Good evening, everybody. Welcome to the Tuesday, February 24th Board of Education meeting. We usually start our meeting with the Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. All right. Our next item on our agenda is the recognitions. Yes.
Thank you, Miss Annie. We are very fortunate to have two items of recognition this evening. And it's really nice to see so many folks in the audience tonight. So, we're going to start with our All-State athletes from the fall of 2025. Mr. Jansen. Doctor Chesky, members of the board, thank you for having us here this evening. We have two weeks left of winter sports and then literally spring sports the next Monday. So I'm hoping for our weather to get better. But tonight is, let's be able to recognize all state athletes from this fall. We have about 15 of them.
So all state athletes as I call your name on this warm up here. Our board members will pass up your search and get set for recognition this year. And then I would simply ask you to stand over here to look at a group picture at the end. So our first recognition tonight is will be will is a senior. And at. The Allstate boys tennis playing for coach Hendershot and. Will right over here will take over your lecture at the end. All right. Our next, person is recognition who is not able to be here tonight is a shot himself. Shot is a junior in efforts for boys tennis.
Also playing for coach Andrew Schiff. That's why I will read them off. Our next recognition tonight goes to Rob, neuron, who is a junior in Athens, also All-State and boys tennis playing for coach. And then our next student athlete. What do you do not believe is here tonight is Daniel Purdue, who is a senior at Athens High School, for boys soccer, who play for coach Kevin McCollum. Next, we have Camila in a dusky, who is a senior at Athens who made All-State and girls swimming dive, for coach Moss.
Let's. Please. Our next outgoing is Saint Linden senior in Athens. All state boys cross-country for coach McCann. Thank you. Our next student athlete, who I do not believe is here tonight, is on your books. Who is a junior in Athens for, girls golf. For coach number. Next athlete is Neil Knight, Apollo senior, Troy High School All-State boys tennis for coach Misko. And our next student
athlete is Roger Levy, sophomore, Troy High School. Also All-State boys tennis for coach Misko. Next All-State athlete is Derek Kim, senior, Troy High boys tennis coach. We have a lot three boys tennis. And then again, as a reminder, they were all state or, they made all state this year. Congratulations. Jesse, how junior Troy high school ball state boys tennis for coach. Mister. Another All-State athlete. Varun Shetty, senior, Troy High. We should make it better.
Next. Ball state athletes. Three-story sophomore, Troy High school boys tennis team coach. Mister. Jackson Cross, sophomore, Troy High school boys tennis. Great. One street senior. Troy high school boys tennis. Switching to a different sport, Nick for Laguna, senior Troy High boys soccer under coach Spence. Simpson. So that's the case. Me.
And last but not least, Austin su, senior, Troy High School boys soccer for coach mix. Of tennis. Mr. and Mrs. are make sure we get that in here. So all of us congratulations to each of you for representing your high schools very well representing our district. If you'll come right up here in the front, will the picture with everybody together. So that right hand you slide down and you're going. To come. Right. Yeah. I'm certificates to make sure the right side up. All state up.
3123. One more time. Congratulations to the group. Congratulations again to our all state athletes. Thank you, Mr. Jansen. Our second item of recognition is our TSD mission moment. We have some students here from Schroeder Elementary, and we're going to celebrate, several of them, for putting together a persuasive essay, that has been shared with the board. Mrs.. Great. For. Today's session moment to celebrate something powerful happening at Schroeder Elementary School. Student voice in action
through our units of study, writing curriculum, students are studying their school community and identifying areas of interest in researching solutions and crafting persuasive pieces designed for an authentic audience. Tonight, A2 under the leadership of Miss Keegan, our principal, and alongside our dedicated staff at Schroeder, they believe deeply in the voice and agency of students who are simply and asked a simple and powerful question how can we make our school better? They considered school supplies and homework assignments and other improvement ideas, and then, because they're brave and practical
thinkers, they're here tonight to talk about Schroeder restrooms, all of you. So student restrooms at Schroeder are a hot topic and know we hear that tonight. And after the presentation, they're going to invite you to ponder their proposal and even participate in a mock. So you may mock for this, the audience. So, because when students write for a real audience, the work rises to a new level. It's my pleasure this evening to introduce principal Muskegon will introduce the authors and advocates. Thank you. Thank you, doctor McCaskey and members of the board.
We are so excited to be here tonight. As Mrs. Graef said, we are excited to share our love of learning and writing with you all tonight. A special shout out to our amazing third grade teaching team, Mrs. Allen, Mrs. Fraga and Mrs. Resources for supporting their students tonight. But, every single day. Our goal as educators is to show our students that writing is more than an assignment. It is a powerful tool that they can use every day for the rest of their life. They can express big ideas, they can be advocates for change, and they can also contribute to their community in meaningful ways.
Their voices matter. We have, maybe when we were growing up, the idea of publishing was, let's make this really tight and pretty, and we are really trying to ship the idea of publishing to be, opportunities to share our thoughts beyond our classroom and with the world. That's something really important to us. So this was our unit called Changing the World in third grade. This is an argumentative unit, brand new this year. And the unit started with our students convincing me that they needed new writing supplies for their classroom. So I came into each classroom.
They were very successful in persuading me for the many sticky notes and flair pens that they needed. And then this was then expanded to thinking about what else we need in our school. So other persuasive essays included, we need better lunch, food choices. We need longer recess, more playground equipment, lockers for everyone. Instrumental music should start earlier. These were some of the powerful ideas. But of course, a very hot topic was improving the rubber bands. So that is what they are going to share with you tonight.
So I am going to invite six of our dragons up. This represents just a snapshot of some of the work that was done by all of our third graders in this unit, and this was a shared essay that was created. All right. Drive intervention. See, to them like. Okay. Ready? Yep. Ready. Picture. This is your first day of school. Imagine you're in class and there's a rumble in your stomach. You need to go to the bathroom. You ask the teacher. She probably says yes.
So you walk to the bathroom. You notice that toilets are beat up and dirty. So you do your business, walk out and wash your hands. You tap on the sink. It won't stay on. You scream in your head. You get a paper towel. Why is the trash can so far away? You sink to yourself. You walk out and go back to your class feeling frustrated. I strongly believe we need to redo the bathrooms at Schroder Elementary. One reason Schroder students deserve a new bathroom is because every single bathroom has something broken inside.
This isn't. First, there are cracks and chips in the tile on the floor. This is a major tripping hazard. One time Nicholas in our class tripped on a race tile. I almost fell on the disgusting floor. Would you want to fall in the bathroom floor? I know, I want it. Yuck. Also, there are many broken sinks. For example, when I tried to push the button on the sink to wash my hands. It doesn't work. However, in the boys bathroom, the sinks keep running. You're not just wasting water, you're wasting money. Just think about all that water bill.
In addition, some of the stalls locks don't work. This is very frustrating. We all need privacy and when a lock doesn't work, no one wants to use that bathroom causing long wait times. The last thing is there are many holes in the walls. These holes could lead to mold, bugs and disgusting bacteria. There are many things broken in every bathroom that needs to be fixed or replaced. Another reason that children need new bathrooms is because they are dark and itchy, but is not fit with the clean and positive vibe of our school. If you walk in to shudder, you feel the positivity of our school right away.
You see bright, clean walls, new floors, colorful, colorful student work, and inspirational bulletin boards. It makes you feel good and ready to learn. However, as soon as you enter the bathroom, that mood changes. The first thing that you notice when you walk into the bathrooms is that they are dark. The lighting is very low. The stink of brown tiles on the floor are cracked and the wall color is mismatched, gloomy pale yellow light. You can tell it is old and gross. The walls are totally blank. There's nothing to look at. Other than cracks. Enter. Sometimes when students go to the bathroom,
it also acts as a brain break from learning the bathroom labor. It leaves us feeling yucky, feeling yucky, and gross instead of inspired to go back to class in there. According to the article that we read, the lasting impact clean school bathrooms. It has cleaned school bathrooms can constructively influence. Students and contribute a high level of well-being, thus fostering a positive learning environment. This positivity can help students perform the best of their ability. Wow! This proves my point that clean school bathrooms can help
a student feel more positive about their school and their learning. Our third reason we deserve new bathrooms is because the bathrooms are not big enough or have enough stocks. The second graders at Schroder use two individual bathrooms, one for the girls and one for the boys. Six eight kids must share those two bathrooms. That's crazy. For the third, fourth and sixth graders are only four stalls in each bathroom. That's 226 students using it, needing to use a total of eight students. We interviewed a fifth grader who said the worst time of the day
to use the bathroom was during fifth grade lunch. This is the busy time whenever you need to go. At the same time, kids are trying to hurry to the bathroom to get to lunch or recess, causing big back up. Having such little bathroom stalls is not fair because you can cause long lines. There are lines in the bathroom. Kids are missing class. An important instruction. No one wants students to miss important learning time right? I know you might be wondering what should we do? It's a really simple fix. Let's get more light paint on walls and a brighter color. Fix the crack floors. Install bigger mirrors, allow us to look at our stuff
and see what we're capable of adding of your star or two to each bathroom with a be helpful if you if you share my piano, it has two. In addition, you could add some inspirational quotes that we can repeat yourself. Like you could do hard things or you got this, maybe even a painting of a beach or someplace relaxing will help students leave the bathroom feeling inspired. If you were to come to shoulder, you would feel warm and welcome the minute you walk through the door. We have clean hallways, bright and inviting classrooms, and colorful bulletin boards.
Okay, tip though you may want to use the bathroom before you come. As you can see, shorter third graders are passionate about new upgrades in bathrooms. We hope we have convinced you to consider helping the kids in our building. Thank you for your time. All right, doctor McCluskey and members of the board, we would love your feedback on the possibility of some renovations in the Schroeder bathrooms. You present a really good data based, argument for new bathrooms. I'm trying to do the math. 68 kids, two individual.
That's a lot of people needing to do their business. So very powerful argument. Thank you. Yeah, I loved how descriptive I can picture Schroeder for the colorful, beautiful entrance. And then I picture the bathrooms and it kind of makes me. I wouldn't want to go in the bathroom there either, so I will definitely go to bathroom before I go shorter. And I love that point. They said you're wasting water only on points. I love to save water and environmentalist. I love that he was very descriptive.
There's a lot of pressure on us you guys to improve these bathrooms. They want quotes, inspirational quotes, bright colors. It's not a whole lot to ask. I don't know what kind of. I love the inspirational quotes. I'm kind of thinking I should put some of those in my bathroom too. So yes, I think you get what you want. I think what I liked about what you did is you have a number of very different, compelling reasons. So there's like at least 3 or 4 really valid reasons. You use data. The fact that, you know, you went and you looked at the impact of,
you know, a kind of a dirty, gloomy environment on your, your mental well-being and your, you know, your inspiration, your ability to learn. And the thing I really love about this because a lot of times people want to persuade you to do something, but then they don't give recommendations of how to fix it. A lot of people like to complain about this isn't right. This isn't, you know, doesn't work. But this gives some really concrete recommendations of
of how to improve from your perspective, your bathroom. So this is really well done I'm convinced. Yeah. I was very impressed, that you looked first scholarly articles to support your, your persuasive, essay here. I have to say, I don't think I've ever heard an essay from from this age group that did that. So, that's a first for me. I also appreciate how you talked about, the cost piece,
because as a board of education, budgeting is one of our responsibilities. So, in addition to wanting to make sure that we're treating the environment properly, when a toilet's constantly running, that's, you know, money that we could be spending for other things. In this case, let's fix the toilet and let's spend the money on some of the other things that you wanted in there. So excellent job. And, my board members that a lot of the things that I was going to say. But I think one of the biggest things is you can tell you worked
really, really hard on this article. You used the right choice of words. You built your argument. It looks like you brainstormed a lot. So you can tell just by reading that that you put a lot of thought into it, and that makes your argument even better. And a lot of times so thank you for that. I don't know what else I can add, to be honest, though. I mean, it doesn't look like third graders wrote this. I don't know if I could write this good as maybe I would write it, but I know you guys did an amazing job. You know the thing I like the most and you know how to persuade adults
because when you said you could finish using the bathroom because they won't be long lines, you said you want to get back to instruction, not more recess. That's how you get the adults and you know how to get that done, right. That's that's amazing. And I also loved the fact that you wanted what is that big beach paintings in the bathroom to relax. I love that too. Nice. Nicely done. Well, based upon the input from our students today in this persuasive essay, when I have the support of the board is we have the education that we do
the work on the bathrooms at Schroder this summer. Yes, yes. All right. Congratulations. You are so persuasive. We're going to go ahead and do that work this summer. So when you come back you coming back to Schroder in the fall we'll notice newly renovated restrooms. So congratulations. They can all amazing. Thank you. Drag a picture. If you have parents if you'd like to come and get photos please feel free. We've got some certificates
for them as well. You can. Either. Us. That's free as a gift. We. Have. We don't have certificates for you. So, Salome. Great, great. If we could have another round of applause for our students and our staff. Thank you.
In. Yeah. It was break, so they can wait. All right, we're going to take a couple of minutes. Five minute break so that all of you guys who are here for recognition, if you want to leave and go on with your everyday work, you're welcome to leave, but you can. You're welcome to stay as well and watch us finish our work as well. So we'll take a five minute break. I think. Oh, you're so cute. Okay. Next item on our agenda is additions and deletions. There are none this evening. Okay. And our next item is public communication on agenda items.
And we have one. We have one on agenda items. Yes. Okay. Mr. Fabris, mayor, last customer. Alaska's go. Thank you. Troy, resident and parent of a Troy School District student. I want to speak, on an item on the agenda, which is the school millage, school enhancement millage proposal that you'll be voting on to put on the August ballot. And I encourage you to please vote yes to put this on the ballot to fund Oakland County school operating costs. Please give me, as the voter, the opportunity
to weigh in, to decide if I want to increase resources for students in our school district by voting yes. You're not saying that you condone necessarily, for the voters to vote yes, you're simply offering the voters an opportunity to vote yes to increase their millage by 1.5 mills to fund Oakland County schools. And so this is just giving voters the opportunity to, to make their voices heard. And if it was passed by the voters, as I understand,
this could increase per pupil funding by $781 in Oakland County schools. That would be huge. And we really must take every opportunity we can to, increase district revenue because it's hard to come by, especially, with tight state budgets, as we've seen in the past couple of years. I will also note that, at least as of Sunday, I believe every single Oakland County school district that has voted on this measure has voted to pass this and to put it on the ballot.
So it would really have to be, a unique, idiosyncratic Troy reason not to, vote to put this, on the ballot. And I'm not sure that, there would be a good reason for Troy to to vote against other districts, for the opportunity to increase revenue in the district. I'm not sure if that would distinguish us in a good way. I'll just add one. So that's this is the point I want to make. I'll add a second thing, which is, a little bit later, you're going to be hearing from, Walt Cook, who, he has allowed me
to, spill the beans, will be running for school board. And I want to say that I support his, candidacy. Walt is dedicated to the district. He comes to school board meetings. He offers to volunteer on school board committees. He's committed. He's guided by the same values that guide our district, which is, a desire for excellence with equity. And I think he has the experience through, working in, Detroit public schools, and the, the insight really into district operations, into education policy research
as to how to improve outcomes in our district, as well into teachers and, and their job and their, sort of opportunities. And with the struggles we have to recruit good teachers. This is something we need, the insights we need to sort of guidance district for, continued success and improvement in the future. Thank you. Thank you. Next on our agenda is the general consent agenda. We are asked to vote on the. We asked to consider passing the minutes of the January 13th,
2026 Board of Special Board of Education meeting minutes and the minutes of the January 13th, 2026 closed session meeting minutes of January 13th, 2026 Board of Education Workshop minutes of the January 20th, 2026 Board of Education organizational and regular Meeting and the Treasurer's Report of December 20th 25th May have a resolution. Please be therefore resolved that the Troy Board of Education takes action to approve items A through E of the consent agenda.
Support any questions or comments on any of the items considering. No questions or comments. All those in support of the consideration, please say yes. Yes. All those who oppose say no and the resolution passes. All right. Next. Next. Any personnel doctor? Chesky. There is none this evening. I am the next on the agenda. Any curriculum?
None this evening. All right, that brings us to the business items we have. Next on our business items is the countywide millage, Mr. Trudel. So I've asked Mr. Dale to go through a presentation similar to the presentation that the board saw at the workshop. So give our audience, and, and in particular those that might be, viewing the meeting afterwards. Additional information, if they may. So, are interested in knowing a little bit more about provide an opportunity for board members to ask any questions or clarify or often seek clarification.
All right. Here we go. So we'll go through this. It's hard to say less than ten slides. So, as I go through this briefly, obviously, if there's any questions, feel free to ask as we progress through this. So what is a regional enhancement millage? So, since 1994, as we, look at proposal eight being the modification to how the state of Michigan fund schools, part of that proposal was an ability for local districts, in partnership with their ISD or their local intermediate school district, to levy what is called a regional enhancement millage.
So, what this is, is it's a way for local districts to generate additional money for operational purposes. So we have sinking funds, we have bond funds, that all generate capital project funding. But we don't have any way as a district, solely as a district to generate additional money. Locally for operations. So what this, allows the county to do is partner with all 28 districts across the county in conjunction with the boards of education, to essentially put this on the ballot. For the voters to ultimately decide.
So that is a countywide vote, at that point. So to get to that point, the resolution that you'll consider tonight, every district has to have, their boards take action on this and then submit it to the ISD. And then at that point, if there are districts representing at least 51% of the total student population across the county, the ISD will then forward that ballot language to the county, and then they would put it on the ballot. So, we'll talk here in a minute about the exact timeline, but it's, yes or no countywide. This isn't if Troy residents vote yes, they get it.
But if Rochester votes no, they don't get it. It's all countywide vote. So it has to have 50% plus one vote in order for it to pass. And then if approved, that money then will be, collected locally by the ISD and then redistributed on a per pupil basis across all of the, students across. So that would apply to public schools and public school academies on a per student basis. And then at that point, every district has their own control in terms of how they want to use those funds. Much like we do when we get state aid, unrestricted state aid,
I should say. So this is just a brief highlight of different counties that have enhancement villages. So you can see Wayne County was one of the first to come all the way back to 2016. They voted in as a county. And that number originated around that 364 student mark. It has since gone up to over $400 per student. The recently renewed that one in November of 2024. So they are renewed now through 2033 and then likewise McComb County. They voted right before the pandemic in November of 2019.
So they started off around $400 per student. And now that has gone up to a little over $600 a student. And then you can see the various other counties across the state of Michigan that do have, local enhancement millage as well. So about 44% of students in the state of Michigan, are in the school district that is receiving this funding as of today. If Oakland County does adopt this and the voters say, yes, this would jump to over 50% at that point. So the proposal is, for the August 4th election. So that's our primary election. And then it will be other proposals, one and a half Mills.
And that would be over a six year period. So as I mentioned before, about $781 per pupil annually is the average. So start just below that. And then with inflation that number typically will go up a little each year. But the average is about $781 per pupil. For home in this district, averaging around a $400,000 value for taxable value of about half of that at 200,000, that would be about a $300 per year tax increase, for those homeowners. And then if it is successful, this millage would be collected because the vote is in August.
They wouldn't be able to get those on the winter tax bill. So you would actually start seeing money in December of 2026. So later this year? If it does pass. So timeline, as we mentioned tonight, you'll see the resolution up for consideration. So all school boards across the county are in the process of adopting those resolutions. At that point, if it goes to the ISD with enough support over that 51% threshold, then it would go to the Oakland County clerk. And then at that point it would be placed on the ballot, for the August 4th election here. We did link a case study,
that that was done by in partnership with Kent ISD and then a couple of school districts on the west side of the state just to talk about the challenges and planning for the future and the importance of this enhancement millage. And then this just is a nice visual. So you can see here, starting off just over $720 per pupil in year one and then escalating up to about $835 a pupil in year six, so average is $781 per pupil over that six year period. So how will this impact our district? So looking at, just from students to teachers to district wide, so obviously
maintaining class sizes as they are today, that's important for us. If you want to save costs, you have to adjust your class sizes. So for us, being able to maintain the class sizes we have, today is very important to us. And then continue to focus on student safety and wellness. Those are dollars right now that we're getting from the state of Michigan. But as we know, the state funding is is $1 billion short in the general fund as of January. So, what we're starting to hear from the local legislators is, is not a positive outlook. So, we want to make sure that we can continue to support those students.
The number of social workers and psychologists that are funded through some of those additional moneys that we're receiving as of today, and then stabilizing special ed funding. So as you guys, all know, the, Ida funding does not meet the need for what we have, to service our special needs students. So this potential, revenue stream would help us in stabilizing and being able to support those students, at the rate that they need. And they're looking at our teachers. Obviously, we try our best as a district to make sure that we're providing
somewhat of an increase to keep up with the rate of inflation. That's not always possible. With, the revenue that we get from the state of Michigan. So, this would enable us to make sure that we're compensating our staff fairly, making sure that they're being paid a competitive wage, which also leans into attracting and retaining those talented staff members as well. And then staffing supports that kind of ties in with our students safety and wellness. We want to make sure that we have the money that we need in order to maintain those supports, which ultimately help our staff in the classrooms and then providing for professional development.
That's one of the first areas to go when you have a funding, shortage in any given school year is to just cut out a lot of the PD, which isn't beneficial to not only our teachers but also to our students. So we want to make sure that we continue to provide those opportunities for continued professional growth on their part. And then lastly, district wide, just looking at all the programing across the district, maintaining all the electives that we have today, maintaining all the different programing that we offer, before and after school and then transportation. I think that's a big topic that we've talked about at this table.
Being able to adjust start times to accommodate a potential later release or a later start, I should say, at the high school level, that all ties into that conversation, in terms of transportation. And then lastly, just decreased out-of-pocket costs for families as we look at pay to participate in club fees, sporting events, if we do have this additional revenue stream, those are costs that we obviously want to push back to our families. Which indirectly would help offset some of the tax increase, for this proposal. And then, as I mentioned, just looking at inflation.
So this chart we'd like to show, as we kind of make our trips around talking to PTA groups and staffs, just looking at inflation. So you can see here the blue bars that represents our foundation allowance all the way back to 2005, 2006 school year. And then the yellow line represents if the state would have just simply given us an inflationary increase. So you can see over the course of, almost a 20, 21 year period there, we would be at just over $15,000 per pupil. Have they just simply given an inflationary increase? So for us, that's equivalent to about $51 million annually
that we don't get in our budget. Because the state just simply has not picked up on that foundation side. And then lastly, just the resonance of the resolution in general. This is not an endorsement. The resolution simply states that we want to give voters the opportunity and the voice to make that decision on their own. So we believe as a district in empowering the community and soliciting their input and their voice and, through this resolution that's ultimately what it's doing. Thank you. Any questions from anyone?
Comments. Okay. You know, I also think it's important, for the community to understand because the neighboring, counties have the millage. We are starting to see some, losing some of our staff because they are able to pay more competitive wages and, you know, for certainly as long as I've been on the board, we've really prided ourselves in being able to have competitive wages so that we can get the best instructional staff
and some of that is being eroded because we're not keeping up with our neighboring counties. Wonderful. I do have a couple of questions. If the first one was, if you go back to the slide where it shows the other counties, right. That one. Yeah. As you can see, all the other counties have done it for a while since 2016. And, just curious, do you know why Oakland County hasn't done it so far? Any thoughts? Yeah. So Macomb County passed theirs November of 19.
Oakland County was also in conversations at that point in time. So they I believe the initial talk was and let me just even correct me if I'm wrong, but the initial talk was potentially that November after and then the pandemic happened. Okay. And it really changed the dynamic in the conversation and focus. I think for a lot of school districts and county. And then you saw a surplus subsequently of federal funds coming in to help support districts through that time. So it just kind of got tabled. It was known for a number of years, but as we've entered that fiscal cliff with federal funding ending, and then now looking at the state and the lack of funding coming out of,
Lansing right now, it just reignited this conversation. Wonderful. Thank you. So indirectly, Oakland County voters benefited from kind of the pandemic. I guess, not having that additional millage. The other question I have was, how did Oakland County come up with the 1.5%? Any thoughts on that one? Yeah. So they they worked with an outside firm, who essentially solicited feedback from various voter groups all across the county. And then from that, they kind of weighed, you know, with
you can by law, under the proposal, you can only go up to three mills. So that's, that's the maximum that you can go. So they were looking at one one and a half two mills kind of gauging input from voters. And then from there they look at what our taxable value is. What would the average tax bill be. And then ultimately what would the dollar amount of revenue that would be generated? I think through all of that, they kind of balanced it to say, okay, one and a half and it seems like an appropriate amount, which is slightly less, you know, then you see some of the others here, but Oakland County has a very strong taxable base.
Right. So you can yeah, maybe a little bit less in order to generate a similar amount. It's probably in the average of all those messages too. There's some that are zero eight kind of. Thank you. Okay. Wonderful. Thank you. Thank you. Down. So we were asked to consider a resolution to request for a regional enhancement. Oh sorry. One question. So, just for the public sake, when was the last time we had a millage ask when was the last time we do we know any type of a vote stands? On November of 2022, we did our whole harmless, renewal at that point.
But like this, this type of millage. Like, when was the last time we had an enhancement millage specifically? Yes. We have not ever. So we have not had a millage enhancement. Okay. None of the county. Yep. And then because this is not an endorsement is not an endorsement or a no. You know, we're not like no one's putting it in our hands, you know, to pass this or whatever, but, we are not going to also spend any, any of our money, like advertising this and saying, this is what we're asking our voters to do.
We know this as like, are we putting it on our website? Are we putting out fliers? So as a, as a, as a district will will split as we would with any, any millage. We we're limited to factual information only. So we will provide factual information to the community to utilize our resources to provide that factual information. But there would be no district, resources utilized for any, any type of advertising advocacy. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. I will add that, as a district, we can do it.
But as board members, as individuals, each one of you can choose to do whichever we think that's. Yeah. And and, you know, parent groups can can form and do community support for select finish receiving airplay okay okay. All right. All right okay. Go ahead. I guess we can go ahead. So again we were asked to, vote on a resolution. We consider a resolution again to clarify this resolution only if it passes would send it to the voters to be put.
If we get 51% of all Oakland County districts, students of Oakland County, I think, pass only then it will be on the ballot for the public to vote on on August 4th. So. All right, so, I will read out this, section 705 of the revised school code authorizes an intermediate school district to lead to levy a regional enhancement millage, if approved by the voters, to provide additional per pupil funding
to constituent school districts for educational operating purposes. Similar voter approved regional enhancement villages are currently in place in our neighboring counties, providing enhanced educational opportunities for students. The board of Education believes it is in the best interest of the district to allow Oakland County voters the opportunity to consider a regional enhancement millage proposal of 1.5 mills for a period of six years, from 2026 through 2031. You have a resolution, please,
Miss Potts. Now, therefore, be it resolved, that the Board of Education hereby request that Oakland schools place a regional enhancement millage proposal on the August 4th, 2026 ballot, contingent upon the required majority of constituent districts making the same request by March 31st, 2026. So be it. Therefore, resolved that the full formal resolution shall be included in its entirety in the official minutes of this board meeting. Support. Support. Okay. The resolution is supported by Miss Sandler
and everybody in favor of the resolution. Please say yes. Yes, yes. If anybody who opposes, please say no. Resolution passes six zero. All right. The next item on our business agenda is floor replacement, Mr. Trudeau. So, for consideration this evening, as we talked about at our workshop, was imploring replacements across the district. So this is something that, we do every summer. We do planning throughout the winter months in order to try to, get these projects done over the summer before school year.
You can. So, the projects at hand this summer, would be for Bemis, Hill, Morris and Troy Union elementaries, and then some work over and attack at Athens and then, some work at international Academy East and then TLC as well. So low bidder came in from those qualified bidder came in. So the total project with contingency is $582,250. And then this would be, funded through the 2023 capital projects, and the building site and sinking fund as well.
Wonderful. Okay. You asked to consider the resolution for floor replacement and polishing project. May have a resolution. Please. Doctor Philibert, be it therefore resolved that the bid for flooring replacement work be awarded as follows, and that this amount be approved as an expenditure of the building, site and sinking fund. The contractor Conventional Carpet Inc for flooring, demo replacement and contingent for flooring. Demo replacement. For an amount of $532,250
with a contingency of $50,000, for a total, award amount of $582,250. So he's, moved by Doctor Phillips and supported Mister, have any questions or comments regarding this seeing none. All those in favor of this resolution, please say yes. Yes. All those who opposed say no contributing classes. Right. Thank you.
Moving on to the next item on our agenda. Our favorite topic is abatement asbestos abatement. So, as we prepare for the Boland Park Middle School renovation this summer, which those bids came in last week. So those be hopefully coming to the board at our March workshop for your consideration. But as part of that process, we are required by law to remove any asbestos in that building. So any project that we have, we work with an outside firm. No environmental. They kind of go into the building, they assess, they do testing,
and then they provide us with a recommendation on what needs to be removed and which areas. At that point, they build out a scope and then they they bid that out, to any contractor that's licensed to remove as best. So in this case Midwest Environmental who is using the for the district. They were the low qualified bidder. So the bid came in with contingency at $43,000, and then this would be funded, through our 2023 Capital Projects Fund as part of the ballpark renovation. Okay. All right. We are asked to consider the asbestos abatement may have a resolution since
Mr. Huff. Be it therefore resolved that the bid for this abatement be awarded to Midwest Environmental and the amount of $43,000, and that this amount be approved as an expenditure of the Capital Projects Fund support. Was that Miss Potts? Okay. All right. Moved by Mr.. Have supported by miss Potts any questions or comments regarding this topic. Seeing none all those in favor of this resolution, please say yes. Yes. Anyone who opposes please say no.
Resolution passes. Thank you. The next item on our business agenda is Athens auxiliary parking lot. So the last item for consideration this evening relates to the, front parking lot at Athens. So as you may recall, we purchased the one property, right adjacent to our existing lot. That was demo last summer. So it made way for this project to expand our existing parking lot, into that new property that the district acquired.
So, bids went out and then TNA asphalt, who was the low qualified bidder. They've also done a lot of work throughout the district, so we're very familiar with that. They will be performing all of this work this summer. So with the 6% contingency, it came in at $289,131. 6%, I think is a fair number, given that we've already demoed and excavated. So we don't have a lot of work to do there to warrant anything higher. So, the district's comfortable with that. And then this project would be funded through our Capital Projects Fund as well.
That's the 2023 capital funds. Your fund. Okay. Wonderful. Okay. We asked to consider the Athens axillary parking lot. May have a resolution. Please. Doctor Philippe, be it therefore resolved that the bid for the creation of an Athens auxiliary parking lot be awarded to TNM Asphalt Paving Inc. in the amount of $289,131, and that this amount be approved as an expenditure of the Capital Projects Fund support. Okay. Moved by Doctor Philip Wax, supported by Mr.
Hart. Any questions or comments regarding this? Just for clarity, for the public, this parking lot will not be re disturbed at Athens Green. All right. This is on the north end of the existing lot and then no additions is planned for that area. So the rest of the lot would be done at the time of renovation. And then when they expand it a little bit, less. Thank you. As a follow up to that, I know you guys are still working on the plans for the new Athens and all the work, associated with that,
is it pretty relatively solid that that section will not be changed once the plans are in place? Okay, this was primarily because when the addition does start in early spring of 27, we will be losing a little bit of parking in the back there. So we want to make sure we have adequate parking. So this will just expand from along. John are there okay. Wonderful. Very good. So we were asked to vote on this consideration. All those who support this, please say yes. Yes, all those who oppose say no.
The resolution finished airplay resolution passes. He doesn't get a. Report. All right. That pretty much finishes the business items on our agenda. That brings us to the public communication on non-agenda items. We have three public communications I'm going to call your name. And Mr. Harper, are you going to do that for the three minutes? Mr. Walter Cook, please. Good evening. My name is Walter Cook.
I'm Troy resident and a proud for GSD here. Thank you. First, thank you for approving the enhancement millage resolution. I look forward to supporting it this summer. Tonight I have officially announced my candidacy for the Troy School Board. For the past 15 years, I've worked as an educational policy researcher and an economist of education. I studied the challenges and opportunities facing public K-12 education, including achievement gaps, chronic absenteeism, early literacy, school finance and school mobility and choice at Detroit Public Schools. As a leadership team member in the Office of Strategy. I'm very proud of my accomplishments
to advise the superintendent and inform strategic decision making. Informed by my experiences in the educational sector. My campaign will be built on a focus on strategy, data and accountability. I'm running with a data and research driven strategic plan proposal for TSD based on four objectives. First, improve attendance. Second, restore academic achievement to pre-COVID levels of excellence. Third, stabilize our district's enrollment and fourth, support staff effectiveness. I believe these four strategic objectives are the foundation for our district's path forward, and I invite you to see the details on my list. My recently launched campaign website at Waltz 4040 school.
That's waltz numero for psp.com. Finally, I'd like to say that as a longtime observer of the Free School District board meetings, I have developed a deep respect for your collegiality and your shared commitment to improving our district. Well, I have some ideas on how to approach these challenges differently than the past. I don't want to negatively campaign against the current board as I run for the open seat. Please do not perceive my efforts to elevate the urgent need for continued progress as diminishing or undermining your hard work over the course my campaign in the coming months, I want to earn your confidence
as a future valued colleague and partnership with all of you. So please know that I share and respect your collective commitment to the success of all stakeholders in the Troy School District, our students, our families and our staff. Thank you for time. Thank you, thank you, Mr. Cook. Next is Mr. Patrick Sharp. Hello, my name is Patrick Shore. I've lived in Troy for over 30 years. I work as a production director at a software company. I have two children at Troy High School, and I serve as a mentor on the Troy
High robotics team. I am also a member of the Troy Robotics Foundation. I'm here to talk to you about something that's happening that's extraordinary. And Troy, the Troy District Robotics and Troy is not some small little club. It's not some niche is one of the largest student activities within the district. We currently have nearly 600 students participating in elementary, middle school, and high school programs. 75% of our alumni are now in Stem fields far above the national average. We are feeding local partners such as Magna, Aptiv, and GM with students
who are understand project management, engineering and teamwork. Our teams have won numerous competitive events, including the prestigious Impact Award, which recognizes our ability to reach out and educate our community about Stem. Not only that, we've won it consecutive for many years. However, we are operating a varsity sport without a stadium. 85% of our teams operate out of, the rest homes. We are practicing for events in cafeterias. We are building robots and basements. We are transporting tools and industrial equipment from house to house.
We lose many hours every month having to set up and tear down fields every night. Time that could be spent teaching, engineering, coding, and collaborating. The various skills that are outlined in the district's portrait of a learner. Our peer districts, such as Lake Orient, Rochester, Royal Oak and Bloomfield all have dedicated robotics spaces that are attracting students and sponsors. Troy is an outlier in this area. So tonight we have a simple task. We would like a dedicated robotics space in Troy. We are not asking for additional funding.
We will. We're prepared to bring brands, sponsors and operational funding to this. You're just asking for space. Give us a home for our program that are already brings prestige member measurable outcomes and workforce impact of Troy. I love you all to come and see it firsthand. We're having a sponsorship, showcase on Thursday, 326 at 6 p.m. I have invitations that I'll hand out to you all before we leave. I would encourage you to meet all the students, see what we're working on, see the robot that we're building for Troy,
see our shop and see the great things that we're doing. Thank you for your time, your leadership and your partnership on this matter. Thank you. Thank you so much. Ma'am. Next, Mister Jeffrey Schweitzer. Sweet, sweet, sweet, sweet, sweet. Like. Oh, I'm so sorry, but it's okay. You know, I usually hear sweet like. And I got to say, we definitely picked the right school district based on the size of this, city council meeting. And, you know, the public comments I'm hearing,
I know that they can be pretty contentious at other places. I'm going to start with good stuff. And I know it doesn't mean as much when you say the good stuff before you say the thing that you want, but, I do want to say that, we are extremely happy at Hamilton. We were very, very impressed with Miss Boso and really like her classroom management style. She's very strong educator. I know, because I've been in education my whole life. I was at Troy High for a long term sub back in 2017. I currently teach at Grosse Pointe South. And I was very impressed when I was at Troy High, especially with your two AP chem teachers.
They had some gray hair. I think they may, and I think they may be retired by now, but they were. They left an impression. I'll say that, I'm here today for just a really, really small item. It's not a huge deal. In fact, you know, if I don't get my way on it, I'll probably never come back again. And to be 100% truthful, it's kind of one of those things where I want to be able to tell my kid there's, you know, I want to teach them to get involved in politics and to come down and not be afraid to participate in their democracy and to participate in public comment. So that's maybe
a little bit of the reason that I can that I can come down here and said it, I'm going to be giving a enrichment class and teaching our kids how to play Pokemon cards. My original intention for the class was to do it for free. I kind of thought about it a lot, like coaching, you know, a lot of coaches, they don't get paid. They just. It's something they do to give back. And that was kind of my mindset. Mindset on it wasn't going to be a big thing. I think I was going to offer it maybe 4 or 6 times at Hamilton and only, you know, give it away for free. I was told they couldn't do it for free. I said, okay, I'll do it for a dollar.
I was told they couldn't do it for a dollar. I said, okay, you know, what is the minimum? Minimum 16 bucks. That seems like a lot to me. I really don't want to charge the kids $16. I believe that $16 policy minimum was was created ad hoc for me. And the reason I say that is because it is not in the official policies. It's it's nowhere in those documents. It doesn't appear to be documented anywhere. I've asked some follow up questions for our administrators about it. You know, how long is the policy been in place? Was any numbers crunched, any accounting?
I did receive. I did get a reply about the rationale. I was told it was cost recovery, and that makes a little sense. But 16 bucks is a lot. I don't want to charge these kids $16. All I'm asking for is you guys, you know, spent five minutes on it, just, you know, have a conversation. If you can't get it down to $1, if you could just bring it down. I really appreciate it. And with my last couple of minutes, I don't want to mispronounce your name. Is it Park Philip our like to address your question about recruiting teachers from other districts.
You guys are in a great position to do that. We are a spectacular district. It is not like it used to be. Teachers are more fluid. When I was a kid, a teacher taught where they taught, and that was what they did. And they stayed in that community for real. It's not like that anymore. Teachers look everywhere. What I think is hurting us is not willing to honor steps. I don't know if that's still the case. My wife, also a teacher. She was in the market about four years ago. It's just weird. Like I wanted to be fair to everybody.
Okay. I'm so sorry. Thank you, thank you. Appreciate it. And we can talk afterwards. No. Thank you. Yeah. All right. That finishes our public comment section. And that brings us to our student reps. All right, let me see who wants to go in first. Who's here? Isabella, do you want to go first? Good evening everyone. Happy February. It has been a very powerful and meaningful month at Troy High School,
defined by service, achievement, culture, celebration, concert, cultural celebration, and continued school pride. So to begin the month, we started with one of our most impactful traditions, which is Activist Week, just essentially our journey, it took place from February 1st to February 6th. A huge thank you to all of the student government kids, leadership students and advisors. The week was an incredible success for us. So the event, I'm sorry, the week, during the week, we had events like CPR and ice cream Bar where, there were some students who were trained on how to do CPR.
And then during lunch, we had a lot of students that came in. And so it was student taught. So the students taught other students how to do CPR, and they got ice cream after, a pickleball tournament, which is new this year. Splash bash, Troy has got talent, power paths and many other schoolwide activities. So at the end we were able to raise around $45,000. This year held, a lot of significance. Obviously, we, we're honoring one of our very beloved members of our community who, unfortunately passed due to heart disease.
So before the week began, our executive board, on the student government, we came together. We made, like, red ribbons because it's also heart disease awareness month. So if you guys see any pictures from our act this week, we had, everyone was wearing, like, these red ribbons every single day. We were passing them out to all the students and staff. So it was just really nice to see, our community honoring him and everyone else who's also been affected by heart disease. Yeah. So we're deeply grateful to be donating these funds to children's heart checks and scholarships within the Troy School District. I would also like to give a very sincere thank you to miss and Mr..
Yeah Mrs.. And Mr.. Ahmed for trusting us with the legacy. Obviously it's like a very big thing and we thank them for their continued support of Troy High. They came multiple times during the week. And then on the first day of Ramadan, the family also did bring food, for our staff as a gesture of. Thank you. So on that note, Ramadan came to anyone who is celebrating and observing this month. In addition to hosting as the best way to try, our student government was recognized at a state level this past weekend, earning three major awards from the Michigan Association of Student Council and Michigan Association of Honor Society.
So we received the Award of Excellence, excellence, which recognizes programs that go above and beyond and required an extensive, multi-part application. And, we also in the call to Award, which recognizes schools for their efforts in diversity, equity and inclusion, as well as exceptional service project Award for the Senior Citizen prom event that we held last spring. February is also Black History Month, so our Black Student Union is hosting Spirit Week to celebrate and honor black history and culture. There's been a lot of participation these past few days, and tomorrow is going to be quarter zip. Wednesday, Thursday will be Throwback Thursday.
And then just to black out for Black Friday, junior out of the city pep assembly. We also did have students that honored Black History Month by recognizing the black national anthem. So we're proud to celebrate the voices and achievements and contributions of black leaders within our school and beyond. Looking ahead, Leap applications for next year are currently open, so the program for next year plans to select about 150 underclassmen. Sorry, upperclassmen to serve underclassmen. We wish all the applicants best of luck. And as someone who joined last year,
it was like the first year for Lee, but I'm really excited to see how, the club continues to develop and bridge the gap between upperclassmen and underclassmen. Peer mediation is also launching, a schoolwide March Madness madness trivia. During all lunch periods, all the sign ups are out right now. Also, at this year's regional science Forward, Troy High, teens advanced to an old Troy final round and a historic finish separated by 20 points. So Troy 18 got first place and then Troy B team got second place. Into my understanding,
it's just Troy High students split into two different groups. So Troy a team is they earn an all expenses paid trip to Washington DC to compete in a national level. Sorry, at the national levels. And urged members of the Troy High Symphony Orchestra represented our school at the 31st annual high school chamber competition. It's a very big accomplishment. Given the very, like, highly competitive field and athletics. We wish our girls basketball a lot of luck as they compete against Athens tonight. Well, I haven't been on my phone.
Our hockey team continues. And outstanding. Sorry. An outstanding season. And they will be competing on Saturday and so far they've had a very impressive season with 25 to 2. Yeah. So overall, February has been a month marked by compassion, excellence, culture, celebration and achievement. And we thank you for your continued support of our programs. And I can't wait to update you guys next. All right. Thank you. Any okay. Sarah, how are things at Athens? Good. I'm thrilled to share some of the incredible highlights and memorable moments from this past month at Athens High School.
As the winter sports season comes to a close, we have so much to celebrate. Our athletes have been amazing with wrestling, competitive cheer, hockey and skiing all securing league titles. A special shout out goes to the Athens team for being named league champions for the second time in school history, as well as our United hockey team, who delivered a historic season finishing with a phenomenal 25 to 2 regular season record. Moving on to the most anticipated week of the year at Athens Charity week was an absolute blast. The week was packed with events that truly showcased our school spirit, including pancake Breakfast,
the Hypnotist Show, Mister Athens, Parent Cook-Off and so much more. Together we raised an astounding $100,203.33 to support the New Day Foundation. And even better, this incredible total was matched, allowing us to donate over $200,000 to Michigan families facing Cancer center. Our Red Hawks also continued to embrace amazing opportunities outside of the building. Our Science Olympiad team competed fiercely at the University of Michigan Tournament, with two of our groups placing in their events. Three of our Japanese students presented speeches about their favorite
Japanese books at the Michigan Japanese Speech Contest at Washtenaw Community College, with one student earning an honorable mention. And finally, sophomore Gabriella Murphy auditioned against over 1000 other musicians to earn a coveted spot in the MSBA away all state high school orchestra, performing beautifully at the Michigan Music Conference. These achievements are a true testament to the hard work of our students and the unwavering support of our parents and staff. I couldn't be prouder of what we've accomplished together this winter, and I look forward to sharing more great news with you next month and always go right out.
Right? Thank you. Sarah, are you how are things that I am meeting everyone? So I had an amazing month so far in February and I'm really excited to share some of the highlights. So first, on our extracurriculars. I think our clubs have been so, so busy. So first, our Science Olympiad team competed at the Plymouth Canton Invitational and our team spirit. Overall, the competition from a total of 40 teams around the state of Michigan. And we also just recently competed at the University of Michigan Invitational as well.
And so we are now wrapping up the competition season, with the regional tournament taking place this Saturday to compete for a spot at the Michigan State Science Media Tournament. Now, our students and the Science Fair Club have also been working equally hard on their Science Fair projects to present at the Science and Engineering Fair of Metro Detroit, which is happening next month. So we have a range of research projects this year, from engineering to lab based projects. And through science fair, students are able to lead an independent research project in a field that they're interested in.
And so we're really excited for the competition next month for students to be able to present their research, and I can't wait to share about it during the next meeting. So our forensics and model, club have also been incredibly active as forensics has been competing in several invitations like Birch Run and 2020, where may I ask the, students please to top five of their events? And the Model Event Club recently traveled to Chicago to compete at the model U.N. conference at the University of Chicago, where one of our students received an honorable mention and our Red Cross club, just a few weeks
before break, held another successful blood drive, as we had many students and teachers donate for the college. So as you can see, our clubs have been very, very busy. Now, on the schoolwide side of things, we actually just had our Winter Olympics. And so obviously Olympics is one of like the best events I use where students from all over grades good to like take a break from class and studying and just have fun with friends for like the day, like volleyball constantly and stand up comedy. It was a day filled with so much school spirit because everyone was like,
dressed up in the house colors and like, all like spirited. And so it was really fun. So coming up in the next few months, many of our students are competing at the state hosts a conference taking place in Traverse City, and our juniors are also preparing to take the school. A.C.T. in April as well. So I'm very excited to share more about the happenings at Ice next month with so much more to come. Thank you. Wonderful. Thank you Chloe. Finish it up with the how are things with TCC? Happy Tuesday everybody. It's been a pretty exciting past month at Troy College and career per usual,
so I think I'm just going to jump right in preparing students for the preparing students for their futures. Most of our students attended a field trip at OC where participating students toured the whole Royal Oak campus, getting it in-depth, getting in-depth presentations on classes, scheduling how to choose, what not to choose, and all of the above regarding attending college at Oak while talking to my peers, the Hvac, heating and cooling, as well as the auto shop areas were the most attention grabbing but not bananas.
Attention grabbing. As miss G in her business math, they're really grabbing and holding attention with all their new school shirt designs as well as senior hoodies saving, editing and making new updates every day in hopes to start a new school business. Bringing in another brand new skill set to students at TCC. Our our teachers close friend Thomas King came in to give a presentation to students all about career, all about the career of film making and art and producing, hopefully bringing and including this
into the rest of the district, especially during the filmmaking process. Then I just want to add in a special recognition to our senior girls, a part of the Women of Tomorrow program. Their consistent, applied efforts and hard work they put into completing their scholarship applications. I know me and my friend were like on face time, doing the thing that doing the applications. So I went up to her. I was like, what should I say? At the board meeting? She was like, right in, thank you to everybody for doing the applications.
So yeah, we both work pretty hard on that. So, anyways, for anyone unfamiliar, TCC runs their classes a bit differently. Want to fit in more credits in a shorter time and to to expand students educational and experimental opportunities. Given that our teachers and teachers staff enjoy recognizing our hard work and efforts throughout the past quarter by having an annual award ceremony we held our second out of for each year award ceremony two Fridays ago, so we also took the time to recognize
our counselor and school police officer and all that they do for us. Also to add a personal flex. Oh, also sorry to add in a personal flex to this, but I'm pretty proud of myself. So I did receive an award for embodying the mission of TCC. Anyways, my favorite parts of T of my speech to talk about what our student council is up to Valentine's Day week slash the week leading up to Midwinter break, student Council was very busy
with a bunch of engaging plans and events like Spirit Week Monday being Hat day, Tuesday being Valentine's Color Day, Wednesday being the day, Thursday was Throwback Thursday, and then Friday was Fancy Friday as well as, you guessed it, another food potluck. Can you tell this is our new favorite thing? Going back to this, going back to earlier that week, we had a couple fundraisers completely. Student ran to make money for our full school non educational field trip that we will have yet to make a 100% decision on.
Those fundraisers include a bake sale and coin walk where we raise about 2 to $300. Thank you for listening and happy late Valentine's Day to everybody. Oh, wonderful. Thank you. Board members, any questions to anybody on any of the students except what's going on? Yeah. Yes. Wonderful. Very good. That, brings us to other. Other. Miss singer, do you want to put this up? Yes. Super. Briefly.
First, I'd like to thank the Troy African-American parent network that met with some of our board members earlier today. Like one of our public speakers said today, it's an important piece of the governance process to state your wishes, desires and concerns to your governance people. And that's us. And, I can speak for my colleagues and say we were, glad that you demonstrated bravery, to be very honest about places where we can grow and continue to do, good and better job to support all of our kids.
So, first and foremost, thank you to them, blessed Ramadan, to all who are observing as well. And, of course, hurt hurt Awareness month and last, certainly close to my heart is for those of you who don't know, Rare Disease Awareness Month. That means some diseases that are held by less than 100 people. So there are thousands of rare diseases in the world that are held by few numbers of people. And, many of those folks do not have either diagnosis or any form of treatment. So, if you know or love someone rare, please reach out to them.
Bridge Disease week this week. That's all wonderful. Thank you, Miss and Miss Potts. I don't know if I have a whole lot happy black history month. Black history is American history. Blessed Ramadan to, to our community that celebrates Ramadan. Nothing much other than that, I think I I'm going to keep it brief this month. Thank you, doctor, for the, for, just one item for me. I had a chance to experience the new visitor online registration system.
I was at DCC earlier today. Other than the fact that you have to figure out where to scan your license, it was pretty seamless. So. And they said that, we were there first people, the first visitors in the building to actually, try out their system there. So I think it's, you know, it's going to be fine. It just takes a little bit of getting used to wonder, is that the first buildings that implemented it? No. They're several. Oh, several of them that are currently implementing.
Okay, starting with the high schools. When I moved to the middle schools in the Enfield, wonderful. Doctor Melton. Yeah, I was just going to give a a couple plugs for events that are coming up shortly. One I'm sure we're going to hear about, from our, I student representative probably next month is the Shamrock Shake down? I was unaware of this until last year when Nerida made the video that we were able to see. I know, Mr. Chinaski, is heading that up, and he sent us an email.
And the videos in the email, it's coming up next week. It's it's during the day, but, I know I'm planning on attending. I think it's really exciting. And it's an opportunity that we get to see what's happening at two schools that we don't always have an opportunity to access very often. So I'm really excited to see how that plays out. And then we've got limits coming up, which is exciting because it's the the new kind of blend between our high end and theater groups. So I'm looking forward to seeing that.
And then also, later in the spring, I know our ministration had talked about getting feedback from the kids on how all that played out and, and we're looking forward to hearing how what their thoughts were. So two events coming up and wonderful. Thank you, Mr. Hart. Yeah. So, I missed the workshop a few weeks ago because I was in Washington, DC, so I just wanted to give a just kind of a brief update on that. For those of you that don't know, there's an advocacy conference in Washington, DC. One of the days is we're actually on Capitol Hill talking to the representatives.
The day that I went there, representatives had a pretty important vote on funding the government or something, I don't know. So we talked a lot of to this staffers at that time. But the staffers are are great individuals, so it's good to give the information to them. But some of the topics we talked about was first idea funding. We talked we heard about it today, a sore spot. That's been something that we've been fighting for for the last, you know, decades. And so, and one of the figures that kind of jumped out to me was that Michigan as a whole has, a gap of about $900 million of special education funding.
So just think of all the possibilities we could we could do with that money. And then other things that we talked about were student vouchers, the teacher shortage, career, technical education, cyber security, and then school safety and mental health as well. So there's a whole host of topics that we talked about, and the staffers really took them to heart. So hopefully we see some movement. Thank you. I did forget to mention in the beginning of the session that, board member Miss Aleix is not here, so she's not able to make it today.
Okay, I guess it's up to you. Yeah. Doctor Chesky. Yeah, just a couple of items. On the on the, point of advocacy, I'll be in Lansing, tomorrow, for a legislative day. That's the K 12 Alliance, group of, school districts from, and counties from across southeast Michigan, who come together to lobby collectively, for, various within various areas, in support of public education, specifically, from a budgetary standpoint, making sure that we still advocating
for full funding of the EAA, make sure we're continue to focus on increases in foundation allowance, moving categorical funding into account, and to foundation allowances and so forth. We'll be doing that tomorrow. The, the legislators will be staying over tomorrow because of the state of the state address. That will happen tomorrow night. So with that in mind, we take that as an opportunity to meet with them. So I'll be I'll be going on our behalf. They'll be there tomorrow. I and thank you to, Mr. Shore, the hammerhead, sponsor showcase will be. I plan on being there on Thursday, so thank you very much for that.
For that additional information on that, that 6:00 at Troy High School in the media center. So I'll, know I'm planning on and all that invitation went out to to board members. So some of us may be able to I will definitely be there on on Thursday and look forward to that opportunity. Our school finance engagement group has now met twice. We have talked about general funding, across. And so in other words, where to where does money come for schools in the state of Michigan? Our second, meeting was about for a second, gathering, if you will, was about revenue. So. So what revenues look like in the school district the next time we get together
in just a couple of weeks, we're going to talk about expenditures. We're going to talk about where expenditures within the school district go, and, and so forth. And then we'll follow that up with two additional meetings, where we'll talk about, some of our special revenue funds, and we'll get into band, band programing and things along those lines, and then we'll follow up with advocacy because this is, this is about a group around advocacy. So we're to follow up with, final finalized with advocacy, talk about how we can engage the legislature further in, in,
in terms of making sure that we're continuing to adequately fund schools at the minimal, at minimum, the rate of inflation on an annual basis. So look forward to that. Mr. Trudeau and I, with the help of Mister Butcher, have put together follow up videos from each of the sessions that we've done. So for the community, that will be available on the district's, social media channels. We will have there will be two videos, that will mimic essentially what was provided, what information was provided in both of these sessions thus far. And then we intend upon doing that for the sessions
moving forward, so that the general public, has an opportunity, if they wish to view those are welcome to do so. And then lastly, our Cap program. We're, we're very excited to have over 100 to have 100 students as part of our Cap program this year. This is our pre internship program for juniors. They'll be working at 20 hours. I'm in a pre internship with a business, located and or around here in Troy over 40 businesses that are participating with us. We're very excited that and about a week and a half or so we'll have cap. We'll have match day for those students will be matched
with the business that they'll be, that they'll be shadowing, that they'll be, engaging in that pre internship. So we're excited about that. Huge shout out to, Mrs. Montante, and her team for helping to pull that together. Mr. Plateau, Mike pinnacle for helping pull all that together and provide that, that opportunity for, for students here and across Troy. Okay. Yep. That's it. All right. I'm just going to add only a couple more things. Pretty much everybody has spoken. So I hope everybody had a good mid-winter break last week,
and they got rested and came back. Came back well rested. And I want to, I guess anybody who's observing Lenten Ramadan wish everybody, best wishes and Black History Month. And I'm glad to see the Troy High students. Do the fundraising for Heart Disease Awareness Month, in recognition of their own, one of their, students, Bilal, who the last, last year. So, I'm sure if Ameena was here, she would, definitely mention that.
So I'm going to say that, I do want to bring up a little bit about the, the funding, especially since we had passed the resolution. One of the things, as we always talk about, that school funding never matches the, inflation rate and even the governor's, governor's budget that she came out, still increases only by 2.5%, which is again, less than the inflation rate. So, so it's important to put this vote to the, voters,
and they can decide how they want to vote and decide what's best for our district. So that's that's all I have. Next meeting, our next workshop is March 3rd, which is next week, at 6 p.m. in this building. And then the meeting is March 17th at 7 p.m. again here. Retreat. Oh, we do have, Saturday, March 7th, our, retreat, where we're going to deep dive into our, budget and school finances.
And that'll be 830 8:30 a.m. in this building, which is March 7th, Saturday morning at 8:30 a.m.. All right. That pretty much finished this meeting. Meeting adjourned. What time? Great. At 829. Thank you. Meeting adjourned. Do I need to do this?