Good evening, good evening. The time is now 530 and we will go ahead and open the meeting will now call the meeting to order. Madam secretary can we have a roll call
Angelique Peterson Mayberry present Misha Stallworth, Sonia mais Dr. Iris Taylor sharegate Agnolo. The truth McClendon Bishop Colette Avan. Madam Chair, you may begin,
thank you. Meeting norms, we have the right, we respect the right of all persons to participate in this public meeting of the board, and kindly request that everyone engages in behavior that supports the same in the event that anyone engages in behavior that is not in support of the good request that you refrain from that behavior. We will now go into our moment of silence. Unfortunately, this month we have two of our dpscd soldiers who have fallen. We have Mr. Byron Brooks, but teacher and coach Ed Schultz, and Miss Burnett Burnside, a teacher at Karstens Academy of aquatics will also in honor of 911 the anniversary yesterday lift up the victims, the families and our nation as the world was impacted by this travesty. So during our moment of silence today if we could remember the family of Mr. Brooks, the family of MS Burnside and the victims and those affected by 911
Thank you we'll now have our color guards from Mumford high school if you can please stand will have the Star Spangled Banner and Lift Every Voice and Sing
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yes you may be seated. Let's give a round of applause for Mr. Diwan belt, the third of Duke Ellington Middle School. Thank you Mr. Diwan Belk, we appreciate you and all of your bravery and your talent. Thank you Mumford color guards. Please know, Bishop Vaughn has attended. We can now go into the approval of the agenda, as presented the chair entertain a motion to approve the agenda as presented. Is there a support? It's been properly moved by Dr. Taylor properly supported by member gates Agnolo. Any discussion? All those of approving the motion on the floor which is the approval of the agenda as presented signify by saying Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries. Thank you item number for the approval of the minutes. We have 4.01 through 4.07 Our regular board meeting minutes from August the eighth 2023 Our regular board meeting closed session minutes from August 8 2023. Our special board meeting minutes from August the 14th 2023. Our special board meeting closed session minutes from August the 14th 2023. Our policy ad hoc committee meeting minutes from August 21 2023. Our finance committee meeting minutes from August 25 2023 and our academic committee meeting minutes from September the 11th 2023 Is there a desire to tie bar items 4.01 through 4.07 Is there support it's been properly moved to tie bar items 4.01 through 4.07 by member Vaughn properly supported by member gay dag no go any discussion. All those in favor of tie bar and many committee minutes from August I'm sorry from 4.01 through 4.07 signify by saying aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion carried the chair will now entertain a motion for the tie bar of items 4.01 through 4.07 Is their support has been properly moved by member Vaughn properly supported by member gay dag Naugle to tie bar items 4.01 through 4.07. Any discussion? All those in favor of approving the motion on the floor signify by saying aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries. Thank you. We'll now move to item number five, which is the closing of the registration of public comment the time is now 540. The time is 540. And public comment registration has closed for cheering marks. One, we're excited to be back into school. A lot of the board members had an opportunity to visit schools, the first couple of weeks of school as well as the superintendent. And it was really exciting to see all of the excitement in the building, from students to staff to parent, I think the parents were most excited as they dropped their young people off but really excited as we are welcoming over 2000 new students, new students who were not with us last year. So we're excited about that. And hopefully we will do something to make sure that their experience is pleasurable enough for them to continue to come back. We even ran into mother more over at Barton Elementary, so we were appreciative of seeing one of the soldiers on the ground there to do what she always does. So thank you for coming into the schools and doing what you do when you all come out and volunteer. And thanks to all of our partners. There were a lot of partners who donated donated backpacks, school supplies, uniforms, and they did that up until school had begun. So 1000s were given to our school district and the families came out and brought students to receive that in other spaces. The resources were taken directly to the schools. So thank you to all of our partners. I would like to say that DSA casts renaissance and Duke Ellington the jazz bands performed at the Detroit Jazz Festival. On Labor Day weekend, and they did an amazing job. So thank you to all the directors who work with our young people. Thank you to the community and the parents who came out and weather the really hot sun. But we sat there because that's what our young people deserve. And if you close your eyes, I think you might have thought that there were adults playing on stage with the talent that we have in our district. It was interesting that there was a statement that article that was printed 2023 2024 best high schools for academic progress ranked in Michigan. And we're excited to say that we had a school who ranked number 60 on the list of the top 100. And that was Renaissance. This is ranked by the US News and World Report. CASS tech came in at a close second at 108. And ironically enough as they continue to rank schools, Bates Academy stood out as the number one and they ranked 219 in the state itself. So congratulations to all the students and staff at those three schools.
We also want to congratulate all the students, the staff and the families who supported our students and worked really hard. Dr. Vt will talk more about this but really excited about the releasing of the M step scores. Oftentimes when we receive our scores, we spend a lot of time and energy and resources on when they are negative and when they are low. And so we are going to celebrate because not only did we increase our scores, but we outpaced the state of Michigan. So we look forward to hearing more from Dr. Vitti around that. I also want to congratulate the CTE department for the $100,000 donation received from the illage charities for our skilled trade programs. So I know what's going through DPS foundation, but Alicia Merriweather her entire team, as they try to manage all of the resources, the funding and the partnerships that are coming through our district at a very fast pace, very vast partners. And so we're excited that some partners are new, and others are returning. And then finally, Miss Jackson and her team Miss Miss Shawn Jackson and her team. As we've gone out to schools, we've seen a lot of the work that was required to get the buildings ready for the first day of school. And so we're really, really pleased with what we've seen a lot of them have had improvements and renovations, others that they're underway. So we just want to make sure that we say that we appreciate those who have worked really hard to make sure that first day school returning to the schools that the buildings were ready. That will conclude the chairs remarks. The chair will entertain a motion to accept the chairs remarks. Is there a support? It's been properly moved by member Gades Agnolo. properly supported by member Vaughn, any discussion? All those in favor of the motion on the floor to accept the chair remarks signify by saying aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries. Thank you. Item number seven our finance report from our CFO Mr. Bucha detail.
Good evening board members and community this evening. We'll be reviewing the finances for the month of July.
All right, thank you very much. We received tax collections on both the 13th and the 18th. Mills as you can see here, approximately 2 million a little more than 2 million on the 13th Mills capital debt and a little less than 2,000,001 point 8 million on the 18th Mills operating debt. This allow along with our June collections allowed us to make a supplemental debt payment of approximately $12.7 million in July. We still remain on track to repay the operating debt in 20 fiscal year 2026 And to repay the capital debt in 2042.
dpscd revenue on the federal side came in slightly lower are related to timing on federal grant reimbursements. We expect to receive this money in August and September as we processed payments and then seek reimbursement from the state on the salary and benefit or on the expenditure side salary and benefits were slightly lower than expected in July. The budget included salary increases, which the first of those are being approved at tonight's meeting. As those go forward. We'll see an increase in salary but if it costs in line with the budget projections and lastly, we ended the month with approximately 24 weeks Some available cash. This is plenty of cash to get us through the no cidade payment in September until we get to the next day payment and October. That concludes my report.
Thank you Mr. perdido. I know there's a robust discussions around the finances in the finance meeting. But we did want to make sure that the entire presentation was part so the full Board for their review prior to today, are there any questions for the CFO? Any comments regarding the financial report? Thank you, Mr. Dado, you can go ahead and follow this presentation for audit purposes. We'll now move into the superintendents report. Dr. Vitti.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Good evening, everyone, audience Community Board members, I'm going to use my time to review our M CEP results, which we are very excited about as a district. Regarding just getting back to the reform work and showing the improvement that we know our students can show with the right kind of systems, processes and expectations. I was able to review this at the academic committee tomorrow. So for two of our members, they've already seen this, but I thought it was important to review for the entire board and the community at large. Yesterday, one of the.
So just to highlight the changes a reminder, every spring our students take em step. They take em step in grades three to seven. In literacy and math. They take the PSAT in eighth, ninth 10th and the LSAT in 11th grade, the PSAT and the SCT determine college readiness standards for that particular grade level that culminates in 11th grade, and then grades three to seven on the amp step that determined grade level performance based on the state standards for those grade levels and literacy and math. So for dpscd, as a reminder, when I talked about last year, we're talking about the 20 to 23, school year. And the year before, the 2122 school year was our baseline year after the pandemic. So we said, regardless of what happened at the pandemic, or during the pandemic that that year and 2122 was going to be our new baseline when we look at adding above grade level performance and literacy and math and college readiness rates for eighth grade and the high school level. And our goal last year was to show improvement based on the previous year, our new baseline year, but to do as much as we can to fully recover from the pandemic and exceed levels prior to the pandemic. So the best data that we have before the pandemic was the 2018 19 school year. That was the last time our students fully tested on M step and on the PSAT LSAT. So the best year to compare our recovery efforts is the 1819 year. So with the results now official, we're excited to say in literacy, not only did we show improvement from last year, but we exceeded at an above grade level of performance compared to 1819. So what that means is we showed improvement from last year to the most recent year. But we also exceeded our at an above grade level levels and literacy, that improvement outpaced the state's improvement, and city charter schools. And I'll show that in a chart. These are more the narrative of the bullet points, but I'll show you the actual numbers. In math we improved from last year. from two years ago, our baseline year to the most recent year, we improved by 2.5 percentage points that exceeds the improvement that the stage saw and city charter schools in 11th grade where our students take the PSAT not only did we show improvement from last year, but we exceeded pre pandemic levels in college readiness rates when it comes to literacy. And then in math. We did the same thing improved from last year to this year for the most recent year and exceeded pre pandemic levels and outperform the state and city charter schools. This improvement was systemic, it was not just isolated to exam schools or application schools or schools on the west side. In fact, 75% of our schools showed improvement on at an above grade level performance as compared to last year 54% of stew of schools showed improvement from the pandemic or prior to the pandemic and 81% of schools showed improvement in proficiency compared to last year and 44%. Before we were in a pandemic, so you can see this kind of improvement a little bit better on this chart. And I think this is important to point out because we can talk about improvement in the district. But what does that improvement look like, versus the state and city charters, which are most like dpscd schools. And so it's not just talking about improvement, it's talking about the landscape of performance in K 12, across the nation, in the state and city charter schools. And what you're seeing is not only is dpscd improving, but it's improving at a at a faster rate than the state is, and city charter schools. So what this shows you here is specifically grades three to eight. Ela is English, language arts, math, social studies and science. You can see for example, in literacy, we improve that two percentage points as compared to last year, city charters bid last 1.9 to state was flat, it did not improve at all. So that's including all schools throughout Michigan, or rural schools, more urban schools, suburban schools, they were flat. When we look at math, we improved 2.5 percentage points from last year, city charter schools only 1.5. And the state only improved 1.2. Now most when we moved to grade 11, which is college readiness rates, and literacy, we improve six percentage points. So that was an improvement in one year, the city charter is only 4.2%. And the state showed less than 1% improvement in college readiness rates. And you saw the same thing in math, we improved 3.7% percentage points to the charter schools 1.9%. And then the state actually declined in college readiness, math performance over one year was also important to point out, you see this better. Next slide
is looking at how we're doing since the pandemic. So obviously, there's been a lot of conversation nationally, even locally about learning loss. And so the best way to look at learning loss is how is the district done with the last data set before the pandemic to the most recent data point after the pandemic. And so when we look at literacy, we improved point 2%. In that and above grade level before the panel versus before the pandemic that now where city charter schools have declined three percentage points. And the state has declined three percentage points. So in math, we only have about 1% that go with recovering from the pandemic, whereas city charter schools have declined over 3% in the state over 4%. That's an ELA er that's in math for grades three to eight, we will look at college readiness and 11th grade, we've actually improved since the pandemic and college readiness rates for this city charter schools are down about a half a percent, and the state is down three percentage points. In math, we've improved in college readiness since the pandemic where the city charter schools have shown decline, and so is the state. So, again, what this shows us is that we're doing something differently in dpscd. Not only are we doing something different as far as recovering from the pandemic, and narrowing learning loss, we already saw that the first year we tested after the pandemic, we showed less learning loss in the state did we showed less learning loss in city charters, I think we showed less loss. Because we continued with our regular curriculum, even despite being online, we worked hard to get laptops out. loaner laptops out, we stick we stuck to the regular schedule, we didn't modify the schedule until the latter part of 2021. And we did the best we could to get in person in a 2122 year. And then last year in particular meet we made a firm commitment to get back to reform to focus on student achievement to focus on our interventions, and start to move away from the challenges and heaviness of the pandemic. And certainly this data is showing that we are doing something differently also with our curriculum, our professional development, our instructional leadership support. And our overall I would say collaboration among departments. When you look at the school's team, the curriculum instruction team, the climate and culture team, we're just more unified in our approach and working more coherently with our principals who are then problem solving with our teachers and implementing our curriculum and our interventions more tightly. So very, can see this in just a different form. And I'm not going to overwhelm you with with data slides. But just just chose you over the last three years when we look at full testing years 1819, the year before the pandemic 2020 to two years ago, which was our baseline year after the pandemic, and 2223, our most recent year. And you can see in literacy, we've exceeded where we were before the pandemic. In math, we got about 1% to go. But we did improve versus last year social studies, improved versus last year. And then science, we're only recently testing 2122. We don't have pre pandemic levels and science. And then and college readiness rates as described earlier. were exceeding college readiness rates, pre pandemic, in college written this race and literacy were above pre Damak, pre Bandag pre pandemic levels in math. We've improved in social studies, as far as college readiness, but not where we were before the pandemic and exceeded where we were in science as far as college readiness standards. So this just shows you historically, what we're seeing in literacy across the board from three to seven to eighth grade, to 11th grade. And this shows you historically since the M step has implemented, so our levels and literacy are the highest DPS Ed and DPS Ed has ever had. So we've reached to a point where we've exceeded DPS, DPS EDI performance and literacy. So we can't say we're not improving literacy. I'm the first one to tell you, we have much more to do and more to improve. But you can't say we're not doing the right thing. When it comes to curriculum professional development intervention. Now it's about scaling and accelerating this year and in future years, but what we are doing is working, and the numbers are showing that. The same thing in PSAT eighth grade, you can see the numbers there for yourself and then 11th grade, college readiness rates are much above where they were in DPS and dpscd. And above where they were before the pandemic. In math, a lot of attention has been given to literacy. But as I've been saying in these meetings, the pandemic impact on learning loss was more profound in math than literacy. And so the ground that we have to make up is greater in math and literacy. We have narrowed that gap better than the state better than city charters. But we still have about one percentage point to go in math, at least at the third and seventh grade level. And then the PSAT level and math we've exceeded where we were before the pandemic, but still work to do with being at a record high for College Readiness bass scores. I do want to reiterate a point that was made last year. When we look at this performance with the PSAT LSAT and M step, we saw what we saw previously, which is if a student misses nine days or less of school, the three times more likely to be at an above grade level in English language arts, and three times more likely to be at an above grade level in math. So if you miss nine or fewer days, you're three times more likely to be at an above grade level on M step in grades three to seven. When we look at high school students, the impact is even greater. If you miss not nine or fewer days in high school, or let's say in 11th grade, you're four times more likely to be college ready, you're five times more likely to be college ready and math if you miss nine or fewer days. So when we think about student achievement moving forward, it's certainly about continuing to work hard to be fully staffed with teachers continue to implement our curriculum with fidelity, making adjustments based on the feedback of teachers, expanding our interventions for literacy and math. But it's also making sure that students attend school more regularly. And this data point is another example you look at English language arts, math, social studies and science, you can see the difference based on how many days of school a student misses. So if you look at literacy, missing nine or fewer days, 28% are at an above grade level 18% Missing nine to 17 days missing 18 days is 13%. And then more than 18 days is 7%. If we round, and you can see the same chart, same trend in math. Same in social studies, same in science, as mentioned earlier that the impact of chronic absenteeism is even greater at the high school level. So in high school, 61% of our students are considered college ready in literacy if they missed nine or fewer days of school. That's above the state average with college readiness performance And then you can see it scaffolds downward based on the number of days missed this, the gap is not as great in math, but there is still a gap. And then you see social studies and science. So as I conclude and just open it up to questions, I want to deeply thank our central office team, our principals, our teachers, our students, our families, for just embracing the challenge of getting back to reform getting back to student achievement. There is not a doubt that this data suggests, I wouldn't even say suggest names, that we are back to student achievement as a focus. As a district, we are improving at rates faster than the state faster than city charter schools. Our students will sit down and take nape the National Assessment for educational progress this spring. Based on these numbers, I have no doubt that they're going to show improvement. And I think we're going to go back to 8019 type of levels, where we'll be the most improved law of large urban school districts in the country. This data is showing this at the state level. I think the national data will show that about this time next year when the nape data is released. But again, just thank you to everyone for their hard work and their focus. There's always distractions, there's always challenges, but this district is improving and the area that matters most, which is student achievement.
Thank you, Dr. Vitti. I'll open it up to the board to the floor. Any questions or comments as it relates to the superintendents? Presentation?
No Medicare, applaud to our staff and our students and leadership that helped us to move the needle in the right direction. I will say that it is quite alarming every time I see the impact of chronic absenteeism, and the impact that it has on our scores. And I just want to just continue to reiterate the intentionality around us making sure that only our attendant agents are active and deployed and doing their job, and us doing everything we can outside the box to make sure that we minimize student absence.
Thank you. Any more questions? Dr. B, I just have one, I noticed that social studies remains the biggest challenge. Can you unpack why you think social studies? Aren't the rates move slow or not at all?
Yeah, so our biggest challenge in social studies is teaching social studies, meaning consistently from kindergarten to 12th grade. So because Social Studies is not tested by the state every year, because of the needs that we see with students, and literacy and math, even though the schedule at the elementary calls for the teaching of social studies, honestly, sometimes it takes a third seat to literacy and math in the schedule. Because teachers obviously want to maximize their time for literacy and math. So we do have curriculum tied to social studies, we do training with social studies, a lot of our teachers also will have to teach multiple subjects at the elementary level. So some are self contained at the earlier grades where they teach all their subject areas. But we have been moving to more departmentalization, where, let's say one teacher teaches ELA and social studies. And then another one and the same grade level teaches math and science. So that has been a trend. But we also have to continue to recruit and develop teachers that feel comfortable, you know, teaching one or the other. So we're doing that more at the middle school level, and the upper grades, but at the LM at the early grade level, we just have to be more consistent teaching social studies, we can't just emphasize social studies, the year that is tested. And that's been our challenge with the with the lift that's associated with literacy and math. So that's our challenge. We're getting better. I mean, our data is improving, but not as fast as we want it to. And I think we're getting better with being pure to the schedule, and teaching what we should be teaching consistently in the schedule. That's the challenge moving forward and continuing to build the capacity of our teachers to teach science and social studies, easier at the high school level harder at the middle school and elementary level, because the certification is broad, not specific, necessarily to the subject area. It can be, but we tend to go broader when we think about K eight certification.
Okay, yeah. I remember getting to know
both of these subjects. I get the challenge. Oftentimes, though, real life situations are helpful for our students. I know when I was teaching science, you know, just dealing with the whole issue of the sea lamb prays in in Michigan and working with UNM, which kind of put units together also, the Bono part Are you dating myself read and the AIDS campaign to talk about health and challenges? Do we have any such partnerships? And I will also say with respect to social studies, it was interesting. And I think all of this, the team that attended those are secretaries miss more Kia, even Mr. Solano, Dr. Weaver during the summers when we were doing the ballot initiatives and educating working with civics 360, how kids actually lit up once they understood the relevance of why it was important to them. They it the dialogue in the room, I wish we could have somehow captured more of it, because they really became like, it really engaged and wants to talk about it. Do we have any such partnerships in both the science and civics that relate to their lives, because that's the way that they become more awakened and ready to participate?
We do I can, I can send you separately, you know, the partners that we have, but I, I do think we're doing a lot of important work in social studies to make the curriculum more relevant, more connected to students lives really just more connected to political issues, which, you know, they're they're experiencing, directly or indirectly, obviously, you know, there are standards that need to be taught. But there's a way to engage the standards through real life experiences and situations. So I know everyone at the board level, and at least some of the community know the work we've done with the Detroit lessons and incorporating that Detroit history in the elementary that's expanding to the high school level, where they're learning about Detroit history. But I think a separate conversation about what we're doing with the Social Studies curriculum would be helpful, because it really is, I think, at the cutting edge of going beyond sort of the stale textbooks that have their own challenges, and making history more about real life and real experiences. So I think you'll see that in where we're headed. From a curriculum point of view, we're really trying to abandon what the typical publishers produced, because they're not. They're not necessarily connecting to our average student.
And how are we also to that end, incorporating African American History Throughout all of our schools?
Well, that's certainly one of the focus areas. So I know that you were able to highlight the work that we did in AP, with African American history, we're one of the leaders connected to that, and our teachers continue to be trained with a focus area, they're trying to promote more African history studies at the middle school level. So that there's continuity in the high school, as we continue to do PD, and we expanded the course offerings in that area as well. So there's a lot of good momentum, there are a lot of focus on the right thing. So you know, separately, whether it's at the curriculum, at the academic committee meeting or a separate meeting, you know, that you want to be a part of, you know, the team can be there and break down what we're doing. And I think, you know, even getting that out to the community would be helpful, because I do believe in that area, we're moving in a in a national best practice direction. Thank you.
Thank you. Any more questions or comments for the superintendents report? If not the chair and oh, I'm sorry, Dr. BD, you want to go to the next part of your report?
Yeah. Not slide just to give the board an update on enrollment. And so right now, our our budgeted target is 40,200 students. That's the budget amount, obviously, we want to exceed that number. Right now enrolled in dpscd. K through 12. We have 51,700 students. That was as of yesterday, of those students, about 90% have attended thus far. So we got about 2500 students to go with three weeks ago until count to get to 44 40,200. So there's, I have no concerns about not getting to that number. We're trending above 40,200 right now. I don't think all of the 51,700 students will attend dpscd schools because that number always goes down. But I think we're trending in the right direction. Obviously the two heat days last week impacted. Just attendance. I wouldn't say it impacted enrollment. It just impacted attendance, which influences the numbers from today. But I think we'll definitely hit our budgeted amount, and we likely will exceed that. The only thing that I would name is that 90% of our classrooms are filled with teachers. The remaining many of those classrooms, we have about 70 vacancies. Most of those aren't ESC. There's a large number of ESC teachers that are just about to be hired and processed. That number will go down this week and mainly next week we'll start leveling, like we do every year for students that are increasing enrollment or declining and we balanced by shifting teachers and personnel to accommodate for the increases or decreases. As of right now we only have three assistant principal vacancies, six guidance counselor vacancies, five academic interventionist vacancies, 11, security guards, eight pre K, Paras and 17 ESC parents with plenty of individuals in the pool. So it's not a matter of finding people. It's a matter of just processing and hiring and the principal finding someone but I'm not concerned about any of these areas being fully staffed. It's just a matter of processing, not that we don't have applicants. And so that concludes my report for academic achievement and then just where we are with opening of schools. Madam Chair, yes,
I'm sorry, one more thing I remember. I'm glad to see our numbers are trending upward. One area, the Montessori program this year, what is our current waiting list? I know I emailed you, for individual family, but just out of curiosity, what is our the length of our waiting list? And are we looking at ways to scale or create more capacity?
Yeah, I don't know the number off the top my head but I could get you probably before the end of the board meeting and I can announce it. As far as increasing seeds. Off the top of my head. I think the biggest opportunity is Edmondson. As far as seats, and space, Pa Palmer Park is a build up. And we're just about there. I think we have maybe one or two grade levels that still need to be phased out until it's wall to wall Montessori. I mean there before the pandemic, we were talking about more of an E side Montessori program. But then just because of the challenges of the pandemic, we put that aside, but, you know, that could be a place where we look. That's where I think the greatest opportunity is. So that's off top my head, we'd have to look at what building may be down in enrollment where we could build it back up. But I think that's that's probably the best opportunity. But I would say let's let's try to get Edmondson fully enrolled. So then we have to think about the second building. That's right next to it and using that. That's, that's right now, being mothballed knowing that we could expand there. And then building out Palmer Park, which I think Palmer Park is going to be full soon in the next couple of years. So I would hesitate to build anything a new Montessori program on the east side until we're completely full at Edmonson. But I can we can revisit it for the board in the upcoming month. Thank you.
Dr. Peter had two questions. One. So the 3500 students, the 51,700 students that we have enrolled, are we reaching out to those families? I know you mentioned they may not come. But are we reaching out to those families if they haven't yet attended school already?
Yes, we were we require schools to engage in what we call the no shows. So those are phone calls. Those are home visits. Just to make sure that families don't school started, please come to school. You know, you've already missed nine days of school, though. So those conversations are having and the schools have to document the outreach to the to the no shows. The district staff also is used and volunteers are used to do conduct home visits at schools whether the concentration of students that have not showed up. That's mainly our neighborhood high schools.
Okay. And my final question, the vacancies that we have, are these vacancies that we knew about are these new vacancies. And why haven't we put people in these spaces already?
So right now, there are about 12 schools that have two vacancies, and then two schools with three, all the other school vacancies are spread out. I would say the greatest challenge is special education. I mean, I would say half of those are special education vacancies. And we've been working with the state to to to issue a waiver to allow for an ESC certified teacher to work, let's say in an ASD, or cognitive impair classroom. That waiver has been passed every year, but they were slow in passing that waiver. So we did not put teachers in there until that waiver was approved. That's been one of the challenges. And so just to just to clarify, if a student with autism, for example, needs a teacher, we're not putting a non ESC or non special education teacher in a classroom. Would they just have to work to get the endorsement in that area? Maria, and we didn't have a waiver for that. Now we do. So we'll see reduction of these vacancies, but they're spread out i. So it's really just a matter of supply and demand with certified teachers, it's just every year becomes harder and harder for us to rebuild where we were. And I would say, as we negotiate next year's contract, it's getting more competitive in the mid career level. You know, our most veteran teachers deserve to increase that the board will officially approve tonight. And they deserve even more than that. But we also have to get more competitive and mid career teachers, with the teachers we're losing, we're losing mid career teachers, and we have to pick up in that area as well. So I'm optimistic that with next year's contracts, we can get more competitive there and possibly have more flexibility with bonuses in order to incentivize more teachers to come to dpscd. And we're also going to have to expand on arise as well, to develop even more teachers going into the future. And with hiring more academic interventionist, which we are, I think the pool will be larger in that area as well. So we're, I would say where we were last year, we probably have about 30 More teacher vacancies than we had. But that's heavily concentrated in special education and that will go down by next month.
Thank you. So the on the RISE program, are we certifying ESC is on the rise as well,
we are we are authorized to do that. Now. We have not done that until going into next year.
So this is the first year we'll be doing this will be the first year. Any more questions for the superintendent? Okay, before we approve his report, I know we have some recognitions Miss Wilson.
Thank you Dr. Obedient to our board chair and their board members. We do have a disclaimer or coaches on the way he had a meet but we do have a dynamic recognition for one of our students. Under the core value excellence it states be relentless in your pursuit of greatness. Be bold and innovate, learn from your mistakes and hold yourself and others to high standards. So each spring, the Congressional Institute sponsors a nationwide High School visual art competition to recognize and encourage artistic talent in the nation and eat in each congressional district. Since the artistic discovery competition began in 1982. More than 650,000 high school students have participated. Students submit entries to their representatives office and panels of district artists select the winning entries from each district this year 12th congressional district representative the honorable Rashida to leave selected the artwork and title Detroit eyes. From a student of Cody high school, junior Dominique Hubbard, congratulations your artwork will be displayed at the US Capitol. So at this time, please come up to this date to accept your award.
Hello, let's give Dominique a big round of applause we see is going to wrap dpscd district 12 at the US Capitol.
Hi, I'm gonna speech I'm gonna say I would like to give an honorable mention to miss Ainsley, my teacher who encouraged me to do this, because without her I would have never get the program. I had to walk to go to this program almost missed the program twice. I miss two buses to get to this program. And I had no idea what I entered for I just drew a picture and I had no idea lead to this. But she couldn't make it today but she tried her very best to but I just want to say thank you again to miss Inslee. She teaches ELA at Cody High School. She loves her job. she does everything she can for us and she actually treats us like she's a mother
let's keep our energy
going let's give another round of applause for our EA ELA teacher at Cody High School
sir coach is still on the way Dr. BD, do you want me to just go ahead with the next okay. We're gonna keep going and hopefully, Murphy's Law as as I'm getting to the end of this maybe they'll walk through the door so this is another core value of excellence and I just gonna say it again so everybody has equity. be relentless in your pursuit of greatness. Be bold and innovate learn from your mistakes hold yourself and others to high standards. The Michigan High School Athletic Association is comprised of over 1500 public and private middle schools and high schools. Each year the schools compete in local competitions which lead to district regional and state championships. This year, Cass Tech High school's basketball team showed up and showed out with a 28 the one overall record their final game this season, won them the 2023 MH s a state championships. And so tonight we recognize the coach who also won the Coach of the Year and head coach Steven Hall. And also he's bringing along his two players, Derek Miller and Lee Harris. So we'd like to give them a warm congratulations for continuing to win and display excellence. And I'll let you know when they get here because they they haven't gotten through the door. They were coming from a meet at Belisle okay
so Coach Hall had double duty, he was doing cross country as well. So he called earlier and said he would be here as soon as he could. So when he arrives, we will go ahead and celebrate him again and give him and his two students certificates as all the students from the basketball team couldn't make it out today. The chair will now entertain a motion to accept the Superintendent's report is there to support it's been properly moved by Dr. Taylor properly supported by member Vaughn to accept the superintendents report. Any discussion? All those in favor of the motion on the floor signify by saying aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries. Thank you. We will now move into public comment. Members of the public are welcome to address the board during public comment. Individuals wishing to address the board must register in person or raise their hand online prior to the chair announcing the close of public comment registration. For ampersand public comment, the Chair will call the names of individuals making public comment in person to address the board in the order we see. Please remain seated until your name is called a virtual public comment. Virtual public comment will be facilitated through a zoom webinar, the link and the phone number for which can be accessed at Detroit K twelve.org backslash board meetings. Individuals wishing to address the Board may do so by choosing one of two options. The first option is through your computer you can select the Raise Your Hand option and that is on your screen. Or the second option through your telephone you can press star nine and that raises your hand on the telephone. The meeting administrator will select the individuals in the order received. You will remain muted until it is your time to speak. All Comments ORS will be limited to three minutes. The superintendent will reply to questions or concerns raised today that do not violate ethical or legal standards, confidentiality, privacy of others or requires additional information to respond. If you would like a direct response to your question and or concern, please forward an email to the secretary of the board. Ms. Vanja more at Vanja dot more at Detroit K twelve.org. We will now go to the public comments or who are in the building
Yeah, so we have two mics. We can have Kristen battle at one mic and Carol pickins to the other mic please. Kristin battle and Carol Pinkins
call him miss battle.
I'm actually killed Pickens.
Oh, you Carol Pickens. Okay, go ahead.
As I said, I'm My name is Carol Pickens, and I'm with Littlefield Community Association. And you should have a someone should have a packet from us that I turned in when I registered, and it gives you the information that we're talking about tonight, which is Littlefield Park. What are we're here with a request, we need your help. Our ask is that we're looking for support for the continuation of the development of our park, as well as building our skate park. Our community has been developing Littlefield Park, because a lot of us lived in the community since the 60s, and we played on that park. So we were taught ownership we were taught to respect your park, respect your community, respect your neighbors, we're teaching the same thing to the to our kids. Everything that Littlefield does is for the noble students, they are actually partners with us. So we have started redeveloping the park that started back in 2003, which means we put playscapes on walking path basketball court, we received the basketball court from the Detroit Pistons and we had pushed for that. Thank you to the mayor. We have really developed both sides of softball soccer field. So our Park is one of the busier parks in the in the communities. We have memorials and birthday parties. Our community group shows movies in the park. We have a softball, we have a little league football team. Our goal right now is to build a skatepark we received $300,000 from the Ralph C Wilson Foundation to build a skate park and our park. And the location where we would like to build it is right next to our basketball court. And if you look in the packet that I gave, it shows a map of our park and it shows the areas that DPS controls as well as the city and our interests is the part of the park that DPS controls which is further to the north, which is cherryland and Buena Vista, noble elementary school is to the south which is Fullerton and cheery lOn. So we're looking to build on the other side of of the basketball court. But the one of the other things that we're doing is we're bringing students the fourth through eighth grade students of little of noble elementary school to be a part of the development of this skate park, which means they're part of the RFP, they're part of the proposals that will come in, we're gonna teach them every step of what it does to develop what it means to develop that park. They will be a part of it. And we're asking for your support and your partnership so that we continue our vision
Thank you. So you gave the packet to miss Drake. She does have and so she will make sure that the board members get the packet Miss Miss on Pickens, thank you so much. Kristen battle and his Sandra Pickens is that a different
thing? She was the second person I wasn't number one, but she beat me to the mic.
Okay. Roslyn Brantley can make her mates way to the mic as well as Teresa Mitchell. Okay, Miss battle,
okay. Good afternoon, or evening rather, my name is Kristen battle. I'm a Detroit Public School alum and proud parent of a dpscd. Parent. My student attends flicks Elementary School. And I'm just here to speak on behalf of the positivity from public school. I'm a very active parent. Vice President, the Japanese club I chose flics because of the language and so we have a very strong community there. And that is what got me involved with links from the principal to the teachers, I would definitely like to give a round of applause to the DPS teachers, the staff and administration. When the students rise, we all rise. And that is a true slogan, and I definitely stand behind it. That is why I've been an active volunteer since my daughter was in kindergarten, and she's in fifth grade. Now, one of the reasons I wanted to speak was also to bring the awareness that we are short resource teachers, my daughter has an IEP, and even through the pandemic, we were struggling. Once we came back, it was an adjustment, but I have seen growth with my daughter, the staff, the principal, and the teachers have not given up on my daughter or the other scholars at that school. So I just want to once again, give a round of applause to DPS for what a tremendous job that they're doing. And I know no school district is perfect. And as Dr. Vitti said, we are working progress and we seem to be moving towards that goal. So just thank you for your time. And once again, thank you for the DPS teachers and the board. Thank you.
Thank you Miss battle.
Good evening. My name is Sandra Pickens. I'm the sister and I'm the president for Littlefield Community Association, which is a nonprofit, I would like to speak on the fact that we have the Joe Lewis Greenway that's coming our way is crossing Grand River, which would be coming south, sorry, north, and it's coming up green line to Fullerton. And then it's going down Fullerton to Cherry line, which is before noble school. So it would be really nice if we can work together and really look forward and bringing all this adventures that's coming in our community, along with we have bringing Detroit this called the bringing Detroit house that's over in our area. And there's a lot of women and children that have really used that house, along with a young lady that's running it named Charlotte Blackwell. So to see all these changes that are taking place in our community is really wonderful. It's been a long time. And I have to say, in our area, we are long overdue for all the improvements and the outstanding accomplishments that are taking place over there. And then to know that noble Middle School is working along with us. I am just excited because I went to know them many, many years ago. So to know that we have the young people there that's working with us. It's wonderful. So I wanted to come to speak to you tonight about everything that we're doing over there. Thank you.
Thank you Miss Pickens.
Is that Rosalind Brantley? Yes, it is. Okay. Can you hear me we can hear you and we will have a seat otologist came so Miss Brantley after you will break in and recognize coach Hall and the student and we'll get back to public comment. Go ahead Miss Bradley. Okay.
Thank you for the opportunity to speak with the board members and Dr. VD. My name is Rosalyn Brantley as we've stated, I'm a school social worker and I have been assigned to two different schools. Recently, we were asked to complete a payroll timesheet we already are punching in and punching out. We're signing in our buildings and swiping into our buildings. There's currently at least three different ways ancillary staff are required to report their time. Are you is the board aware of this? And do you agree with all of these different procedures for ancillary staff to record their time this is on top of various new duties assigned after we had on top of the new duties assigned. And after we had a meeting with with the OIG regarding the audit. As a result, she verbally stated in the meeting that it would be okay to use one way of signing in and out for ancillary staff. So again, I want to reiterate that We are signing in and out, at least, you know, in three different areas, punch in, punch out, signing in the buildings swiping. And recently we've been asked to complete a payroll sheet. And this just seems very excessive to me. And I was, you know, wanted to bring a solution. can we possibly use frontline or at least one computerized way to record our time, and some of us are only in one building? So to have us to do this is kind of redundant. And I don't know if the board is aware of it. And my second comment, why was school specialty purchases reduced from 200 to $100?
I'll think oh, you will answer at the end of public comment. Okay. Yes. Thank you. All right. Thank you. Thank you, Brantley. Miss Wilson okay.
Okay, I do over, okay, for the core value of excellence so the young men can hear why they're here. You guys could get a little bit closer to the stage because I'm gonna call you up for your word. But for the young men that are here, your core value that you've demonstrated states to be relentless in your pursuit of greatness, be bold and innovate, learn from your mistakes, hold yourself and others to high standards. Guys, you're getting this award for your exemplify excellence for winning the state championship. And
Coach Steven Hall, we are recognizing you for your pursuit of greatness and being named the MHS see a Boys Basketball Coach of the Year and graduate gratulations man.
Again, congratulations, Derek Miller and Lee Harris, a head coach Steven Hall.
Thank you.
Don't forget coach Hall was coach of the year so let's not forget that part. Yes, congratulations cast technician. We've been trying to get them here for a couple of months. They're so busy playing ball still now they're running across country. So we appreciate that. We will now go back to our public comment tours. We can put that back on the screen. I just want to make sure what I'm looking at is the same list. Theresa Mitchell is next and then Elena Harada. So Teresa Mitchell if she's still here. Elena Harada. She's still here. Okay, go here. Miss Miranda.
Thank you. Good evening. I'm actually here in two capacities, but I can fit it into three minutes. So in my first capacity, I'm here as a member of lead, Michigan, which is Latino leadership, educational advocacy, and development, ll E. Ad Michigan, and I'm here actually on behalf of some parent issues which have come my way very directly. One mother wanted me to name her son, which I'm not going to do. She asked me to do that I was translating for her. But her son is a student at Western High School. He is wheelchair bound and has not been able to get to his classes this year because the elevator is broken at Western and it has been broken Since April, this is a civil rights violation for that student because he's not receiving instruction because his classes are on the third floor. Second thing is the testing and home languages results in improper placement. This is a direct issue regarding bilingual education in English language learners. The testing being done in English, causes students to be misdiagnosed and put into the wrong treatment plans, which was the reason that we have bilingual education. That was the way that it passed in 1974 was putting children in special ed who didn't need to be but didn't speak English. Also special ed students, ell, special ed, students are not getting instruction in their home language, which disadvantages them and is also a civil rights violation. Text messages are going home to everybody in English. Everybody in the districts parents don't read or speak English. So this is a particular issue with parents getting texts from the schools and not being able to read them. And there are insufficient numbers of bilingual teachers in the schools. So for all of the discussion about the shortage of teachers, that bilingual teachers are not sufficiently in the schools. They're not in all the classrooms where they need to be in, they're not in the schools where they need to be. There is a big shortage of English as a second language and bilingual instruction. We understand that bilingual education is being diminished tremendously. You can call it restructuring, but we know what this is. And we've been down this road before. So this is about bilingual education. And it's also about protecting parents, teachers, staff and students who would be retaliated against for raising this issue. We are not going away. We are from here. We raised this in 1974. And we're raising it again. So that's my report for lead. And here's my second role. For those of you on the school board. All of you should know and certainly Dr. VD knows about tax captures.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, the three minutes. Okay, thank you. Misurata. Next, so I don't have a last name. It just says Justin is just in here. Okay. Come on up, Justin. And then the next Mike. Last Name Landon rose, Julio Landon, thank you. What's your last name? Justin. Hey, Mr. Justin Payne. It's bring the mic. Yes. Thank you.
All right. Thank you. As a lifelong Detroiter, that is from the east side of Detroit, I have witnessed a lot of things happen within our city. And there has been a lot of challenges. I'm a proud dpscd alum. I graduated from King's High School. And I watched a lot of communities transform. I watch a lot of communities lose resources. And I've liked and I watched a lot of people try. I feel as though that this district and is this administration has really put forth the effort to give resources and communities that don't have it. I graduated from King High School, but also went to Duffield and Whitney Young Magnet Middle School right across the street was call me in our recreation center. Right now to see to Detroit has roughly 11 recreation centers and I'm not even sure even all of them are open. There are struggles but the district has put in different programs and different initiatives to combat some of those struggles. One I was a part of last year, where nearly 1000 students after school five days a week, Monday through Friday, 230 to six I repeat 230 to six, Monday through Friday, nearly 1000 students were able to get enrichment programs to help supplement what we're losing with our recreation centers, along with getting a meal brought from the Office of School Nutrition. That's a real initiative where there's real parents that's appreciative, especially during a time where there's inflation, there's stress, there's depression, and there's a lot of other things going on. I can tell you countless parents who walked in and were extremely grateful for the effort for an after school program where I was fortunate where when I got out of school from Whittier. I just walked over to the communists and unfortunately our city don't have a million people anymore. We're down to probably six to 700,000 and in some communities, it doesn't even feel like that. So some of these initiatives such as Parent Academy, where We offer 100 Plus workshops a semester to give the resources that is not in the city of Detroit, and are from Detroit. This isn't about politics. I got family that's from the east side that's struggling. I got people that are struggling is some real effort here and no one is perfect. One thing I will say is the summer block initiative, that's probably in his fifth year now probably has touched over 50 communities 50 communities that, to be honest with you, other entities have even ignored, where they bring a fun time two communities that have been depleted. There's the last reprogram in the city that is considered 51% functionally illiterate. As for DOS, there's a program to train individuals so we can combat that. Then there's other initiatives, the kindergarten boot camp, there's many people saying come to my school, but DPS made a true effort to assist parents and students on that particular transition and if you walk
Thank you, Mr. Justin Payne. We have Mr. Landon at one mic. And if we can have ebony Dawson, at the other mic, please. We have Mr. Lander.
Good evening, Superintendent board members. I'm Rihanna. Lundeen, president of LULAC council 11 Oh 54 here in Detroit, and also the person who brought the case in Bradley V. MILLIKEN. In filing an amicus. It serves to protect and preserve bilingual education here in the state of Michigan and around the country as well, including to preserve the minority status of Hispanics in America. LULAC is the nation's oldest and largest Hispanic civil rights organization. And we don't have a problem going to court. I'm here just simply to say I've been hearing a lot of stuff. Essentially, the dpscd is about dismantling bilingual education. 45 years ago, we won that there are federal court precedents. There's the state law public act 294, which was the bilingual education law here in the state of Michigan, I would invite Dr. BD and his board to look into these things as they relate to services that are already guaranteed by federal court order and precedent and take those into consideration as you make decisions. I understand that you have fiscal issues and responsibilities. But I assure you, we are not prepared to stand by and if that means making bringing in a national effort to have those budget problems solved on the backs of our children. The other is the White House has convened the educational excellence initiative for Hispanics, and they have embraced and adopted a need to reinvigorate bilingual education in America. As you all know, Hispanics are now the largest minority we do. We are the largest population of the growth in the state of Michigan. This morning, I sat in on a rural Michigan session that was held online and every strand, every committee every subgroup has, understands, accepts and embraces the idea that Hispanics are a critical component of the future growth of Michigan if there is any such endeavor by this board to somehow not work in concert with what the state is doing in terms of girl Michigan, I assure you I stand ready and my my organization stands ready to do what we have to do one meet with you educate you and if that doesn't work, you know we I don't have a problem taking it to court. But that's not a threat that's just simply saying we're here to partner to grow Detroit together in the best interests of all students. And it's kind of opportune that I have the the this opportunity
thank you. Thank you Mr. Landon. Matt hang God and Marva Walker is Matt hang out here still here. I see someone moving as Marva Walker's still here. Okay, perfect.
Is Matt still here? Okay, so we can have Alia more to the other Mike Lee.
Hi, I'm Barbara Walker. I'm a proud alumni of DPS and also the PLC at Crockett Midtown where I have two seniors and I have a child at Burton International Academy. I just want to say thank you all, I have did a great job, ensuring changes, I see the changes. I love being at Crockett, the stolen club, the parent from the staff level, from the principal down to the channel. It's appreciated when you walk in the school and the students are happy to see you. When they know that you're not there. When they're notice that you're not having a good day they come they talk to you. So for me, if the environment and I just wanted to say again, thank you. Thank you. Ah, and I do appreciate everything and all after.
Thank you, Miss Walker. We have a Lea more at one mic and Ingrid Macon. At the other mic. is Ingrid Macon still here? Is Ingrid making still here? Oh, okay. Go ahead, Miss Moore.
Good evening board. It is wonderful to hear a balance of public comments when people are coming to be grateful. But when a district receives over one point $27 billion, it should be some good stories. So that's good to hear. But and also on my way to Paul Robeson, Malcolm X on a daily to ride by John King and see new windows being put in to ride by a baboon and see the good things going on over there, that this is good stories. But when you talk about a board, that is the issue, I have two Pacific questions. What will summer school look like next year for our students? And will it be available for all of our students? Number two, what is that? What 482842 forward? Um, they have sent us via text message flyers that have the DFT label, have dpscd label. So are you all working with them? Do those meetings represent the six community meetings? If it is, how did you all pick for it to forward to do that. But when you talk about leadership, you have a president that has not gotten back with Martin park, or with Paul Robeson, Malcolm X to continue our sit down conversation, because as you know, all of the questions were not answered and they weren't meant to be answered via email. When you have a volunteer vice president that feels she's a volunteer instead of an elected official, when you have a treasurer, Miss Song amaze that wants to put the $94 million in a dowry instead of using it for literacy, because it was one on the backs of our kids. When you have Iris Taylor, that shows her ignorance in a committee meeting. And when you talk about the nape scores that Dr really wasn't worried about not too long ago. And then you have IRAs Taylor talking about thinking outside of the box for a whole district to opt out of a national test. But then when Paul Robeson opts out what three years ago of our M step, we get penalized our whole school for two years, but you have a board member that wants to think outside of the box. How is that thinking outside of the box? You are sitting up here? Most of you have been educated, where in Detroit Public Schools, I am to whether it's 50 6070s, or 80s 90s, you all came out. We all were educated in the same system. So where does your intelligence begin? And where does my lack of you know because you feel like you are above reproach from Dr. Vt all the way down. You all are people just like us. You get it wrong, just like us. But it's about working together instead of allowing your central office staff to treat violence. We run this district.
Thank you, Miss Moore. So we have angered making that one Mike and Mary Carmen Munez. At the other mic, please. Go ahead. Miss Munis. Miss mekon. Go ahead, Miss Megan.
Good evening. My name is Dr. Ingrid mekon and I serve as the master math teacher at demby High School. I'm here tonight to express my grievance regarding the 2020 to 2023 evaluation cycle. Specifically, cycle two was uploaded add on to frontline as having occurred on Friday, April 21 2023. Except on that date, I was not in the building. I was at the master math teachers meeting at Northwestern High School. I brought that to the attention of my administrator, I was encouraged to submit an appeal. I submitted the appeal on mid June of this year within the window. Two months later, I had not heard any updates, I sent an email to the assistant superintendent of that department and the senior director, I received a sympathetic email but no progress. On my case, after a month, I still have not heard anything. So this is three months later. When I told my family, they told me just just leave, go where you're going to be valued, where your talent and your dedication and your hard work is going to be recognized. But I'm here for my scholars, I don't want to be another person who lets them down. But I can't see myself continuing to work for a district where I naively believed that I was going to make a positive impact but I'm just being sucked into the corruption and the fraud and it's just it's very disheartening. So if you hope to retain me because I am in pursuit of other opportunities, I hope someone takes my case seriously. And thank you for your time.
Thank you. Thank you for your time. Mark, David, if Mark David can make his way to the next mic is Mark David still here. Miss Nunez, Nunez
mui when has not yes, good evening, everyone. My name is Mary Carmen Munoz. I'm the Executive Director for Latin Americans for Social and Economic Development, also known as La said, located in the heart of Southwest Detroit. I'm here to express less Ed's concern, deep concern over the rumors that we've been hearing pertaining to bilingual education, law said was hand in hand with LULAC in being instrumental in making sure that bilingual education was initially required in 1974. We are dismayed is not even the word to use, we are appalled that we are going back and to the days when bilingual education was not served, especially with the growth of foreign born, specifically Latinos moving into the city of Detroit. This is will not be tolerated. We need to make sure that bilingual education continues. And if, in fact, the services grow and are expanded, for instance, to make sure that the parents of bilingual children hear and see the information spread from DPS into their homes, is in their home language. I would value to an opportunity to meet with everyone Dr. BD, especially, to discuss this and to make sure that bilingual education continues in our schools. Muchos gracias, thank you.
Thank you. Miss Lisa card isn't Miss Lisa still here. Okay, I see her making her way to the mic. Mr. Mark. David, go ahead.
Good evening. My name is Mark Davis.
And first of all, I want to thank Dr. VD for work and staff for working with DFT President Luquillo Wilson and making sure that we have a contract. So thank you for making sure things are together for the teachers. A couple other items. First item attendance. Does the board have an attendance policy for our students? And I think that's something I've asked for before. I really don't know what the policy is, if we do have one. And I think some of the parents and students may not know what the pilots are yours. And also with the attendance agents, I want to know if they have any teeth. In other words, we know that their attendance agents go out to the homes, they talk to the parents, but after that, is there anything in coordination with the state or with I guess the prosecuting units for our city and making sure a pair ants get their sons and daughters to school, is it? Do we work in collaboration with other units to make sure that our students are in school? So I don't know if that's happening or not. I know it did in the past. When I hate to say this governor's name, but Schneider was in office, we did have something in process where they did work together. Also, second item, I noticed in Hamtramck, they do have Narcan of vailable overdose. It's on the rise in our community. I'm not sure if this is available in our schools or not. So that's something the board has looked into. It's it's something that we have, I'm not sure. So I think the community and of course, the staff should be aware that it is available not then maybe it's something I know, it's something we need to look into. I saw that Hamtramck they do have it available in their schools. Also, next item, alternative programs for students, I noticed that some of the students are over age, I did call the school gets legacy Academy and they already feel and we need a site on the east side of the city as well as West Side places that are accessible to our students. Because we are having in the middle school, some of that students are maybe two or three grade levels behind and there are a few, if any alternative programs available for them if the one that they're told to go to is Phil. And also the last item, I know what the weather changing, there's a rodent problem in some of the schools do we have a program or a group company that goes out to make sure that
Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Davis. We have Lisa card and their mother more.
Good evening, Lisa card here. I stand in solidarity with my DFT brothers, sisters, siblings. I communication is very important. I know a couple of weeks ago and speaking to a brother David said, You are bargain in good faith with the DLT contract. I'm an ESC lead teacher. We received notification today that we have signed this contract. I don't know who created the contract. But we had to sign this contract with the roles and responsibilities that's on the contract. For the most part, we agree with those. And it was a it was already put out before. But there were parts on there that we could we cannot agree to Well, first of all, it'd be in a contract. That violates the good faith bargaining with DFT. So the part about monitoring compensatory services and it says something about a settlement. My question was what settlement? Okay, so that was number one. Number two, there's a stipend for the lead teachers. But at the bottom, it says something about it being voluntary. I don't think that that's what they meant. But that is what it said. So of course, I wasn't going to sign anything like that. So, again, communication is very important. And I think it should be respected that the DFT bargains in good faith. With that I'm going to yield the rest of my time to Cassandra Davis.
Good evening.
I'm Cassandra Davis. I'm a speech language pathologist. And as my colleague, the social worker said, we don't have three ways to report our attendance, there are five, we sign in and out, we punch in and out. We email our supervisors. But wait, I can't do that because both my supervisors quit, then you are to fill out an approve absence form regardless to what time you take sick personal days, whether it's due to us. Then at 220, the day before vacation, we were told to fill out a timesheet, which we've never done before and email it to various people, allegedly because time was stolen from people, according to the attorney general. But when we had a meeting with the attorney general, everything we saw on the 22 through 23 report had to do with administration. There was one case where the someone's mismanaged their time or was working a second job or something and they dealt with that. So why should educated professionals have to do all of this reporting. We're DFT just like everybody else, why are we singled out? If you have Somebody that abused the rules deal with them and not the people who are here doing their work like.
Thank you. Thank you both. So we have mother more at one mic. And Victor Gibson at the other. Oh, I'm sorry.
I was told I miss my name being called Matt Hannity.
Yes, yes. Go ahead, Matt.
Okay. My name is Matt Hannity. I'm the Community Director, Relations Director at the Islamic Center of Detroit, which happened to be the largest Islamic or faith based Islamic center in the state of Michigan. We were established in 2000, January 2000. And the focus was on serving the youth in our community, starting 2016. Our board, due to a lot of community request, decided to expand to do much more serious service to the community. We signed last year and memorandum of understanding with the Department of what Detroit public schools and one of the reasons why, because we happen to have our mission and vision have been to focus on the young generation and the youth. So we partnered with Carver's called gardener, Priest, dia, Crockett, and will do soon, one with deficit. One of the work we've done so far with Detroit public schools, we done a Thanksgiving 150 turkeys last year, are we going to do something similar this year, we distributed 307 calls to seven schools 98 Winter care kids, teachers Appreciation Day, dinner to three schools. They were Carver priests and gardener. We host the B pack meeting, and lunch. And we're going to host the other one in November. We had the Ramadan Iftar to face administration. And we just had so the idea of recognition. And hopefully we're going to have we're going to host the the faith the faith meeting as well. So one of the things we we prove to the community that we love to serve the young generation. In June, we just inaugurated the Muhammad Ali Park by our center. It cost us about $350,000 used to be a dumping area, we converted to a square to a park. We just acquired the cost us because a building entire men from the city of Detroit. It's about 3.6 acres building, we're going to convert it to health clinic serving the community. And we acquired of the Fairlane Club, which was going to be used for the youth. Thank you so much for the partnership, where I'd like to extend my thanks and appreciation to Dr. Jessica Hodge, to facilitate this relationship, and to Mrs. Charlotte de Bachman, and to Dr. Vitti for helping us facilitate this partnership. Thank you so much.
Thank you so much. Thank you, Mr. Hager. So we have mother more and Victor Gibson. Go ahead, mother more.
Thank you. I intended to talk about the radiation towers in our school 29 on our school buildings. And I also intended to talk about the $94.4 million reading lawsuit and what's going on with that and how many different groups are are trying to control the money and doing all the things that they should not be doing. It's called a reading lawsuit. That was one and the main plaintiff Jamario. Hall is here. And we also like to also let you know that one of our consultants from Wayne State University, Dr. Tom padroni, all of us work together when we're not here at the board meeting. But instead of that, I want to talk about the board. I want to talk about the fact that the board is getting paid $250 a meeting that they voted on for themselves. And I'd like to know since there's an election coming up next year, and maybe you'll recall, I want to make sure that my information is correct. So I'm going to get it from you, Dr. VD are the staff that does all the attendance and pays out the money and makes the record for how much the board members are getting at each meeting. I understand it's $250 You gave yourself stipends for out of our money. I'd like to know how much each of you have already gotten and how many meetings you have attended. So this is very important because we want to have the right information. When we vote board, I think the election is coming up next year. And I want to make sure that everybody in this audience is looking at what's happening. Sometimes they don't tell us information, because they don't want us to know. But we're going to help, you know, keep the boat no takeover coalition has always been ready for action. And we always have been ready to take care of our children. So there's a lot going on boards, kind of quiet, aren't they all the time, with all the things that are going on in school, we want to know exactly how much they're getting paid. They gave themselves a $250 stipend, a meeting, we It's our money. Now, I'm gonna say this one more time. Every time I get up, I'm gonna say it. It's our money. It's our children. And it's our schools. And all of you all that come up here and talk and everything, the only one I hear talking about, we own the schools and everything is it is it is true. When the when the school district is all white. And when we first came in, started the black, black parents, they did not have a problem with doing whatever the white parents wanted them to do. But since we're predominantly black, we got to listen to you can't speak this long. You can't do this. We want to make sure that we are not slaves anymore. Y'all realize that you're not slaves, although you've been treated like that. So remember, it's our schools. It's our children.
Thank you, mother more. We have Victor Gibson at one mic and Celeste Turner at the other mic, please. So let's turn her still here. Okay, go ahead. Mr. Gibbs
thank you Board. I'm My name is Victor Gibson. I'm the president of Detroit Federation of Teachers retiree group. And so I've been in this struggle for a very long time since we had Africans in schools. So we go way back to 1990. And I've donated I did my time, 23 years Atkinson school, Malcolm X Academy, we prove that we knew how to educate our children. But now I'm jumped forward I suppose to be retired, because be hanging out with the beach, hanging out enjoying myself. But now I find out that this visitor last night was a part of that group, I'm a foot soldier, I can push things that are going in the right direction. I tried to help it out. But now I'm stuck. Because it's the federal task force, the school task force that's supposed to be kind of implemented in 2020. When the settlement was done, I don't see anything. And just like Alia, more hinted that there are a lot of people I had calling themselves to task force. But you guys are the ones who are supposed to make sure it's done. And it's spelled out right here in the settlement. You're supposed to have three student representatives, three parent and caregiver selected and representative to local community members, to literacy experts to do dpscd lectins, elected or selected representative to teacher selected represented and one paraprofessional. So where do you guys go stop these little bootleg task forces that are being out here at San Diego, use the money for nurses and use the money for this and that, when are you all going to do that, and make sure that as we move forward, it's a legitimate Task Force, according to the settlement, not according to somebody who just wants to help out. Now in light of that, one of the things I'm also seeing is that there's no place to meet for a task force to meet, you got to get them out there, you got to bring them into the into the community. So my suggestion is simple. We have enough schools in all these districts, when you all set up this task force, have your schools open up to have these listening projects at their schools. That way the community be involved, you can get feedback rather quickly. And we can actually get some some seek movement of how we're going to move forward on this. Because there's a time data stress on this for that 94 million. And if you don't, if you know about the state, here's my biggest thing about this thing is that the people who are gonna be the fiduciary over this 94 million are the same people who caused it in the first place. So how are you gonna keep that from being swallowed back up? Like they used to try to do when it comes to our money? So I'm asking this, and I'm not gonna be coming to his board meeting because it's just not me anymore. I'm too old. But I asked, I asked for you all to consider that. Do it right now. Get people to support you now. Get on your job to settlements here. I shouldn't have to read it to you. You should be able to grab it home and have move, please. Move on. Let people know how you're going to move. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Gibson. Thanks for your work. We have Miss Turner at one mic and tomorrow. Will's at the other mic is tomorrow will still here. Okay, Tamra wills. Thank you. Go ahead Miss Donna.
Hi, Celeste Turner. Hello, Superintendent Vdn board members. I'm here to follow up on an email I sent on August 30. F regarding Bates Academy and the long term construction project being done while students and staff are present in the building during construction. I appreciate that Dr. B, the President may vary vehicle over to the building, I was told that they did go and do a walkthrough. I appreciate that. And I was and I'm still concerned that the building upgrades are being done during the school day while students are present. I did receive an email response from Cleveland Simmons who is the Executive Director of Facilities, he responded to an email that sent initially to the board members in that department. And he did address my concerns regarding the air quality, asbestos exposure, the pest management and overall safety. And he did lay out in his email the measures that are going to be taking place during the process, but I still have some concerns. Number one, there is still a plastic covering right past the entry of the front door. When you go through the parent parking lot side. The construction is being done right there. There is no drywall partition in place. As of yet. This is a concern to me because it is directly across from the lunch room where the students actually still eat lunch. So in terms of air quality that hasn't been handled. There are also some plumbing issues such as water shutting off during the daytime and the bathrooms and the water fountains, lighting issues in the rooms that are actually being used where those teachers needed to be relocated another hallways there has been a dumpster placed outside the dumpster being used for construction debris is on the grass near the entrance exit of the parking lot adjacent to the school. Parents, students and staff must walk on the sidewalk past the dumpster daily to get to the building. There are also some pallets left there as well. The dumpster is also unsecure and not far from the playscape area. This can pose a danger to the neighborhood children that go over for the playscape but they are not far from the unsecured dumpster. As we know children like to explore. And I think even if it's a child that is not at that school, but lives in the neighborhood, that risk still belongs to dpscd schools. On a broader scale. I'm concerned that it's become the norm to do major construction upgrade projects. While children are in the building construction on a children learning on a construction site just doesn't it's not a good look. Number one, it sends the wrong subliminal message to our children in terms of their their their worth their self worth. And basically I'm being told that Bates Academy is already in the second year of being part of this construction, and that this will go on until 2025 children attending a construction site for school. I'm asking that this board look into these issues. Thank you.
Thank you, Miss Turner. So we have Miss wills at one mic and is Joyce Branham at the is Miss Joyce still here. So I still here. Oh, okay. Claire, Miss wells.
Good evening. This morning. Well, yesterday, my granddaughter came home from school. I bought this off her team who had a deliberate Sunday. My granddaughter wore it to school yesterday. She came home. It's been scissored all over. A little girl told her the jacket was nasty looking and told my granddaughter that she was going to cut it up. Okay. I'll go to the school today. Mr. Farmer who Mr. Beatty put in that school. Samsung Webber did not give the parents any notice. We find out two weeks before school starts that there's a new principal in the building. My daughter is still waiting on a letter of recognition. Tell him who the principal is in that building. He's never introduced himself to none of those parents. I talked to the principal. I tell him what happened with my granddaughters jacket. I tell him I need to get an answer today. He tells me I don't have the time. I'm busy. I'll get back to you. Excuse me, I'm here now. You got more important things to do than confront me and talk about I said bring my granddaughter out of her classroom. This isn't nine o'clock. Bring her out of the classroom and we'll discuss it. Find out what happened. I told you I will get into I will talk to your granddaughter, what's your name, got my name, put it on a file, file card. Dismiss me. And like I told him, this is your first year in that building, and he can be your last. Like our tip like I've been telling you people for over 20 some years. You're not our boss. We're your boss. Without those kids in that building, you don't get paid. Now I better put this I went to the 14th floor today and let them know I got more action from downtown than that dummy in that building. I'm fed up with you deciding who is in a building. We are no longer under state representation. We are the ones that run this school. So we're you're better put back the walls that used to be he should be an interim principal and parents and teachers should decide who should be in that building.
NYCLU?
Not you. I'm fed up with this. And then he had nerve enough to call my daughter
and told her he could give her one of the donated that's in the school. Nothing to do with my granddaughters.
Thank you Miss Wales. We have Joyce Branham Bram. And we have Yolanda King. Is Yolanda King still here. Okay. And then if the final public comments are in person, Shari Smith can make our way to the mic as well. Oh, hey, Miss Joyce. Go ahead.
Hello, everyone. Dr. Vitti, the board, I was so impressed with the results of hard work of the teachers. I taught the DPS for 30 years. I'm retired teacher product for DPS. And they call me here you terminado hood. I'm a community activist. I want the spirit and teach you like a war for gun violence. And I want to say because years ago, I organized a march at Delfield middle school 500 strong against cry 500 strong. And I understand that you rd you know some things with the social studies programs? Well, I think we can work together. Because the kids can say something about this gun violence. Five year olds, they can they can help the city. They can mark and I had a pilot a little March five year olds, they were saying we want to enjoy our life. We want to have fun, put the guns and people were crying over it, I got a video. It was so touching. So I want to maybe talk with somebody that we can empower our kids to say something because many of them have been traumatized by the gun violence in the city. And I know you all have a program, hopefully, to pick up those who have been traumatized. The little kids who have lost loved ones, but I know that we can do something different. And change the consciousness a little kids. I'm a pastor, and you know what they say something and the kids that come on to me for such as the kingdom of God. So I like to talk to somebody and we can work with the little kids and they can say something that can affect their families and affect the city. Thank you and I appreciate the work that you all are doing the DPS I'm so proud of the teachers and I will be volunteering to bless ya.
Thank you Miss Joyce. We have Yolanda King and Shari Smith as the final comments are in person Yolanda King and Shari Smith, go ahead and Miss King.
Good evening, everyone as a proud DF team member and ESC teacher with the district for over 20 years and excited about getting the collective bargain. Excuse me, the bargaining subjects that we could not bargain on the EU forgive me, I can't think of the word. But I'm excited about having placement as an option to be negotiated back on the table. Placement changed three times without notification throughout my 20 years. So that means on the first day that teachers report back to school, I find out that I'm no longer in that building. I have to pack my things up to move them to a completely different building. In order to get my classroom ready to teach my students for that upcoming year, so as an ESC teacher having students with ASD, that can be a little difficult because one of their things consistency, structure, and change are things that don't work very well for them. Those are things that we teach. So to have them have to come into a completely new environment, new to us, new to them, have to reteach things like semblance where the bathroom is, do they like the sounds in this bathroom, when we worked on those type of things, we understand change is a part of life and we teach those things. But when we can prepare those students for that, it helps to ease that process a little better. So I'm excited about having those prohibited subjects of bargaining back on the table for these upcoming school year. So someone asked me now as a parent, someone asked about the Montessori program. So we applied to the Montessori program filled out the application within the timeframe. And we were placed on the waitlist, not a problem, I understand it's a popular program. We're excited about it. That's why we're here. No timeline of when I should expect to hear anything. So no timeline of when you will find out yes or no, no timeline on when you know, any decisions are going to be made. So as a parent, and as a parent who's an educator, I can't sit and just wait. This is where we want to be. But I have to have two or three backup plans, which we did. But we want it to be here we filled out the application in time, no feedback, unfortunately, for any length of time. So we reached out to one of the or to the principal leader for that school, and was told that we should have something coming by email to assume that was in the beginning of August. Three weeks later, we got a phone call from an unidentified DSP, CD number. And you all know if that number, say spam or we don't recognize it, we let it go to voicemail. We call it back. So but this was days before school started, I'm a parent. My kids are already enrolled and ready to go to school uniforms. I and I think we even had lunches packed and ready to go long before you let me know two or three days before school starts that I have a placement. The killer part was then a week later we received an email survey that could we please fill out the survey became available.
Thank you, Miss King. Thank you so much. Miss Smith, our final public comments are in person Miss Sherry Smith.
Thank you. My name is Julie Smith. I am a dpscd graduate. And parent I was here last month at the board meeting and had some complaints about enrollment. And I just wanted to come back and thank Ms capitalist, for for getting with me at last week, last month's board meeting and connecting me to everybody that I needed to be connected to so that we could resolve the issues. She even went as far as correcting issues that were unclear on the website. And just clarifying some things. So I wanted to give a shout out to her for just that acknowledgement and taking action on those steps, as well as the staff at the school and Marygrove for taking steps to help smooth out some transitional things for us. In addition, I definitely wanted to say that I'm here to talk about AC T LSAT scores. Back when I was in dpscd, a long time ago, 25 years this year graduated, we had a CT prep as early as ninth grade, we were taking classes and we were taking the AC T's and SATs early in 2005. I was taking classes at Rochester college and they were bringing in students in the fifth grade to take the the AC T's and I was like What are y'all doing? Like there's no way they're like, the goal was not for those students to score high. It was to lower their anxiety and get them more comfortable with long range testing, which we see a lot of our high school students are uncomfortable sitting for extremely long tests dealing with anxiety, I would love to see our districts start to prepare our students earlier and expose them earlier so that these tests are not as intimidating and that they're better prepared and know what areas that they're weakened and need to guard up earlier than the 11th grade because at that point, there's not a whole lot. You're going to be able to add in that last year of school before you go into college. And also kudos to miss Ainsley from Cody High School with the young lady that was here today. Just speaking to the fact that her teacher had put so much effort and resources into her success. My maths So your hope is that as we are recruiting more teachers for this district, those are the types of teachers that we're looking for. And we're also looking to find ways to resource them better, so that they can be that resource for those students. In 1920, w EBD. Boys said, how do we keep students in the high schools we feed and clothe them? We know our kids need resources, not necessarily legal repercussions. So I'm hoping that we can find more resources to do that. Thank you. I yield my time.
Thank you, Miss Smith. I'll now turn it over to Miss Drake. All the public commenters who signed up have spoken Miss Drake, can you go ahead and facilitate the online public comment? Please?
Excuse me, I had signed in online. Through virtual I was at my daughter's school, I had to wait until she and her friend got out of prac. Okay. Would you be able to check your online system to confirm Joyce Jennings signed in with my email address? I am here now. So I don't know. Once you verify that if I can go in and speak in person or do I need to work wait to be coordinated with the virtual.
Okay, go ahead and Miss Drake and then we can go through that Miss James. Go ahead. Mr.
Hi. Hi, Nicole. See, please go ahead with your public comment.
Yes, thank you.
My name is Nicole Conaway. I am a proud Detroiter. I am a teacher in dpscd and I'm an organizer with fam the coalition to defend affirmative action integration immigrant rights and fight for equality by any means necessary. Tonight, I am speaking to demand the reinstatement of COVID safety protocols and dpscd. That would be to reinstate paid COVID sick leave for COVID infected staff excused absences for COVID infected staff and students free access to COVID vaccines and boosters for all students and staff free masks and testing for all students and staff and mandatory masking and testing for staff students and contractors. In a recent study in the Journal of the American Medical Association, the conclusion was found that 70% of all household transmissions of COVID started with the child in that household. Another study found that teachers are a 25% more likely to contract COVID than workers in other professions. And that among those primary school teachers are 67% more likely to contract COVID schools into the same Kentucky had been forced to close already this school year. LA County Schools increased COVID outbreaks by 43%. In the week of September 7, and Detroit we had 53 active outbreaks in schools at the end of the school year, and never less than nine ongoing outbreaks. During during the summer, school and youth programs. COVID-19 is a leading cause of death for children and young people in the United States. We need to reinstate these safety protocols to keep our communities safe, restoring pay COVID lead for staff and students. No one should be penalized for days they stay home when they are sick. We need to encourage people to stay home and do the right thing. These days should not count against staff on their evaluations and should not count against students on their record, leading them into the chronically absent category, which now Dr. VD wants to punish them. Additionally, by putting them back to their home schools rather than their school of choice. We can't let that happen. We need we need everybody in school when they're healthy. We need them to stay home when they're sick. And we needed to expand virtual option throughout the whole district. For any staff member or student who needs that. We have a petition that we are gathering signatures for in the community you can contact me at n conaway@gmail.com. Or you can go to Bitly bi T dot L y forward slash capital S stop COVID-19 to sign the petition and join us in the fight to keep our community safe from COVID-19. mask up.
Hi LaTonya Archie Jackson please go ahead with your public
constrained Give me one second Mr. Egg please pause for one sec one moment as Archie because the time is 736. And so we started at 626. So we are over the one hour mark and according to policy. We will have to put a motion on the floor to continue public comments. There are six more public commenters online there's a motion to put on the floor to continue public comment to hear from the sixth floor online. Is there support? It's been properly moved by member Mays properly supported by member Vaughn. All those in favor of continuing public comment to hear from the six remaining public commenters signify by saying aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries. Thank you. Go ahead, Miss Drake.
Hi, Miss LaTonya Archie Jackson, please go ahead with your public comment.
Good evening, Dr. VD and school board. My name is LaTonya Archie Jackson and I am an ESC school social worker. I am speaking today in regards to the over caseload that I have been experiencing over the last three years, I was previously assigned to two schools, leaving me with a caseload of about 73. This school year, I am at 67. In our cap, it's supposed to be at 40. So I wanted to know how Dr. VDM the school board would address this concern. Also, I have safety concerns in my classroom. As I stated I service students in ESC and I have a lot of plaster and thus that constantly falls from my window seal that I have to clean every day. I have addressed this concern with now the third principle, and emails constantly go out but there has been no change. I am also concerned in regards to the budget allotted for ancillary staff. We get barely anything, we do not receive the same allowance as teachers. We were told also that we cannot participate in Donors Choose. And when we as ESC select items to service, our students were told that it will not be approved in the budget. My last concern is in regards to the timesheets that we have been recently asked to complete. As other staff have mentioned, it is very excessive to complete three different ways to track our time. So those are the things that I would like solutions to and I look forward to your response. Thank you.
Hi Q wax kins. Please go ahead with your public comment.
Hi, queue wagons. Please go ahead with your public comment.
Good evening, board members and Dr. Bd. I have a couple of things to address. Academic interventionists are salary employees who do not receive the same days as other salary employees and DFT. Since we have a cane salary employees, we are no longer hourly employees. We will like to be respected as such. Our hours are shown and so we are still hourly employees. This has never been corrected. Since we became salaried employees. We are do those days going back to two academic years. Additionally, some academic interventionists are not placed in the space that is sufficient to do their jobs. Our job is to work with 42 tier three students who need intervention. I feel this should be made a priority for students to receive the excuse me the well deserved time. We should not be second to individuals and after school programs who are provided with space to do their jobs. Please investigate this matter with an open mind to be fair. Thank you for your time. And I yield the rest of my time.
Benjamin royal please go ahead with your public comment.
i My name is Benjamin Royal. I am a community member of the city of Detroit and a former dpscd teacher. I just wanted to talk to you about a little bit about the the ongoing COVID pandemic. As I'm sure most of most of everybody is aware, the case the hospitalizations and the wastewater levels of COVID in the population have steadily been increasing all summer, across the nation. And I think there's a problem right now where we don't actually have any data of really about what's going on in the city of Detroit. As of last spring, the city and the district stopped collecting and posting data about testing ADA for COVID in case counts and things of that nature, which really leaves parents and community members completely in the dark, about assessing their own risk and making decisions about what precautions to take. And I think that policy has to be reversed, I do think the district needs to reinstate that regular test and in sharing that data with the public as much as possible, because parents, students, the community as a whole has a right to know what's going on with the spread of this pathogen in the community. I think it's also worth noting that children infected with COVID are at greater risk of cardiac impairment, even if their COVID infection is asymptomatic, or they only have mild symptoms. It's a leading cause of death among children in the United States. I just think that these these factors cannot be ignored. And we need to know what's going on going on in the city with that. And I think immediately the district has to have a plan, or we're mitigating the spread of COVID in the schools. And that plan has to include going back to reinstating mandatory masking in the schools. And as I said, previously, the regular testing public health advocates and experts like the National Nurses United and the World Health note network, have criticized the the process employed by the CDC when they reduced the isolation period recommendation to five days. In reality that to all the available data, we have about COVID, that that quarantine period should should be back at 14 days, the way it was the beginning of the pandemic and the district has to have a plan to accommodate students and staff who who end up having to go into that quarantine because of exposure because of infection. And I think that plan has to include more access to virtual educational opportunities, especially for people who might be sick, but but still well enough to participate in that forum. And for people who may just need to quarantine because they have family members at risk because they have their own health conditions and can be present in person so so I do think there has to be an expansion of those virtual opportunities for everyone in the district as well. And then also obviously a plan for for the district going back to virtual if these cases continued to surge the way that they are, that's gotta be there's gotta be some accommodation for that, and some consideration for that. So thank you
Kia Mathis, please go ahead with your public comment.
Hello, my name is Kia Mathis, my son go to burn International. And so I first have a comment. And it's about the staff. You know, I do appreciate the staff. He's in second grade. So this is his third year. He'd been there since kindergarten, well, pre K, he was in their pre K. We had to do that online. You know, but the staff that they have, you know, Ebert International, I really, I really liked the staff. I especially like the fact that we're growing in a male staff, you know, I believe that it's intentional, we have a male principal and I have seen over the years the growth in male staff and I really appreciate it because when we have male staff, you know, when you have that that male influence around the children, then you have you know, that opportunity for male you know, how men should be an act, you know, in that whole it, it creates a whole community, it also opens up the opportunity for our parents, our men, our fathers and our uncles and things to feel comfortable with participating in the school. So I really appreciate that. I am looking towards this my son is in second grade, I am wanting the board to figure out a way and Dr. Vitti if you guys can put find money and put money into you know, our school or actually all the schools into activities such as like debating, you know, things like that, you know, for for the kids, you know, not only will it grow their confidence and help them know how to navigate social interactions, it will also help them be able to improve on their expression, you know, not only how they're feeling and all that, so it'll be I think it'd be beneficial. You know, not only that, I know some schools have spelling bees, but just putting more money into those types of activities. If you guys can, you know, find that way to do that. That's what I appreciate. And with that, I am done. Thank you
Joe, Julie Hughes, please go ahead with your public comment.
board and superintendent VD I'm Julie Hughes, a teacher at Western in my seventh year 23 years of teaching and a member of the mighty DFT. I do have questions that I would like answered and I will be sure to indicate those cleared And I will forward them as necessary. In his report, Dr. Vivi said that part of the problem with hiring personnel, particularly ESC teachers, and getting mid career teachers and veteran teachers, is well to offer them what they deserve, which I found strange because there were only two pieces of information that were brought back to the DFT from negotiations. So question one is, who was it VT or remember the board that said, our current contract? Is what we deserve? Nothing more. Which the vast majority of us are blatantly unhappy with. Question two. Who was it? I'm pretty sure it was Dr. VD but I can't say that for sure. That had sticker shock. At one of the proposals for salary increases that were made by the board, none of which has even matched Dr. VDS arrays in his last contract, which has definitely outpaced inflation. His last race was 10%, which, you know, his 10% was $32,000, which would not even come close to what our 10% would be. Question three, though. I'm sorry. I was getting a little bit off track. What was that offer that the district made that created this quote unquote, sticker shock? Because we didn't get to know that? And why did the district insist that all negotiations be done in secrecy? Because I don't know about you? And there's question five. Can you name one other bargaining team that negotiates in complete secrecy? Because so far, I have been able to find none, definitely not the UAW. The last district I worked for was Clark County, and their negotiations are all over the news in Las Vegas. You mentioned that attracting more personnel could be done with bonuses. So that brings me to my next question, Dr. Vidi, how much was your July bonus? Because according to my estimation, it ranged around the $366,000 range. Based on the amount you had for all of the sick days you got which were not close to ours. 295 sick days that got paid out at 100%. Those are all my questions. Thank you very much.
Was that the final color? Yes, Madam Chair. Okay, Miss James, go ahead as the last person. Miss Joyce? Yes. Jenny's?
They'll turn it on. Thank you. Can we get the mic turned on?
Hello, good evening, everyone. I hope everyone enjoyed the recess. I was not able to make the last meeting. But I'm here today. I would like to request if we could please consider since our board meetings are once a month, if we could look at creating a district policy to cancel all school activities on this one day, so that staff and students and parents can participate and be on time and offer our students who attend community service hours as a incentive for joining the board meetings. The business of the district is discussed at these meetings as well as the committee meetings. So if we are in the business of education, these meetings create an opportunity for our students to be aware of future opportunities to be engaged as citizens in the community where they live and one day will send their children. Secondly, I thought about all year, the statistic that Dr. VD has given for the past school year about the 67% Chronic absentee rate that took place last year. And all throughout Detroit. We see a lot of school buses coming into the city from other school districts, busing our children, our talent, our future, out of our city. Is it possible now that we are no longer under state takeover? And we have resources that we could re implement In bringing our own school buses back into the district, as many neighborhoods have experienced schools that have closed, we are not a white collar or city where a lot of parents have the privilege of having flex time. So given the fact that we don't have the ability, like we used to, to be able to have our children walk to the neighborhood schools, if we are able to provide transportation, because this morning, when I was participating in city council, a representative talked about the concern of city buses, passing our children up when they're full, which creates a delay in them getting home in the evening. And as we are now approaching the fall, it gets darker earlier. So I would like to see serious focus put on what we can do, as a community as leaders to make sure that our children are safe. And if a parent has a challenge, with attendance with their children, because school, schools are not in the neighborhood, I do not think it's appropriate to take children from their homes and put them in foster care. We need to make sure we're using those resources to take care of our babies. Thank you.
Thank you, Miss Jennings. That concludes public comment. I know there were several comments. But there were also several questions. So Dr. Reid, if we can go back to the top and start at the beginning? And go through questions.
Sure, let me know if i What I miss, just for the Board's background, and anyone listening when we talked about ESC, ancillary staff, and the concerns that were raised, these are individuals that work with special needs students in various schools, so they travel from school to school, and they have different schedules. They're not in one location throughout the school day. So the OIG, through several investigations have has discovered that individual ancillary staff have abused time. And so we did work with central office based on the OIG report to just create better systems of time management and capture when you when the ancillary staff goes from one school to the other, so it can be documented. So the opportunity for fraud is minimized. We've tried different systems and different systems have different challenges. And different, positive. So moving forward, and this was on my radar, as of earlier this week, we will have to revisit those systems and processes with central office capabilities in mind, meaning, you know, there are challenges linked to what you can and can't do technologically, at each school, not to overburden the ESC staff that are that is traveling, you know, working with them working with it and working with DFT. I think all the parties agree we need a system. We just haven't agreed on what that system is. So I think there's a solution, we just have to arrive to it. But that's the background related to what you heard tonight. There you also heard some concerns about ESC, lead teachers, ESC lead teachers are teachers at schools that help facilitate the IEP reviews that happen when students do their the initial reviews or re re evaluations that happen annually. And so there is work that needs to be done between the district DFT and the ESC lead teachers on their roles and responsibilities related to being an ESC lead teacher. That's something that we'll definitely work on in the upcoming weeks. The stipend for supplies was reduced, because we were we relied on on COVID funding to increase it during the pandemic. So that's why it went from 200 to $100. The Littlefield Park. It was my understanding that the district and the city reached an agreement to allow the state park or skating Park to be established there on the ground that we there's part of the land that we own and part of the land that the city owns. And it was my understanding that we agreed to allow the park to be established in that location. So I'll follow up on that issue, but from my understanding the district and the city agreed to do that. Quite a few questions about the bilingual department tonight. I think this is a function of just clear communication about the changes that took place. You know, one speaker used the word rumor And that's what I would name them as rumors. If once we sit down and review what we're doing as a district, I think you'll find that it makes sense and that we're not reducing services. In fact, we've increased staff at Central Office to support bilingual students. And we've tried every year to improve the allocation to schools, but we are dismantling bilingual education, we're continuing to support our English language learners, I think this is a matter of getting in the same room, explaining what we're doing, and why and then listening to concerns and issues. So we can address them or even improve what we intend to do. But at a high level, what we've tried to do at the district level is there are personnel that just focus on compliance issues, and that's related to testing entry.
And then there are those that work with directly with students and staff to improve student achievement in schools and that a lot of people were doing both. And what we thought we would do is separate the functions so that they can concentrate on just compliance or support and not do both so that we can stronger implementation on both ends. We also have a vacancy vacancy at the district level that directly leads bilingual and will language work. And I think that's also leading to some of the rumor mill, that we don't plan on filling that and we do. We also are building a newcomer program at Western. That's been a demand for years. We want Western to be the first newcomer but to have the first newcomer program, and then try to expand that. And that's something that we may utilize with the literacy Lawsuit Funding. And I'll speak to that later. As a follow up question that was asked by the board. We have 41 students on the waitlist for Montessori. Right now eight at Edmondson, I'm sorry, 23. At Edmondson nine that Addison and nine at Palmer Park, I can certainly understand the frustration that parents may have about not getting in. As I think we all understand. There's a waitlist because a parent has a seat or seats plural. And we can't vacate the seat until that student does not arrive, or the parent says I'm not going to send my child there. We have tried to work with students or parents on a waitlist to try to go to another dpscd school. But obviously the Montessori program is high demand. I will go back to the district staff to ask how can we better communicate? You know, what timelines can we have that are more clear, and consistent communication around the timeliness of knowing whether you're going to get a slot? It all depends on again, if someone who has a seat actually attends or not. robo calls are sent out in different languages by the district, when the district sends out the robo call. Every school has the capability of sending a robo call in a different language. And it's technologically set up that you literally just have to press a button and it translates to the message into a different language. So the district has to work more with schools to use that function. But when we send things out at the central office level level, the robo call texts, or the robo texts are sent in different languages. Our intent next year, at least my intent and I think the board would agree is to reestablish summer school across the district with a literacy Lawsuit Funding with a focus on literacy. That's That's my thinking. And that's consistent with what I think the board has indicated in prior years. The issue was we just didn't have the extra funding going into this year to do that. But that would be my intent. But we'd have a deeper conversation with the board that leads into the question about the literacy Lawsuit Funding is as a whole. I have said this every meeting, but just to reiterate, multiple groups can have multiple meetings and come up with multiple recommendations. At the end of the day, it's only the school board that can approve the use of the literacy lawsuit funds. So we we cannot use one we haven't received the funding, and two, but when we do receive it, we can't actually use it until officially we received the recommendations from the literacy lawsuit Task Force. That's a function of the settlement and reinforced by the legislature when they earmark the money, the literacy loss or task force, as stated that they hope to give us their recommendations by October November is what I'm told. And so once we receive those, I'm sure there'll be explained to us and then we'll work through the committee meeting process and possibly a retreat and then eventually, Board approval to use those dollars. My sense is that the board would approve the use of the dollars by the budget amendment which comes in January or February. Upcoming we would all want to use the funding earlier. One we haven't received it too we can't use it legally until we receive them recommendations from the literacy lawsuit, Task Force for a to Ford runs their own meetings, they are not working directly with dpscd. I think they are working through the literacy lawsuit task for the literacy Task Force. We aren't running those meetings, we're not calling those meetings. I will say that the literacy taskforce has asked the district through our literacy team, our curriculum team about best practices with literacy, and we've engaged them on that. But we are not running the meetings or working with for for it for it on the meetings itself. If any staff, student parents see or know of rodents in schools, there is a log in every main office and you document where you saw droppings where you saw a rodent that's monitored by the operations team. And that also dictates when we have pest control, to go into a school in a particular classroom or an area of the building. So you can use the log in process at the main office. You can also use the compliance hotline that we try to promote throughout schools through the through the posters, there's a text feature on it, there's a phone call, all anonymous, so that you don't have to use your name in reporting an issue, and that has anything to do with cleanliness of the school, or anything that you feel is unsafe at the school. From an operations point of view. We do have an attendance policy for students, it is very broad. There has been conversations about strengthening it. And so thinking and looking at attendance as far as going to your neighborhood school or leaving your neighborhood school. From an accountability point of view, the prosecutor's office has taken more referrals for extreme chronic absences students. The balance between the numbers and the actual referrals are unbalanced. But the prosecutor's office has committed to following up with more families with that are dealing with extreme cases of chronic absenteeism. And so that will continue now that we're beyond the pandemic. Narcan is at all of our schools. It's something that we did several years ago through our health teams. We did have a meet and greet at Sampson Weber for the new principal. I believe it was June summit early July that that meeting happened. That was to meet the staff, and also to invite the parents. I'm sure parents were busy because it wasn't the beginning of the school year yet. And if there's a need to have another meeting, then we can, but we didn't invite parents to meet the principal after he started at Samsung Webber. But if we need another meeting, then we need another meeting. We are expanding support for over eight students from grades. I would say well, the student could be in fourth grade, but they should be in sixth grade. That's combining Detroit Lions and West Side Academy at the former Marine right high school building. And so that there's plenty of seats for any student that is two or more years beyond where they should be as far as their grade. They that student can be referred by a teacher or a guidance counselor, Principal, to Detroit Lions. Now we call west side of Detroit Lions just Detroit Lions. Again, we were putting a lot of resources into the school with social workers and counselors and to help students catch up and credits so they can go back to their school they were at or another school and the school has been effective. We moved it more centrally. So it can be easier access from a transportation point of view. AIS do have the same benefits as other salaried DFT employees. We are offering debated all schools. The only challenge that we have is a a staff member willing to take the stipend to offer debate and other or even chess. We do try to run the spelling bee contest across all schools. We don't it's really the school that has to turn kid. If there's any challenge at Burton in any misunderstanding around the stipend or the opportunity to offer chess or debate, then please let me know so that we can follow up but I will follow up to see if there's something missing at Burton. Madam Chair, anything I missed
construction at Bates? Yes, thank
you. So obviously the state in the city monitors any kind of construction in schools and they would certainly shut it down if they felt it was unsafe. Some of the concerns that were raised are legitimate and I think the staff has done a good job of trying to isolate the construction at the front to the cafeteria there's air purifiers or blowers and it is constantly test the air is constantly tested the construction Bates will be done by the end of the month. And we try as much as we can not to do construction during the school year. But obviously, we also have a sense of urgency to use the funding that we have put aside to do facility projects, but always in line with state and city requirements from a health code point of view.
AC T LSAT prep.
So the challenge was we do offer LSAT, it's more sap, LSAT, prep and all of our high schools. The challenge of having all students do it is course recovery. So when students can fall farther and behind the credits, we try to maximize the day, even Saturdays to catch up in credits, and that minimizes the electives that students can take an LSAT prep would be considered an elective. But it is important to note that all of our curriculum now starting from pre K is about college ready and being college ready. And that's based on the standards set by the state. And so all of our curriculum now is college ready curriculum. So from pre K, all the way to 12th grade, a student now is exposed to college ready standards. And so they're being taught that at every grade level, and that's another reason why I think student achievement is improving, just because our teachers are teaching content that is college ready standards, which naturally moves the students to being more college ready by the time they get into 11th grade.
And I know there was an email sent in regards to elevators and conditions with elevators. So I'm assuming that I don't see Miss Harada anymore, but for the student who has not been able to use the elevator at Western, and you just address that.
Sure. So Western flicks purging there's a for school that's have a cast, that type of constant elevator problem. Part for some schools, the elevators just simply old Kaz the elevator, unfortunately was designed the wrong way, we have put 1000s of dollars into repairing these elevators repeatedly. And we do know that there's an ATA need in order to keep and maintain the elevator. So we're going to continue to put dollars in fixing it because we need to legally we need to. But there I am going to engage the board at some of these schools, to rebuild, to build and to build a new elevator. So we're not putting in as much repair money into the elevator. So bottom line, we know the elevators are at some schools are not working, we are going to fix it. And there's going to be a broader conversation about just replacing them so that we can have more efficient elevators at those schools with the exception of purging, which we're going to demolish the school and build a new one. So hopefully the elevator won't be a problem with the new bill.
So what accommodations can have family expect?
I have to look into the particular students situation. I'll do that tonight or tomorrow morning.
Okay. And I know there were questions around negotiations. Can you just talk about that process? I know, some should reach out to their union rep. If you just want to talk about some of those questions that were asked.
Yeah, so part of the bargaining process is that it is private, between district administrators and in this case, DFT. And so we look at our budget, we tried to define what we can afford. And then I work with the board to have authority to negotiate to a certain level through the budget, and then our team then negotiates with the FTC team behind closed doors. And then based on DFTs preference, there can be updates, there can be extra engagement. But that's up to DFT. On we try to we try to protect the process and not overly communicate about what the status of negotiations are. There are times when there are questions that are asked and we may answer them at a high level, but we try to always respect the bargaining process, which is one that is done behind closed doors.
Thank you. So any any comments or questions before we move into our closed session? If not the next item item number 10 is closed session. The chair and the chair entertain a motion to go into a closed session pursuant to MCL one 5.268 A and H of the Michigan Open Meetings Act to consider I personal I'm sorry personnel actions at employees request and I a written legal opinion. Is there a support? It's been properly moved by Dr. Taylor properly supported by member Vaughn to go into closed session. Madam secretary can We have a roll call please.
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have a quorum for closed session thank you we will now go into closed session
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Okay, thank you so much for the very robust conversation in closed session will now move to item number 11. So item number 11.01 administrative terminations. The chair entertain a motion to accept the superintendence report for those two terminations. Administrative terminations for job abandonment. So move. Is there a support? It's been properly moved by member Vaughn properly supported by member Mays to approve the superintendents recommendations for administrative terminations. 11.01 for the two job abandonments, any discussion. All those in favor of the motion on the floor signify by saying aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries item 11.0 to termination for cause. There are two individuals. One is termination. One is 30 days suspension without pay has some very robust conversation about the to the chair will entertain a motion to approve the superintendents recommendation is their support. It's been properly moved by member Mays properly supported by member Vaughn to approve the recommendation by the superintendent and item 11.02. Any discussion? All those in favor of the motion on the floor signify by saying aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion carry item 11.03. Recommendation for continued employment pursuant to MCL. Three 80.1230. Is there a motion to approve the superintendent's recommendation for continued employment of this individual? Is there support? It's been properly moved by member Vaughn properly supported by member Mays any discussion for the action item of 11.03? If not, all those in favor of the motion on the floor signify by saying Aye. Any opposed? Motion carry. We now have administrative action items 12.01 through 12.05 our tentative agreements with our unions, and so those would have to come before the board and tonight is the time to do that. Is there a desire to tie bar items 12.01 through 12.05? Is there support? It's been properly moved by Dr. Taylor properly supported by member bond to tie bar items 12.01 through 12.05. Any discussion on the tie bar? If not all those in favor of the tie bar signify by by saying aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion carried. The chair will now entertain a motion for the tie bar that is 12.01 through 2.05. It's been properly moved Is there support. So properly moved by Dr. Taylor properly supported by member Mays for the tie bar 12.01 through 12.05. And again, these are union contracts. All those in favor of the motion on the floor signify by saying aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries. Thank you. Item 13 Consent Agenda. So we know these items went through both committees. So there has been conversation around these already and changes that were made based on board members feedback. The chair is there. We just need one motion for the consent agenda items, their support. It's been properly moved by member Mays properly supported by member Vaughn to approve the consent agenda items, which would include 13.01 through 13.0. For any discussion on the motion on the floor? If not, all those in favor of the motion on the floor signify by saying aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion carried. Thank you. So we have first read items 14.01 through 14.08. First reads means that they have come through policy. Now they're coming to us for feedback for those who do not sit on the policy committee. There is no vote on these tonight. Is there anything that is obvious or pressing that you want to bring forth? Tonight on any of these policies again, firstly, so there is no vote on items 14.01 through 14.08. Please use the time in the upcoming days and weeks before the next board meeting to have conversation with either the policy chair or members of the policy committee with any feedback that you have regarding the policies that are identified on the agenda. That now brings us to item number 50.01. Are there any announcements? Okay, go ahead. Dr. V.
Just a follow up to student at Western that needed access to the elevator. The classrooms have been repositioned to the classroom so the student can receive services on the first floor.
Thank you so much. We appreciate that. Yes. I don't know why they had to come to a board meeting to get that but we definitely are appreciated. It was it was already being done. So it's good to get information factual information shared. So that we have the only announcements we have count day is Wednesday, October the fourth. So we know that our board meeting is after that. So Wednesday, October 4 is count day. The next board meeting is October 8 Here at Mumford. And I did want to lift up the Dance Theatre of Harlem. They are coming to the city of Detroit. They have free opportunities, please check our website October 14. They are collaborating with Motown museum to present dancing in the street Theatre of Harlem, the Dance Theatre of Harlem. All are welcome. These are free events. October the 15th they will be doing something called holy holy I Fellowship chapel in Detroit. And so we're excited that our young people and community will actually be able to take take part in this free event Dance Theatre of Harlem in Detroit. That's a big deal. Any more announcements,
Madam Chair? Oh.
Okay, correction, the board meeting is October 10. Not the eighth. It's the 10th which is the second Tuesday of the month. Thank you. Go ahead, member Vaughn.
Madam Chair, just an announcement from the face, family and community engagement, this coming Saturday. There is a community faith based back to school event. It is from 12 to 3pm. And so we are invited, I believe it is on our website. And all area of faith based leaders from every genre fate will be present at addresses 1745 East Grand Boulevard Detroit, and that is from 12 to three there's all kinds of things that faces giving out is uniform support, of course, some of the other vendors, health vendors, I can't vendors, etc. will be there. So we're really encouraging our community to come out and support from 12 to three.
Thank you so much. Remember Vaughn any more announcements before we adjourn? If not the chair entertain a motion to adjourn. So moved. Without objection. Thank you so much. Y'all have a wonderful rest of your evening. Be safe. Have a good night. Good night.
