I think it's you, participates in district improvement. So I assume if there's, like, a district finance committee or inner inside the district budgeting committee, that would be a place where the treasurer might participate just as a guess. So I In an effort to maintain fiduciary oversight. I get that. Yeah. I mean, I'm not opposed to it, but I just I'm not sure I see the value in it. K. There's, like I know a few of the districts that I spoke to, I asked about a treasurer, and they said that it's just a a in a title only.
Yeah. It's a Can I ask, like, what do you do? Yeah. Okay. Yeah. I'm okay. Patel? I'm not convinced about it. I don't want to be the one only one district all around that does not have one, but that doesn't make it the the reason to me, Rhiannon. My only daily deal is that every month, you know, we get this big spreadsheet of all our books and whatever checks and balances. And now I open it and I go, what am I supposed to do here? So I wondered if there is the position and if that person if we all
kind of defer to that person to be the one that actually takes x make takes extra attention to review those. And maybe if there are any questions to, talk to Dan and and ask him, talk to Rich and ask him. That was the only one that I felt like maybe there is a value in having that one instead of seven of us looking at it and scratching our head and ignoring it. I don't know. I I don't know if everybody else does that. Maybe if there's one person who knows more about it and look at it in-depth,
and we have a better understanding. The one thing that I've heard from one of the districts is that this district had a finance committee as well as student sector as well as the treasurer. They get a little more in-depth of what percentage of our budget is used for the elements, I mean, ESL, what percentage is used for, you know, AP or or high school, what percentage is used for middle school, those kind of things, which sometimes I feel like is going into the wheel,
but maybe for one or two persons to know may be good. That's what I feel. So okay. Okay. Yes. Nina? I still have the I I don't have an issue with us having that as a position if it's a value add. If it's just to have it for a child, then, you know, I'm always a less is more type of person. So if there's if if we can envision something meaningful that that person would you know? And it's the the secretary has you know, while it might not be in a really complicated role,
you have president and the secretary are two corporate type positions that sign particular types of documents and have very specific roles within organizations. Vice president is is The backup. Is is the backup is not an not necessarily a necessary role. So I don't have a problem with having a treasurer if we can define it to be a value add. The one thing that I've said in is when we we kind of initially talked about this,
you know, at the beginning, I would wanna be the treasurer. So this if we're gonna have this position, it better be something that people are actually gonna be willing to do. Otherwise, if it's gonna be a, you know, not me, not me, not me, and then there's nobody that wants to do it that's also not a, and I would, you know, well, to sit right there. I was the treasurer of TYA, and it's a much smaller organization. And anything that I do, I have a sense of I I I feel a great sense of responsibility no matter how big or small it is. So I would I would,
to me, what I think that would mean, I, as a person, don't know that that I would wanna take on battle check stroke work. So, I think we also need to consider if people are really if we're gonna have enough people who are willing to play that role. So I think if we can envision a meaningful contribution for it, I don't I don't have an issue. I'm not against it. I'm not before it, if we can if if it's if it's a value add. That was good. And do you have an idea of what would be value add? You know, I think I think the value add could be we we do you know,
Dan does give us the presentations. I don't know that we, as a board, since I've been on the board, have given a whole lot of input into the budget. We don't we review it. We make sure that, you know, we're on budget. Our finances look good and all of that. I don't know that we've ever, as a board since I've been on there, kinda said, okay. You know, we're you know, as a district, we're doing cost cutting, for example. So, you know, there could be a value add to having somebody on the board who we follow our questions into,
as a person who is then maybe gonna cover the financial type type of topics. Because I, as a person, right, I I tend to gravitate to particular topics and things that I'll ask more questions on and, and kinda try to push forward. So if so I guess in some sense, if that person were an intermediary for us and then and to the tell's point, somebody who maybe understands a little bit more. You know, I know somebody had mentioned to me. I think it might have been Stephanie. I hadn't particularly paid attention to it. You know, we have a lot of Amazon purchases. Are we paying taxes on that?
How much taxes are we paying? All of these things. So if we could have somebody who is our point person on financing where we could kind of funnel some of those things, and then that would be a way for us to to to maybe, I don't know, regular basis be more involved. That could be, you know, potentially a way to a way to do it. Yeah. Yep. Yeah. So I think that will not go in a lot of ways, but but I don't think it would hurt to have someone in. I don't necessarily again,
the value add things. Maybe the hardest part, you know, if there's somebody who's 23. Come on. He's actually good. So, we have to have it. But, yeah, to your point, that's definitely the best response to it. Knowing that it's a new role kind of we can get direction as a board, but we can make it their own and kinda try and figure out what that role actually means for us. Because there's gonna be a little bit of that throughout the year, and that's gonna to change. I don't know if, like, all of the schools, do they have treasury committees or something that they could participate? I don't know. Something that they could look at,
like, if we're getting a loved one, come back to it. I don't know. I'm just trying to think of super places that could participate at, like, broader level and bring a fast wheel as opposed to getting into the nitty gritty of all those things. But, I mean, we should there should be oversight, obviously, but I don't want you to go do a spreadsheet, like, update and make charts for no service. Evens. I think I think there's value in having the position for for a couple reasons. I think, you know, as a as a board with that fiduciary responsibility, but then we don't have a treasure when that's one of our main responsibilities. It just, to me, doesn't quite like,
make sense. And the other is, I think, when our community sees we don't have a treasure, that raises questions like, why don't they? And then when every other district in the county has a treasure and we don't, it's just kind of one of those things, like, why don't we? But then to your point, like, we don't wanna have one just to say. We have one either. But I could see some value, you know, just kind of asking people, like, you know, what is your treasure for doing? You know? They ask, well, for example, like, with the audit, well, you know, who on your board meets with the auditors?
And I'm like, no. To do. Okay. So so they so they were kinda like, well, like, if you had a treasurer, that person would probably join because of, you know, the nature of it. You know, also, I think kind of having that person that maybe can be the point person because I really think that it's the work of the entire board to make sure that our financial priorities are meshing with our strategic plan. And I'd I'd really like to see more conversations around that kind of moving forward as we work through strategic planning. And so maybe that's a role that that person could fill.
So while I don't have answers in terms of, like, exactly what this would look like, I think there could be, value to it. But I also think it could be a reasonable and not overwhelming position too. So I would support that. And then I know I had talked about a a finance committee and kind of learning about that in different ways boards operate. My thing was I just feel like we need to have more conversations around finance. And so I think people are open to maybe scheduling more time at a workshop
and maybe having, like, you know, a certain section of retreat do that, and I'm fine with that. I just wanna make sure that we're, doing our due diligence in terms of the financial piece, and then also working towards, increasing how we relate our financial decisions to our priorities. So that's kind of my And I think you'll you'll see that if you look ahead at the the fourth schedule because there is a workshop that is going to focus on getting us ready for the strategic planning process. And, again, for newer board members,
you know, we haven't you know, we're on a cycle. So this is the start of the strategic plan. My only hope for strategic plan is that we go into this with an idea of building on where we're at, and I think we can do a total reduction and report this. I think that would, be confident to the culture of our district. But and then we have time scheduled for deeper dives with the finance because you're absolutely right. Decisions on how to allocate meetings need to come. And at least for the time that I've been on the board,
I have seen very conscious discussions about priorities and how those left. I mean, when I first started on the board, we used to do the peanut butter approach. Every building kinda got the same thing even though one building had a much greater need, than other buildings. And and so, you know, it was that process that kinda changed, you know, kind of the notion of equity versus equality. Yeah. And so I think, you guys take a look at the schedule Mhmm. That's out there. But I think, you know, there is a Saturday session that is is being held.
So, I don't know if that's just got put on the calendar. Yeah. I saw that. Yeah. Yeah. But, you know, so I think, you know, it really is making sure that we we take the time, you know, to see that process. You know, I guess my sense is, I'm not I'm not opposed. And, again, you know, you guys are gonna be the leadership moving forward. So, you know, I'm not opposed to a treasurer. I'm just still struggling, you know, with regard to those spreadsheets that you get. I know when I was a new board member, I asked lots of questions on those.
You know, why do we do and I still occasionally do. Why didn't we do it? And, you know, I mean, two months ago, there was, a purchase to a travel agency. I asked Dan, why why are we we don't want to just and it was an award or something, and I can't remember what you told me, but it was so, you know, as a as a board member, now if you wanna delegate to that to one person because we think that's more efficient, that may be value added. My own thought is as a board member, that's my job to just and I don't spend any more than enough time going
through it, but it's just a quick look of does anything seem funny. And then over time, you start to become used to, you know, how to use our key cards and stuff like that. Okay? So what I do worry about, though, is I don't want I would not support a treasurer having access to more detailed information than the rest of the board. And I also think it gets a little bit you know, when the district is having their internal budget needs to have a board meetings member
sitting there, I think that's not our role. So I wouldn't I wouldn't support that. But, you know, one approach might be, let's have a treasure and kinda see if See how it evolves. See how it evolves. And I am not at all worried about being the only district not having a treasure because I have seen things over my time where a lot of people do things because they've always done it. Now maybe we could be accused of that not having a trigger because we've always
done it. But, so I, you know, again, I'm hoping to either way that this board wants to go, and not at all opposed to let's do it and try it if that's the will of the of the, you know, of the the greater body here. But we just need to be careful that we don't make that person another, level of communication between us and and because I do think, I mean, one of our most critical responsibilities is our is our leadership responsibility. Dan, when we talked about this whenever it was a couple months ago,
the treasurer is gonna be, like, the official signer on all checks, and then they have to be added to the bank accounts. Do you have a a bank account? So it's not necessarily required. No. That's okay. Sounds like Rich and I are typically on a new account here. Super good. I'm gonna see the goals. Some banks have an option for more generator if there is one. But, again, that I think it's very If we change that every year, then it's gonna be Oh, I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. The bank full. And and, actually, a signer on the check. I mean, you'll get a signature because you have to Not a I know it's Yeah.
And it'll be your they'll have your signature in that. Yes. It's yeah. Okay. Because you don't wanna sign a check. Yeah. So what what's first of all, I guess, maybe the way is of our three undesignated board members here, because, again, I would opt out of this because if I figure it out and then I leave Yeah. Then you're starting all of it again. So, any interest on the part of either any of you guys are Are we gonna eye Russell for it? I think
you're closer to done with the finance certification for MASB than I am, so technically, you might be more qualified than you. But I'd do it too. I'd do it, and I know he would too, I think. Yes, sir. But do it as in figure it out. Like, I'm I'm comfortable in uncertainty. Like, what are we doing here? Yeah. So, yes, I know you are. So focus. No. But what I meant to say is they have we have two volunteers. Yeah. It's not that we don't. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I like the idea of maybe kind of, like, the the reevaluation and maybe even,
like, a midyear evaluation. Yeah. Just see how soon just to get some feedback on Yeah. Like, it's not just from the reporting. It's like, kind of how it's going for me, but also, like, like, your assumptions or expectations and things like that too. Yeah. That's fine. Yeah. So we'll make a change to, and I'll send that change to, policy committee. So that 0.01 Yes. We'll have to change. Identifies the roles, responsibilities. We'll change that. Yeah. Okay. Send that to the policy committee Okay. For a couple of other policies that they have.
Okay. And I'll just be everybody's We'll state those before January. Okay. Great. So the other the other part of this is committee assignments. I don't think you can do this. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So I've been doing a government relations committee. I'm only like that. So unless Perfect. Yeah. You are in it. I got it. So I've been going to the I do like those unless somebody else is in the situation. Yeah. Yeah. Mhmm. And and it works fine with keeping committees as they are. People are happy with those. The only thing I noticed is,
I go to the PTO president's council regularly, and they're only meeting twice a year anyway. And my name wasn't on it. With Amina's name on it. Yeah. And then I saw that, and I was like, I did not go to one. I didn't even know. Yes. So I actually switched the name to me. There you go. Okay? Yes. So do you wanna keep doing it this time? Yeah. I wanna keep doing it because that that's my way of finding the pulse of the product. Okay. Just Yeah. Alright. So you wanna keep doing that? Yeah. I wanna keep doing that. The second The BTO is gonna be Yeah. To me. Got it. Okay. I only steal your job on that,
but I feel like the area of expertise that I'd like to contribute more is the, continuous improvement team. So my contact there was Natalie for a while, and I don't know who was in contact with. Yeah. Yeah. So But if you're interested in getting something No. That's like to take on Oh, no. I love GYA. I can do it. So fun. But okay. But I didn't know. By the way, the Troy Community Coalition, I don't know if they met, but I have not that many dates, sir. They were just one You're just TYA. Yep. I'm talking about Troy Community Coalition. They did have their first in person meeting in November.
Okay. So I missed that. Yeah. I think the new person, Abby Uh-huh. Who's in who's the, like, lead because, like, two employees, she probably didn't know. Yeah. And, honestly, I didn't because I told her that. Oops. But, yeah, they're starting meeting again. They haven't met in person in, like, three years, she said. That's what I thought. Yeah. The last time I didn't yeah. Sure. That nobody had you. Left well, I would love to do that. And she's super, super dynamic in that job. So coalition is I mean, still. Kind of. It's not my name, but we I never went. That's what I meant to do. And, Audrey, choice in which you're good with that? Yeah. I'm good with everything I'm on.
I'm good with that. I have everything else. I'm looking to, like I don't remember relations. I mean, and I so you're good with that. I will yeah. I mean, I've been I've been going to the meetings. I'm not able to make those meetings. But you're a second one. So I just have I work almost every morning. Can that be a second? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. K. Great. And the conversion content, is that on hold? I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Okay. That's good. Because when it was not on hold, I was on it, but I I know it wasn't there. And Do we only need one person on to this President's council? Yeah. I'm meeting. Oh.
They they only Some of the Yeah. The low one. Oh. They're skinny down, though. Yeah. They were Jews. Yeah. They were Jews. Foundation. Yeah. And then, it tells do you say on the technology or is that Yeah. I I still wanna be on the technology. Policy committee is good to say? Mhmm. Okay. And then as a vice president, and then, sustainability, did they meet? Not that we've heard of. Alright. We'll get Dan on that. Fire Dan up on the sustainability committee. Get it. Alright. I think I guess so I I got Matt changed to, as the, with the government relations. I've got Stephanie on continuous improvement,
and, Patel on the president's council. We've got all of those and all the changes. Mhmm. Yes. Okay. Alright. Great. Thank you. Proposed. Alright. Moving on to to take that. Alright. Thank you. Moving on to our next item of business are, you know, any you you saw the proposed, resolution from OCSBA. Are we in concurrence with the I mean, I think I've seen very very reasonable. Yeah. Yeah. Since good for you. Yeah. Okay. So we will pass a resolution on Tuesday then in support of those.
Mhmm. And then our last item before we get into general roundtable is, you know, I know many of us, the four of us who went to the n a s food, the 500, you know, kind of sprinkle bits and pieces of what's what we went to. Actually, it was five of us, but I think yeah. But Mhmm. But we never really had enough of a chance to, kind of do a more general sharing. So, you know, either do you wanna start with anything that you wanna share or take place from the conference?
Anything sounds awful, but there wasn't anything that was, like, earth shattering because I'm No problem. Focused on all the finance class. So I did did actually finish that finance certification. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I did. So, I mean, it it wouldn't be anything really super exciting to to to report out, other than if you have the chance to take more finance classes, I would recommend it because I think it just helps, you know, even having worked in the school system for as long as I did.
It's, like, so much of that finance piece. You know, I had, like, my little building budget that I had to, like, figure out, but just a capital planning and and all the kind of financial behind the scenes stuff that you you know there's stuff going on, but you just don't know. So I think that that was really helpful, especially as we're moving through all these bond projects. I know kind of, like, how we got to where we did, and I went to one class on it was, like, managing a construction project, which makes it sound like I'm actually supposed to be doing something to actively manage
this. But that's not, you know, like, that's not the case at all. But it does talk about, you know, as a board member, you know, like, what is your role when you've got all these projects going on? So I think it was really helpful and useful in terms of just learning more, but also learning what my roles and responsibilities are and and what they aren't, which is really important too. Yeah. Mhmm. So yeah. That's it. Excellent. I mean, I'm pretty I do have a couple of things. So, one of the sessions that I attended was the Michigan Merit curriculum.
And I know Paul has talked about this in the past too, but it's it I think kind of what I got out of it and and I know that we is, use it to be creative. And I know that we already need to do this in a lot of ways, and so we've, you know, adjusted what you know, how many credit hours a student at TCC might be versus, you know, at at at our traditional high schools. And so I would, you know, I would just keep encouraging us to use it to be creative. And the one thing that that,
you know, we're we're making a lot of changes, even at a high school level for students who need extra supports. And thinking about, you know, a school like Bloomfield Hills, they have I don't mean it's every day, but maybe every other day, they they have, like, a study hall type of hour. And so considering that, you know, there's 24 credit worth of hours, maybe there's some ways that we could use the the Michigan American curriculum unit in our traditional schools to give some flexibility and support to some of our students who might not be in
an IUP, but who could maybe benefit even from a thing of, like, a built in study out of the day. And, you know, and I know that there's staffing, you know, things. But to me, it seems like there might be ways that that we might be able to use the matrimonial to be even a little bit more creative in our traditional high school to give students support who might not be on an official on an official plan as a way to to help them get through high school as well. I attended a session on on, surveys, and that's for stakeholder engagement.
And I know that we're gonna be getting into our strategic planning, but the district that presented, they use community surveys as well as part of their strategic planning. So I think that's, you know and it's possible that the board did that in the past too. But I think that's something definitely that we should that we should utilize as we begin that process. And, a session that Stephanie and I attended together was, board and superintendent communication, and Dearborn presented. And it it reminded me of a couple of things. When I pushed that on the board so they talked of they had several topics,
but one of the things was, I guess, their equivalent of our weekly communicate that that the board gets. And theirs is a little bit more regimented. It might look a little more like the emails that we get from the high schools. Kendra, you know, the with the different sections are what we get from the the the weekly newsletter. So maybe, see reimagining the communicate a little bit to have, to to have maybe more regular updates for things that we are, as a board, that we are tracking and that we might be interested in. So,
I mean, I think that would require us, Rich, to kinda coordinate on what that will be. But the one thing that I remember when I first got on the board, if a if a if a member or a board member emails the administration for a question, we would all get the response back so we would know what other people were asking. And at some point in the last three years, that kinda went away. And I think maybe the communique might be a place for that instead of, you know, us getting emails all the all of the time. But if somebody's asking some finance questions and if somebody's asking,
I don't five or or somebody's asking COBlimiteracy questions or, you know, whatever it was, maybe we could also use the communicate, as a way to share back information that's going back to individual board members. So I don't have a particular, necessarily, vision of what that looks like, but it seems like there there could be something that we could do. Oftentimes, those components of the communicate are a result of someone who asked a question. Like, we you would ask the the seal others. Yeah. We added that to the communicating so that everyone had access to that information. Something tells me we might ask more questions that then make it to the communicate.
So I think it's yeah. So I think it's yes. Mhmm. Okay. And then a random thing that they mentioned because your one went through all of that book stuff, about a year and a half ago. They did say that, boards can ban signs at meetings. So I'm just putting that out there, you know, just in the, if we ever need it or if we proactively, you know, wanna do something like that. But we do have the power to to remove that from meeting. Yeah. K. Great. What else do I have? The one the one, workshop that I went to that was I found really
both overwhelming and very informative was the strategic planning. Being I keep calling us, like, a new board member First year. I've never sat through a strategic planning thing. I don't know the last time when you guys did, but I would, as they mentioned that we should have an MASP rep come to help us sort that out. So I think it'd be really helpful. I mean, it doesn't have much to know. Let let's honestly, I mean Yeah. We just put it out there. We are decision. Strategic which you know, we do strategic planning on cadence,
and we've been doing ours every five years Yeah. Every five years. So we are doing Yeah. So We're doing one, like, one events. We're gonna start next year. Yeah. January. We're gonna start next year with strategic planning. I would say, we will be talking process in January. And then at that point, you know, we can talk about whether we need support for that process or whether we can do it ourselves. Just being brand new and and not having sat through one before. Mhmm. You know, I felt Well, this is perfect timing for you because sometimes board members are on for four years
before. Yeah. I've sat through one and Fair. He's got I really want who has No. Gotten more than one. So Yeah. No one has started, otherwise. Yeah. And I don't remember which school district, but they haven't their strategic plan get posted in the board. There's a picture in here somewhere, but, like Mhmm. I don't know if you're We have we have a strategic I mean, these are our strategic plans. A graphic. Yeah. That's the graphic. Yeah. This one was, like, crazy. Not crazy, but it was it was yeah. I mean, I'm sure we could've Yeah. They could've,
like, narrowed it down a little bit. Yeah. Now what we I'm sure it's gonna be a topic of conversation is to what level of metrics and how we link that to our dashboard. Mhmm. But I don't think you won't put a dashboard on that. But those icons have been on the walls for ten years now or some vision. This is five years. This is ten years. Yep. But that was the previous strategic plan. Yep. The last one. And believe me, when we get when we update our graphic, you will probably get a picture of it in a frame I know.
Put in your office. Where where where where where where where where where where where where where where where where where where where where where where where where where where where where where where where where where where where where where where where where where where where where where where where where where where where where where where where where where where where where where where where where where where where where where where where where where where not old pins from I don't know. I'm gonna bequeath that on some guys. Fire. Wait. See the ants. Sounds like a white elephant. Yeah. Different sites. Yep. That was kinda bad. That was the one that kinda stuck out to me. It kinda feels like nothing kinda the case that we were talking about to go out for dinner from last night,
but nothing really mind is going. Just that strategic plan. Yeah. Sorry, Steph. I typed up some key points that I can email to all of you just for the second if you can read them if you want and don't if you don't. But mostly about the clinic sessions. And as I was typing them up, I realized that most of the clinic sessions I attended were about making teamwork powerful, like the team of eight. Mhmm. And I was like, oh, saying that that just kinda was what drew me. To piggyback what Amina said, about the the group from Dearborn, they were super dynamic, and I would assume so. Their superintendent's going on to be the state sup.
So and they've had to weather some serious team. And you could see by the people there that their group was very diverse. Like, the board members themselves were diverse thinkers. Like, just the way they presented and who they were, which is very diverse. So it's and their big district like us may be bigger than us. So Bigger. So, you know, it's it's always interesting to see, like, okay. Well, nobody else is quite like us. True. But there are some, like, systemic sort of things, like moving a big boat is still moving a big boat. And this is a big boat, not quite as big as Dearborn's boat.
Their thing was called, board briefs that he Yeah. Updated weekly, and each executive director had a section. Some other local districts do that too, I've found too, where it's like a specialized section and whatever section, but relative, again, to the strategic plan. So in our case, if that was a pillar thing Mhmm. It would be pillars. The other thing I appreciated a lot, thematically speaking from the clinic sessions that I attended was the emphasis on, like, team building as a group, continuing to build relationships among us, whether that is formally here in our meetings or doing,
like, some kind of fun inventory or whatever. Going to conferences together. A haunted house. A haunted Polar. Polar plunge. All the things. Again, I'm gonna put my vote up for the polar plunge over the haunted house. But, was that that, that in one of the keynote speakers actually talked about knowing how to agree and disagree, living, positively and productively was really powerful. So I I just took a lot of, teamwork notes. I don't know. It just seemed like because this is a brand new team for me. So I'm trying to figure out where's my space and how do I contribute and
how do I learn from all of you. And there were a lot of things I heard that I was like, we do that. Hey. We do that too. Or I'd love to see us do that, you know, sort of thing. So I'll send this along additional. I did most of the, mostly budget classes too. But, and one on, the superintendency because although we don't want Rich to ever leave, he will eventually. Mhmm. You're gonna retire at some point, I think. I don't know. And we need to think about that as a word because that's not it's, like, no joke because he's, like, the most as we heard at the conference, he's the most senior superintendent in the county.
Mhmm. Yeah. And we are a big boat. Mhmm. So we gotta be thoughtful, really thoughtful on succession planning. And that put my brain, like, oh my gosh. Mhmm. And we haven't and we haven't done that. Let's talk about you like you're not here, but it's important that we put out that great job. Right? Yeah. Not gonna work till you die here at home. Being at home. That's it. So you know, that is something we can have some discussion with before we're ready, because there's really kind of two pathways. One is districts, have internal succession and they decide the board decides to do internal succession.
Another path is, you know, whether you have internal succession or not, you do a search. And, you know, you contract a search, company. MASV does search when we did riches. We did a we did a an external search, even though, you know, he was an internal candidate and he served with highly value. But, but, you know so those are really the two options, you know, the boards have as, you know, you have somebody that you have designated as a successor and therefore you don't do search. Or even if you have strong internal candidates,
you still choose to do a search. So, Nancy, last year, I did it at at MASV last year. I attended one of the classes that I took was was on succession planning. And not not all of that necessarily even making those decisions. You know, I know for a really brief time when Rick was here, we had a good deputy superintendent. Part of the succession planning was even us as a board knowing ahead of time if something were to happen and we need we have, like, twenty four or forty eight hours to name an interim superintendent. So part of the succession planning is not necessarily choosing who our main superintendent is.
By the It's saying that that's we're we don't need to have an emergency meeting to decide who our HRM superintendent is. That person's already named, and we know that. And we haven't even had that discussion. So I think, we can look at succession planning as a first little baby step just so, you know, we have that first step covered, but then also have a discussion of and I don't know that as a part of that we have to decide, we're gonna just go internal or external. It would say, this is who our interim is, so we know.
And these are the two pathways we will take. This is some information on those pathways. But I think at least even made the not that I want anything to happen here, Rich, but but but but he's Yeah. In my major head, right, I don't make a correction with him. Right. Because I think that becomes I would very heavily weigh on his recommendation. Okay. So when he's out of the office, who does he put in charge? Mhmm. And, you know, to me, that would be my recommendation is that we're just clear with him that if he
left it by us, this is what you I'm sorry, miss. This is kind of like, you know, like, the wheels and cross. Like, you're like, it's not a challenge. You are taking care of your kids. You're like, you don't want that to add with the Yeah. But I but I That's your point as well. But I would like but I would like to have at least that Understood. That understanding in January. So just so we can have that in place, the, you know, the the longer term, you know, how what we do with term, you know, that's separate. But at least for us to have an understanding so we don't have to have
some type of emergency meeting where we don't know what we're supposed to be. The the other thing with, succession planning, you know, with the superintendent processes, even if you are looking at, you know, internal versus external, you do want to, again, gather community input on, you know, what are what are the valuable attributes that, you know, you are looking for in superintendent. And so there is a community engagement piece of this. Other thing that makes this process so incredibly fun is you will do all of
your interview in public. In the initial part when you're discussing who your final candidate pool is, you do that in public, but at least you get to say candidate a, candidate b, candidate c. Our privacy, concerns for the candidates because they have jobs. So it is a very you'll love process. It's a very interesting process. Not a forgiving process. Yeah. I mean, it it it it great. When you have to have public discussion,
about strength and weaknesses and so on, and people get interviewed in public and so on. It's different. I mean, most of us, when we hire for our I have a senior in public service because this is the standard. Yeah. Yeah. So most of most of us don't do that. To Chelsea. Yeah. Yeah. So Anyways, but we're not thinking about, that. Yeah. I was gonna bring it up last year. I mean oh, so you brought it. Yeah. Yeah. Yep. That's about it. And I'll just send my Okay. Quick notes on. I'll be brief. I went to I always love to go to the,
the school lawyers kind of thing. I think most of you understand, you know, that we are bringing some things into the policy committee as a result of, some of the things that we heard, you know, particularly what constitutes, free speech and the fact that, unfortunately, hate speech is protected as free speech. And the only opportunity that we have, to silence fake speech is if it becomes disruptive to the meeting. So we're,
you know, looking at comprehending them, in some of our, you know, some of the ways we do public communication. One thing and I know we started this in the policy committee, but there has been, you know, continued work around AI, and I know we started a draft policy. I know Matt did some I think that is something we need to put on our on our agenda because this is starting to get, you know, there was a whole session on, you know, executive orders and AI, responsible use of AI.
Mhmm. And that's I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Yep. Good. So I think we we need to do that. Mhmm. I also attended and I won't be late with this, but I attended that session on, you know, committees. And it was very interesting because MASB, the the gentleman that was teaching it, who also happened to have been a school board member in a district in the middle of the state, you know, basically really challenged school boards to relook at every committee that wasn't a committee of the whole that they had
and assure themselves that that was really a necessary way to do work. And they were really kind of advocating whether all the workshop model or or committee of the whole. So I felt very good. We were one of the few districts in that session that, you know, had just a very I mean, we have a policy committee, and most districts had policy committees Yeah. Because of the nature of that. But, you know, there were, I mean, there were people that had facilities committees.
They had finance committees. They had curriculum committees. They had special ed committees. They had restorative justice committee. I mean, there's one district that had 12 committees, and and they were talking about why they had they they were having difficulty recruiting people to run for the board. Yeah. So in any event, that that was I thought that was not a valid order. And then the other one that I, went to, which I thought was really good was the use of AI as a board member, and, you know, the fact that she can, go into the,
it was the school AI. The thing that was interesting for me because I I don't know about you, but all my software now is is always popping up all these AI options. Oh, you can summarize this. And, again, the the the sensitivity that I got is you don't want to be using those public AIs with any kind of document that you don't want out there for public consumption or training, those models. And so the nice thing about the schooling is that you can set up an
account, and you can put whatever you want in there, and it stays kind of in your own firewall. And so it was interesting then. But kind of the takeaway from that is, you know, you can ask with specific prompts, to put something in if there's a complicated document, and it could say, as a Michigan school board member, what are the most important things takeaways that I should have from this? So, again, as a not as a, substitute, you know, for us to be lazy because I don't think any of us are, But it might give you a perspective of,
you know, what are some things that this might you know, forcing questions that I might or ways that I might look at that. So and because I thought that was, and I played around with a little bit, and it's fairly straightforward. It's called Google AI? Yes. It's Google AI SSR. Yep. Yep. So so, anyways, I also thought that some of the, speakers, the keynote speaker, were quite interesting. The one that really kind of made a impact on me was the guy because we had read The Anxious Generation is the gentleman who said
made the point that the anxious generation, although the research was good and so on, you know, it's it's almost like, you know, not you're better off teaching kids how to responsibly use social media and technology, AI, and do that with guardrails on them all along rather than doing this, thou shalt not. It was kind of a forbidden food sort of thing. So I thought that was food for thought, you know, which again kind of gets into we really need to work on policy for AI
and really I would like in in future to, ask that we get some education in terms of how are teachers using AI and what kind of exposure are we giving our students, to AI? You know, how will they they when is when is it appropriate, you know, for them to use it? And and then how do we find instances where it's being used and appropriate? So, okay. So let's go around for any, during the other round table. Just, you know, our workshops. One thing for for the upcoming year and this is just not not just my,
like, personal desire to to learn more and hear more, but also with all the kind of classes in education, one of the things that they keep coming back to is is talking about the learning. That's why I work with student learning. And so talking about student learning at at every meeting and how sometimes it gets hard because there's so many other things that you have to do, but really carving some time setting some time aside for that. So I I'd like to find a way to get,
I guess, more regular updates from the teaching and learning department, around the things that we're really prioritizing. So, like, we're talking about, like, achievement gaps a lot, and we we had really good reporting, last month about that. So, like, kind of like, okay. Here's where we're at, and just, for example, like, special education. I know that we're doing things of we've made some changes at a few of the elementaries based on staffing and whatnot to to try some things differently in special education. I don't know that everybody on the board,
like, knows what that looks like. I've asked some questions. So I I feel like maybe I have a little bit more information, but I'd like everybody to have that information. And then with those changes, like, how are we measuring success? Success? Because that was one of the things that I talked about at the at the data meeting was that sometimes when you only have, like, unstead to look at, you don't you might not see things that are that are happening, that are making forward progress. So how are we measuring progress,
and talking about that with the board in in elementary? And then, you know, maybe that could be one meeting, and then maybe secondary is a different. And so we're kind of looking at those areas where we're we're really trying to make some positive progress and going a little bit deeper. And and sometimes it could be not so much, you know, standardized assessments, but it could be, like, these are the, you know, the things that we're doing in class. Like, for example, one of the reading specialists at a meeting where I was at said, here's one of my special education students at the beginning of the year and showed
me a writing sample. Here's them at the end of the year. The progress was tremendous. Mhmm. But did that child, you know was that child proficient? No. But I can I can see that's progress? Mhmm. So how are, like, how are we measuring how how can how can that be Have we effectively communicated to the board so that we have a better understanding of here's the changes we're making, here's the outcomes that we're seeing. Because we, you know, we're we are putting money towards this this change.
So, we wanna make sure that it's moving in the right direction. Mhmm. And I and I just think that just looking at an M STEP store isn't sport isn't gonna give us that. So, what can so that's just one example of I think that would be really helpful for us to see, and just talking more about, like, the teaching and learning in general. Like, if I wonder, Audra, if because we will be going through strategic planning. I know Mhmm. Wherever I've got in the governance core, one of the things I mentioned is that we've you know, boards sometimes spend a whole lot of time on things that are not necessarily connected
directly to education. So we spend a lot of time in, you know, business services and things like that. So that might be whatever that might be for next year, but I I think even as we do the strategic plan, having an eye towards something like that and figuring out what that would Yeah. What that type of Like, cadence. Reporting or cadence. Yeah. Yeah. Like, big picture to Yeah. Yeah. And and the other thing is I mean, one of the things I would really encourage is,
you know, again, going out into the fields, like, going into classrooms to, you know to me, sometimes that is more effective than sitting around the board table, you know, having somebody show you something. So and it's it may be invincible. But I I guess what I would suggest is that I because I know you tell and I had this, but as opposed to I I I get a little worried when m s a b m a s b kinda makes these things. Like, you should be doing this. You should be doing that. And and that's,
you know, kind of fine just to think about, but I don't want that to be from the end. And what I say is if there are things we aren't talking about, you know, like, we raised this specific, then let's bring those forward because, you know, this is our time to spend as we want. Mhmm. Yeah. So Matt? I don't have anything to put. I just wanna see so we went on a bunch of us on the previous visit last week. Thank you for organizing that. But that I think that was a nice visit for those who weren't able to attend. We we went to a first and third grade ELA classroom.
So, for example, the third grade, it was nice to see, the kids were writing when we when we came in there, and the teacher was working with them. And then, she reviewed, you know, a very specific grammar lesson. It was, you know, the difference between simple and compound sentences. So, it's nice to see some of the The changes that were made based on the quarterly adoption last year. So, so I'm happy that that, that we went ahead and adapted those, you know, changes on top of the print curriculum instead of waiting just so we don't have,
because we do have, you know, a pretty large gap of of kids who didn't necessarily get all of it during construction. So it was, the visit was really nice. The teachers did a good job, and, it was nice for us to it was nice for me to see. K. Great question. Yes. I also attended, so I pulled all of the comments. And, yes, I really loved it, both the first grade and the third grade. I do have one comment, one positive observation, and one kind of discussion. First part, it was observation. The both packet, for a lot of them, that's what we discussed was I felt like there wasn't to me enough.
There was more financial stuff, more purchasing this, purchasing that, and not as much the curriculum. But the last few bulk packets, I was I was specifically looking for it, and I saw plenty of content, when it comes to classroom, when it comes to curriculum. It comes to for us learning what's going on in the classroom. So thank you, Rich, if you have made any changes, but, it definitely shows. And I also it also helps me that this particular packet, board packet, we got it on Friday, and we got all of that packet, which gives me plenty of time to read and to go through all of those
and, like, the last couple of times we had some intern. Actually released on Thursday. Okay. Thursday. I'll be quiet. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you. That should definitely be helpful. Yep. And, if we can try and get that I understand there's last minute things that will get added, but as much as possible, we can do that. That would help. Part of the communicator was this full eleventh grade class ELA credit. Oh, I did not understand it. I understand the need for it. Maybe some other time. If you can try and help, understand that, that would be good.
Okay. And if you do wanna go into that now or Later is fine too. Okay. It doesn't have to be now. We're bringing the course subscription book in in, January. Okay. So that might be a a nice opportunity to provide some more clarity around that. Essentially, what we're doing is assuring that all eleventh graders have an opportunity to have an explicit reading and writing instruction prior to the p s a to the PSAT. Uh-huh. Because two. Prior to the SAT, where now an eleventh grader can take an elective course,
that might a a reading core or an elective course that is more focused on reading, but would not have explicit writing instruction prior to the SAT. So we're assuring that there is more rigor built into that eleventh grade course through the lens of some choice for the students. So they will still have choice, but all of those choice options, both reading and writing, will be more rigorous. So that that was that was the So the AP the kids who were taking AP 11 had all of that built into their curriculum.
The kids who were taking regular English took the required portion of elevens for one semester, and then the second semester, they could take an elective. Yeah. And it didn't cover everything that was Yeah. Covered in the AP for the kids who took the AP class, and then it was not all on there. Okay. So which means every eleventh grader from next year on, I understand it's not from this year, will be asked to take their AP 11 or this 11 will be a correct. Is that what you're saying? Right. Although, which means they'll have lesser options to take let's say if they wanted to take
a theater studies class. I don't know if you No. Within within those reading and writing courses, there are three options Yes. Of the AP 11. That allow for some Yeah. Flexibility. But your mom's people move from eleventh grade to twelfth. Grade. Although the same choice the the opportunity for choice will just be shifted by a year. So as we studied student achievement at the high school in ELA, we saw a progression from nine to 11 of student scores dipping. Mhmm. And so we started addressing that when we changed our ninth grade curriculum to ensure
high levels of learning for all, our tenth grade curriculum to ensure high levels of learning for all. And now our eleventh grade previously had some students who only took one semester of a structured ELA and then took an elective that was not aligned specifically to those eleventh and twelfth grade standards. So moving forward, they'll take all students will take a full year of structured eleventh grade ELA. It'll look different either AP or two semesters of structured. And then senior year, students will have two semesters of choice.
They can either take AP language, or they can take two semesters of a choice of their, selectives for ELA. And then in a year, what you'll see is those ELA electives will be aligned to ensure that they all go aligned with our eleventh and twelfth grade electives. So they won't just move. They will move and change in a year. So we've methodically, post COVID, been working through the MELA curriculum. I appreciate that. Thank you so much. Yep. Okay, Jolene. The last topic is a hot topic. Previously, not this year, we've had,
as a bullet, some kind of a holiday, Kevin, at one of our places with the families. I know it's too late for these holidays maybe. I was wondering if we should discuss it and have it, you know, maybe after the meeting. Okay. And I'll offer to those two. Yeah. She's holding her hand, please. So fancy. Yeah. Do the pool of water. Nothing cold. Yeah. I understand. We'll get her sauna. Yeah. Other than four to me sauna, others, the the n I Exactly. ISB stuff. Okay. That's it. I just had a few things. One, I wanted to, say, kudos. I thought Matt and his team did a fantastic job tonight.
It's really pleasant to see, a, data this type of data being used in athletics and to see this, like, new life being breathed into athletics. Mhmm. And that sort of reorients ourselves about what our values are. And, Matt, I think, is doing a fantastic job leading the way there. I'd also like to second the compliment on the Bemis visit. The staff was, passionate and working very hard to, demonstrate to us student learning. It was wonderful to see, kids in classrooms and, I mean, they're just adorable, the cute things they say and the things they do. And,
Harlene, the principal, also was, a fabulous hostess to us. And I was glad to see, get in a classroom. I would say, sort of to go with that, I'd love to move our way up and see some middle school ELA, particularly, just to see progression of learning skills. And then on the community, end, the I went to that continuing conversation event a week or so ago that, doctor Yancey hosted. Honestly, I don't think it was, like, publicized really well. The attendance was pretty low, but the, content was really powerful.
They had a fantastic opening speaker, and it was all about, like, taking care of yourself and knowing who you are and where you are. And I just was like, wow. There's just one people to hear this. But doctor Yancey and the speaker she found and the the the structure she used for the event was, really quite it really created a sense of belonging and a nice diverse I know you're there. And I see we're diverse group of folks, made me look forward to the next session, which is, I think, January 22. So consider attending. Unfortunately, that was the communication on that one. They get out as quickly, and Chantelle didn't pull it together as quickly as we would have liked.
But she has sent us she has the next in the series ready to go. Yeah. And that will those will be well publicized. So I think we'll get a better turnout. Yeah. It's already out and about. Well, I think, honestly, the what confused me at first was what is this. Mhmm. Yeah. Like, I wasn't sure what I was going to, but, typically, doctor Yancey's stuff is good, so I was like, hey. Whatever. We'll see what it is. But I happen to be there because I was at the, wellness committee Mhmm. Meeting, and it was right after that. So I just found out. Yeah. Yeah. So the work is really, quite powerful, and I was you know,
she deserves, kind of the back for a job well done in that way. So Okay. That. Very nice. Thank you. Mhmm. Rich, just who's going to OCS BA next oh, my god. I'll be there as well. We started around eighty. Is it Wednesday? Wednesday? Yeah. Seventeenth? I don't think whatever. Yeah. Whenever next Wednesday. Wednesday. It's at seventeen. The city manager, and they the city council is interested in doing the joint council board meeting. It goes to do those, every year or at least every other year pre COVID.
And so they're interested in doing that. So we're gonna we're gonna target our workshop date in so we will host for their request. It will be our workshop in May. So we would meet with them for an hour. Mhmm. So let's say 06:00, we would we would come together. We would have some dinner together, some conversation, then they would meet with us for for the for, let's say, 06:00 for an hour, and then we'll have our workshop after that. They'll leave. We'll then we'll have our workshop after that. And then the the agenda would be typically our agenda.
So when we host, it'll be our agenda, so we can determine what it is we wanna share with them, Assuming, you know, Smith will be pretty much done by then. So, you know, us sharing kind of an update of where we are on bond projects and or whatever, you know, whatever else is on the horizon, that we share with them. Make them jealous. Especially and maybe there is. It is hard. We can talk about how, you know, how we have success in the past, because I think it's a feedback on that from a couple of city council members that might be a nice joint conversation about how we might be partnering together to
make sure that we're hoping to support those initiatives. And then, they'll be now. And then next year, the idea would be next year, they would host us. So I'll get that back getting that back and going. And just a reminder that central office this this, will be closed the week of the twenty ninth through the second. So that second week of the holiday break and central office should be closed. There'll be there'll be a few people working, but, enrollments and and those offices, technology will be closed. And when do you guys bring them to the earliest program?
We'll move back the March. It's always about rough spring break time. Okay. We'll move back. I'm excited because having to come here for the workshop just completely kills me off. They're making great they're making a little bit of progress. You're gonna just get into the mindset of always coming here and then then we'll change again. So I so the only thing, that that I would mention, and I know, Patel had had raised this. So if you look carefully at the calendar, you would see that there is a conflict between our June 2 workshop and TCCHS's graduation. Rich and I have talked about that and,
you know, it's like, should we ask them to move graduation or should we move our workshop? We can start if they've already told their students that June 2 is the date, which they have, then we would move our workshop. So we will it'll go out with the calendar for next year, but if you wanna just make a note to to hold that Monday I think it's his first. First, for that. We will graduate the next day. I found meetings in June. Oh, meetings moves from the second to June 4. Yeah. There is reason there's the June.
Yes. And the reason we can't move it to June 9 is that the deploying the golfing is on the night. So TFD golf outing is on the night, which Do you want to celebrate my birthday? The engine. We'll do it. Okay. Yeah. I didn't think of asking this earlier. Do we have any updates on '31, double a? I know we have till Last week. The thirtieth. Once the decision comes down, I'll have to say thirtieth. But what haven't gotten any updates, nor do I think anything went out.
They had two I haven't seen anything before. Yeah. There were two court hearings, last week, Wednesday and Thursday, and there were two arguments, I should say. And the key argument was with the state, was with was with the state of Michigan, the courts in the in the state. Yeah. But I have not gotten any updates yet as to how that went. The, the expectation was that April 13, I think, sometime. That the judge was gonna turn was gonna turn around some at least preliminary findings or preliminary, thoughts on the matter prior of the eleventh,
twelfth edition. And then we have until what date to rescind? The thirtieth. Is it Yeah. The end of the settlement? Yeah. And then December to rescind. So, hopefully, there's a lot of I think there's, I think there's plenty of time open. I just thought maybe you you would have heard something. No. Unfortunately, I heard nothing. Yeah. But there are some districts that I I keep seeing news flashes of districts that are have decided to sign up. They have decided regardless of the outcome that they would sign. Yeah. I talked to other Oakland County School Districts, and they don't send on taking the payments. It's it's kinda mixed. It's yeah.
Yeah. Okay. Great. Alright. Well, thank you for a good meeting. We will appreciate your service for the business, and we will see you all next week for our last board meeting of the year. Okay.