Good evening thank you thank you so much for being here
our regular Board of Education meeting today is Tuesday March the 14th and we are at Western International. At this time we will call the meeting to order. Madam admin more can we have the roll call please. Angelique Peterson maybe Aries I'm president Misha Stallworth,
Sonia mais that the iris Taylor sharegate Agnolo Latrice McClendon vicia. Colette
Yvonne, Madam Chair, you have a quorum, thank you so much. Meeting norms. We respect the right of all persons to participate in this public meeting of the board and kindly request that everyone engage 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 as we go into our moment of silence Unfortunately, our list is way too long. We have young Mr. Tyree, Davis, a kindergartener at Coleman a young we have Mr. Barry Greer, former principal of Frederick Douglass Academy for boys and former band director at Martin Luther King Jr. Senior High School. We have young Mr. K. Sean Harris, a sixth grade student at circle. We have Karen McDonald, e s e teacher at Cody High School. We have Sarah Gimenez molarity teacher at Flix we have Dr. Joanne Neill, former principal at Crockett Voltec center we have Ruby noble former D a e o e president. We have Brenda Taylor, Office of Food and Nutrition at bassoon and we have young Mr. Cartier Woods senior at Northwestern High School. So as we go into our moment of silence today please remember those from our dpscd family who have transitioned
Thank you
We'll now move into our school presentations and tonight we have a color guard from Cass Tech High School and we have the Cody women's ensemble singing star spangled banner and Lift Every Voice and Sing if you could please rise
say can you see?
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thank you let's give another round of applause to our coding women's ensemble and our Cass Tech High School Color Guard. Well now move on to item number three on the agenda the approval of the agenda as presented. Is there support?
Madam Chair? I'd like to make a motion to amend aging The Okay, there are two amendments I'd like to propose. One is the addition of a report from our student ambassadors to follow the finance report. So that would be an insertion after item seven. Okay. The second amendment I'd like to propose is to move public comment following our policies. And I'm happy to explain during discussion if I receive a second I'll support the motion.
So the motion on the floor is to insert Student Ambassador report after item number seven. And item number nine would get moved in. So what number is it will be moved to 14?
Is there support support it has been properly moved by Vice President Stallworth was properly supported by member Mays, any discussion?
So through the chair and to my colleagues, I think the First Amendment is clear. The second is to ensure that our student ambassadors have the opportunity to hear and weigh in on our action items, which often if we go really late, they're unable to do so I'm trying to ensure that all of the voices at the table have the opportunity to weigh in and be heard on our agenda.
Okay, any further discussion? All those in favor of the amendment of the agenda signify by saying aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion carried Thank you. We'll now move to item number four. Approval of the meeting minutes or 4.01 regular board meeting minutes from February the seventh 2023 4.02 special board meeting study session minutes from February the 18th 2023 4.03. special board meeting study session closed session meeting minutes from February 18 2023 4.04. Curriculum academic committee meeting minutes on February the 27th 2023 4.05. Policy ad hoc committee meeting minutes on February 28 2023 and 4.06. Finance Committee meeting minutes from March the third 2023 Is there a motion to tie bar items 4.01 through 4.06. Second is been properly moved by properly moved by Dr. Taylor properly supported by Vice President Stallworth West a tie bar items 4.01 through 4.06. Any discussion? All those in favor of Thai burns signify by saying aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion carried now that your entertain a motion for the tie bar of items 4.1 through 4.0. Is there a support? Second, been properly moved by Dr. Taylor properly supported by Vice President Stallworth West for the sidebar, any discussion? All those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries. Thank you so much. We'll now move into the chair remarks. So the forehead is first retreat with the current composition on the board on February the 18th. And several key areas were discussed, including the upcoming budget, and the very tough decisions that will be needed to help ensure that we maintain not only a balanced budget, but done with student priorities. The numbers look a lot different on this upcoming budget than they have in the last few years. So Dr. BD, I'm sure we're gonna go more in detail as the finance department or the finance team went into detail at the finance meeting. March is reading month. And in addition to visiting schools, several of us board members have been reading to classes. So thank you to the board and community members who have reached out to sign up to read to our students, members of less read do it all the time. And this opportunity gives people just a small bird's eye view of what that type of volunteerism looks like and be done on a consistent basis. You still have time and we know that we read every day not just during March. So if you're interested, please make sure that you reach out to the appropriate staff. Also, we enter the month of March we know that there are educational activities and programs planned to support women's history month, International Women's Day on March the eighth and local schools have more information Question about what's going on during this month. Expect Respect the character trait for this month is honesty. And we honor those who respect this trait and work hard each and every day to display it with and for our students. Nestle honorary board recognition, Miss Roby nubile the core value of putting students first states making decisions that are in the best interest of students use every resource strategically so that we can meet student's individual needs. RUBIN noble, who passed away recently will be remembered for putting students first by advocating for her support staff, union members that she faithfully served and lay it for many years. She fought and improved working conditions for our support staff membership so that dpscd students were benefited from an enhanced culture, while they attended school are a tireless advocacy as well as personal intelligence and warmth. The boar bestows an honorary board recognition to the late Ruby noble nouveau in her family, she was a force to be reckoned with so that our students and staff would indeed feel love challenged and prepared. We thank Miss Roby for all of her work. Not sure if someone from the family is here Yes. Okay. If I could have the Board Members please join me to the center as we present to the family.
And that concludes the chairs report. I'll cite the rest of our announcements. As we move to the next agenda item the finance report from our CFO Mr. batido.
Public comment is now closed the time is five five to again public comment has just closed the time is 552. Thank you.
Good evening board members and community This evening we're presenting the financials through January.
Someone starting with dpscd will receive tax collections on both the 13th and 18th mills. This was the initial round of the winter tax collections in February received the next installment will continue to receive small increment amounts through the end of the year in June. Also note that on the 18th Mills, as you'll recall, that's the operating millage that was repaying the emergency loan debt, the pension debt and the operating bonds. The operating bonds have now been fully repaid. Those were completed ahead of schedule. We still have the pension debt and the emergency loan which will be repaid between now in 2026. As we look at dpscd. This still is reflecting budget. The first budget adoption as a budget amendment was adopted in February next month financials for February will reflect budget amendment one. We as we have been continuing to track ahead in terms of revenue. On expense side we're tracking right in line with expenses for the month. Next slide. We can continue to have available cash we ended the month with approximately 29 weeks as we discussed the excess cash balance will be transferred to the facility master plan. As part of the annual transfers that was again done in February so next month will be reflected in the financials for February. Next slide. Regarding COVID expenditure, we had approximately $15.1 million in COVID expenditures for the month of January, primarily for meeting the academic needs of students and budget transfers to fund it. So the master plan, you'll see we are at approximately 50% of the COVID budget spent the year to date. For the year, we spent 100 million of the approximately four and 35 million that was planned. The largest category that again is behind is budget transfer to facilities. Most of those transfers will happen at the end of the year. The next slide just says when I'd already said that we spent approximately 50% of the COVID funds that have been allocated, the remainder about significant is related to the facility transfers, you can see the breakout across the various categories here. And that concludes my report for the month.
Thank you, Mr. Latino, any questions for the CFO? This video, I do have one question. Can you tell me what additional academic needs have been provided for that increase in COVID? Expenditures? I know it mentioned that that number increase due to additional academic needs. Can you talk to me about what those additional academic needs? Were not the budget transfers? I think we understand.
So the category of academic needs included the beyond basics supplemental tutoring contract, that the district is continuing at a number of schools this year, there were also additional academic interventionist that were hired to do intervention. In previous years that included supplemental teachers, where we had hired to lower the class size this year, it didn't include that. It's primarily related to the intervention AIS and beyond basics.
Thank you. One further question. I know it says that we've paid off the 2016 operating bond, and there's a pension debt that's still old. Do we know what that balances?
I can get that to you? I don't have the number on the top of my head, but it is to remain in the emergency alone, and pension liability are the two outstanding items that still need to be repaid. I'll get that number and share it with the board.
Thank you. Any more questions? Let CFO Okay, thank you, Mr. Potato, please file that report for auditing purposes. Thank you. And we will now move to Superintendents report, Dr. B.
Thank you, Madam Chair. I don't think the remote is working. So I'll just say.
Okay, sorry, the agenda was amended so that our student ambassadors could have this time for their report.
Thank you, Madam President. Hello, everyone. My name is Lauren Hatton. And I am the pseudo representative for the school board. And I'm also part of the district executive Youth Council, which is a council created by the district to have lessons of all of the high school students heard. And we come together and we discuss different issues, and things of that nature. And at our last meeting, we were discussing student involvement in curriculum, and how that directly relates to chronic absenteeism. Our students have acknowledged the fact that we see a disconnect, especially post COVID and non engaging learning methods, which which has, which affects the chronic absenteeism that we're seeing in students. Our peers have expressed that that they want to be involved in selection of our curriculum, and also be able to be in professional development with teachers to get their perspective and allow for student voices to be heard, and curriculum selection. And we would also like to
say hello, my name is Amar small, I am a student at display Marygrove. And I am also one of the district representatives to the board and a member of the district executive Youth Council. One of the other things that we wanted to bring up is that so starting in December of 2022 students in my school I tested the water fountains at our school and we checked the levels regarding things like fluoride led, etc. And the results that we got were not very good. A while they were not necessarily like imminent, like Doom, they were not very good. And I feel like as a district we have higher standards than that. And this raises the concern of other schools at our schools. The filters were not effective on the water fountains, which raises the concern of what are they doing to other schools, especially because during past testing, some schools have had lead levels that were deemed unsafe. So if we have found that the filters are not necessarily as effective as initially thought, what's happening at those schools? So I simply want to encourage the board and ask about how we can move forward with water testing to make sure the levels are safe at these other schools. Because yeah, like students deserve to have safe water at the schools that they're at water is very important for education and living in general. So I would like to encourage the board to try to make sure that we can test water at these other schools and make sure the levels are safe. Thank you all. And also, we wanted to shout out Solomon Wilson. He is also another student on the district executive Youth Council. He came here tonight to support us. So thank you, Solomon.
Thank you. So we have a couple of Dr. Vitti. I know we took notes, do you want to address these now or after four? Okay, so we have the water founding testing of the hydration stations, and professional development involvement and curriculum involvement.
Sure, so as everyone may remember, before the pandemic, we did test our water and saw high levels of lead, not in all schools, but many schools that led us to raise funding for best practice water hydration stations, and that those were implemented throughout the district. As we were transitioned to the hydration stations, we relied on bottled water. And then they were implemented. Since that point, we do test annually, we test all the hydration stations throughout the district. And we do that annually. We have not had concerns with high levels of lead or other concerns with the water that have hydration stations. The continuing challenge, if you will, is just making sure that the filters are changed, timely. And we try to work with our custodians to make sure that that happens. I think some of the concerns that were raised tonight, are specific to Marygrove. Marygrove is a building that is not run by the school district, we run the schools and academic and educational programs, but the building, the facility is run by the conservatory. And so we are working since the students did their independent testing. What we discovered was one there's a lot of construction that's been happening at Marygrove with definitely could influence the water and the purity of the water. That has definitely been risen as an issue and not consistency of flushing. So one thing we definitely learned, but the challenge we had with led several years ago is that you have to constantly flush the water. And that means simultaneously flushing the toilets running the water because that gets the sediments out of the pipes. So when students tested independently, there were concerns raised about just the consistency of flushing with a high level of construction and the conservatory did not use the water hydration stations that we had implemented and other schools throughout the district. So we are going to work with the conservatory to make sure that we're using the best practice hydration stations, and then continue testing at the school. We have provided water bottles at the school. But it looks like the main issue was not flushing consistency consistently. And the need to implement the best practice Hydration Station. So it's my understanding that there'll be a meeting with the student leaders at Marygrove, the conservatory members of the operations team just to talk about the testing and the next steps to make sure that the water at Marygrove is the way it should be. And then districtwide, I feel confident that with the level of testing that we're doing, we're ensuring that the hydration stations are working, I would say the challenge is to change the filters. We just have to be on top of that and be more consistent throughout the district. When it comes to professional development and curriculum. And I think I think everyone would agree we've come a long way with selecting curriculum that's at grade level to make sure that students at every grade level are accessing the curriculum to be at grade level with the demands of the standards. And every year that has passed with implementing that curriculum adjustments have to be made based on what teachers are seeing that's working in that. And so I do believe that the district is committed to reviewing what's working in that what books work better than others is the pacing right. And there are ways for teachers to weigh in on that throughout the year and individual schools. So we can make adjustments as we move forward. I don't think, at least now we're at a point where we should abandon the curriculum at individual schools. But as the years pass, then when we see certain schools moving faster than other schools with student achievement, you know, we can have conversations about more autonomy at individual schools. But we've had to do a lot of level setting and just clear expectations and implementation of curriculum that's at an above grade level. Because we had so much randomness, and frankly, inferior curriculum that was negatively impacting student achievement. But the farther we go away from the years of early adoption, I think the more flexibility we can provide, and we just have to make sure that we're having clear feedback cycles with teachers to offer suggestions on how to tweak the curriculum, not abandon it, but tweak it.
So I think one of the issues that was raised as young people, students having a voice in that space, I know our curriculum, there was a panel of staff, educators, teachers who made the recommendation to the board based on rubrics. So I think one of the areas of feedback is having a student voice in that space as well.
So there, there will be adoptions, cycles of adoptions as we move forward in future years. And there is a way to incorporate student voice on those adopt those re adoptions. And we can commit to doing that, at the end of each year, when we engage teachers on on a real clear what's working, what's not what needs to be changed, I think that there's a way to include the teacher students in that as well. We do include student voices, we're going to the anti racist review of our curriculum. But every year, I don't think that there would be any issues. And it'd be a benefit to have a feedback loop with students specifically, at the end of the year based on what's working, what's not.
One more de filters for the Hydration Station. So I know all the hydration stations, it'll tell you what the percentage is left for that particular filter. So who's checking that, and who's holding someone accountable for making sure that it's changed despite that being a challenge.
So it should be the custodians at the school that are assigned to school that are responsible for that. But obviously, the school administration has to be mindful of that. And for whatever reason, if there aren't filters at the building, then that needs to be raised at the district level where we have one or two people that oversee the contracted custodians of the central office, that can be informed if something is off with the filter has been there. I mean, there is no excuse, I mean that it's right there. So that's just, that's not an excuse. It just needs to happen. So it's not any student that sees it. And the visitor doesn't tell the principal and the principal has to take ownership and letting central office know that really tell their own custodians change it but if for whatever reason, the filter is not there, then it should be fixed or change immediately.
Thank you anything else.
I wanted to make a quick point of clarification, I wasn't clear on the first time I apologize. For the filters. The problem was partially that the there was little to no difference between the water with old filters and water with new filters, which was I wasn't clear with that the first time. But that was also part of why the concern was raised. Because I know that all the schools do have filters. But part of the problem was that pre filter and post or pre new filter and posting filter, there was very little
difference. Was that only a married girl?
Yes, this was specifically a married girl, but if it exists in America, although we want to ensure that the problem doesn't exist at the other schools as
well. Right. Okay, great. So Marygrove will you're moving forward where Marygrove will have the hydrogen stations that the rest of our buildings have.
That's what we that's what we intend to do. We just have to make sure that the conservatory is willing to do that and pays for it, which I don't see why they wouldn't, especially when you look at the testing results. But that's a process but yeah, I we have to get their commitment. But again, I don't believe that they would have a problem with doing that. Within school buildings is only the hydration stations in outside of Maryborough to bring us to drink unless someone puts their you know, mouth on on a sink in a bathroom. But other than that, we just have the hydration stations. So there might be also maybe a locker room here or there. But again, not from a drinking fountain or traditional drinking fountain. So we just have to upgrade the Marygrove. drinking fountains to hydration stations that are modern and meet the best practice standards that we implemented about four years ago. Thank you any more questions or comments before Dr. Peebles in 234 Okay, okay. Okay. So, again, just a review of our metrics. We continue to progress through the year strongly, as we look at comparing this year to last year, and again, trying to get close to pre pandemic levels in our key indicators. enrollment at 48,159 students is higher than it was last time last year, but not as high as it was obviously, before the pandemic. And that's one challenge that we have going into next budget season. Our fall re enrollment rates are consistent to last year and consistent prior to the pandemic, but not as high as it was in 2021. We know that that 81% was higher because families were just not moving. Because of the pandemic and learning online. Average Daily Attendance as of just last week is averaging at 83%. That is about eight percentage points higher than last year, and about two percentage points lower than it was before the pandemic. chronic absenteeism right now is trending at 62%. That's projecting in advance based on current absentee rates. So that's probably missing about 15 days or more. And so that's about 14 percentage points better than last year, but still about six percentage points higher than it was before the pandemic. Right now. Teachers excellent are moderate attendance is higher than last year. And higher than it was before the pandemic, that numbers sometimes goes a bit lower as we reached the end of the school year, but we're optimistic that it should maintain about that level, because we only have about two months left of school. And we are ending the school year that after the first week of June. Our interim survey data lot based on love challenge prepared that students took is that 31% which was higher than last year, and even before the pandemic that's preliminary numbers, interim numbers, but not final numbers. We are launching our survey of staff and our families and our final student surveys as well. Now, that will continue for the next couple of weeks. And we'll have those results at the end of the school year. These numbers are not new, if you can just click done. Thank you. So these are just ELA and math numbers. These numbers have not changed from last year. Overall, our trend is that we are showing more at an above grade level performance and improved growth by one or more year in both ELA and math. We're also mostly seeing that at the high school level. The graduation rates for last year were official coming in at 71% which is about a 6.5 percentage point increase from last year with the four year graduation rate. Right now we have about 50 teacher vacancies. Unfortunately, that is growing. It's something that we have to make sure that we address going into this budget season the next year that we are budgeting for reoccurring salary increases for teachers and all employees. Right now we have about 42 support staff vacancies. That includes nine academic interventionist nine security guards, and nine ESC, Paras or AIDS. Right now we have about 10 guidance counselors, social worker vacancies. We have more professional development happening this year, more teachers participating than last year and 48,677. Our breakfast participation for students and lunch is higher than last year, which is a positive trend, but still not where we were before the pandemic. I know we talked last month at last month's board meeting about the challenges of cafeteria staffing. And some of the budget and personnel changes that are being recommended for last year should help with staffing in cafeterias overall, our days to process invoices are close to last year. That's also positive and operations because we're running more invoices because of our construction work. And then when you look at payments over the due date that is slightly higher than last year, but those were much more higher right now if you look at 7% and 6%. But that's always higher right now because of the amount that is being process and that should level off by the end of the year. But it's important for the board and the community to keep in mind that we're processing many more invoices because of the construction work. But also schools had more money this year with COVID money. So they did more contracting out for after school programming mainly. And then just general support during the school day, the number of errors with our paychecks are down compared to last year. And the length of time for request for proposal from proposing and executing is about five days more than it was last year. That should also level down. But again, we're processing more proposals than we did even last year. Just to right now, the district central office in particular. And soon principals are really focused on next year's budget, which is really more of a personnel process. Right now we know that we're dealing with three major challenges, that all have solutions, but they are challenges and require difficult decisions moving into next year. One, when you look at where we were with enrollment before the pandemic hit, and where we are now just based on the spring count, we have 2000 students fewer than we did before the pandemic. We actually were down 3000. But we've picked up 1000. Since we came back to school.
We have not dealt with that as far as our budget is concerned because we had COVID one time money. So we did not process any layoffs. We didn't do any non renewals over the past few years. Even though our enrollment numbers really dictated that we had to do that. In a normal fiscal year when you lose 2000 students, that equates to about $20 million. And that would automatically lead to a cut in personnel or cut in wages and salaries, or reduction in programming. We didn't do that. And we didn't have to because we had COVID bani to fill in the gap. But as we go into next year, we have to account for the loss of those students with our expenditures. And we have to deal with the reality of not having COVID money. So we can't plug the budgetary gap with a loss of enrollment. And we have to basically level our staffing at schools and at central office with the reality of having 2000 fewer students, which is really about revenue and expenditures. Our other challenge is inflation. Although per pupil funding is going to go up 4% Based on what the governor and the legislature signaling inflation is trending at 8%. So the cost of gas to run buses, the cost of bus drivers of custodians of just giving power to schools through DTE healthcare costs are trending at about 20 to $30 million more than it were before the pandemic. Again, we didn't have to deal with that during the pandemic, because we had COVID money. But now that that's gone, we have to balance the budget with clear expenditures coming in, or revenue coming in and expenditures going out. The third challenge is the need to increase salaries again next year. All the salaries that have been implemented up to the end of this fiscal year is budgeted and paid for. The challenge is is that in order to remain fully staffed with our teachers, and really remain close to fully staffed and other areas, I believe we have to increase salaries in a reoccurring way, not with bonuses, but another step and another salary increase. I think we can do all of that. So balanced the budget and lead to increases and minimize the cost of healthcare increases. If we make difficult decisions within the budget. If we just roll over last year's budget, then there is no possible way that we can do salary increases next year. And I don't believe that is a way to continue to ensure that we have the momentum that we have on student achievement. If we go back to the days of having 200 teacher vacancies, which I believe we would if we don't continue to increase salaries, then we really can't hold each other accountable to student achievement. And we're really not talking about a quality education with 200 teacher vacancies. And that's what really we would be looking at we we look we look at about 100 retirements, and I'll hire 100 resignations every year, give or take. So we're going to have to continue to recruit teachers and retain teachers simply at the levels that we were before. And that's going to lead to commitment to salaries, which is directly linked to student achievement. So the changes that we're proposing are likely going to be cuts and up positions in central office. Definitely more than 100 Some of these positions were funded out of COVID Some of these positions were directly linked to COVID funding or COVID initiatives. We also are looking at reducing some school based administrators, mainly assistant principals and Dean's in smaller schools. In previous budgets, what is clear is inequity among schools are very small schools per pupil, they don't get more cash. But when you look at their people, the number of people in their building versus students, they have much more per pupil funding than our neighborhood. High schools are large schools and a large K eight. So part of the budget recommendations going into next year is trying to level having a better balance among schools, so that the schools that are often most challenged, which are our neighborhood, high schools, and large K eights have more staff. So when we go through reductions, we're going to try to protect staffing, or add staffing at neighborhood high schools, and large K eights, neighborhood K eights. So at the administration level, less central office staff, fewer school based administrators, all of those individuals will have an opportunity to stay in the district if they're certified, willing to gain certification as far as a teacher. If not, then we will likely see separations for hourly employees. Our plan is to keep our all hourly employees if they're willing to go in other job classifications, mainly those that are hard to staff like cafeteria staff, like ESC parents and aides, or pre K parents. So there there will likely be elimination of some hourly positions. But with the opportunity to move into other positions that are harder to staff, most of those transitions would lead to the same wage or higher wage, with the exception of maybe a few people who aren't willing to go into those positions. Based on where we are with the budget development process. From what was funded out of COVID. We believe that we can still fund mental health and mental health services at all of our schools. We also believe that we can find nurses at in at least three fourths of our schools, so about 60 to 75% of our schools will probably still have a contracted nurse. But we're still going through the budget. To solve that challenge and opportunity. What we would not be doing in COVID is obviously COVID testing PPE, we would not be hiring more teachers to anticipate resignations and retirements. We would not be running expanded summer school or after school programming. But we do believe that we can fund literacy and mass support after school at all schools. We also believe we can fund them parent liaison at all schools next year. So basically, what we won't be doing with COVID is more money at schools for contracting, we will not be doing the COVID testing, to extend the summer school expanded after school. And now plug our budget, which is leading to the changes that have to be made. None of these decisions are easy. I wish we could avoid any of these changes and just continue to function. With the extra dollars that we had with COVID. It was the first time I felt we were equitably funded to just constantly do what we've always wanted to do and more. But the day is done with having that extra money. And hard decisions have to be made. If we're not willing to make hard decisions, then the bottom line is financially we can not increase salaries, period. And so my job as superintendent is to balance the budget through the board and offer scenarios. And at this point, the board has agreed that our priority has to be to continue to increase our salaries so that we can stay fully staffed. So that leads to our momentum on student achievement. It's not just about salaries. It's not just about paychecks. It's not just about employment. And frankly, it's not just about morale. It's about all those things leading to conditions to allow student achievement to occur. Your student if we're not prioritizing that student to student achievement will suffer. And that's not right for our students. We won't see a reduction in programming. We won't see an acceleration of closing schools. We're not going to close schools based on the budget trend that we're on right now. All of this will be explained in much more detail in the coming months to our committee meetings. The board already had a board retreat. There's been talk about maybe Another board retreat. So really none of this is final. But we are moving forward with changes, because we do have to balance and approve this budget in June. And some of these conversations have occurred at a high level. That's it, Madam Chair, and I'll pass it back on to you.
Thank you. Any questions or comments for the report that was given us superintendent? Members small?
Nothing really, you mentioned how there's currently an increase in teacher vacancies. And I know personally, at my school, when we see those vacancies, a lot of the times are being filled by non POC teachers. So are the training and professional development that are pertaining to racial sensitivities being updated consistently, to ensure that our teachers are providing a safe space for students when it comes to racial sensitivity.
So when we do fill vacancies, those vacancies are filled by only certified teachers or teachers that are in certification programs. Now, from time to time, there may be, let's say, a master teacher that covers the class, or you're gonna miss administrators that cover classes. But when someone goes into the position full time, that teacher is certified or in a certified program. And so training is provided to that teacher, through the master teacher at that individual school, and then new teachers have mentors. Sometimes those are the master teachers or other teachers at that school.
So are there any district mandated trainings pertaining to racial sensitivity for teachers that are hired on permanently?
No, not at this time to mandate professional development of any topic, it needs to be negotiated with? If we're talking about teachers, with DFT. And at this point, we don't have that now, we do have training on racial sensitivity and just what we say generally equity. So that training is available. But to answer your question directly, it's not required.
email questions, participants in your business report.
That reading, remember, guys,
thank you answering a text from the audience.
Is this come to the mic? For some reason, we can't thank you. Is
the report that he was reviewing? Is that being shown live because the static screen on my computer what he was speaking to, it's not all there. So what are they seeing real time what is being presented?
So the only slides that were used were the metric slides when I was talking about the budget I was doing by going by memory, there's no slides
during those slides that relates to the positions changing and shifting.
That we had a question as well. So we know that and we had our community meeting this past week. So thank you to everybody who came out to East English village, this past Thursday. One of the concerns that was brought up, it was around the students that we've lost, and majority of them have been in k two, if I'm not mistaken. And so can you just for this audience, talk about that gap, and k two and what the district is doing to make sure that we reach and try to close that gap as we move forward.
So when we look at the enrollment loss after the pandemic kid, it was mainly in early grades. And remember, that's the 2021 school year. And what we saw in the data is that in grades K to three in particular, some families were deciding just not to ensure that their students logged on. So there were just challenges which has been comfortable with using a device, internet access, larger families had to contend with younger siblings or even older siblings. So it was really a question of just not logging in, and not participating in online learning. Even though our schools were opened as learning centers. Some families just didn't feel safe sending their children to school, or sending them to a learning center where they wouldn't have their regular teacher. So that was not unique to Detroit that happened throughout the country, but mainly in large urban school districts. The other thing that we saw was students leaving the district for surrounding charter schools, not in the city, but in the suburbs that were open in offering in person learning. And then you just saw a demographic shift with families leaving the city, maybe to go with family, outside of the city in order to just pull resources and get through the pandemic. So now Since 2021, we've seen an increase in grades K to three. And that's where we've really picked enrollment up from the first year coming back from the pandemic. But in order to try to increase enrollment, we have paid for outside canvassers, our employees of Canvas, family members or parents to Canvas. We have increased the budgets or COVID money with marketing. And so we obviously lost less or fewer students than city charter schools did. That is clear in the data. We also lost fewer students than most large urban school districts throughout the country, because I think of the outreach that we did, and even providing the laptops Internet access home visit process. But as we move into next year, we're not projecting to see an increase in enrollment. That is substantial. We're hoping to pick up students here there. I think that we have done what we can to reach out to families, we'll do that again this summer. It won't be as expensive as it has been because we use COVID money for the canvassers. But we'll put aside some money for that. But with other challenges in the budget, I just don't see a large amount of money for canvassing next summer.
Thank you. Is there an opportunity? Or do you have? Will you be designing a process of engagement, so those structural changes that are going to occur to individual school, that community, those parents can have an opportunity to understand a structural change before it goes into
effect? So that I believe that can happen and toward the end of the school year, so May or June, just because it would be premature to engage now, because we're still engaging employee groups, still making final decisions with the budget. But once those decisions are final, and the other part of this is, what will principals do with their budgets? So schools get their budgets tomorrow, so they can make some decisions regarding personnel as well. They'll have about a month to make decisions within their budget. So by mid April, we'll have clarity on what the school level budgets look like, which are really personnel decisions. And then once that is clear, then to your question, I think we can engage at the school level with parents, students regarding what the changes look like. For the most part, when when we think about the personnel changes, it's mainly going to be with how we manage discipline that schools, principals will have more flexibility than they've had before, to make decisions regarding in school or out of school suspensions. And that'll change that'll come with the change in the code of conduct. So parent principals have been saying for several years now, especially after the pandemic, that they would like to be more empowered to make decisions around the number of days of suspensions, moving to an out of school suspension. Those changes, I believe need to happen, because we're ready to release that to principals. But that also will happen because some schools will have been banned. Matt may not have an assistant principal or the same number of visits in Britain, but they may not have Dean's or school culture facilitators. So when I think about changes going into next year, that's the area where I see the most amount of change that has to be communicated to families. I don't believe we will see a tremendous drop in our student programming general who won't or our academic work.
Never been planted.
Madam Chair, thank you. Dr. Vita, you
mentioned that smaller schools will have positions eliminated. Can you define what you mean by smaller schools
for clarity?
Sure. So what we think about a small school, a small school would be less than 450 students. So at 450 students, the district is chipping in or making up the gap between their personnel and the number of students at the school. But that number is not inclusive of changes in personnel. Just that really only to the schools that have less than 300. We'll see the greatest changes in the number of personnel when I say number of personnel. We're talking about assistant principal, school culture facilitator, Dean, and Paris. That's the greatest impact. There will be changes to teacher allocations, really only increases for schools, nets neighborhood high schools, so it's the schools less than 300 And that may not have an assistant principal and it said we'll have a deed. That's, that's really the major change when you think of very small schools.
Remember small,
and then between. And just to be clear between, let's say, 304 50, the allocation changes, uncertain on assistant principals and Dean's as well. But they will have an assistant principal if there are over 300 students.
So you spoke to teacher salaries a little bit, but I was wondering what else are outside of salaries rather, since we're in like national teacher shortage, I was wondering what else is being done to try to retain slash bring in new teachers, because it's not just like DPS like, like, nationally across the whole country, we're losing teachers that are leaving the profession are teaching in private schools instead of public schools.
So right now, as a district, we don't have a teacher shortage. Why our numbers right now, with 50, teacher vacancies, we are in a very strong position as compared to city charter schools, other larger school districts and even some suburban school districts. What we want to do is stay in that space, and continue to retain teachers and recruit teachers. Salary is obviously a driving force from that. And, you know, we have increased teacher salaries by on average, almost 15 to $16,000, since this administration started, so salaries is important, but beyond salaries, it's keeping healthcare costs down, or consistent. It's also creating an opportunity to be a master teacher, where you can leave the classroom or be designated as a lead teacher in your building to facilitate professional development. It's better curriculum, which is at grade level, is expanding the use of academic interventionist so that students that are below grade level can do have more support small group, one on one. So the burden of moving students at and above grade overall level is not just on the teacher. So you know, one thing that will change next year, is maintaining the dean and supports for discipline in large, in neighborhood high schools, large high schools, in the roof caves, unfortunately, that will be one change, possibly going into next year, we're not going to have the same number of Dean's and assistant principals that could impact the managing of discipline. But when you look at the difficult decisions that have to be made, if we cut central office, which we are the only where else to go is the classroom. And we're trying to protect the classroom by not doing cuts there with programming and teacher. So expanding professional development district wide, doing more professional development during the day. And using the surveys, which I think are important. So the panorama survey asked teachers directly the quality of their training, the quality of the curriculum, the quality of their evaluation process, so that we look at that at individual schools, and see how we can improve the conditions that teachers face in those schools. So at a high level, those are things that we're doing, other than just salaries,
vice presidents or request.
building, building off of that is a good building off of that, and just thinking about other things we can offer staff, not just teachers, but staff that kind of make our organization appealing place to work. You know, something that's been on my mind lately, because of a few conversations is, you know, how are our buildings accessible and welcoming for young parents? Especially, I mean, you know, near and dear to my heart, probably to no one's surprise on this board anyway. Like, where are breastfeeding mothers pumping and able to do what they need to do? And how does that space feel like, which is which would be I'm using this as an example because across the teaching profession, being a breastfeeding mother feels impossible just because of the demand, the scheduled demand, right? And in most public school districts, figuring out what that space is in a school building is really challenging. So things like that, in addition to salaries make us a really unique environment that I think would be really appealing to people, even to young teachers, of course, our staff is aging, that's probably why we haven't thought about it as much given what the percentage is environment by parents app look like. But as we're looking to recruit young folks, I'm just curious. And maybe I'd be curious, I'm looking for a response, honestly, but kind of lifting that up and flagging it as another way to think about what we have to offer to staff what we have to offer in terms of recruiting and bringing new folks in,
eventually, before you respond to that, because this, you know, I had a comment to add to that. I know, oftentimes, we talk about love, challenge and prepare for our young people. But again, we know that money is not the only thing that keeps a person in the workplace, it is the way that they're treated, and the amenities around in the culture and the climate. So I would hope that as we make that a priority for our students, that we're also making it a priority for our teachers and our principals, our staff, and everybody in the food chain, just because I know that's something that they've found.
Actually, most, I think, many districts and organizations talk about that, but they don't measure it. And so, every year, through the panorama survey, which our completion numbers have been 90 95%. So it's not a matter of where, you know, cherry picking data points to get that many people participating. When we're in real estate, that you can really use 60%. And we have 80 90% participation, but that survey data isn't just taken to take it, we actually analyze it at Central Office, principals, analyze it, we talk about it at data calm, and there's problem solving best practices that are shared around it. And, you know, our numbers, which teachers have improved, especially when we started in multiple areas. So that's, I think, the best way to think about climate and culture. And then, you know, when we repeatedly see low numbers, or just anecdotally challenges individual schools, we will make hard decisions about whether that principle is the right person at that school. You know, I am looking at what what is the feedback of central office staff working with certain principles and working in schools, and changes that have happened over the years with having the right people in those positions. So he never, no organization can ever say they're perfect when it comes to climate and culture. But I think we have metrics that show what's working and not and make adjustments accordingly. You know, I also failed to mention on the rise Academy, which I should have really said, you know, that is very unique for dpscd. So on the rise Academy is developing our own teachers, through academic interventionist, Perez, etc, in the system and outside 80% of those candidates are future teachers of color, and about 80% are also DPS grads. So we are developing our own bench. And we're the only school district to have the authority to offer alternative certification. And now other districts are modeling that throughout Michigan, in order to replicate that work. So we're not relying on universities, and actually we're developing more teachers of color within our school district and even universities are giving to dpscd. That's in the data. So that's, that's one of the main ways that we're developing teachers outside of the normal pathways, which will allow us to still fill vacancies as we move forward. And then things like class size, which we do control class size. I think everyone wants class size to be lower. But there is a building space issue. And there's a cost that goes on with hiring more teachers. But there's not one district that I know of, in Michigan that actually talks about adding teachers during the year based on class size and commit to class size numbers, and pay teachers more money to teach more students in the class beyond a certain level. I have not seen that. And I've asked, and so I have not if there is I'd like to see it because I always want to improve that model. But that's another way to show teachers that we're doing things differently. And then lastly, facilities. When we started five years ago, there was not one penny allocated to improve facilities. And so we have now spent by memory as of now, I want to say about 300 300 by 200 by 300 million, I would say in facility costs and we're about to spend 700 million to improve facilities and that is a large The quality of work issue. And so in five years, all of our schools will have air conditioning that goes a long way in the fall in the spring. And those are definitely ways to even putting fences around parking lots and paving, parking lots, security cameras in parking lots in the corridors. All of those are just improvement in just the working experience environment. Are we there now, as every parking lot done now, but we have a plan to do that to make the workplace better.
Thank you any more questions for Dr. Reidy? The final question I had our committee and you may not have this information now. But can you let me know what the retention is from pre K to kindergarten for those students who actually stay in our district after the pre K experience? You can just share.
It's about 70%. Thank you.
Any more member gates economical?
Thank you, Madam Chair. We do one of our committee meetings we talked about as as president may very lifted up the conditions for welcoming making it a welcoming environment for our staff. And one of the things that we heard, you know, when school was first starting was a number of complaints regarding placement and location. Was there any thought given to how that will be done? Or how will be impacted with potential staff be reduced or removed, etc. But But how teachers and the principals or school leaders, I should say, are selecting their staff. I have another question, but the resident since but they're not talking about the buyouts, specifically, Dr. BD offered buyouts because you asked him to speak to that. So if you can, in general talk about the buyouts.
So when it comes to, so the easiest way to go to the school that you want to be at is when there's a vacancy. And you're a new employee into the district as a school level, that's the easiest and that sort of common sense. But it's important to name that. After that, it becomes increasingly difficult because oftentimes, school based employees want to go to a particular school, and there isn't a vacancy at that particular school. The other thing that needs to happen is there has to be a match between the employee wanting to go to that school and the principal wanting that employee. So oftentimes, we do open the transfer window, based on the collective bargaining agreement, we send the email out people complete the survey. But the but the placement is not very high from a percentage point because oftentimes, people want to go to particular schools. We try to accommodate it when there's a vacancy, and there's a match. But that doesn't always happen. As far as school based leaders, every year, when we look at principals and APS, we do ask our Do you want to change, you just you might, and there has been some work, they K principals, I want a high school challenge or I'm burnt out from the high school, I'd rather go to the K eight. And we consider that I can't tell you that 100% We place based on preference. But over the years, we've had very, maybe five principles that have said they want to go somewhere else. And there isn't always a place for them to go. But we do try. Same thing with the system principles. The only challenge with the system principle is there has to be a match on AP may want to go to a school, but that principle doesn't have a vacancy or just doesn't feel like that individual is the right fit. So for severance or term severance, the the legal term is severance, but people call them buyouts. So what we try to do is, we look at the number of days that the individual has, so personal vacation days, and knowing that that person is entitled to those days, and basically could use it when they want minus issues of FMLA. And all of that we really start the conversation there, meaning those days are entitled The district is going to pay indirectly. Anyway. So if a position is eliminated, if to employees disgruntled, or an managers disgruntled with the employee, then we'll have a conversation of a possible severance. And so what is different this year is the possibility of a severance for school based employees. We really have not dealt with severance. We're hourly employees in particular. So this is new territory for the district will work with you union leader for that group if they're willing to move forward with the severance administration can offer a severance severance or engage in severance without the approval of the union leader. And so the union leader can generally say, go ahead, engage, I'm fine. You guys work that out. Other union leaders will say, I'm only comfortable with a standard level of severance for all members. Or we want to negotiate to say, you know, certain employees that have 20 years versus 10 years would only get a certain amount. It's all dependent on what the union leader wants to do, and what the union leader wants to authorize us to do. But legally, we cannot offer a union employee a severance without the approval of the Union. Now, non union administrators and non union employees are in a different category. Now, the benefit of the severance is that if a position is eliminated, and that individual is not willing or able to go into another position, then they can receive a severance. Our our our goal is trying to move as many hourly employees in particular, and even administrators with certification in open positions if they're willing to do that. Severance is another option. The other benefit from the severance, for example, with school based administrators is if if the collective bargaining agreement is not willing to be waived on bumping, it creates space and room for principals to pick the administrator they want. So if we go through a reduction of Dean's and we can't waive pumping REITs, then a principal may not have the deem that they actually want. So the severance clears way to drop the numbers to create more space and selection for principals. But this is very nuanced based on the employee group in the union.
Thank you, Madam, thank you, Madam Chair. So for vice principals and administrators, bottom line administrators, without unions, vice principals, principals, etc. There's no need to negotiate because they don't have a union.
They're entitled to negotiate for themselves as individuals, a non union employee can negotiate on their own with the with the district,
is there a standard? Package, if you will? That is more than a number of sick days?
Yes, depending on just depending on the position, depending on the desire of both parties to separate, that can lead to a higher rate above the days. And the same thing goes with hourly employees. So we're not there yet. But as if we get in the space of negotiating severance for hourly employees, we would go beyond the days that they have.
So so last follow up, there will be when these packages are offered a calculus of some sort on our website for transparency and how it will be done. So principal, by principal or assistant principal, by principal assistant principal are not reaching out to make sure they're not getting the worst deal.
Yeah, there. We would not post that on our website. That is that is a matter of negotiation. And and legalese is what I would say. And it could lead to other problems. I mean, bottom line is, we we would negotiate a severance based on the number of days the employee has based on the hourly rate, if you will, that the employee has, and we stayed generally consistent with employee groups. But we are entering new territory with hourly employees, because they make less, and they have less days. And we know that so an hourly employee on average, is not going to get as much as a non union administrator because they make less. I mean, that's just the way it is. I can't change that. But we can still offer something that I believe is fair and competitive, based on how much they're making beyond their days. Because going into this, we know hourly employees don't have as many days to use, and based on the socio economic status of a lot of our employees, they may have to use more days than a administrator.
That I'm sure I'm sorry. I know that said the last question, the last question, but I'm getting more and more confused based on the response. I'm just trying to find is there a standard not a case by case or person by person, but is there like a standard A formula that every assistant principal will be able to follow, or every principal will be able to follow. Like, yeah, that's what I'm looking
for. There. There is a standard for all employees. And then in the individual groups, there's a more specific standard. Thank you. So yeah, oops
right there.
Any more questions? Okay. The chair entertain a motion to accept Dr. Beatties report. It's been moved by member Mays has been seconded by Vice President Stallworth West, any discussions? All those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Motion on the floor. Any opposed? Motion carried. Thank you. We will now go into
Okay. Okay. So item number 10. Well, nine now is I'm closed session.
So the chair entertain a motion to enter into closed session pursuant to MCL. One 5.268. A and H of the Michigan Open Meetings Act to consider I personnel action an employee's request and I a written legal opinion. There's a motion to go into closed session. Is there a support? It's been properly moved by Vice President schoolwork wise has been properly supported by a member of bond. Madam secretary can we have a roll call please be supplied a bond
which recent McClendon President sharegate Agnolo yes, that I was Taylor.
So you may Lisa's power. Angelique Pearson Mayberry.
Madam chair you have a portable thanks so much
we'll be back shortly
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