DPSCD School Board - Regular Meeting - August 13, 2024

2:05PM Aug 14, 2024

Speakers:

Keywords:

school

students

district

board

year

board member

support

plan

principals

teachers

public comment

talk

staff

detroit

questions

point

mays

diploma

data

contract

Test, one, Two. I'm

Testing. Good evening.

The time is now 535. We want to go ahead and get started with the meeting to respect your time. Thank you for being here. Today is Tuesday, the 13th of August, and we again, are appreciative to the east English village Preparatory Academy staff at Finney for hosting us. Madam Secretary, can you do the call to order, please roll call. Angelique Peterson, maybe Harry. I'm present. Misha stall worth Sonia Mays,

Dr Iris Taylor,

Sherry gay, Daniel go, Latrice McClendon, present, Bishop. Dr colletta Vaughn,

Madam Chair, you

may begin.

Thank you. Meeting norms, we respect the right of all persons who 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, we request that you refrain from that behavior at this time, we will now observe our moment of silence, and unfortunately, our list is much longer than we would ever want it to be, because not only do we have students, but we also have staff on our list today. So during your moment of silence, if you could remember the family of Mr. Forrest tamale forest, Jackson Capella tamale was a student at Wayne Elementary. Jackson Capella is a was a security officer at Bethune Donnell Garrison, a teacher at Henry Ford High School. Frank Williams, a substitute teacher at CAST tech. And finally, Kenneth Williams, the third dean of culture right here at East English village Preparatory Academy at Finney. So again during your moment of silence, if we could remember these five fallen soldiers from DPS CDs family.

Thank you. We will now move into our Star Spangled Banner and Lift Every Voice and Sing. I'm excited that we may have our students back with us next month, as school will begin in a couple of weeks. So until that time, we do have recordings for both of them. If You could Please Stand applause.

You. Thank you. You may be seated, and although that is a recording, that is a recording from our very own students at DSA, we will move now to public comment registration has closed. The time is now, 541541, public comment registration has closed. We'll move into item number six on the agenda chair remarks. So we hope everyone has had a safe and enjoyable summer, and we are very appreciative of all of those who have promoted and marketed the district. Over the summer, we've gone to downtown activities, street fairs, summer on the blocks, career, tech ed, road shows and community gatherings, and dpscd has been well represented in all of those. So I just want to thank the staff and all of the stakeholders in the audience who took it upon themselves to ensure that the communities know about some of the amazing things happening in dpscd, as well as welcoming new dpscd community members into our family, I also want to congratulate the nearly 40 on the rise cohort graduates who recently received their certification, and they'll be going into The classroom in a few weeks, them, along with several educators, new educators, as well as some returning educators are and maybe it was the DFT contract, not sure, but we're really excited about some of the new faces and those who are returning. I'm sure Dr Vitti will identify where we have gaps and vacancies during his presentation as we get ready to start school in just two weeks, as we roar into another school year, and you'll hear more about that. But school does begin on August the 26th August the 26th so we encourage families to check the district website as well as the individual school sites, so that you can receive first day useful start of school information. We also encourage you to join a school location for the clap in ceremonies. So the clap in ceremonies is just a way that you welcome young people back and wish them a very safe school year. We want to welcome back the students who went to Ghana with the emotion debate team, students from Cass Henry Ford and Bates Academy, they were in Ghana for 10 days. So we can't wait to hear how that experience was at an upcoming board meeting and recognize our partner, Mr. Juwan Howard, for his efforts. Lastly, I'll just note for clarity, because it continues to come up, especially in this climate that we're in, there are three board seats, three board seats that will be available in November. Of the three board seats, there are 22 people who are candidates running for those seats. Of the three, one current board member is running for her seat. But in addition to that, 22 candidates in the race, and that is the November 5 general election. And I only mention that because we get phone calls and emails about that often. So I wanted you to know factually, three candidates, three seats for the. Board that will conclude. My chair remarks. We had our quorum, not yet, so we will move to Mr. Vedo for the Finance Report. Mr. Perdido,

good evening, board members and community this evening, we are reviewing preliminary draft financials for the end of the 2324 school year for DPS, we received the final tax collections on the 13 and 18 mills. This is a reconciliation that happens with Wayne resa and the city approximately 13 point 7,000,013 point 7 million on the 13 mils capital debt, an additional 14 point 1 million on the 18 mill operating debt was received for dpscd revenue came in slightly higher in the month of June than forecasted. This was continued higher interest rates for the district as well as we continued to receive one time money from the state. One time categorical Grant was received in June, and then we were slightly lower on federal revenue, as we'd had earlier. Esser drawdowns in May and April. Overall, though we are exceeding projections, expenses came in slightly below projections. But again, these are pre audited financials. We'll provide the final audited financials in November, but we continue to project a surplus for the year. And then you can just see these financials in a slightly different way. For the month, we were slightly lower on instruction and some other areas, as we paid bonuses earlier in the year, this year than previous years. That concludes my report. We had approximately 21 weeks of cash on hand.

Thank you, Mr. Perdido. I know there were some robust conversations regarding finance at the finance committee, but I wasn't sure if there were any board members who had any questions around Mr. Perdidos financial report. No If not, Mr. Vedo, you can file the report. We're looking forward to another year of zero exceptions on our audit. So thank you. I think we're in year six now. Six budget zero audit exceptions in our budget.

Not yet. Six, six, we've had eight years of surpluses, annual surpluses, so this would be the ninth surplus we did have three years in a row of clean audits. There was one audit funding last year, but we're correcting that, so we'll be back to zero this year.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I appreciate that. We will now go back to item number three, approval of the agenda. We do have a quorum, so the chair will entertain a motion to approve the agenda as presented. So move support. It's been properly moved by member gate, Detroit, novo, properly supported by Dr Taylor. Any questions all those in favor of the agenda on the floor. I'm sorry, the motion on the floor to approve the agenda. Signify by saying aye, any opposed motion carried. Thank you. Item number four, the approval of meeting minutes 4.01 through 4.05 which is the regular board meeting minutes from July 9. 2024 the special board meeting minutes from July 15, 2024 special board meeting, closed session. Minutes from July 15, 2024 academic committee meeting. Minutes from july 22 2024, and the Finance Committee meeting minutes from july 26 2024 is there a desire to tie bar? Yes,

Madam Chair, I move to tie bar items 401, through 405,

thank you. Is there support? Support. It's been properly moved, properly supported by Dr Taylor and member McClendon to tie bar, items 4.01 through 4.05 any discussion, all those in favor of the motion on the floor, signify by saying, aye, any opposed motion carried the chair will now entertain a motion for the tie bar of items 4.01 through 4.05 so moved Is there support? Support? Properly moved by Dr Taylor, properly supported by member McClendon for the tie bar of items, 4.01 through 4.05 any discussion all those in favor of the motion on the floor? Signify by saying, aye, any opposed motion carried. Thank you. We'll now go to item number eight, which the Superintendent's report.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Instead of reviewing the metrics today, because they're really stagnant, because we're over the summer, we don't really have much new data, I was going to give the Board and community an update on the opening of schools and then review the staff survey data, as I committed to from the last board meeting, we are all set to open up schools in about two weeks. Our schools continue to be cleaned. There is really no significant issue right now with readiness. As far as cleanliness, there are the summer school sites that are. It on a different path to be cleaned because those buildings were used over the summer, but all signs point to a readiness When students arrive. As I notified the board, there are some schools that are continuing to get facility upgrades to the remaining anchor investments and some of the facility master plan investments and upgrades. So there might be some classrooms that individual schools where teachers will not be using when they return on the first couple days of next week, but those classrooms and rooms will be ready when students report. As of today, we have about 55 teacher core vacancies. That's relatively consistent with last year. 10 of those are special education vacancies, which continue to go down. We have a job fair tomorrow from 10am to 2pm at Mumford High School, where we're obviously looking to continue to hire our teachers. We did announce a incentive for teachers to refer other teachers to the district, and depending on the area of certification, they receive a bonus if they are able to do that. We have all of our principal positions filled for next year. We currently have six assistant principal vacancies, two counselor social worker vacancies, 14 academic interventionist vacancies, about a dozen security guard vacancies, eight para vacancies and 16 ese para vacancies. As of today, we have about 52,689 students enrolled, K through 12. I would not put a lot of value in that number, because that constantly fluctuates, but we do have 3000 new students to the district that are enrolled fairly consistent with last year. These are just numbers that I report. We all know that those numbers fluctuate before the school year starts. We've had now 25 enrollment events throughout the city over the summer. All of our schools are having a back to school event to just energize students and staff and their parents coming back to school. Most of those are happening this week and will conclude at the end of the week. We also have contracted services knocking on doors for recruitment purposes and schools targeted schools with additional marketing materials and investment to increase enrollment. We're also going to start our roar back to school campaign, just to get everyone energized about the new school year, those commercials will be start running soon, and and the radio and magazine announcements as well. So all in all, we really have smooth operating systems now for the opening of schools, not really concerned about major issues at this point. If obviously anyone is concerned about their school, you can email me, email the board, and we'll problem solve through issues beyond what is generally expected, but most of our principals are now seasoned. Our team is seasoned so we know what to do every year to get the school year ready. I wanted to spend the majority of my time today going over the staff survey data. These are data points that I usually review at a high number at a high level, but tonight, I just want to break those down a little bit more to you. These are the student survey data and the staff survey data down through panorama again. Panorama is a nationally recognized survey which multiple large urban school districts complete. These questions are best practice to research to get at the heart of students feeling loved, challenged and prepared, and staff feeling engaged as well, in multiple areas that lead to recruitment and retention. So when we look at our student survey data, 86% of our students completed their school experience data, and 81% their classroom, they take a set of questions. Some of them are focused really more on the school experience, and others are spoke focused on more of the classroom. These are taken at the end of February to the middle of March. So 86% overall at the school level completed those surveys as a reminder the questions focused on students being loved, challenged and prepared. These are not all the questions that students complete, but you can see on your screen, these are a sample of the questions that they complete. When we talk about sense of belonging, we're asking students, if they feel connected to adults, how much respect do students are shown at the school when we talk about rigor, we ask questions about how often teachers are asking them to explain their answers, about the expectations that teachers have for their performance, and on the social emotional level, things like, how often do you get your work done right away? Okay, instead of waiting until the last minute, and then, how often do you remain calm when someone is bothering you or saying bad things? So these are just a sample example questions. Very excited to announce that we had a improvement across the board. And love challenge prepared third to 12th grade. You can see here, yellow is challenged, the orange is prepared, black is loved, and then overall, LCP is combining the three. So the line bar in the bottom combines the three as if everyone feels love, challenge, prepared. And that's why that number is lower, because that means that you are what would be considered proficient, if you will, or strongly agree, agree, thinking about a some kind of survey at the highest level, they feel each loved, challenge and prepared, but they may singularly feel prepared but not challenged and loved, or they might feel loved but not challenged or prepared, so excited to see that improvement. This was a focus area of ours going into last school year. It doesn't mean we're going to abandon that, but we did. We're very intentional about what we're doing in schools to improve that you can see here. This is just a breakdown of combining grades three to 12, you can see the different Love Challenge, prepared areas broken down by years, and obviously the improvement this year. When you look at grades three to five, this is last year to this year individually, looking at just a two year comparison, and you can see the six percentage point overall improvement in feeling loved and challenged from last year to this year. And then, if we just look at challenge in the middle school years, we see a five percentage point improvement in ninth through 12th grade. So high school, we see a six percentage point improvement and challenged, but we also again, see improvement across the board with loved and prepared and overall feeling well all three love, challenged and prepared. I do want to highlight some schools. These are schools that showed are at the highest level of Love Challenge prepared when combining all three. And then you see some examples of the most improved love and challenge prepared all three at individual schools, as I committed to when we talked to the finance and academic committee, we are going to increase recognitions at the board meetings focused on our metrics of increasing proficiency for literacy and math, increasing college readiness rates, including increasing college going rates, increasing grad rate. So every month, we're going to recognize in each of those areas,

every month, a different focus area of the top five highest performers and the top five most improved. But here you see a sampling of schools that showed not that were the most highest performing, but also the most improved. When you look at love challenge and prepared, and something that we'll be doing more this year through principal meetings and just general professional development is having these principals talk to their peers about what they did differently at their schools, and using many of these principals as mentor principals for principals whose love challenge prepared or later when we get into staff. Survey data is still struggling. So when we look at the individual student data, those questions are largely broken up into these different areas of bullying, rigorous expectations, teacher student relationships, school safety, school climate and school belonging. So there are areas where, nationally, we're toward we're at a higher level in grades three to five. And as I've continued to say I think our reform is hitting at the three five level more than anywhere else, and that's why we, for example, came up with the high school redesign plan of how do we expand these kind of numbers in a middle school and especially at the high school level? But when we look at rigorous expectations, for example, we're in the 70th percentile. School belonging 70th percentile, but still very low in school safety. We showed improvement last year from the previous year, but still low overall in grades six to eight, again, some areas to pick up rigorous expectations. Middle School improved still, though, in the lower quintile percentile nationally in school safety also still low compared to the national averages, and in school belonging low as well, at 30% in middle school. So we know this already, but this data shows us that the experience of third and fifth graders are different that it. Experienced in middle school students. And what's also different in dpscd is we have more K eights on average, and other large urban school districts. So we should be seeing that continue more at the middle school level, because students are in the same building. But obviously there things are different as far as how schools are children are experiencing it in 912, same areas, we saw declines in a couple of areas in strong improvement, I will name school climate, especially in our high schools. And so overall, when you look at strengths, just overall improvement, Love Challenge and prepared in all areas, and then combined the areas in improvement, definitely school safety. I do expect our principals to take more time to directly engage students on on the actual questions, and better understand from them, meaning the students, why they're still not safe, why they don't still feel safe in schools. And What can schools in the district continue to do things differently in order to have that happen, and as I've been talking about throughout the summer, is start to differentiate support. So instead of thinking of a one size fits all, just review of this data. Sharing of the data start to be more tactical with individual schools whose numbers are still not improving and are still low, when you think about the student experience and leveraging and using some of our stronger principals to support and mentor principals whose data is not as strong. So the staff data again, not new. We've been doing this now for several years. 93% of our teachers responded to the survey, 70% of school staff, 74% of central office staff and 97% of School Administrators. Our response rates for the survey are very high, and so it is good that our staff is taking it, so we have this objective data. And people, I believe, still believe that the survey can and hopefully will be used to do things differently. The Net Promoter Score is a rigorous analysis of basically how likely are you to recommend dpscd to a friend or a family member. And so this, this is very difficult to move and sometimes it's it's difficult to talk through this data, but when people respond to the survey, they go from zero to 10 if they're rating their experience on a different individual question, from a zero to six, that means that they're a detractor. That means that they're not having a favorable experience and not likely to recommend the district to a friend or a family. If there's seven or eight on the response, that means that they're passive. So think of them being on the fence, and then nine to 10 are promoters. So you can see here the rigor is very high to be an actual promoter. And so we can disaggregate this data, and this is what panorama does. And you can see, overall, our teachers generally are still in the detractor stage. Our school staff is more in a nine overall instructional leaders, 21 central office staff, negative two. So that number in the left is an aggregate of the numbers from this detractor score scale. I so that's overall. But the positive in this is, if we look at when we started this in 1718, and we look at where we are now, we're actually strongly improving in each of these categories. So although the overall negative 23 that's actually an improvement of 15 percentage points since we started in 1718, for teachers, 17 percentage point improvement for school support staff, 21 percentage point improvement for our instructional leaders, which are our principals, our APs and our deans, and then a 42% overall improvement with central office staff. So you can look at the far left column negatively, certainly, and there's opportunity for improvement. But then when you look at the span of the year since 1718 we are actually improving the way people perceive their work experience and whether they would promote the district to an employee or to another family. I'm not going to go over all of the next slides, a lot of data. I'll share this with the board, and we're going to talk about this more with the climate and culture retreat that I know we have scheduled, but overall, this is just a breakdown of the different areas by domain for our teachers. I'm going to reiterate this slide because I think it defines our opportunity and our challenge. Each of these areas focus on why teachers stay or they leave from best practice and research. What we see here is the black is dpsd. The blue in the middle is the bottom quartile average, and then the teal is the top quartile average. Overall, we are at about the national average. You don't see that in this chart. You saw this at the finance and academic committee. Our data in the district, when we look at our teachers, are generally comparable to other districts throughout the nation. What is unique and different in the challenge and the opportunity is we have a bottom quartile schools, again, dark blue, that are below the district average and definitely below the national average, but yet, we have schools in the top quartile that are way above the national average and way above the district average. And again, this is where lies to challenge and the opportunity. The opportunity is best practices, sharing best practices and scaling what's happening in these schools. And by the way, the schools in teal are not just exam schools or application schools. These are neighborhood schools as well. And so already this summer with the principal Academy, we started to dive deeper into this data. Have principals reflect on what's working and not, and again, using more of our model principles to be

mentors to our new and struggling principals, at least as it defines through the panorama instructional culture data. Again, this are all the schools broken down across the district, and you can see the top quartile and the bottom quartile. The work moving forward is to rise those in the bottom quartile, because that will improve the overall district experience. And I think whether I'm speaking the board, speaking central office staff is speaking. A lot of our problems and a lot of our challenges come from those bottom quartile schools, because that's where the experiences are not as positive, and this is where we need to work more with mentoring and direct support in these schools, as I explained at the academic and finance committee meetings. These are schools that had the top performance with instructional culture throughout the district. On the left, if you're looking at the screen, on the right, are those that had the most improved instructional culture data throughout the district. So again, here is the opportunity to use these principles more to visit these schools more and have our principals learn what's happening at those schools. Again, if you look at the list of schools on the left, you'll see that it is a combination of exam schools, neighborhood schools and application schools. It's not just the application and exam schools, and even when you look at most improved you have quite a few neighborhood schools here as well. So this work does not only happen, cannot only happen in our exam schools. And so let me just move to overall strengths. Strengths is we meet or continue to exceed national comparison data, when you look at hiring, school operations and teacher compensation, and we've improved in areas like observation and feedback, but we still have to improve based on the data hiring, school operations and teacher compensation as well. So we are above the national average, but there are still areas within that that need improvement. And as I keep on saying, the variance, we have to eliminate the variance. When you look at the top quintile schools and the bottom quintile schools, the district is improving overall, but we're not seeing we need to see more accelerated improvement that will come by improving the bottom quartile schools. This is just to show overall over time in each domain, support staff, again, we're meeting or exceeding the national average in multiple areas. We're seeing improvement in professional development, feedback and coaching, where we need more work is evaluations. That is common theme in the support staff evaluations and and being more direct on facilities. So how often do your schools facilities need repairs? And being, I think, more transparent about what are the needs of the buildings, what are we already doing through the anchor investments and the FMP investments, and what are the challenges to do that you may recall when I reviewed the data at the finance and academic committee meetings, our data for instructional leaders is very high. We are above the national average regarding how our principals, APS and deans are experiencing the district overall. Still work to be done in in various areas, as noted here, we have to continue to improve hiring and continue to improve the evaluation and tracking systems when it comes to hiring. And then, just lastly, central office, again, Strong. Improvement over the years, improvement, specifically in equity and diversity, peer culture, professional development. The opportunities here to grow is professional development, some, many of our central office staff doesn't, still doesn't feel like there it's individualized enough, and continuing to improve compensation and performance pay for central office staff. So this is just a summary of the next steps that I've really talked about throughout the presentation. But I'll stop here to take any questions from the board about the opening of schools or the student and staff survey data, as always, I'll send this to you if you have additional questions or you want more of a one on one conversation. As I said, I think we'll revisit this more when we have our retreat on climate and culture going into this year.

Thank you. Dr Vitti, I do have a question to go ahead. Remember getting go. Thank you. Thank

you. Impressive. I don't have memory of the schools that are most improved, but I don't want to just start calling out names, but seeing some of them on both of those lists was very impressive. I did have an opportunity, actually, today, to speak with two students, and the conversations were centered around infrastructure, Cody and Henry Ford, I know that we're moving forward with new facilities, but just wanted to find out what part of the survey addresses how students feel about facilities. Certainly, the ongoing cry at Cody is not having the proper football field, but hearing for it was more concerning, and it was dealing with the fact that the showers not having adequate running water and or hot water. So just want to know what part of the surveys incorporates how students feel about facilities, or where they report their feelings about their their school facilities.

Yeah, through the chair. I'll, I'll follow up about the shower issues that Henry Ford obviously you mentioned for coding a new building in the in the in the years come with the facility master plan, and hopefully students, at least the younger ones, are energized with being part of a design plan and seeing that. Obviously the older students may not experience a new building, but as alumni, hopefully they'll be proud of the new building. I'll follow up on the Henry Ford shower issue. So the questions on the student side obviously focus more on their experience in school. There by memory. There are some questions about facilities. As we're here, I'm sure staff will email them to me, and then I can either go back toward the end of the meeting and or just email you directly to them. But there, there are some questions I by memory. I don't remember what they are, but I'll send them to you. But most of it, it's about how they experience school. So it's more about the relationship piece, but I do know that there are some questions about facilities. Yeah,

that's a very important piece, if a student, for one, has never been, ever experienced a school that has everything working at optimal level, the bells and whistles of some suburban communities and maybe a few of our our schools that are more up to date, but just it deals with the psyche of the students when they're in environments that are not, in some instances, conducive to to learning and or for them to participate in sports. So I hope I look forward to seeing that and make sure that that that's a part of it. But when I think about sports, whether it's art, whether it's the use of science, modalities, for the lack of a better word right now, art, dance, etc. So just, just thinking through that, that that is part of the culture and the students experience if they're in programs that they're using sub par materials and or the facilities, but we know I look forward to the answer on the shower. That's that's a basic human need, yeah,

and Thank you. Member K diagno, just to piggyback on that, I know Dr Taylor and I were here last week for an event, and the community was able to come into East English village Preparatory Academy at Finney, and they were wild. They were wild. And so we, you know, most probably talked about how this should be the standard for our students when they go to school, and they just really couldn't believe that this is what the building looks like on the inside. Many of them had not been to this space. So you. Absolutely right. Member gay diagonal on your facilities being a part of your experience. So I would love to see where that data comes from as well. My question Dr Vitti was around on school safety, so is it about the perception of feeling safe at school, or does this dig deeper into actual cases or incidents that are reported.

I would say both. I mean, if you you know having talked to students, and I know you talk to students, I think it's a combination of both, meaning, it's sometimes the perception, and then it's their reaction to actual events that they're exposed to or that they see in their own building. So I would say both to answer your question.

So then the second part of my question is around, have we thought about having opportunities where our public safety team and even school level leadership can talk to our young people, whether that's in a town hall form or any nature of that, to kind of hear from students, to know why, why the why? Like, why don't you feel safe in your learning environment? And then looking at ways to unpack that so that we can address those issues.

Well, as you know, we do have officers that are in schools. They you know, they do go into classrooms to talk to students. I think the opportunity here is to use the questions in the survey as we've been talking to principals, is unpack the questions with the students and use their voice to tell you why they respond the way they do in the survey, not in a punitive way, but as a learning opportunity way, which is, why do you feel this way? What has happened at the school, what doesn't happen at the school, and how do we work together to improve that at the individual school? And then you work to actually improve that throughout the school year? I think you know when you when you talk to our students, they'll bring up a number of different things. Some it's what flows into the school from the greater community, so that that's obviously plays a role. At times, it's bullying that they experience in the individual classroom, you know, cafeteria at the school, in general, cyber bullying. It could also be fights that has happened at the school, or incidents that have happened right out after the school, or after school out, you know, in the school area. But, you know, moving forward, I think the opportunity again, is to unpack the questions directly, engage students in small groups, assemblies by grade level. I think it's, it's, you know, when we talk about what we did after the pandemic, we have definitely increased the number of security guards in schools, not police officers, but security guards, so that we have more adults in hallways, more adults in the cafeteria. You know, the budget will only go so far, but we definitely have increased that number. We've slightly increased the number of police officers to get more coverage in neighborhood high schools in particular, some principals still feel, and I know even some board members feel that we should think about, you know, a permanent police officer in each high school and maybe in some of the K eights. This came up at the AP meeting that I had just a couple days ago with the assistant principal. Assistant principals. I mean, I think when we go into next year's budget, if we want to go deeper, there we can, but we're at a point as always, what we're going to take off the table. I don't think that this is solved just by putting a police officer when you look at this data, but, you know, principals have been saying, We've responded. We need a stronger code of conduct. We need to take a stronger stance on on fighting. We need to take a stronger stance on multiple examples of bullying. We need to take a stronger stance on adults being threatened or hit, or even other students being threatened. And we've done that. So I feel that we have been responsive to what school administrators need, I think the next step is to have more authentic conversations with students and then do things different at individual schools based on what they're saying. And part of it's more support for principals on how to do that, and more accountability. So it's both, especially when we think about the mentor principals and climate and culture. This is also linked to climate culture. So when we think about the mentor principles, helping the struggling and new principals, it's also using contracted services to work more in an executive coaching way with certain principals whose data is lower in some of these areas. So it's all part of our major emphasis next year. It's not about abandoning literacy or math or college readiness rates or graduation rates. It's really about still focusing on those things, but not abandoning climate and culture and over emphasizing or putting more emphasis on climate and culture. And I think the challenge for our students. Is having them feel more safe, which is linked to climate and culture,

right? Because I think if we look at a if we were to look at a diagram, the ecosystem, infrastructure, feeling of safety, all of that would actually, for some people, lead into them being a better student, or them feeling like they, you know, they don't have to act out on certain things, because if we dig deeper, I'm sure we could get to the root of the problem, and it might actually be something we could actually fix on our end. So I just want to lift that up. I don't know, any more questions or comments for superintendent, if not the chair entertain a motion to accept the Superintendent's report. Is there support? It's been properly moved by Vice President Stallworth and supported by Dr Taylor. Any discussion all those in favor of the motion on the floor? Signify by saying, aye, any opposed motion carried. Thank you. We look forward to the fall as we get ready to prepare for our new student ambassadors as well, after they come back to school and go through the process of recommendations and interviews, we look forward to bringing those young people forward to our community. The next item on the agenda is public comment. I I 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 TODAY. Public Comment registration closed at 541 for those in person, the Chair will call the names of individuals to address the board in the order received. Please remain seated until your name is called. For those who are joining us virtually, virtual public comment will be facilitated through the Zoom webinar. Miss Drake facilitates that the Lincoln phone number for which can be accessed at Detroit, K twelve.org, backslash board meetings. Individuals wishing to address address the Board may do so by choosing one of the two options. One through your computer, you can select the Raise Your Hand option on the screen, or two through your telephone, you can press star nine, and that raises your hand on the telephone, the meeting administrator will select the individuals in order to receive you will remain muted until it is your time to speak. All comments 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 require 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, Vanya Moore at Vanya dot Moore at Detroit K twelve.org We will now move into those who are joining us in person. So we do have two mics. So if we could have Emma Holland, Bolton and Yolanda, Yolanda peoples to one mic, and Michelle George and DeAndre France to the other mic, please. So Emma Holland, Bolton and Yolanda peoples to one mic, and Michelle George and DeAndre France to the other mic, please.

Should be five minutes. I'm sorry, I'm speaking for a group. I took your suggestion. Okay? And

then Which group are you speaking for? Are

they circle?

Are they or all those who were here for Thurgood to stand up and speak? Please stand.

I also asked for five minutes because I have a speech in Parliament, and because of ADA regulations, I need to be allowed to get more times, please.

Thank you, Miss peoples. I absolutely hear you and go ahead. Miss Emma Bolton, I see your team. Go ahead.

Okay, hi. My

name is Emma Howland Bolton, and I've been teaching with the district for 15 years. I live a few blocks from my school and I often walk to work. I run the Thurgood food and flower garden as well as our native pollinator garden, which is a registered monarch way station. It is truly an honor to teach and learn alongside my fourth graders. Every year I try new things, I hone my craft, abandon outdated practices, revisit beloved traditions, and try to be as present as I possibly can. My students are the same every year in the sense that they're always brilliant and hilarious and weird and tremendous, and they're also always different individual young people whose needs change as times change, and who bring different and new strengths to our learning space, as you all have experienced. I will invite anyone and everyone into my classroom because I want them to. See the incredible work my students do every day, and I want my students to know that the work they're doing is so important that people want to come and see them do it. I also open my classroom to all comers, because I'm always seeking to improve as an educator. Fresh Eyes and new perspectives enrich my teaching. Anyone who has ever been in my classroom knows I welcome feedback from all sides, and I aggressively seek student, parent and administrator input. When I get suggestions for changes in my teaching or implementation of the curriculum, I work quickly to put those in place, and this is because my job is incredibly important, and my students deserve the very best. In my 15 years as an educator, I have only ever been rated highly effective or effective. This is in part because I am a voracious collector of data, and I spend a lot of time on my practice, praxis, which involves a tremendous amount of reflection, action and reflection. Again, if it's not clear yet, I love my job. I do not want to do anything else or be anywhere else. My plan is to teach fourth grade at Thurgood until I am old and gray last year, a reluctant but determined coalition comprised of the circle community took it upon ourselves to get our principal replaced. We did not take this on lightly. We did it with heavy hearts for a number of reasons, including not wanting to destabilize our school and not wanting to invite retaliation from central office. We did it because we knew it was the right thing to do for our students, our school, each other and our community, and we were successful. Our former principal was suspended without pay during the last month of the school year. Because of this, she was unable to complete our final observations and final evaluation debriefs. We were told by central office that, in accordance with Michigan law, every member of the staff would receive an effective default grade like the rest of my colleagues. My final observation was never completed, and I was never given the opportunity to participate. Opportunity to participate in my final debrief, which, by the way, I look forward to every year. However, despite the fact that my evaluation was incomplete, my evaluation was submitted to the state, not by my former principal, because she was suspended without pay, but by central office employee Sanjay Morty, because my evaluation was incomplete when it was submitted by the central office employee, I received my first ever minimally effective evaluation score. This is despite the fact that all of my observations that were completed last year were overwhelmingly positive, and despite the fact that, like the rest of my colleagues, and according to state law, I should have received a default effective rating. I would assume this was a clerical error, except that Dr Vitti refuses to fix it, which makes it look like an awful lot, like retaliation. I'm rated highly effective, or effective for 15 years, and then the first year that I speak out about graft and corruption at the district level, my incomplete evaluation is submitted to the state by a central office employee I've never met, and I am deemed minimally effective for the first time when kids in my class are in conflict or having a hard time, sometimes we bring in their grown ups, not as punishment, but because sometimes you need backup. Sometimes you need someone in your corner, encouraging you to be the best version of yourself and holding you while you grow. It would appear that similarly, Dr vide needs an adult, and as members of the board, it's your job to support him in improving. He clearly needs support following Michigan law. In this instance, the appeals process is for evaluations that have been duly completed and submitted, which is not the case with mine. I did fill out an appeal, but because, again, according to Michigan law, my incomplete evaluation should never been submitted, the appeal process doesn't address my issue. Interestingly, the appeals team includes Kenya avant and Sanjay Murthy, who are the same people who went in and submitted my incomplete evaluation to the state in the first place. Unfortunately, because our superintendent bears a striking resemblance to a certain former president in that he will take almost any opportunity to publicly lie, we have created similar to the one that CNN uses for Trump, a public lie tracker for Viti where we're able to debunk and demystify the false claims vivid makes at board meetings as a matter of public record to explain away his behavior and the culture of fear and abuse he fosters and maintains in the district. I am sad that this is necessary, since it is however, I would ask the board not to take his word for it, and instead to investigate what's happening with our evaluations at their goal themselves. You're meant to be a check and a balance to be these power and it's time you started acting like it, rather than mimicking Trump's cabinet of yes men and sycophants. You can do this. You can be the board we need you to be. Our students are counting on you.

Thank you. MS, Bolton, so you were speaking for the entire group, the entire group, the sentiment of the entire group. Okay, thank you. Miss peoples. Go ahead. Yes, Miss peoples,

yes,

wait. Is the mic on? I'm sorry it's on. Okay, go ahead. Miss peoples, take your time.

I'm I've got a phone call from a parent in my neighborhood about clothing a moving Robinson middle school. I went to a meeting they're going to rebuild the school on Jefferson. Was it a highly probable role with many accidents. Then put the children at risk of injury and getting hit by cars, also the cars, cars can school was closed and shut down and moved inside agreements Robinson, but they are not going to rename the school after the doctor for the first black person that sat on the school board. So the parents were asked for that also attended a meeting where they're going to build a building without showers middle school children are hormonal and funky. They mean to take showers when they get out of the gym for hygiene purposes, but they're building a brand new school without showers, without protection for traveling. Down Jefferson. Most of the children are bused in a come for the Jefferson square in the neighborhood. They can easily walk to the building right now without going without worrying about our traffic is inside of the neighborhood protected from the other traffic on Jefferson, but the parents was really concerned about our children. Her children are getting grades for districts. They cannot go to Zoo by themselves. She has to walk them. She worried about that. They're going to be put into a space where go like me and Davis arrow says is right now the senior citizen apartment building behind there, you can look down the road, cars crash. It's at the gate every year, multiple times per year, right where the children have to walk to get to that new building that plan to build well. So one thing I want to ask for the parent, for the sours, for the school, for the buildings that remain the after name, after Dr Remus Robinson, the first black school board member from Detroit, and also to keep the school where it's at in this place where it's at, because a developer wants to turn that area into private property, apartments and houses for people, not affordable for the neighborhood, but bringing in people who don't have a place to live right now, so I feel the rest of my time.

Thank you Miss Peebles. Appreciate you. DeAndre France and nurse Michelle. George, uh huh, or you can wait. You can stay there. Nurse George,

first, I'd like to say thank you to Doctor Beatty and the board members. I'm a DPS graduate. I went to Persian High School as a now run a party rental business, and I deal with a number of Detroit Public Schools with their field days. I'm here to speak on a positive note. I did a job with Davidson Elementary and the staff there was immaculate. Normally, I just do a drop off and pick up, but this day, they ran on my track list train, so I was able to play the fly on the wall. And it was just amazing how the staff worked with the kids, also the things that they were doing. It was at one point they ran out of snow cone. The material for the snow cone, and when it made they own for the kids, it was just crazy how they really cared. The staff was so gentle with them, and it was just amazing day, just to see it and to be from DPS and to interact with those teachers and everybody that was over, they continuously called just to make sure everything went well. It was a smooth process, and I was just amazed on how it turned out. That's what I wanted to speak to. Thank

you, Mr. Friends, you said, Davidson, yeah, okay, principal Coleman, thank you so much. So we have Michelle George to one mic, and if we could have Russ Belan and Ivy horn to the other mic. Please, Mr. Belan, you can stay there.

Hi. Good afternoon to President Mayberry. This honorable Board, Dr Vitti, so I just want to make a comment. First of all, do want to thank the school board about the raises for the teachers. So that helped a lot. So thank you for that. But I want to talk about, as I was listening to some of the concerns. It is important. I don't know why the schools don't have showers, one of the things with students, and we are seeing, of course, a lot, a high case of viruses and everything going around. Kids who are clean with their hygiene also protects teachers from getting sick. So hopefully these schools that are not adequate. I know my family went to Farmington, my nieces and nephews so clean showers, so I don't understand why the same sentiment is not done for Detroit schools when I'm on the Financial Review Commission, and I do appreciate Dr Vita report that there's a lot of money that's being done with the school. So I think when it comes to safety, that should be done first, if you're building new schools, you should have showers in the schools also, as we're seeing, billions of dollars, because we know there's a lot of money through tax abatements that are being done with our taxes, and that's something we're going to be pressing our city council for. I got some more notes here the football fields. Now, I know you all had your retreat. I was at the retreat that you all had about with cats tech. But it's very crucial. My brother's a track coach at one of the suburbs school, suburban schools. It's very crucial that these kids are competing with other schools, that they should have adequate track, because you can have injuries. You can have concussions, so injuries before, you know, before they go to college. So I'm hoping that will be done. I know this board has the power to see what is going on in these schools. It is very critical that this is all a safety issue. So hopefully going forward, when I hear things like tracks schools are not being adequate. It is the kind of systemic racism for urban schools we should have the same par As other schools, the same things that we expect from our children, and when children come in schools and facilities that are that are not clean, it does. It can affect their literacy. It can affect how they relate at home. So we should have the same standards for our our schools as well as the schools that other children attend. So hopefully, as a board, with the power that you all have, I would like for you to hone in on that all of the complaints as Miss peoples mentioned about showers, that is crucial. And I'm telling you right now, we are going to run into a situation in our schools. Covid rates are up. I want to say that so as the kids come back in school, you may see the rates rise. So I would say just making sure you're teaching hand hygiene and a lot of things that also is high as Hand, Foot and Mouth Disease.

Thank you, Nurse George, we have Russ Berlant and Ivy horn. Mr. Berlant,

good evening. I won't need three minutes I want to take acknowledgement that library had 85% voter support at the polls on its millage renewal. There was a citizens effort the library, of course, can't lobby for a yes vote, but they explained cities our services and to the to the community, and many community organizations, including ours, worked extensively across the city to make sure that they understood that without a millage, you don't have a library system, and we had people resisting supporting it because of tax captures. And we explained, if you're against tax captures, which do cost the library? We've we've done the calculations, the libraries lost $54 million from captures and abatements over the last decade that you can't vote against the millage for that reason, because you're making it even worse than the tax captures. We're sympathetic and have looked at the cost to the school district of tax captures and tax abatements, and our data shows it's about $347 million right now, and we think that the stage of development that the city is at, and Tom there's voices downtown, the legislative policy division of the city council said that, you know, this needs to be looked at again, because we. The tax dollars that the people voted for for and or approved and pay for the school district to be solely the province of the school district. And we understand you'll have a ballot issue about on the November ballot about that, and we want to support you fully in getting any corrections that are needed and working with our legislators, which we've effectively done for some time, to modify public act 57 of 2018 to protect our education systems. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Veron and all the work that's being done by the Commission and lobbyists and stakeholders, we have Ivy

horn, good evening, Dr Beatty and dpscd board. I am Ivy horn from the College for Creative Studies and the education and outreach coordinate manager for the community arts partnerships department at the College for Creative Studies. I am here tonight just to introduce to you some of the wonderful programs that we do have that are free as well as we are a vendor with dpscd, and we are available for upon request from any administrator from any of the schools to come in and offer and teach art to our young people. We have so many opportunities that each year that just go unnoticed, okay, from the college that we are offering for young people. So those individuals or schools or or some of our wonderful, talented young people. We have talent everywhere they the door opens up for Saturday programs for middle school students from that's offered at old Redford library each Saturday from 1030 to 130 I mean, I'm sorry, 10 to one and then from 130 to 330 at Detroit community for high school as well as college level students workshops. So these workshops are offered every Saturday throughout the school year, and it opens the door for training, for advancement, and really helping students to move to the next level in their developing their portfolios, as well as helping with the interest in two colleges. The next opportunity, of course, it opens up the doors for summer employment, for which I have 25 young people right now doing murals around the city of Detroit. So as well as scholarships that's offered through continuing ed, this is opportunity for leadership and helping them to really hone in on their portfolios that our admissions officer reviews and gives them immediate feedback so they can move that forward on into admissions. We have several that have been granted full rides to the College for Creative Studies to further their art education. So we're very proud of them. They have many of them have been recognized for their murals that they have done for the Grand Prix that was recently here. So and we have just the talent and the opportunities is there. I like for all students in Detroit public schools to be I want this to be available to them. I have information that I will leave for for the administrators in dpscd, as well as for vendors. They can request us. I have the information on how to bring in an art club to their schools. Thank you very much.

Thank you. We have Mr. James Todd. I'm sorry, James Ford. James Ford, I'm sorry.

Oh, yeah. Mother Moore.

Mother Moore, can you go to one mic as well please?

My name is James Ford, and I concur with Miss George and other lady that spoke about the showers in the schools. I was coached for 30 years over at Henry Ford High School and Detroit Redford High School. They are talking things that are definitely true. I just want to say this. I would like first for you all to Google Detroit Red lights. When you get a chance, Google Detroit Red lights. And my phone number is 586-918-3061, I just want to say this, it's hard to tell a parent that our child is not coming home from school. It's hard to tell a child or a parent or anybody that somebody is not coming home that day. You know, Detroit has a red light. Drag Racing problem. And most people in here have children. You all have skin in the game. You all have children that go to school in the city. You all have children that ride the bus and ride in the back of cars. I want to bring this to your attention. We're going to Lansing September 18. We're going to stand up for blatant red light running. Stand Up Against blatant red light running and drag racing. It is terrible. I have seen a car run through a funeral procession. I've seen a car go through a house and there were bodies laying out on six and seven mile a couple of weeks ago, we all got to stand up. We got to ask the legislators up in Lansing to enforce the old laws and stand and make some new laws for our babies. I want to ask everybody in here to go stand in the mirror. I want you to stand in the mirror when you go home and ask yourself, How can you not go to Lance in September 18, to stand up for your children? Because either you going to stand up for your children or you going to get ran over. Imma say that one more time to everybody in here. You're gonna stand up, or you're gonna keep getting ran over. They're making left turns out of right turn lanes, right turns out of left turn lanes, and they pass it in the bike lanes. September 18 is the time to go to Lansing. How can you, and I'm gonna say this, and I'll be through, how can you strap your child in the back of a car, and they're running into a back of cars vehemently. They're not even taking any pause. They're running again, getting out running. How can you do that? And how can you invite your relatives that come from other cities into this city? How can you invite them into a death trap? Either you gonna go to Lansing September 18 and stand up for your children, or you going to get them and yourself ran down and your relatives that you not protected. God bless everybody in here. And I want you to go look in the mirror and ask yourself, why are you not going to Lansing on September 18 and have a voice? God bless everybody. And thank you. Thank

you, Mister for mother Moore, go ahead.

Yeah, this is, this is urgent. I had plenty of issues to talk about, but this one you're dealing with tonight. In recent weeks, the finance academic committees of the school board for the Detroit Public School Districts have considered a proposal from administration to contract with paper over $168,000 the full school board is expected to vote on the contract at a meeting tonight, the company would provide online tutoring for high school students three days a week, while another company called Brain Trust tutors would provide tutoring for language learners and grades K to eight paper one of the biggest virtual tutoring companies in the United States, wrote to prominence in recent years as school districts across the country scramble to help students recover from the academic losses they experienced during the pandemic. The company says that it provides one on one services with tutors who have subject area expertise. Some districts, however, have pulled out of the contracts with the paper after parents, students and educators complained about the quality of the service. Complaints include that too few students use the service and that some students struggled to use the mostly text based chat for help. Tutors also were working with more than one student at a time. The company has said it works with 300 school districts in the United States and Canada, as well as the states of Tennessee and Mississippi. Sonia Mays chairperson of the board's Finance Committee raised questions about the paper contract during the July 26 committee meeting, Mays questioned superintendent Nikolai Beatty about a fairly negative article about the Columbus school district's experience with paper they pulled the contract and cost less than 10% the student logged into it, which is not a really good use of money. I have one more minute, and I think I'll make it in time. Anyway, we're going to go on through with this contract tonight. I hope not. You need to look at what's happening in Detroit. Well, Keeper, let's read program. We have a good program going, and some of it should have been mentioned tonight, some of the things that are happening in the school district. I'm asking you not to vote for this contract with these people, because they got a bad reputation. And I need to know, are we spending part of the money that we made from the lawsuit for this contract. If we are don't do it. That's why I wanted to speak to all of you. Some of you are against this contract. Stand up. You don't. We don't need it right now, and it's not a good contract. And everybody that's called me, including the newspaper, people that they. Ask me to speak to you all and tell you, don't use up our money. Use the money for the

children. Thank you, Mother Moore, and we have one more in person. Miss Nita Garrett, my

name, is Nita Garrett, and this is my autistic son, Stanley Garrett, and this year, my song was videotaped as some athletes over at Martin Luther King High School. Now I've sat here and heard everybody speaking this meeting, but I've heard no one speak up for the ASD community. Three out of every 10 children is born with autism as as superiors and people that sit on the board. You guys had a moral obligation in the schools to protect my son when I made the school aware of this problem, I asked that something be put out to the district to protect these children. My son was sexually assaulted. I fought and I fought and I fought. Nibby, Ashby, Derek Lopez Imma call him by their names. Treated me terrible, and I was a victim. DPS chose to protect these athletes at this school. I'm horrified. Since this happened, I've been out in the streets. I'm from Detroit. I'm from Detroit, born and raised in the Brewster projects. I've been all over Detroit, east side, west side. This is not a ASD issue. They have been taking pictures of our children. DPS, you have a moral obligation and a responsibility to protect our children. So I'm here not just to speak up for my son, but to speak up for all ASD kids. I asked immediately after this happened, put some out to the district so we can't prevent this. I heard y'all talk about the showers. I heard y'all talk about the snow, cause I had nice I've heard no one, no one, speak up for the ASD community. My job is to protect my son. These athletes video his whole nobody in the bathroom, and I asked immediately, district put something out. And turn, I was treated terrible by DPS with no I'm talking about it leaves me breathless, sometimes even to think about as a human and as a supporter of a child that I'm supposed to protect. And DPD had an obligation. He was violated title title nine, then standing with him against DPS. I came to the school, I went down to VD office and he ain't said it, put his head up at nobody who done spoke on this mic, not one time. That shows me the interest that this man have in protecting us. I voted for him, and I would never do it again. We give people in these high places who really don't have

we definitely heard you miss carrot. So please know that we have some online public commenters too, if you can stay for a moment so we can address it. Thank you, Miss Miss Drake, can you go to the online public commenters, please, and then we could address all public comments made tonight at one time.

Hi Caller, please go ahead with your public comment. Yes.

Hi

Caller, please go ahead with your public comment.

Madam Chair, if you could let Miss Garrett know as she's walking out, we will address

the comments I said that she said she was leaving.

Can somebody get Miss Garrett's information

to the chair board members? We've met with MS Garrett multiple times. We've investigated the incident several times through different lenses, and I believe I had given you a heads up that this was an incident. I can talk more about it later, if you'd like. Thank

you, please. Thank you. Go ahead. Ms Drake,

hi, Robbie, please go ahead with your spouse. Public comment,

Alright, I'm ready to go. Please. Thank you. Good evening.

Drake.

Hi, Robbie. Please go ahead with this public comment.

Good evening. My name is Robbie. I will be sharing the collected data on superintendent Nicola Nicolai feeding from the give the school board a grade initiative. 0% of people surveyed believe Dr Beatty earned an A. 0% of people surveyed believe Dr beat earned a B grade. 0% of people surveyed believe Dr Beatty earned a C grade. 13% of people surveyed believed Dr Beatty earned a D grade, and 87% of surveyed students, staff parents believed that superintendent Beatty earned an overall F grade for his conduct on the board, Dr Beatty receives a majority failing grade the 2023 24 school year, when asked why constituents believed superintendent DeeDee had earned his failing grade. They pointed to how comfortable he is opening line to the press, the public and his own constituents. One respondent simply stated boo, which was the most succinct summary of the majority opinion. The following is a selection of submitted stakeholder comments. Quote, I am disappointed in the board for extending the contract of someone who has lied to the public and does not seem to care about the conditions within school he is supposed to lead. Quote, Beatty protected an abuser. He should not be a public steward. Quote, he hardly makes any kind eye contact, Beatty was on his phone or computer for the whole meeting. He didn't really address the issues that were brought up in public comment. He invalidated a number of people's concerns by outright lying. He is complacent in pushing an agenda that keeps black and inner city kids from receiving quality education and continues denying students a safe, fun experience in school. Quote, FIDE is disinterested in teachers being bullied. He thinks workshops with your entire principals, an absurd line of thought. He thinks mystery to teachers can significantly approve test scores when they are stressed due to abuse from his principals. Quote, The ME TOO movement is going to have a field day with DeeDee and the entire school board for enabling him. Whoa, he doesn't listen to students or stakeholders. Quote, he is doing his own thing. His school aged children don't even attend dpscd. Quote, Beatty is too comfortable lying, just like straight up publicly on the record lying. Quote, Dr Beatty is corrupt, uncaring, not transparent, and very undeserving of all these raises. I look at him and see an official who is phoning it in hard. Quote, he is unwilling to address legitimate feedback and concerns over abuse of power from people in the district who are in positions of authority. Quote, Beatty is a liar who isn't following his job description. Quote, he's literally the worst. The fact that the board would extend his contract in secret two years before it's even up, says everything you need to know. Quote, Beatty is and has been encouraging the toxic work environment from his administrators under his leadership. Quote, very weak.

Hi, Miss. Sheena Crenshaw, please go ahead with your public comment.

Good evening. My name is Sheena. I will be sharing some collective data on school board member, Bishop Vaughn from the give the school board a grade initiative, which is a data collecting collaboration between dpscd students, parents, staff and community members. 1% of people surveyed believe Bishop Vaughn earned an A, 5% of respondents gave board member Vaughn A B, grade. 8% gave Bishop Vaughn a C, 26 of constituents awarded Vaughn A D, and 58% of surveyed students, staff and parents believe Bishop Vaughn earned an overall F grade for her conduct on the board. Bishop Vaughn receives a majority failing grade for the 2023 24 school year. When asked why constituents believed Bishop Vaughn had earned her grade while one respondent pointed out that she is attentive to the process and agenda items, others are concerned that she seems to rubber stamp the superintendent's directives and publicly support school leaders who have been credibly accused of abuse. The following is the selection of submitted stakeholder comments. Bishop bone left during public comment. She refuses to hold the superintendent accountable. However, she is the only board member that looked like she wanted to take pictures with the kids. She sent me an email during the school board meeting she didn't even acknowledge. What I had sent her. Eye contact was minimal. Vaughn is another yes person for the superintendent's agenda. She just didn't seem engaged in the board meeting. She did not intervene with the elementary school did not have recess for five years. Board Member, Vaughn, is on her phone too much. She didn't really make eye contact. I expect more from her. Why isn't she standing up for the students and teachers she's supposed to protect and support? She is not paying attention. Weak academic leadership. She didn't say anything. She didn't speak up to address any questions made during public comment or demonstrate any critical evaluation of agenda items through discussion. She loves Dr Beatty more than the students. She has been responsive to my emails and concerns Beatty's contract renewal is too soon she sleeps in board meetings long seemed uninterested. She has voiced how much she loves and supports Dr Vitti, apparently, Bishop Vaughn has adopted a mindset that she works for Dr Vitti, and that's the end of the quotes. And our question to board member Vaughn is, What steps will you take to improve your failing grade? I am asking you to create a system of accountability for district leaders like yourself, not as a punitive measure, but to help you to live up to the expectations of DPS. CD,

Clarissa, Grimes, please go ahead with your public comment. You

thank you so much. Good evening. My name is Clarissa Grimes. I am a Detroit resident, and I will be sharing the collected data on school board vice president Misha stall worth, from the give the school board a grade initiative. Miss Stallworth received 64% on overall F grade for her conduct on the board, 28% awarded her a D, and 8% awarded her a C, Ms. Stall worth receives majority failing grade for the entire 23 to 24 school year. And when asked why they were giving her these grades, they point you to the fact that she's occasionally advocated for common sense measures on the board, she's largely absent and missing in action, and it seems many people feel that she's fully abdicated her role and responsibility to Detroit school children. I am not really sure if she's here today because she wasn't present during roll call, and I haven't heard her say anything since, but I did want to say, Miss Star Wars. I know you're not running for re election, but I wonder what you believe your legacy on the school board is because you still have time to live up to the trust your constituents put in you when they elected you. And I want to ask you to create a system of accountability for whoever it is elected to fill your shoes. No school board member should earn a failing grade from their stakeholders, and it's not too late for you to do right by the children you were elected to advocate for and protect. I know that it may seem like you all have a lot stacked up against you, and it may seem like there isn't a lot you can do to improve the situation here in Detroit public schools. But if you think you're hopeless, like, how do you think we feel have no power? You are literally the ones who have the power, and we are asking you to do better. I yield the rest of my time. Thank you.

Hi, Aliyah Moore, please go ahead with your public comment.

Yes. Can you hear me? Yes, ma'am, yes.

Ma'am.

Good evening. Board. Doctor Viti, thank you so much for this virtual option. And not only do we have a virtual option, we actually have notes on the virtual option to let people actually know what's going on. I don't have a timer, so I mean, I'll just say what I need to say. I do have a few questions. As far as the cell phone tower revenue, we still have not yet seen a presentation as promised by our president, so we're still looking for that. As far as Paul Robeson Malcolm X Academy, their former building on grove. What happened to the school's budget? Does that transfer to the new CMA location that they're going to be at? If that's the case, then there should be two budgets, or are they merged into one? My whole ideal to speak about that is to talk about the carpeting in certain areas, preferably the parent room. That could have been the pre K room, but that's a whole nother topic. I was Taylor insured me via email that she would walk with us through this transition. So I'm hoping that she walked through the CMA and actually saw the carpet and any other things that look troubling as far as the. AC. The projections to complete AC for all buildings was approximately five years. We are deep what until year three or four. So just wanting to know the status of the AC units and how many schools still need AC, my clock is still not clicking as far as the cohort schools. You know, some of our cohort schools that we really don't talk about, they have a deadline of achieving certain milestones by 2025 what is the status of our cohort schools? And then lastly, I do hope that this never happens again while we're using donated money that you double book programs in the summer so that my daughter and others will not ever be able to miss the opportunity to go to summer school. And then lastly, with this contract, you all don't vote for this thing with this virtual tutors covid, you all wanted to say the kids couldn't come back in the buildings. They gotta come back in the buildings, but now they're going to come back to be virtual, and then the culture and climate retreat, really and honestly should be when the new board members come in, because on your main feels like a lot of things that are being said are just speculation or illusion and not necessarily reality. So that's a Dangerous Mind space to be able to try to revamp a culture and climate before she leaves. I don't even know how much time I have, 12 seconds. Yes, ma'am, thank you. And then basically, don't vote for this contract quick to learn was the same method. They don't get paid until success, but I Renetta Wright was able to tear up.

Hi, Julia solson, please go ahead with your public comment.

Hello, Julia from Hamtramck, active community member in Detroit as well. I will be sharing the collected data on school board member Sonia Mays from the Kiva board a grade initiative, 0% of people surveyed believe Ms Mays earned an A. 3% of respondents gave ms Mays A, b8, gave her a C. 33% of constituents awarded me as a D, and 56 of surveyed students, staff and parents believe Miss Mays earned an overall F grade for her conduct on the board, Miss may receives a majority failing grade for the 2023 24 school year. Why? Well, people surveyed felt that Mays does not demonstrate appropriate care or concern for her constituents and doesn't appear engaged in the meetings. She was criticized for not intervening on behalf of students. Many people also deemed seemed confused concerning this board member, since she, quote, rarely speaks in board meetings. End quote, when given the chance to comment on board member, Mays, one person simply commented. Quote, who I'm going to read some additional comments from this survey that are from students, staff and members of the dpscd community. Miss Mays didn't speak up. No eye contact on her phone at times. Mays did not respond to assertations that an elementary school did not have recess for five years, not paying attention, lack of interest in students and district, out of touch with community, didn't say anything. Seemed mostly engaged in the agenda, but didn't speak up to demonstrate critical understanding of any issues. Sonia Mays hasn't responded to my concerns. Absent, she approved VDS contract too soon, she seldom speaks at school board meetings. So as we know, Ms Mays, you are not running for re election, but as other commenters have asked other board members, we want you to think about what your legacy on the board is. There's still time to create a culture of care for students and the school's constituents. So will you stand up for people who elected you before you leave the dpscd board, I yield my time.

Kristen Kirk. See, please go ahead with your public comment.

Good evening. My name is Kristen Kirk. See. I'll be sharing the collective data on school board member Sherry gay Deno. No from the give the school board a grade initiative. 37% of people surveyed believe Miss Gay de novo earned an A 30% of respondents gay board member. Gay degno A, B, grade. 11% gave gay degno A, C. 11% of constituents awarded ms gaye degno A, D, and 12% of surveyed students, staff and parents believe board member gay degno earned an overall F grade for her conduct on the board Sherry gay Detroit has the distinction among board members of earning a passing grade for the 2020, 2023, 2024, school year, when asked why constituents believed Miss Gay Dog No Go had earned her grade, while some people feel she's not always responsive or paying attention and can be hard to get a hold of others pointed to the fact that she is frequently the only member of the board who asks questions. Many made mention of the fact that she was also the only member of the school board who did not vote to extend superintendent B's contract, and a surprise move by the rest of the board two years before his contract was up, most stakeholders feel Sherry has their best interests at heart and is the only member of the board willing to check the power of the superintendent. The following is a selection of submitted stakeholder comments. Quote, Sherry does question and ask for transparency. She was the only one who cared in March, though there were times she didn't make eye contact, she still acknowledged the issues that were being brought up. She also questioned the renewal of these position. Gay dignogo seems to actually care about teachers. Since she's the only person on the board who actually did her job and didn't vote to extend VDS contract, I have some hope, but we're expecting a lot more from you. Miss Gay dig, no go, show us we're not hoping in vain. The students need your leadership, continuing the quotes board member gay dig, nogo is the only board member that speaks up. She is the only voice for the people. Gay dog, no go was the only board member to address concerns directly and affirm that there must be issues that circle worthy of efficient investigation and action, given that so many teachers share their testimonies and signed a letter of no confidence, she doesn't seem to be easy to contact outside of the meetings. However, quote, I appreciated that she spoke up about the lack of timeliness, the lack of timeline established around the district's investigative process. Get a no go is the only one who seems to care about our issues. She does ask questions about the money and also represents the students. She was one of the only other board members to respond to public comments again, rehashing reality of your point of view doesn't negate the fact that so many comments Express massive concerns and frustration. Frustrations. Sherry is for the people she

Hi, Sophia, please go ahead with your public comment. Applause.

Hi, Sophia, please go ahead with your public comment.

Hello. Good

evening. Can you hear me? Yes,

ma'am, yes, ma'am,

wonderful. Thank you so much. Good evening. Thank you so much for having this virtual option. I really appreciate that I am also here to give a school board member a grade for the give the board a grade initiative, and I am going to be sharing the collected data from students, parents, staff and community members on school board member Latrice McClendon, okay, so here we have it. 0% of people surveyed believe Ms McClendon earned an A, 1% of respondents gave ms McClendon A, B, grade. 11% gave board member McClendon A, C, grade. 31% of constituents gave her a, d, and 57 of surveyed students, staff and parents believe Ms McClendon earned an overall F for her conduct on the board, meaning she got a majority failing grade for the 2324 school year. When asked why constituents believed McClendon had earned her grade, they pointed to her lack of participation, her disconnection from the people she serves, and the fact that she hasn't spoken up for her constituents who have brought concerns to the board. However, one person did say that McClendon has been responsive to her email concerns, which is great,

so I have a selection

of stakeholder comments I'd like to get into. Quote, she's too quiet and a yes person. Quote, McClendon didn't speak up in the meeting. Quote, she was on her phone. But she is also pushing for the after school program, if I recall correctly, which is good. Could. Quote, I don't know who this person is or what she does for an elected board member. That's not a good sign. Quote, she doesn't say anything. There are many she doesn't say anything, or she hasn't said anything. Comments in this and well, the last one is, quote, start using your voice. I have yet to hear you speak. So you know basically what, what we're looking for with this grade and this initiative is ms McClellan, and we would like, we would love, to have you speak up for the people and be a more active participant on the school board, to take your duties seriously and to fulfill them, because our community is counting on you, and I will yield the rest of my time. Thank you so much,

Madam Chair, that concludes public comment.

Okay, thank you. Ms Drake, Dr Vitti, there are a couple of questions and concerns raised that we need attention to if you want to start and I will go ahead and fill in where you may omit some of the questions. Sure. Thank

you regarding ms Holland, Bolton's question, I'm just going to read directly from my email. I did answer her question on email, I stated it is my understanding that you did not receive a default effective rating because the observation information was submitted prior to the principal being suspended, despite the final debriefing meeting not occurring. The best and proper next course of action to address your evaluation concern is for you to submit an appeal. Take care and be So your question was answered. Unfortunately, you did not like my answer. But that doesn't make me a liar, so I know that you did submit an appeal. It's my understanding that the appeal, all the appeals should be heard by the end of the week, and you should receive that information back for additional context. There were other teachers at circle that received, for an example, highly effective evaluation rating, and although the final debriefing meaning did not occur, we did not want to invalidate those examples, because the final evaluate. Final debriefing did not occur. So we're trying to create actually treat everyone the same regarding the final debriefing not happening, whether they had a low evaluation rating by the principal or not, but the observation information was inputted by the principal prior to the suspension and the removal. But the final debriefing meeting just did not occur. Henry Ford showers do work. The problem is that the water was turned off because there was concerns that there wasn't a shower or tenant in the school or at the in the locker rooms. So students were raising concerns that they didn't want to take showers without an adult present that could supervise them when they were in there, and that's generally the concern across our high school. So generally speaking, students today, right or wrong, are not comfortable showering in schools. We can turn the water back on, but I'll have principal mock doc do is go back and talk to the students and talk to the student athletes, probably, and if they want the showers on, we can turn the water on. Just want to make sure everyone's comfortable. That's what was reported back to me, but the water does work, but I'll follow back up with you to let you know about the actual showers. A lot of questions about showers in schools. The new k8 will not have showers. At least the new K school buildings that are built, the new high school buildings will have showers in those new buildings. I want to clarify the 52,006 8800 989, number that I talked about current enrollment was pre K to 14th grade. 14th grade, we have 13 and 14th grade for certain ESC students in certain buildings. The K 12 number is 49,509 as of now, there were several comments about the paper contract, just for background, and I've provided this information to the board and to the media. There were negative articles, mainly in Chalkbeat, about paper. It's my understanding that districts with the flush of covid dollars and the need to provide tutoring, contracted with paper, and they were concerns about the tutoring not actually happening although contracts were paid. Dpscd manages very differently in that we moved several years ago about not paying contractors for services unless services were actually rendered, meaning you can pay a contractor next amount of money, let's say, a million dollars, for services, and sometimes those contractors get that money whether services are provided or not. Dpsdt, years ago, under this administration, made a decision that people are not paid unless actual. Services are provided, including tutoring. With that said, a lot of the concerns with paper focused on the chat feature, which was students using either their phones or a laptop, would log in and then send questions to a number of virtual tutors, and then they would respond to the student the way we're managing, or would manage the paper contract going into next year with literacy Lawsuit Funding is a focus on newcomers. So these are newly arrived students that need new support or more support, mainly in English and learning English. These tutors are certified as English language learners or teachers, and it is direct tutoring. It's not a chat box feature, so students will log on during the day, and then there'll be a tutor that also logs on, and they'll have direct engagement through computers, not a chat feature. Obviously, the board will still consider the contract, probably later today, as we go into the non consent items, but the difference moving forward for us would be paying for actual services, not an upfront contract and direct tutoring, not a chat box. Feature, I'll have to look into the carpet at the parent room at CMA, which is now the temporary Paul Robeson Malcolm X, yes, the budget does move from, let's say, the old building to the temporary building as the new building is built right now. 30% of our buildings have air conditioning. 90% will have air conditioning at the end of the FMP investments and repairs, the remaining ones that won't are schools that are older, that are more complicated in implementing an upgraded or modern HVAC system, and those that we may not need or want in Five years from now, based on enrollment patterns and facility usage, the cell tower funding is relatively the same. What I'll do is I'll share with MS Moore by email the updated numbers, and I'll copy the board so she can have it. But again, the same number of schools, minus a couple based on demolitions, but the revenue and the way we use the money is always going to be basically the same, which is paying for staff to have meals at individual schools, to pay parents and community at events, to increase participation, or we Use it for in tenant tenants, incentives for students, and that's largely how we use that revenue. Madam Chair, I don't know if I missed any question. I also want to say and just repeat we were very concerned with Miss Garrett's claims. What she stated was fairly accurate. We did investigate the issue. Students were disciplined at King. There was a disagreement about the extent of discipline, but discipline was applied, but there was a final disagreement about what ultimately should have been the discipline. We followed the code of conduct. Civil Rights did review it, and legal counsel reviewed it as well.

Thank you. Dr Vitti, I'll just add as it relates to climate and culture, you know, I know we're getting ready going to a new school year, so I'm hoping that we there are conversations that we just have to revisit every school year, and the way that we treat each other, in the way that students treat other students, has to be revisited every school year. I don't think we can over emphasize that enough, just so that people understand what the expectations are around all of our students, not just students who are ASD students, but all of our students. And so as we go into I know in previous years, we were dealing with social emotional learning, and we had all of these activities the first couple of weeks of school, and I think that is something that we need to make sure is infused throughout the school year, but just so that students understand how to treat other students who may not be just like them. So I appreciate the courageous spirit of Miss Garrett coming. I know that wasn't easy to come and and share that story. So I'm glad Miss Gary, that you came back in. And hopefully we can make this to a space where you know that the conversation is not in vain. So I appreciate that. The other thing I just wanted to lift up, I know mother Moore mentioned about les Reid. So let's read volunteers are being compensated as we go forward, because we have literacy lawsuit, and so I just want to make sure that people understand that if you are a volunteer, or interested in being a volunteer for Les Reid, you should absolutely check the district website so that you can sign up. There were a number of volunteers who were doing that work before any compensation was ever given. And. So now we have the ability to compensate for a period of time while we have this less read, these less read dollars. So for all who are interested in less read and becoming a volunteer, please make sure you go to the district website and sign up so that you can get trained and put in the school of your choice before the school year. The only other thing that I will lift up that came out of public comment is we've had conversations before about the way that people speak to each other, and so at board meetings, at school, visits, in meetings, and I think it's important that we display the behavior that we expect from our young people. Young people do also attend board meetings virtually, and I know that because when I visit schools, there are some who who make comments about them attending board meetings virtually. So even if we don't see them here, it doesn't mean that they're not watching. And so I just want to always be mindful as we talk about changing culture and climate. We heard Mr. Ford, I think was his name, talk about looking in the mirror, but I just want us to be be proud of the person knowing that young people are watching us. And so the only other thing that I will defend for the board members is I know the work that happens away from this board table, there are a lot of meetings, a lot of visits, a lot of resources that are brought to the district that will never make it here, because that's not why we do this work. And so I just want to say, Please don't be so naive to think that the only work that we do is in preparation of the board meeting, because there's so much more that happens prior to this, and I know there are individuals who are interested in doing this work, which, no, it isn't easy. Yes, we signed up for it, and I don't think anybody's running from the responsibility or the accountability. Just want us to always be mindful and not believe that we only do the work when we come to the table, that that just would not be accurate. So I just wanted to lift that up. Not sure if anybody else had anything from the board before we move into the items. Go ahead. Member K Detroit, thank

you, Madam Chair. I don't know if I misheard the response on the Remus Robinson, Ingress, egress or and, or, I should say safety and naming of the school, if that was addressed, I do remember the same issue brought during one of the parent meetings, I believe that bishop Vaughn hosted some months ago. And then there's a number another issue that was raised that evening that I don't know if it's the same as Miss Garrett or if it's another parent whose child was taking a picture on the football field. I don't know if we ever got to that. This is one of the reasons why I keep saying we need to have a staff liaison person for board members, because this is a lot of work. Hence my decision coming back was very challenging, but we need to have some way to follow up on some of these issues ongoing. So I know I raised a couple of things, the Remus Robinson piece that was brought up at that meeting some months ago. The student that was taken a picture of that was that same complaint that same night, and having a staff person that serves as a liaison to the board members. Where are we? Where are we with that?

And so thank you for lifting that up. I know in regards to Carson Dr video, if you could just lift up, I know there were several community meetings and issues raised, and we even talked about doing a traffic study, but if you could just lift up some of the summarization of those community meetings and what what came out of that,

sure. So obviously, if we want to change the name of the school, the board policy exists, and community members that are interested in if we want to change the name of Carson's, we can the policy is clear, and there's an engagement process to do that there. During the engagement community meetings for Carson's, there was concerns about Dickerson and that street possibly not being safe, we are working with the city to put speed bumps there as one way to address that concern. And then obviously, with city planning, whether it's stop signs or more red lights, we can do that as well. That has come up, but I feel that we've addressed it through those meetings on ways that we can address that if and when, not if, but when the new building is built. And again, there the name change process can be initiated if we want to change the name of the

school. And in regards to the last question, I know vice president stalwart West was working on that and working on like a job description. I don't know if you want to, if you want to give some update on that, you. Okay,

so member gay, Daniel go and I have spoken a little bit about it, and I've been working with Dr Vitti as well as our staff to come up with a draft that really takes a look at what our overall staff support needs are, because right now, we have two admin who support us in certain ways. How do they spend their day? How much of what they do reflects what we would need from that? So there's, there's some puzzle piecing happening, but I expect to have that have something to share with you all for feedback within the next few weeks.

Okay, I kind of it fell off at the end, and we can revisit it later. I just want to make sure it stays in the, you know, in queue, in the conversation we did. But it just, it's always helpful for me to, number one, revisit things, but also so that the community knows the challenges that exist in doing this work and some of the things that we're asking for so that they stay a part of the process as well.

Thank you. Member gay Detroit Nova,

go ahead,

I'm sorry. I also I didn't answer your other question. We did investigate that issue with Cody. There was an allegation that the student had to strip down at the after the practice, the football practice. We did investigate that, and there was some truth to that, and then some misinformation as well. So we did follow up. I do believe that I sent that as a follow up to the board again, but I can resend that to you. Yeah, thank you. And based on your overall concern about just managing all of this and seeing it, the constituent request system will be enhanced starting next school year, so that the board has direct assets and board assistants have direct access. So if you as an individual board member, you know, want to go back and look for what was that response on the codi issue, you can do it on your own, or, you know, you can have an assistant, or if you're adding people to the team to do that, so you don't have to do a email search yourself. Thank you. Thank

you very much. That would be

very, extremely helpful, because

we get to be extremely helpful. Because, again, the one thing that I've always said is is the communication comes. But when you have so much on your plate, just having total recall of everything that occurred or happened and or the email that you receive is not always you know at the front of my memory

that's fair and accurate. If there's nothing else, we'll move to item number 11. There is no closed session today, item 11.01 administrative terminations.

So the four who are listed, the reasoning is for expired certification and a suspended license for a therapist. So I know the board has had an opportunity to review, and the Chair will entertain a motion to accept 11.01

motion to accept the superintendent's recommendation.

Is there support? It's been properly moved by member Mays properly supported by Vice President Stallworth. To accept this is for attendance recommendation for item 11.01, any discussion, if not all those in favor of the motion on the floor signify by saying, aye, any opposed motion carries, thank you. Item 11.02

so there are two individuals on the termination for cause list. If there's the chair entertain a motion to accept the Superintendent's report for the two

support it's been properly moved by Vice President, stalwart, properly supported by member. Mays any discussion, if not all those in favor of the motion on the floor signify by saying, aye, any opposed motion carried. Thank you. We'll now go into our administrative action item. And I know these items came through committees, then there was a consensus to bring them to the full board under administrative action. So the first one is the approval of the district high school redesign plan. And I know this is one of many conversations as it relates to the additional certifications and seals and overall experience of our high school students as we try to enhance the high school experience and hear from our young people, where our young people each have a plan, individual. July's not an IEP, but it's a plan for them individually to know kind of what the pathway is, would have been extremely helpful. I was in high school, but like, what's your pathway? So you'll know kind of what classes you want to take, among other things around transition years. So if I know there's been some heavy discussion about 12.01 in committees, I don't know. Dr, video, if there's anything else you want to add before we move toward the vote? No, okay, the Chair will entertain a motion for 12.01 so

So moved. Okay. Is there support? Support? It's been properly moved by Dr Taylor, properly supported by Vice President Stallworth. Oh, no, I think you drop? What did you drop? Okay, okay. By Stallworth was yes, I'm sorry. Terrence, so is there any any discussion on the motion on the floor? Yes, go ahead. Member. Starworth, so,

so to the chairs point, there was a lot of discussion. I know in Finance Committee, I'm assuming there's probably a lot in academics. Sorry, this microphone, but it was a little hard to tell through board docs where the elements were that were reflected some of the bigger questions or concerns. For example, I know one of mine was for the arts diploma. If we know that it's really accessible to families that have made much earlier decisions about a focus on arts, how does that fit into the strategy? So that's like one example of a question that I had, but I know there were a few kind of higher categorical questions about the diplomas and things like that, and it's just not clear what updates, what changes, or what's in there?

Yeah, Madam through the chair. So I know that board members have been dealing with different things over the last couple of weeks, but I did send a comprehensive follow up email and shared it with the entire board, and tried to identify the questions that were asked in both the finance and the academic committee. I sent those as a follow up to the entire board, I believe, and so I know most of the questions came from the finance committee, and I provided those responses, there weren't any changes made to the plan necessarily based on the questions and the responses. The responses just tried to clarify different points. When I went back specifically on the question of, is the arts diploma really accessible to all high schools. I don't think that the plan gave that impression, and that was the feedback, even that staff had, but I did understand the question, the concern, but there wasn't a direct change to the plan based on that particular question. I think the bigger, larger questions seem to continue to come from Board Member Mays, and obviously she can speak for herself. I think she continues to have questions about whether we stick with the 18 credits, or do we go back to the 22 credit for graduation, and then questions around engagement, who was engaged, how they engage, and things like that. That's a follow up exchange that board member Mays and I had today right before the meeting. So even the issue of the 18 or 22 credits that would be decided through policy, not necessarily through this plan. If the board wants to consider going to a 22 credit diploma, it certainly can, but that would be done through policy. I don't, I wouldn't say that that has to be done through this plan. I think the plan is more about a framework of how to move forward in high school redesign, rather than, you know, everything in the plan is actually going to be done as it says, because even the diplomas, for example, would have to be acknowledging policy. And so when we opened the policy back up to acknowledge the diplomas, then we can also revisit the credits, but it's obviously the will of the board, depending on how you want to move forward. I felt my responsibility was to provide the high school redesign plan to you. We went through it, both through the academic and committee meetings. Academic committee approved it. Finance Committee largely seemed to be impressed by and supportive, but had questions. I felt like I answered those, but some came up right before the meeting. It's really the will of the board how you want to move forward. I would say that the questions that seem to continue that require board action. Is more about policy and naming the diplomas and considering the credits.

So I don't know where you remember Mason. Did you want to chime in? I know the email that Dr Vitti is referring to is pretty extensive, but it was sent on Wednesday, August 7, and it talks about comparison to other Tri County districts. It talks about how this will address chronic absenteeism, and so I know these were some of the concerns that were raised in both of the committees. And then it also talks about admission expectations around Detroit promise. So it's pretty extensive. The email itself with charts and graphs, but it was sent on August the seventh, at 436 to the board member Mays. Did you have anything? I'm

happy to react to that. So I'll start out by saying, at a high at a high level, I'm extremely supportive of the district and Dr Beatty's effort to rethink and reimagine our high schools. I think we are past due that. And so I just want to be clear that in in principle, I am highly supportive of what's being attempted here. There are a number of questions that I still have that I circulated, and I want to be very respectful to the rest of this body, because I was sick last week. I did go through Dr Beatty's very helpful response to my first round up to our first round of questions, but my counter to those points came a little bit earlier today. And so if other folks are ready to move forward, you know that's that's your call. I will say that I do feel strongly that for something that is going to touch so many of our students, so many of our families and so many of our school based staff, that we all should be highly comfortable about the general inputs into the plan. There's a lot of good work there. I still have questions about the credit issue, which, if this, if this body decides to handle that in a standalone policy I'm happy to work with the policy committee around those specific concerns, but I really don't understand justification for us keeping a low credit standard when everyone else in surrounding districts have moved back to 21 or 22 credits. And then the second concern that I have is, you know, again, when you are changing something that affects so much of the district, I'd like a little bit more content on whose input was put into the plan and upfront, right? So it's easy to convene a room of you know, you know, frequent principals, our star principals, our star administrators, maybe a handful of students, but there are dozens of categories of stakeholders that make our high schools successful or not successful, and I like a little bit more content on on the the the ways in which those voices inform this Plan. Again, I I am. I am not tearing this down. I am really supportive of the innovation here and what's being attempted, but I do just think a degree of caution around moving forward and making sure that everyone kind of has their questions answered, that all of the necessary stakeholder feedback was integrated, that we've really kind of thought through some of these big changes.

Thank you. Member may so dr Beatty, can you respond to that?

Sure, like I said, as board member may has indicated I got the questions right before the meeting. So I mean, they're not difficult to answer. I can walk through them now, or I can, you know, follow up in writing and share with the entire board so I have the board can see it. As I mentioned, the board member Mays wants to move from 18 credits to, I think, 22 credits. That's where we were before. It's a four credits. It's equivalent to about one class. Again, we wouldn't, the board wouldn't take action on that tonight. That has to come through policy, the questions around stakeholder engagement. So the the two pilot schools were Western and East English village. We picked those schools, obviously their neighborhood schools. And the the RE high school redesign is focused more on the neighborhood schools because that's the schools that lack the kind of programs that our students need to meet their interests and their talent. They were also picked because we felt that those principals were good problem solvers, had good relationship with their staff, and we could do things differently faster. As a pilot at those schools and. But we also engage all principals, all assistant principals, on the plan. We engage all high school teachers on the plan. That was through a large teams meeting, we had a parent engagement session with Bishop Vaughn where I went through the plan, and then mainly the student leaders went through the plan at the district level, not at individual schools. So I think one group that could be more engaged on the plan are students. But I think when we look at what informed the plan, it was the love challenge, and prepare data, the survey data that we have, which is linked to just a wider breadth of classes and elective classes that make the experience of high school more relevant, which is the big challenge, not only in dpscd, but throughout the country, there's questions about social emotional learning. That's part of the build out for next year across the district to have social emotional learning curriculum, K through 12, and lesson share that was part of the culture and climate conversation we had at the academic and the Finance Committee meeting here that will be seen in the ninth grade, with the seminar course that students will take at ninth grade, and then building on that in 10th and 11th 12th, with the advisory seminar class, there were questions about the central office or chart. So right now, just current team members are sort of picking this up, and we've used ers as a third party contractor to help build out the design. But when we start moving into implementation this year, we would be adding staff to just singularly lead this, the redesign, because we have to get into master schedule, redesign, strengthening, expanding the partnerships with Wayne County Community College and another so they're there. We're looking at over the next, I would say, two to three years, probably an additional staff of three to five in central office, and that's included in the budget more one time costs as we redesign it and implement and then beyond that will be the individual schools with staff, where you need someone to coordinate the actual visitations of colleges and making sure students are going to class and staying on top of their courses. That's more the that's all embedded in the budget, that's included in the plan. And there's questions about Edgenuity. These are big, large questions that we've been grappling with from the beginning. Edge annuity is our platform for course recovery. The one reason why we use edge annuity is because, one, it standardizes the course recovery process. In other words, the advantage of Edgenuity is we have students that know information but fail the class. So for example, you have to re teach US history or retake it at the high school level. Instead of starting from assuming the student doesn't know anything, they take a pre test, they get certain questions and topics right, and then they can go further and deeper and start right away in the curriculum, rather than showing mastery and things that they already know, which is more or less a best practice. The challenge with that is some teachers get frustrated that a student can complete an Edgenuity class much quicker than they would if they sat seat time in a class. So there's a challenge between mastery of knowledge versus seat time, and that's one ongoing challenge with Edge annuity, and that's the major challenge more than anything else. But if we abandon edge annuity, what we would see is lower rates of four year graduation, more students farther behind in courses and again, drop, higher dropout rates, less students graduating. You know, the traditional way of course recovery is you sit and retake a class. I think. One, for students, they get frustrated because they already know content. Two, they've already taken the class. And three, there's not enough time and a schedule for them to make up all the credit. So I'm quickly going through the pros and cons of edge annuity. It is not stopped as a debate. Teachers don't overwhelmingly like it, especially at the high school level. But you know, as we problem solve through it, there isn't a perfect solution. If we abandon the edge annuity or a platform based weight, of course, recovery, like I said, we'll have more students that fall farther and farther behind and eventually drop out because they'll feel like it's too hard to make up those credits. And then chronic absenteeism. I know what you asked for was a separate engagement session, which we are committed to. We'll do that when students come back. So the request, so the board knows, was to take students that are currently chronically absent at the high school level and those that have graduated and asked them directly, what are the factors that lead to you being chronically absent? So that this plan is informed by that and our practice. This is just improved generally with improving chronic absenteeism. I think that love challenge and prepared data tells us some challenges that students are having, and that leads to chronically absent students. That's broken down into question response I sent to the board, but we will go deeper, based on board member May's request, and have actual focus groups of students and then share that information. I know BOARD MEMBER What Mays want to participate in that as well, and board members are free to do that as well, just asking direct questions. I do think we have a lot of research on chronic absenteeism nationally, lots of studies in Detroit about chronic why students are chronically absent. So I don't think that we hear anything new, but it will be refreshing to hear directly from students at the beginning of the school year. So at a high level, those other questions, and at a high level, those other responses.

So thank you, Dr Vitti. Thank you, Dr Vitti, for that, and as always, thank you for

It's come a little closer. I'm sorry, sometimes

it's a shame that they, the general public, can't see the amount of detail that we get to some of our questions that are asked via email from the superintendent's office. So thank you for your responses to this. Just two quick reactions. I do think that the 18 versus 22 credits is a little bit more complicated, you know. Again, I'm sort of willing to, you know, figure this out, but I do think it's a little bit more complicated than just moving that decision over to the policy committee, because the plan really does kind of anchor into this idea that 18 is the bare minimum, and then you're picking a track with another four to 11 or 12 credits, depending on what you what you choose, what student, what a particular student chooses. I do think that that is a very different structural and decision making environment than if you say to students, in order to graduate, you have to have 22 credits, 18 that everyone takes, and then another four that you're free to four plus that you're free to track based on trade or certification or college readiness or college credits. And I think in one of your responses, there might have been a little bit of point into a little bit of an internal discussion that teachers and staff are having about the pros and cons of 18 versus 22 so I just want to lift up that I don't think that's a I think it's kind of it is kind of central to the plan design. Two more quick ones, the third. The second one is in terms of stakeholders, I didn't hear some of the functions that are adjacent to our high schools that are really important, that are really important to the smooth functioning. So I didn't really hear any participation from security, from some of our after school or like arts and PE and athletics. I didn't, I don't think I heard anything about Office of School Nutrition. So they're, they're just, I just want to make sure that these stakeholder groups that they're like, they're they're going to come at this not from a teaching pedagogy perspective. They're going to come at it from, how do we help make sure we're running an effective high school experience. And I want to make sure that those stakeholders are at least aware of these changes that are being proposed. I understand that this is mostly about academics, but those those adjacent support functions, as we know or they can sort of make or break a school, especially a high school. And then finally, the third point, on edge annuity. Is there a third way? Like, is there another alternative that we just haven't discussed? Right? So on one hand, you tell us old school course recovery, where you have to repeat the class, like in college. On the other hand, there's edge annuity, which you know, it's status not satisfactory to a lot of people. But is there some other option for course, recovery that you know we you've explored, we should be talking about?

And Dr Vitti, can I just add on to that? You can answer these both at the same time. My question was around ingenuity. So you know, in attending summer school, which so many of us do as board members, I don't want us to be so naive to think that majority of the students just didn't take care of business during the school year, like life happened to a lot of them, and it was unfortunate that for some of them, life happened, and they had to step into other spaces during the school year, so it required them to step away or not apply themselves fully because they was doing other stuff. So I just wanted to lift that up in regards to Edgenuity, although our young people are savvy and they can master content in a short period of time, versus sitting in. The seat and going over it. I don't want to, I don't want to put everybody in the same space to say that they're just taking advantage of the process. So to piggyback with member Mays, have we looked at other large urban school districts to see what else is happening? I know people often look at us to see what we're doing, but I think we're in a space of constantly evolving. So is this what other large school districts who might be experiencing these same type of challenges are doing? I know it was something noted about Chicago public schools, but Dr Vitti, as you answer, I would love to hear that perspective as well. Yeah,

there's not. There's not many different ways of doing this. You either have to take the class you know, and sit, or you use technology to define mastery and then move through individually, through the classes. I mean, there theoretically, you know, when you think of a third option. I mean, theoretically, you probably could use a technology based way like Edgenuity to define what you know and not know, and then have to sit through the course an abbreviated, you know, in person course to then, you know, address the standards that are still deficient based on the pre test. I mean, that could be a way to combine the two, but we're still talking about seat time, and then the challenge of, where do you fit it in the in the schedule? So, I mean, we've explored different ways that we go back to the same challenge. So we're not the only district that uses Edgenuity. And other districts throughout the nation are also using technology to advance to course recovery work now, during after the pandemic and in response to the pandemic, you know, we expanded after school, course, recovery, Saturday course, recovery. And so we still do that, but not at the same scale, because we've really caught up in at least from a pandemic point of view of the amount and aggregate, of course, recovery that was needed. Back to the 18 and 22 credits. You know, that would be the will of the board. If we're going to go to 22 then it's deciding. To your question, what is the other class that's required? Is that, you know four years of science and four year or four years of math? Is that an elective class? You know, different districts do it different ways. And that would be to your point, if we don't want to do it through the policy committee. That could be a separate conversation with a full board and a retreat to look at what other suburban districts and large urban school districts are doing that the only thing that changes from this plan point of view on that is just simply the minimum diploma. You know, right now, it's defined by the Michigan Merit which is the minimum amount 18 credits. So the board could take action through policy to say the minimum credits to get a dpsd diploma is 22 credits, which is above the minimum of the Michigan Merit. And so that wouldn't be a separate pathway that would be the minimum standard diploma issued by dpscd, because the other diplomas already require additional credits beyond the minimum.

Is there more discussion and

then? So, for example, the cafeteria leadership group was engaged on the plan, and different departments throughout the district were engaged on the plan. I can't tell you, every cafeteria worker, for example, is engaged on plan, but the leadership in various departments was engaged in the plan. And then the plan itself going into this school year, I said implementation, and that was a bit misleading. We're not We're not changing anything going into this school year. We're actually continuing to analyze master schedules, partnership opportunities, and it also leads to more engagement opportunities as well on refining the plan. But the actual changes start in the 2526 school year, as far as that, that ninth grade group that comes in, but next year, the 2425 year is continuing to analyze schedules, partnerships and engagement, to refine the plan, to clarify not so schedules will not be changed next year. It'll be the incoming class of ninth graders for the 2526 school year. So there so even within the plan, it already defines next year as more engagement and refinement more at the individual schools, with the implementation of the diplomas, and the plan itself calls for necessary policy development on the different diplomas.

So then should the motion be modified to indicate that we're looking at in concept, the categories that have been presented that there are continuing dialog in 24 and a decision made about 18 versus 22 because that is significant impact on the plan itself. Because if the four hours. Can be your pathway from 18 to 22 that's a decision point

through the chair. That's not explicit in the plan, but to your question and perhaps your recommendation, it could be added to the recommendation, but the plan is, again, is a framework of reform, and it provides clear timelines and steps to implement the redesign. And one of those steps is policy changes with through the diplomas. And through that process, you can revisit the 18 and 22 credit as the minimum requirement for one for a standard diploma.

Then Madam Chair, I would like to modify my motion to approve and concept pending the additional decision point around credits and input that's going to be gathered as part of the the initial master planning, investigating this year.

Okay, so there's a there was a friendly amendment to the motion, and I know vice president stalwart was seconded that motion. Do you support the friendly amendment to the motion? The amendment has been accepted. And I know we talked about this in one of our retreats. I remember seeing on the screen us developing like putting a plan, education plan for each high schooler, and what that looked like. So I know I don't know. Dr Vitti, if this has all of the board feedback from the retreat that we talked about as well, has that been embedded in here

that through the chair that was part of the strategic plan, and it's also embedded in the high school redesign, so that the students starting in ninth grade go into an exploration of what their interests are, including their careers. And that's when they start making decisions on the pathway that they're most interested and that's why being what they should be with credit to ninth grade is important.

Okay, so there's a friendly motion on the floor. It's been supported. You want to read the motion? Madam Chair,

yes, there's more.

You think what I was just saying, I

think there's more comment,

yeah, exactly on the amendment. More comment on the line item as a whole. I know that there's a motion on the floor, but I was waiting for discussion. Go ahead. Thank you so. So as the finance meeting was referenced, and it was a deep dive conversation. I, for one, conceptually love the concept of giving our students choice, an opportunity to explore their interests. And one of the main key areas that was important to me was in the event a student who like me, decided to first take pre med, then to be a math teacher and ultimately became a science teacher, to have an opportunity to segue into Another area, content or diploma focus, and not end up losing footing because they started out in the arts or somewhere else that was, that was one. But more than that, I think we can probably flush through some of this. I would have loved us had to had another, maybe retreat conversation with the whole board to kind of flush through some of the things we're talking about now, I think it's good that our constituents hear the conversation, though, and I think implementation though is key and critical. I get the pilot at East English village and Western my concern is, as we're approaching the new school year, how will all high school students and or their parents be engaged in understanding this process? I like the model that we used to, though, I won't say used to, I'll say the model that we had to rely on the most during and after covid was having the parent meetings, even on the facilities. But want to make sure that parents and students have ample opportunities to see the full presentation of this ask questions, so that they also know what they are expected or what to expect in this new construct.

Okay? Dr Beatty,

yeah, all that can happen. So I'm not, and I'm not trying to over commit to the board. Implementation doesn't happen this fall. So when I, when I use that word I was talking more about i. Moving forward with analyzing individual school schedules to understand what what courses lead to one of these diplomas now what doesn't, and to start to hone in on the actual Wayne County Community College and other college partnerships so we know, for example, what courses, what colleges are going to be offer, start to work through the transportation. But even that really doesn't start to get implemented until those ninth graders and 2526 become 11th graders. So that's like three years from now. So I don't want any anyone to think that we're suddenly changing all of this coming the fall. So next year, more engagement with families, more engagement with students, refining what this looks like at individual schools, and then moving to implementation in ninth grade, which in that what that means is that those ninth graders next year is ninth graders, not this fall, they will be in a seminar course to start to explore their interests, their talents, looking at the different diplomas, and then starting to make that selection going into 10th grade. But it really doesn't come together until they're in 11th grade. And so I there's going to be plenty more of engagement next year. And you know, I can definitely, and was already thinking about regular updates to both the finance and the academic committees on the ongoing engagement. And then again, the big thing that the board has to take action on is the policy with the new diplomas, and if we're going to consider the 22 credits,

so So, madam, so through the chair, since, since, since we're not moving this framework forward for this fall, then we do have more time to address some of the desired changes that we wish to see. So maybe, perhaps, why is it on the agenda? Now,

can I ask a related question? What you have it on here for a reason? What do you what do you need from us to start having those refinement conversations?

Yeah, through the chair. So I guess that that was should have been the first question and answer. So this was a good example of something that I and the team thought was visible and and with large scale change that it was important for the board to have visibility into it and understanding about it. It was also named in my evaluation as a as a deliverable at the end of this school year. And so I think we all agreed, when we revised the strategic plan that high school redesign, or high school high school redesign, was going to be a central part of our reform. And the way that that was articulated was through this redesign plan. So it was a way for the board to understand it, see it, and basically approve of the framework as we move forward. So the board didn't feel that this was doing, this was being done without the board, that that was the rationale behind it. But there's nothing about the plan as we go into next year that technically needs your approval. I mean, that's speaking technically, but then there's more of the visibility and what I would call the general political support to move forward with changing, analyzing schedules, analyzing teacher placements, partnership agreements, and all of that, basically to have an understanding that that's direction we're moving in. But again, the action the board would take policy and probably next year's budget, the final budget would have aspects of this next at the end of next year's budget.

So I know there is a motion on the floor, and it's been supported with the friendly amendment. So the motion owner is Dr Taylor, if there is a desire to withdraw the motion and we bring this to the board retreat. I just want to make sure that the board, yeah, bring it to the board retreat. And so if that's the case, I know, you know, there's been community meetings and things of that nature, and we've moved swiftly in spaces before, strategically around the city to make sure there's been feedback. So if that is the motion owner, Dr Taylor, if you are interested in withdrawing your motion so that we can bring it to the retreat, I think, to Doctor Beatty point, there's no need for us to really take action right now. The board does have a line of sight to the fact that some of this work needs to have. Are happening, though, and I think maybe that's why you talked about evaluations of schedules and things of that nature. That is a part of this, and outside of this, are you saying that cannot happen? No,

it can happen. It a good example of this is the Literacy Plan. There was nothing about the Literacy Plan several years ago that required the board to approve a literacy plan, but based on what we were here from the community, and based on the board's feedback, was we need a Literacy Plan, because we need to be able to say, what exactly are we doing to improve literacy? So the Board reviewed the plan, approved the plan, but there was nothing per se about the plan that required boards action. This is similar, in this sense, to use that as an example.

So what is the pleasure of the board?

Let me just clarify what I just said, though, what I asked was I amended the motion to say to approve in concept, while we have the opportunity to work through structurally, the intricacies that need to occur with the additional feedback and the decision around 22 versus 18, because that's significantly the core of this

program. Okay, so Is everybody clear on the motion? Is the proven the concept of this? Okay, so it's been properly moved and supported with the friendly amendment by Dr Taylor and vice president stall worth West, for you have more discussion. Yeah, I

have just one thing. And thank you for your patience. I just, I just had one thing, because the the issue I have actually isn't addressed yet, and I think, I think what I'm looking for is supplemental material that describes what we will do in the earlier grades as it relates to making the arts diploma accessible to students, not its accessibility in high school. So the plan we have in front of us and the things that we're going to be teasing out are all specific to ninth through 12th grade, to the restructuring of staffing in ninth through 12th grade and the calendar and things like that. But DSA, the primary school that would offer the arts diploma, has a unique application process in terms of an audition, a requirement of recommendation letter that has to do with arts. The auditions are challenging, and so it's a unique process where, if you're not coming through our arts pathways in eighth grade, you're not actually prepared to get in to DSA, or unless your family is already doing a lot of arts enrichment outside of the district. So all of that is to say, as we move forward and tease this out, I think that particular diploma requires some supplemental thought around what happens in fifth grade and sixth grade, so that a student who's in eighth grade and says, I want to play trumpet can actually go audition and maybe get in.

So clarifying question to Vice President, are you speaking beyond the pathway schools that feed into DSA right now?

Correct? Because if we're saying the intention of the redesign is that any eighth grader can make a choice, and in ninth grade there will be support that starts to make their to make them through. I think the arts diploma in particular needs a bit of a longer runway to be authentic in that endeavor. Okay,

so that's noted. Go ahead. Dr V,

yeah. I mean, obviously we have the conservatories, and that's the reference to the pathway that we're building out. Yeah, it is true. Not every school will be able to offer the arts diploma analysis, conversation with the finance committee meeting. So I would be interested in, I don't know if it's like, if it's tonight, or it's in the plan, how do we I want to be able to better address your question as it relates to the plan, because I think it's probably more of a communication issue and a clarity within the plan. Because likewise, you know, as a as a fifth grader, you're going to have to start doing certain things in order to get the honors diploma, you know, so you're not going to be able to take AP classes, you're not going to be able to do that either, unless you're doing certain things in sixth, seventh and eighth grade. Either. Now you can access that more, read, you know, more easily at several at every school. But that's a bit different. But I think you're pointing me, so I assume that's the point you're making,

yes, and to my colleagues, the point that I'm making is that outside of all the things we're doing inside of our schools, it ends up being a different conversation with our families about the schools they're choosing way earlier on, because, yeah, every school we have the pathways for a reason. We have limitations that we're. Reflect why those are the pathways. So that's why I said, I think I'm just, I think what I'm looking for is supplemental material that says this one uniquely has implications for our enrollment tactics. This one uniquely has implications for our marketing and our family engagement and

through the chair. I think, yeah, that would obviously happen if, if, through policy, we designate one of the diplomas as the arts diploma. Then, then to your point, if I understand it would be the the marketing materials for the conservatories would say, if you want to can be considered for the arts diploma. When you go to high school, you have to join this conservatory, unless you're doing something outside of school, you know, to prepare yourself to be a part of that program come High School.

Okay? Member, McLeod, I

just want to follow up. I think that as we talk about stakeholder groups, surveys are needed for those fifth, sixth, seventh and eighth grade parents right to kind of see where their students are. Right now are they matriculating towards arts to mishas point right? To see kind of what their expectations are. So I just want to make sure that we're engaging parents and we're engaging. I have a fifth, sixth grader and eighth grader, right? And to think about trying to figure out their high school experience. I need more information. And I think if these two things go together, right? They're not separate. We definitely need to make sure that the parents are surveyed and engaged to understand what's the coming and how can they properly prepare their student to be able to get into the honors and I know that's kind of what she was saying, but I just want to echo the importance of that engagement. Thank

you. Appreciate that. So I know we have a motion on the floor with the friendly amendment. Again, it's about the framework of this action item. So all those in favor of approving the motion with the friendly amendment to accept the framework of the high school plan, signify by saying, aye, any opposed motion carried. Thank you. We'll now move to item 12.02 Dr V, is there any context that you want to provide to item 12.02

I wasn't able to put it up, but I assume based on the audience, yeah, so I had referred to this during public comment and sent some follow up to the Finance Committee meeting the finance committee members about the contract. So the contract in front of you would is a one year contract for next, this upcoming school year, which provides tutoring services during the school day to English language learners, with the focus of newcomer students. The tutoring would be provided during the school day. Both of these providers were identified through an open RFP, very specifically, the vendors used aspects of our curriculum in front of one of our principals that leads a high English language learning population, along with teachers and district staff, using with our actual students that our English language learners. And during the demo, the demonstration of the lesson. These two companies were selected based on the demo lessons and the feedback of the people that were on the committee. The contract is structured where either one of the vendors can provide K to 12 services. Our recommendation is that we use paper for 912, and brain trust for k8 the way it's structured is that the way it is is, if we have a challenge with paper, then we could expand brain trust. If we have a challenge with brain trust, we can expand paper down to k8 and so this is our commitment to increase tutoring through literacy, Lawsuit Funding. I'm very aware of the negative articles. I think those stem from covid and the expansion of covid dollars and the need to provide more tutoring and services, especially online. I don't think systems and processes were in place at districts and possibly at paper as well as a company. The difference between what happened during covid with this company is now our model is direct engagement, not not through a chat box, and we pay after services, and we have clear metrics to improve performance. At the end of the year, we'll use teacher feedback, student feedback, district staff feedback, and obviously data linked to one or two years of growth. So. On English language development and proficiency improvement to determine if this is effective at the end of the year. And as I chair with board member Mays, this is part of the commitment with the literacy Lawsuit Funding in general, which is we're naming how we're using the money, and then we'll be providing updates to the board about implementation and effectiveness, and then also remember, we are committed to having a third party review the data and provide that information to the day to the board at the end of each year, and that's the culmination of the grant. The challenge here is, if we don't move forward, obviously, that's the will of the board, we would then have to either RFP this again, or use one of the other vendors that applied, and then we would just delay services for students. That's just showing you know if we don't move forward. But obviously that's the board's direction.

Thank you. Is there any more questions or comments?

Thank you, Madam Chair, during our finance meeting, I didn't ask about this and had concerns about it, and asked that we consider exploring like partnerships with our college students. I know that we have a number of our schools have individuals that are working from City Year, that are providing support. I know that we've had meetings where new era and others came and, you know, offered to want to do support services in our schools. I do believe that the best support, and I know we're hiring additional a eyes for this school year, I believe that the best support for students, especially English language learners, is having that support in person. So I would like to hear, what are we doing additionally to have in person support versus this virtual platform? The only reprieve I did have was the fact that we're only pay as you go. But I think that construct can change over time, and we're not just just tracking the performance and or how much it's it's utilized. So I really lean more towards us having more physical in person support. And what are we doing to achieve that

through the chair? So I think when we think about this contract and this strategy, it's it's not a it's not a singular strategy. When we look at supporting our English language learners, or in this context, our newcomer students, recall when we were talking about the literacy Lawsuit Funding, we wanted to expand the newcomer program across the city, and so we are starting to do that where schools have been identified as the hub site for newcomers to come they don't have to go there. But we're promoting that because we can concentrate resources. So we're adding teachers at select schools to just work in more of a self contained environment with students in person, and so we're also using literacy lawsuit funding to pay for more teachers to get the English language certification and more training. We're hiring more AIS, as you mentioned, specifically for English language learners. So we're thinking about this strategy as just one of many in order to intensify direct one on one, small group services which all kids need, but mainly our English language learners. So I wouldn't look at this as well. If we do this, we're not going to do City Year. We're also expanding city year through literacy Lawsuit Funding as well. But that's just not the strategy. In this case, these tutors also are certified as English language providers, so that's another level of competency linked to this strategy. But I don't want the board to think about, well, if we do this, we're not going to do let's read. Or if we do this, it's less money for let's read. We got plenty of money, and we have plenty of people that are signing up for let's read, which is great, but the let's read tutors, for example, may not be the best ones to work with newcomer students, because there's a language divide and there's a certain higher level of skill that are needed to work with these particular students, which this service provides. So I just hope as we think about using the dollars and we look at the need, we don't get into a war about this over that, that we're honest at the end of the year with what worked and what didn't. We continue we expand what works. We cut off what doesn't. But I do think that dollars do provide an opportunity to go deeper and broader, which there. Services, and that's what we're trying to do with this contractor, which, again, it's not as if we, you know, looked at this. We actually saw it through the demos with our own students and our staff, and they liked it. So this isn't Dr Vitti saying this. This is coming through that RFP process with our own students and our own staff.

So is there any more, any more questions or comments? I did have you have something, okay, so, Dr Vitti, so we pay after Is that what you're saying? We pay after services. We pay after services. So there is language in place to hold any vendor accountable to the services delivered and the effectiveness of the services delivered.

Well. Effectiveness comes more through implementation at the end of the contract if we're going to renew it, but we do not pay unless services are rendered. So when we go, when we think about the when we think about the negative stories linked to, for example, paper and some other tutoring services, the negativity was linked to one large contracts provided without services so kids were not being tutored and vendors would still be being paid. And then the other issue was the modality used to provide the services. So instead of direct engagement, you tutoring me, if you were the student, you would use a chat feature and put your question in, and it would be more impersonal with the engagement. What's different here is during the school day, and this was all after school as well. What's different about this model is during the school day, so at some point in the day in the classroom, the student will log in and be connected to an outside tutor who's certified in the area, and engage directly with the student, through the camera, through the computer, not some, you know, sending information, and it's invisible with who's actually responding, and the services are provided after the actual tutoring happens, based on the number of students that are served as well.

I think this was to some of the board members who went to council great city of schools. These vendors were there, Sharon, and that's what I thought. I don't know why it sounded familiar to me, because I know one of the challenges we mentioned was about our English language learners and having the capacity and a bandwidth to address the number of students that needed this support. Was wondering why I was familiar. Is there any more discussion? Go ahead. Member McClendon,

Dr Vitti, I know that there were some risks before with using this vendor. Obviously you're saying that there this is a different approach, different platform. How do we, I mean, I guess I'm concerned with the risk we're taking to get the same results, you know, as we've received in the past. And I'm just wondering, you know, in in, you know, in conversations, how have you how are we addressing the risk like because we've already been here, done that with we seem to be revisiting the opportunities to give them more business. I

think I understand your question. I can't. I won't. I can't sit here and commit that we will definitively have improvement because of this service. I can't do that. We haven't used it with our students. This service has been provided in the in the model that I described it in other districts, and they're seeing improvement in literacy performance, which tells me that if we implement it right, we should see the same kind of results. The opportunity to take risk is with the literacy Lawsuit Funding. I mean, we're not, we're not we're not investing in a practice that isn't a best practice. The only way you're going to move an English language learner in language development is direct engagement and intensity of engagement and expansion of engagement. One teacher can only do so much, and this creates another way to do that, based on best practice, based on materials that have already been demonstrated to work with our students, but now with a vendor. So there is risk, but I think it is a calculated risk based on dollars that we have an opportunity to do some things differently and expand resources. The big challenge out of the pandemic that we have not addressed is continuing learning loss for English language learners and special needs students, everyone else in the aggregate, has rebounded from the pandemic. So what I'm trying to do with the literacy Lawsuit Funding, because it's allowable, is to, if you will, double and triple dose literacy intervention for for those students in particular, because the grant dollars allow that to happen, if it you know, for the board to understand if we're seeing challenges with implementation. And with paper, then we shift to brain trust, and if we see challenges with brain trust, would shift the paper. If we see challenges with both, we just dis we stop services in the middle of the year. I don't think that will happen, but that's what we would do if we're not seeing implementation. So we're not going to burn money if it's not working. You know, if we don't see positive feedback from the kids, positive feedback from the teachers, we just will stop services before the end of the year. Yeah,

I just want to add that I think it's also important that we look at business practices of whatever vendor we use, and if we see that there's a history of any type of alleged negative business practices, that we should take that in consideration when we're trying to decide whether or not we're going to bring them in as a vendor for our children. So it's not just about the quality of the program, it's also about the quality of the actual business and the practices that they you know, that they exude. So yeah, in

this case, the vendor has been very transparent to say they scaled way too quickly during the pandemic, that districts had a lot of money and a great need with tutoring services. Honestly, districts did not know how to spend the dollars, and they often contracted with companies that over committed to what they could provide, and that led to students not logging in. It led to services or contracts being paid without services. Performance being mixed. I think this vendor has admitted to that, and going into this arrangement and our structure, which we have been very disciplined with our partners, I think they're going to benefit from it. I mean, I also think that because we're so disciplined, which some people don't like, but we are more disciplined, I think it's an opportunity for them to use our practices and our implementation to help in other districts. To be quite honest with you, because we didn't have these problems during the pandemic with vendors because we didn't use them. So

were they did? They did? Did they refund money back to the districts that felt their services weren't added?

I don't, I don't know. I would say, I don't think so. I can follow up and ask them.

I had a short comment and a question. So Dr Vitti, again, I'll start out by saying, at a high level, philosophically, I'm very aligned with the strategy to have a multi pronged approach to literacy. So I just want to make it clear that I don't my questions are not really about, should we or should we not have this form of tutoring in the district? I think we have to have a range of options. There are going to be up to 500 students who might be eligible for the services from these two companies you mentioned, pausing or terminating the contract if you're not seeing the expected levels of efficacy. Could you give me a little bit more detail on how you would think about that? So is that, after the first semester, one of these companies looks like they provided some precedent success data. One I maybe they gave it to you separately, but it wasn't in their response. And so what, what are, what's the team going to be looking for on what timeline to determine and then, at a high level, I'll just say, like we're the district is about to, I mean, you know this better than than the most of us, the district is about to be literally bombarded with service providers, because we have a big number to spend. Many of these places are going to be unproven, and so just as the Chair of the Finance Committee, like, I'm really concerned about that and thinking about like, what are our processes for making sure that we're getting the most out of every dollar that we're spending in this area

through the chair. So the first point of analysis is just how quickly we start to implement. So how, how responsive are they with their tutoring, their tutors, connecting with the students, and actually implementation. So that's even before we have one data point, which is just, how quickly are we being connected? How quickly are we problem solving through, let's say connectivity issues on, you know, laptops and are are the tutors constantly present? And then we move into when the actual tutoring is happening, when teachers see it is, does it seem effective when district staff is monitoring it? Does it? Is it effective? What's the teacher, the student feedback from that, and then the first data point comes at scale at mid year, in January. I mean, that's when you compare the baseline data to the mid year data. But. But between that point, it's really more about the quality of implementation and the feedback loop link to that. So mid year will be the first clear touch point of how are how are students that are using this doing, and are we seeing more improvement at mid year come this January compared to last January for the same type of students, that's, that's, that'll be the first touch point, and that would be incorporated into what I would present to the board with impact of literacy Lawsuit Funding, with the different ways that we're using those dollars and

and so what? And this can be at a high level, but what, like? What's the measuring stick for whether? Let's assume that there'll be some prior I

read. So it'd be I read, it would be baseline data and and there's also English language assessments that we have that will look at where students start at the beginning of the year and where they are at mid year. So those are other those two data points, just strictly from an academic point of view, is what we would be looking

at. And we, I can talk to you about this offline, but like, if you know, if a student sees, call it a 10% increase is measured, and I ready, but we're spending, I'm making up numbers here. Make Up made up numbers, yeah, but we're spending $1,000 per student and get that versus another tool that could get a 15 or 12% increase, so more, but we're spending like, what do you does? Like, does the district have the ability to benchmark what you know, what? What should be happening with this population? And I know it's not a straight line answer, but

yeah, the only way we could do that in District is, for example, one group of English language learners, would it be exposed to one product and another on another product. But you know that we would, we wouldn't be able to structure it that way in our district, because this is singularly what we're doing from from, from a tutoring during the school day perspective. So we don't, we don't have multiple vendors providing the same type of services.

Okay? So there's no, like, national best practice benchmarking that says, like, if you use this type of tutoring,

well, yeah, there is. It's linked to years of growth, more than two years of growth, you know, year months of learning there. I mean, there's ways of calculating that there. There's ways of doing that versus national benchmarks. Got it. Thank you.

Is there any more discussion? If not, item 12.02 with all that's been said, The chair will entertain a motion to approve item 12.02

Madam Chair, if I'd like to to motion that we take this off the agenda, given the number of concerns that exist, I think we should probably have some more discussion and review some of the questions that we're asking today. The only comfortability that I do have is that it's supposed to be a model that is reimbursable only, but as we are trying to strive towards establishing a stronger level of trust with the community understanding the negative information that is out there, how we build our use of this model differently is important to our constituents, so I would, I would like to motion to remove this from the agenda today and have more dialog later and get more feedback to table.

To table. It Yes. So there's a motion on the floor to table item 12.02 is there support

so point of or we don't have a motion, it's just a motion on a point of discussion. I'm actually comfortable with with the brain trust I've spent, I spent a fair bit of time kind of going through their materials. I have not seen the demo, but I'm actually comfortable with brain trust. Is the other one that that is, is problematic. And so, you know, I'll just say that as a statement in case, there's also a path here. Because what I one of the things I don't want to happen is we'll lose a month, and then this won't be, this won't be ready to go when school starts. And so then, then it's a tool that's not available, right? And so, so if Brain Trust, which is the K through eight tool, if there's support for that, maybe we also can figure out if there's a way to split these two up, because that's just the one thing that, because I don't, at the end of the day, like will, we could take another month, and then then we would be looking at. Implementation sometime in October.

So, so there's a motion on the floor to table? Is there's no Is there support for the motion to table?

Madam Chair, just as my colleague brought up, I would rescind my motion and make a motion to separate brain trust and paper and line item, 12.02 support.

Okay, so the motion on the floor is to separate the two, so we would take paper off, yes, of the agenda item and only vote on brain trust. Correct is that the consensus? Okay, so there's a motion on the floor. Thank you for rescinding and restating your motion. There's a motion on the floor that 12.02 would only be for brain trust, not for paper. Is there support? It's been properly moved by member gay diagonal properly supported by member Mays to accept the approval of 12.02 brain trust only paper Inc comes away from the agenda item, the action item. Is there any discussion and motion on the floor? All those in favor of the motion on the floor with the change to the action item, signify by saying, aye, Aye. Any opposed motion carried. Thank you. 12.02 moves forward with brain trust only. Thank you. So we're now at item number 13, and these have come through committee, and they have been escalated to the board with support from committees. So we have 13.01 through 13.09 the chair will entertain a motion to approve consent agenda items. There's a motion on the floor by Vice President, stall worth West and supported by member Mays to approve all consent agenda items, 13.01 through 13.09 any further discussion. All those in favor of the motion on the floor. Signify by saying, aye, any opposed motion carried. Thank you. We are now at item number 14, which is announcements before our adjournment. Do we have any announcements? I have a few any, any Okay, so we're asking to sign up today to help students rise. You can earn up to $20 an hour with less read contact Kenneth Chapman at 313-873-7490, again, Kenneth Chapman at 313-873-7490, if you are interested in joining the less read team, or you can email mister Chapman at Kenneth. Dot Chapman at Detroit, K twelve.org for more information, our faith based Council presents back to school gathering, Sunday, August the 18th, from three to 5pm at Martin Luther King High School. If you are available and interested in coming to the faith based back to school gathering, please show up on the 18th at Martin Luther King High School at three o'clock our police oversight committee resumes. I'm sorry, police oversight committee resumes are being accepted until Friday, August the 23rd so by statute, we have to have a police Oversight Committee, and several served on the first Oversight Committee, and we thank all of them for their time and their commitment. If you are interested, or know someone who's interested in serving on the Oversight Committee, please have them send their resumes to Vanya dot more at Detroit K twelve.org by August the 23rd also, there is now a vacancy on the Library Commission. As you know, we made an appointment in maybe March of this year. That person has resigned and moved out of state, and so now we have to go through the process again of interviewing people for the Library Commission for a four year commitment. So if you are interested in being considered for the Library Commission. You know there are interviews that happen with a subset of the board. Please send your resumes and your interest to Vanya as well. By August the 23rd so oversight and Library Commission, August, 23 school begins on the 26th we mentioned that academic meeting is Monday the 26th that same day at 11am the finance meeting is the 23rd at 9am and the next board meeting is September 10, and we're back on the west side at Renaissance High School at 530 I will be glad when we get to our home at the old northern building on Woodward but until then, we will continue to Try to make sure that the meetings are strategically placed in certain parts of the city for engagement. So if there are no other announcements, the Chair will entertain a motion for adjournment. So move motions Without objection. Thank you so much everyone. We appreciate your time and your energy today. Thank you. Applause. Right? We had an issue yesterday. I.