DPSCD School Board - Regular Meeting - Feb 11 2025

    5:26PM Feb 12, 2025

    Speakers:

    Keywords:

    Public comment

    virtual comments

    Black History Month

    student accomplishments

    youth council

    college transition advisors

    attendance incentive

    chronic absenteeism

    homeless students

    custodial staffing

    school cleanliness

    McKinney-Vento Act

    affordable housing

    community engagement

    school safety.

    Cleanliness issues

    environmental compliance

    GDI RNA

    school principals

    OSHA requirements

    gun safety resolution

    student absenteeism

    virtual school expansion

    federal funding

    literacy lawsuit

    transportation challenges

    mental health support

    community engagement

    procurement process

    local authors program.

    payment

    power of attorney

    personnel actions

    administrative terminations

    library commissioner

    dual enrollment programs

    Wayne County Community College

    Henry Ford Community College

    high school redesign

    minority contractors

    procurement

    public education

    count day

    moment of silence

    retired teacher.

    Tonight, I just want to share that we have much to do, and I have made just a few adjustments in the agenda so that there would be more time given to our audience to sign up for public comment. So you will notice that the time has been moved to just give you a little bit more time. The board heard you, and we are responding to that. So that many of you are coming in from work or coming in from various places collecting your children, that you have just a little bit more time to sign up for public comment. Thank you for that, and we want that to be noted. Also, there's been quite a bit of discussion about the board removing the virtual comments, and so tonight, I just want to be very public about it again, the board has heard you, and that item is not coming before the board. The virtual comment will remain. We should get a hand clap for that, right? Thank you so much. We did hear you, and we want to continue to provide that option for those of you that are not able to be in person. And we realize that there are many, many things that can take place that can prevent you from coming to the meeting in person, but we do want to hear your voice, so we thank you for allowing us opportunity to consider your request, and your request has been granted. Thank you so much for that that concludes the chairs remarks and I will now go to our student reports, our amazing students. We'll turn it over to you.

    Good evening, everyone. Happy Black history. Month before we begin our February Board report, we would like by we would like to start by introducing the D, y, C, the district executive Youth Council is made up of high school students who are active members of their respective school. Excuse me, school student council and or government school administrators nominate two students, a junior and a senior, from their elected boards to represent their school on the du yc. These students go through team building workshops, professional development and student led networking meetings. They plan the annual C conference and participate in group volunteer efforts. The du YC and the student representatives to the board work together to furnish the board report to you all each month

    for February, we'll be presenting our findings from the January duic meeting which took place January 10. 2025 we will start by highlighting student accomplishments from various school activities. From there, we'll present a follow up questions to the board, all questions and concerns from our meeting that was held last Friday, February 7. 2025 will be emailed to Dr Vitti and his office by close of next week, and we look forward to his response in March before we begin our report, we want to first acknowledge that February is Black History Month established in 1926 by Carter G Woodson and federally recognized in 1919 69 we encourage all students, staff and families to support black Businesses research black history and pay respect to African American freedom fighters that came before you. Often during public comment, committee members raised concerns about the amount of black history in the curriculum. The UIC acknowledged this issue, and want the public to know that students have shown no concerns with the dpsc curriculum. However, we know how important Black history is, and encourage teachers and administration to share their stories with students and enhance to enhance programs that have been taught in the district already. With that, here are the highlights.

    Our highlights begin with the voices of the D, y, C, members dedicated to uplifting and showcasing the positive progress and excellence within D, P, S, C, D, schools across the city, there has been a noticeable and steady rise in attendance, particularly at Davis, aerospace senior activities and festivities at DIA have greatly contributed to improve fulfilling high school experience for seniors. Dia has also seen notable advancements in academic in both academics and sports, along with a larger freshman class, resulting in students becoming more actively engaged with their school communities as it pertains to challenges. Our young women's sports teams across the district reported limited access to essential resources, including equipment and recognition, which are vital for their success and morale. We acknowledge these challenges and remain committed to finding effective solutions. In addition, we hope the board takes these concerns into consideration while continuing to support the positive progress happening within dpscd schools.

    In January, we proposed abbreviated schedules to Dr Beatty's office, following, following students, all following students with all requiring credits to leave. 1pm after review, dpsc principals identify structural challenges requiring further development. Before implication Dr Dr Vitti sent an email stating the following, though the duic want to push forward with this project, it is important to consider the administration principles, questions and concerns, and it is possible to issue leave, to issue early release forms to schools, and it would be the admins discretion to provide these to provide this release with the consent and signature of admin and the students legal guardian, Dr Beatty, I wanted to know if you could just clarify this question, is the administration still working through any details that could allow for this initiative to be implemented before the end of the academic school

    year? Sorry,

    through the Chair, I didn't I didn't know if you wanted me to respond now or not. Yes, can you hear me? So I have provided High School Principals with the official form that we'll use throughout the district if a senior is advancing credits and on path to graduate at the end of the year, then the high school student can take that form to the principals discuss why she or he would want to leave early at one 1pm and then that form has to be signed by the parent or guardian. And so some of the pushback from high school principals and implementing it is as as we try to encourage more dual enrollment Advanced Placement, we want every student, typically a student who's advanced and on the path of possibly graduate earlier, but is also a great candidate for dual enrollment Advanced Placement, Even honors classes. So the challenge is, as we try to promote those opportunities, those same students want to leave, and we just want to make sure that they're doing something that's productive, safe, and just provides them a better opportunity to go to college and be productive in the world of work. But to answer your question directly, I provided that form to high school parent principals. Any high school student who's on path to graduate on time can give that form to the principal, have that conversation or guidance counselor, and then there'll be a follow up conversation with the parent to guardian to understand what is lost by leaving earlier. Parents. Principal has the right to sign or not sign, and the parent has to sign and then that can be implemented. Thanks.

    Dr Vitti, also in the January meeting, we emphasize the importance of having College Transition officers to support students. As a part of our proposal, we suggested creating a district wide team chat where students can receive advice schedule one on schedule one on one meetings and ask questions about the college application process. Respectfully the DUI students, D, y, C. Students, would like an update from Dr Beatty's office and the board regarding the progress on possibly implementing this chat.

    I'm sorry, there's a lot going on right now. No, can you repeat the question?

    You're okay. Dr Reedy, we mentioned something about having a chat where college transition advisors and students can kind of like communicate, because there is a lack of college transition advisors in high schools right now, we're wondering if there's any update on that.

    So our high school, so some schools do have a college transition advisors, but all schools, all high schools, obviously have guidance counselors, and we also have partnerships with Detroit promise and other college going organizations. So it's my expectation, and part of our way of work, that it should be an ongoing conversation around college preparedness, applying for the FAFSA, applying to colleges. So I'd be more interested to hear directly from high school students, where is this not happening with frequency, so that I can go deeper at that individual school and honestly ask questions about whether it is happening or how frequent. But it's part of our regular work that that should be happening, so please let the student leaders know, to let you know what school and then we can ask more questions.

    Thanks. Dr V Lastly, additionally, on Saturday, January 25 Naomi Avery and I had the privilege of attending the special board meeting at the Detroit Police Academy building. During the meeting, we gained valuable insight into the board's procedures from the Michigan board, Association representative, we are grateful for the opportunity, and look forward to seeing the procedures discussed at the meeting put into

    action. Lastly, we want to thank Dr Vitti and our board for being so respect, receptive to student feedback and taking suggestions. The DYC sees your efforts, and they are highly appreciated. Are there any questions? Thank you, and that concludes our report.

    Fantastic. Thank you so much. We applaud your participation, and we were absolutely thank you. Thank you. I would love to just hear what you love. Learned at the board retreat was that a lot of great information for you?

    Yeah, I think so I think it's really easy, like to sit on stage and see you guys either just go through roll call or tie by items and think you're just doing it out of courtesy. But there's actually, like, laws in place for things like that to happen. So I think it was important to like see that policy is not only happening on stage, but also happening behind the scenes for the district.

    Absolutely. Wow. Fantastic, fantastic. Miss Naomi, were you excited to be there? We were so happy to have you as a part of that.

    Thank you. I was really excited. Even with it being a Saturday was It was nice to see nice to see you all. Nice to see Micah and Avery, and I am interested, and I'm an I'm a policy nerd and a logistics nerd, so I was excited to see all the inner workings and technicalities of the board.

    Thank you. Let's give them a hand. Thank you so so much. Thank you. We are excited about your participation in what we are doing. It's very important to us. Item number seven is our finance report from our chief finance officer, Mr. Vedito.

    Good evening board members and community.

    All right, the screen isn't up here, so I'm going to do my best. If you can't hear me, please let me know we'll be reviewing the information for DPS. First, starting with DPS, we received tax collections on both the 13 and the 18 mills. This is brings our 13 Mills revenue to about $65 million the next bond payments that we'll need to make are in April. That will be the principal payments on the capital bonds, on the operating debt. We received about $1.5 million bringing our balance to $2.8 million through December for dpscd revenue came in slightly ahead of forecast overall. That's driven by the increase in federal revenue as we received the one time the final ARPA payments in December from the federal government. Additionally, our state and local, we're running slightly behind schedule. Those will get caught up as our one time grants that are being processed by the state, and the state is just behind in processing those funds to districts. So those will get caught up on expenses. Expenses are running slightly below year to day projections, so that's a good thing. So we are on track to continue to maintain our budget surplus again this year overall, we did in the month of December pay out personnel costs being slightly higher with the bonus and retro pays for the remaining union agreements that were paid in December, we had approximately 15 weeks of available cash on hand. And that concludes my report. Any questions?

    Are there any questions from board members for Mr. Video,

    Madam Chair, I just text our secretaries, our members. Most of us don't have the screen is not showing the presentation, so it's kind of hard to do this. So if we can get it to come up and move our screens to the right to the presentation, so we can follow and you know, the sound echoes so but no for questions for now, but I would like for our screens to reflect the screen.

    We'll take a five minute recess while this is being done. Thank you, because

    I don't know.

    Next? What happens?

    That was

    the last discuss the cash flow analysis, or has he done it

    when we come back here,

    right? Yeah, okay, at

    that point, I think Sherry said she couldn't,

    she didn't have anything.

    Thank you for. Find such

    as Hey, Dan Diego, are you up? No, I'm good. I'm good

    for questions. I just want to make sure that the screens were reflecting the report. Okay, it's kind of, it's kind of hard to hear all the time,

    you know, speaking your mic, it's,

    it's kind of hard to hear the report, you know, being presented. And so it's easier to have a picture to follow the presentation so I don't have Mr.

    Video, would you carefully go back through your report please so that we can follow perfect.

    Yes, I'm happy to do that. Thank you very much. Great. So I will just recap. For DPS, we received tax collections on both the 13 and the 18 Mills, little less than $3 million on the 13 Mills, that's the capital bonds, 1.5 Mills on the 18 Mills, that's the operating debt. The next bond payments for the capital bonds are scheduled for April, and for the operating debt, we're fully paid at this point, there are conversations with Treasury regarding that for dpscd revenue is coming in ahead of forecast. This is being driven by our federal revenue. We received the final Esser the ARPA grant that was received in December. Local and state revenue is slightly behind forecast. The state is delayed in disbursing some of the state grants that were approved. We expect to get those in the spring and to be caught up then expenditures are just slightly below projections. We did see an increase in December on personnel costs as we made final with the union agreements, bonus payments and retro payments for all unions to catch up there, and then contracted services started to catch up on the available cash. We ended December with approximately 15 weeks of available cash in our general fund that doesn't include the facility master plan cash that concludes my report. Thank

    you. Thank you. Mr. Video, are there any questions to the CFO? Miss short, Dr short, are there any questions to the CFO no vice chair,

    yes, just a question on or clarification on why the state is delayed. Do you have any information on that the

    state has been delayed the last two years in terms of the distribution of all the grants. It's been a concern that districts have raised, and the State Department of Education is working on it, but as the state has increased the number of grants, it has taken them longer to disperse all those grant applications out to schools. And so this has been a pattern for the last two years. We do receive the money, but it has come as late as May of the school year, and we continue to advocate with our lobbyists, and this is a coalition across the state that's been urging Michigan Department of Education to release the funds faster.

    Thank you, Mr. Video is, are there any questions? Any additional questions? Madam

    Chair, I'm sorry, no question as related to the CFO. However, I just received an email that virtual connection has been lost. Getting back double check is back up. It is back up. Yes, I'm

    going to make that enough. Is there, are there any more discussions on the finance report? If not, it is a consensus that this will go to audit. There is no motion needed at this point, it goes to audit. We all there is a consensus for that. Thank you. Thank you. All right, let me thank you, Mr. Video. We do have a new link for YouTube. It appears that we crashed at the beginning of the meeting. We apologize for that, but we are back up. So what you try now I'm going to ask it, can you put the new link up so that those we can see it? Thank you so much. And this is just technology. It did go down, it crashed, but I think we are up, and I do want to thank Ms. Crystal Wilson, for helping us out with additional cameras and additional lighting so that we can have a quality stream. Thank you so much. Someone check and make sure that we're up now. Vice Chair, can you check and make sure we're up? Alright? Thank you so much. That brings us to our Superintendent's report, and we do announce at this point that public comment sign in has closed. Dr Beatty,

    thank you, Madam Chair. At this point, I'll let Miss Wilson come up to announce our recognitions tonight, and then when she's done, I'll go through our principal recognitions for improvement in student

    achievement. Thank you. Dr Beatty, our first recognitions are for the core value of service, which state, listen, empathize, respond, own problems and help to solve them. Tonight, we are proud to recognize 14 food service workers in the Office of School Nutrition who have dedicated 35 or more years of service to DPS dpscd. At this time, we would like to honor these staff members for their unwavering commitment to ensuring our students have access to nutritious meals throughout the years. Thank you so much and congratulations. Darryl Baldwin, Anna Stafford, Carl Cooper, Gloria Gary, Fanny Walker, Allen speed Patricia Morris, you go this way, you go this way, you

    go that way.

    Valerie, Buford, Melissa and Hughes, Dorothy Brown, Mac Collins, glad arise, Bailey, tenia, Brazil and shalinda Williams, Thank you for 35 plus years of service. Congratulations. You.

    Let's give them another big round of applause. Let me hear 35 years worth of applause. Yes, thank you. Thank you.

    Okay, our second recognition is for the same core value of service which states, listen, empathize, respond, own problems and help to solve them. Marvin herfield, with the Department of auxiliary services, has ensured that classrooms in 26 buildings were properly equipped at the beginning and end of each summer to accommodate new construction and programming, all while managing his regular warehouse duties. Tonight, we recognize Marvin hertfield for his dedication to our students and his commitment to going above and Beyond. Congratulations, Mr. Hartfield, on your recognition this evening. You

    up. Let's give Mr. Herfield another wonderful round of applause. Can't do warehouse and deliveries without Mr. Herfield. He is Mr. Warehouse. Dpscd, congratulations. You.

    Underwear so.

    Okay, as we've been doing each month, we want to recognize schools, and specifically principals, but again, it's hard to get everyone here. People are busy, they want to go home. They're tired, so this is really about recognizing the entire school for their achievement. But tonight, we're having our principal come or designee. Tonight we're going to recognize the schools that have made significant improvement in what we call WIDA. WIDA is a state assessment that's required to ensure that newly arrived students, mainly to the country, are English proficient as they work through their education. And so tonight, we're going to recognize schools that had the greatest amount of growth in WIDA performance and proficiency. And so when students take this English proficiency exam, they're tested in reading, writing, speaking and listening. It's the expectation of the state that they become quote, unquote proficient in English in five years. So, you know, often I ask people, imagine going to another country where you didn't grow up speaking or hearing that language, you're infused in school at whatever grade, and in five years, you're expected to be proficient in that other language. That's the expectation in the United States, whether we agree or disagree, and we're talking about acquiring the language, not talking about understanding US History or English language arts or biology for that sake. So we have been showing steadily improvement here. And we want to recognize again, the schools that have shown the greatest amount of growth. So these are our top five schools when it comes to showing improvement in WIDA growth. And so the idea of growth is gradually moving to being English proficient in five years. So growth is determined that as you go year by year, you're on Pace, pace to be proficient in English in five years. So the school with the highest growth is Mayberry Elementary, and principal Smith should be here tonight. Second we have Gardner Elementary, principal Bradley, Davidson, elementary principal, Coleman cast tech, high school Principal, Phillips and then Mark Twain, elementary Principal. Hence you

    today, We're not reviews.

    Practicing.

    Up and our last set of recognitions, these are schools that had the the top five highest improvement in proficiency. So again, when we talk about proficiency, we're talking about becoming English proficient. So our top school, Mayberry Elementary, again, principal Smith, and we have Greenfield union. Principal, Hunt mark, Twain again. Principal, hence, Western International High School. Principal, Garcia Crockett, Midtown, High School of Science and medicine. Principal, lively and lastly, but certainly not least when it comes to this group, Cass tech, high school principal Phillips. And as everyone comes up, what I want to note is, you know, we have English language learners across the district, not only at individual schools. So I named schools. Today, where you may have not thought that there were quite a few English language learners, but again, our city is becoming much more diverse, and our immigrant population is throughout the district, not just southwest Detroit. Thank you, everyone. The

    so Once we keep trying

    to Okay? Okay, to continue the presentation again, we'll review our metrics, which we do every month. As you can see, our enrollment continues to improve, even within the school year Currently, we have 49,330 students enrolled, K 12 throughout dpscd, as a reminder, tomorrow is spring count. Spring count attributes to 10% of the FTE that we receive as a district. We certainly know that since the fall count, at least as far as enrolled students, we've increased by nearly 500 students since count in the fall. So we need all students to attend tomorrow and in the count window, because that's how dpsd receives at least 10% of the full year. FTE by attending in that window, our re enrollment rate is slightly up compared to last year, 1% but that certainly is favorable when you see the number of students staying in the district from Fall to Fall, average daily attendance is moving in the right direction this year. We are up by about one percentage point in average daily attendance. Our chronic absenteeism right now is trending nine percentage points better than it was last year. Also want to note just as far as high school attendance, because of getting a lot of questions about this right now, high school attendance for students is 1% higher for average daily attendance. And right now, Apples to Apples this year versus last year, chronic absenteeism is down five percentage points compared to last year. So the suggestion is, district wide, our strategies are working, but I would say that the incentive is making a positive impact right now, where at least just apples to apples, we have 700 high school students that are not chronically absent where they were last year. At this time, we have two, three more, two week cycles for the incentive that will take us all away till the end of March, and as a reminder, when we have a snow day, that day is skipped and we go to the next date until we get to 10 straight days of school. If a school individually has to close because perhaps a bad boiler, then that is a free day for the high school student to accumulate 10 straight days right now, 88% of teachers are considered to have excellent or moderate attendance, and we did take an interim survey of students last month. It is slightly down compared to last year's end of year love challenge and prepared aggregate number when I met with principals about this about two weeks ago, they were mixed, just feelings about students taking the interim. The principal wanted to take the interim. We started that last year to have some mid year data on how students are feeling and thinking about their school experience. But if we only take it select questions, not all the questions. So students will take the end of year Love Challenge prepared survey in the next couple of months, toward the end of spring, but at least it gives schools some idea about where students are feeling as far as being Love Challenge prepared this month, I was able to review with the academic committee the mid year data that you see here reflected at a high level right now, 53% of students are showing one or more year of growth at mid year, growth is harder to obtain this year, which is a good thing, because we have more students that are performing at and above grade level. So. More students perform at above grade level, growth is harder to obtain, but at mid year, with more than half the students showing a one or year more year of growth, I think that number will continue to improve as we go through the school year. That number is slightly higher for those that have been continuously enrolled in dpscd. Also want to point out that 58% of students that are in the bottom 30% have showed one or more year of improvement. These are general ed students, special needs students. These are English language learners. It's a collection of students. We track this because we don't only want to see our higher performing students improving, but our lower performing students improve. And what we saw at the academic committee meeting, when we reviewed the data, all students are moving in the right direction, as far as showing at and above grade level growth and just overall growth, whether you're a high performer, almost proficient, slightly below proficient, or dramatically below grade level, all students are positively in the aggregate, moving in the right direction. In math, the k8 level, 55% of students have shown one or more year of growth. This is K through eight, nearly 55 continuous improve continuous enrolled, and 63 almost 64% of students in the bottom 30 are showing one or more year of growth right now, based on i Ready Project predict. Predictor, 17% of students grades three to seven would be at an above grade level at the end of the year. That's plus or minus one or two. And then when you look at math, it's 13% which would be higher than where we ended at the end of the year at the high school level, about 31% of students right now are considered college ready. That's slightly below where we ended last year, and about 10% would be college ready in math, again, that's mid year. We still have another semester of instruction before students take their tests. We have slightly fewer students in college or career classes. That's also because we've increased the expectation of what kind of college class you'd have to take to get credit for that. And about 60% of 59% of students are passing those courses. As far as grad rate that will be released officially by the state and about a month that that goes back to the end of this past year. We're projected to improve in graduation rate once again, but that will be official in about a month. Right now, we have about 36 teacher absences, 34 support staff absences, vacancies. Rather, we have seven assistant principal vacancies, three counselor vacancies, for academic interventionist vacancies, only one security guard vacancy, six pre K para vacancies, and nine ese or special education para vacancies, significantly below where we used to be. We've also decreased the number of vacancies for our cafeteria staff. We're at 17 district wide the beginning of the year. We're at 42 years ago, we had hundreds of cafeteria vacancies. We are now we have 23 contracted custodian vacancies. And you can see here as far as our operation numbers, whether it's RFP, the contract pay check errors, all trending below where we were last year. I'd also like to finish the presentation by speaking to meal participation for breakfast and lunch. This has been one of the data points that is down versus last year, and we've continued to analyze the cause of this. Well, based on our most recent reviews of schools, we believe that the cause for that is how we're actually called counting meals. In previous years, we were able to count meals by counting, for example, how many milk cartons were taken

    during breakfast or lunch, or looking at the number of trays that would be taken for meals. Audit required us, going into this year, to actually use electronic counter so that when students go through the line, you have to actually press a touch screen, and when we actually viewed and watched students go through the lunch line, what was clear was, if I were counting the lunches or the more lunches, in this case, we're skipping students because just the lag in technology and counting. So this is has to do with training, more training, more efficiency in this area, I wouldn't say that our students are eating less. I would say that we change the way in which we count, and we just have to now create an apples to apples comparison with the new way of counting. Continue to train and possibly continue. To modernize how this is done. The big challenge here, also, and we'll continue to work with schools, is we've invested in ID cards, which should make this process much easier, which is with an ID card, when a student goes through the lunch line, they can scan their card, and the system would pick up that they would have a lunch, and it wouldn't require an employee to tap the screen. The problem with that is not all students are using their ID. Most schools have issued IDs, but often they're lost, and so we have to do a better job district wide to make sure that students are using their ID. That's ultimately the technology solution to the missed counts. Here, I'd also add the ID cards are very important as we try to improve bus service, especially in K through eight, we want to get to a point where when students get on the bus, they use their ID and scan the system so we know what students are on the bus that day. That's important for security purposes. It's also important as we try to refine resources with you know, how many kids are on busses? We really do head counts rather than real counts. We've We've invested in the IDs, and we just have to start to use the IDS more frequently. Madam chair that that concludes my presentation. Don't know if the board has any questions regarding the presentation or other topics that I didn't discuss.

    Thank you, Dr Vitti, going to open it up for the board at this point. Thank you. Thank you Sherry gates and Mako.

    Thank you. I know we talked about this via email, Dr Vitti, or through the chair. The incentive impact, which was referenced in this report, if you could speak to that actual number and the universe that participated in the results from the incentive

    Sure, just give me a minute to pull that up.

    So we've completed two cycles now of the Perfect Attendance Award. And so for those in the audience that may not know, we started, I think it was January 6. Was the first day back from winter break. It was a Monday. I think it was January 6, but the first two week cycle started then, and students will receive $200 if they're present for 10 consecutive days, they have to be present every period throughout the class day, unless there's a school sponsored event where they're off campus or out of class for any particular period of that day, this is present. Now we all know that students may be sick, they may have doctor's appointments, but they're defined by the state as absent, and that contributes to chronic absenteeism. So even if absences are quote, unquote, excused, they're still considered absent, and that counts against them when we look at average daily attendance and chronic absenteeism. So basically, when you look at week, the first cycle and the second cycle, we're seeing about, I'd say about 1700 more high school students with perfect attendance, apples to apples, compared to the previous year. So that means, because of the incentive to two cycles, about 1700 students are have had perfect attendance for each of those cycles versus where they were last year. When you look at who the students are, for example, like what, what are their What did our attendance look like before this incentive happened? Roughly 10% of students that have received the the incentive have had about 10% have already had perfect attendance, and so that tells you, I would suggest that 90% of students who are getting the incentive do not have perfect attendance. So this is not just rewarding. Those that are have already been going to school, about 4% of students are already chronically absent, so they've already missed 18 or more days that have had perfect attendance and been awarded the incentive. About 16% have missed what we would say 10% of the school year, but less than 18. So that means that they're they're just under being chronically absent, and 16% of students that have gotten the incentive are in that category. About 25% have only missed five to 10% of the school year. And then 4040, 540 4% have only missed 5% or less of the school year. So certainly you see a range of students, or the type of students that are improving their attendance based on the incentive. I'd also reiterate, I think what I think is a clear data point across high schools is that right now, apples to apples, same day, I think it's the 97th day of the school year, chronic absenteeism has been reduced by five percentage points. So that means, this time last year, 700 more high school students were already chronically absent, or on the way of being chronically absent. So obviously, the board and I will discuss the pros and cons of the incentive at the end of the year. Decide if we continue it, we modify it, and obviously threats at the federal level and federal funding may also change our course. But as an update, these are some of the data points that we have right now, two cycles in.

    Thank you. The Chair recognizes board member Bryant,

    so Madam Chair, one question I have is, how many concerns or complaints did we have from the first cycle where parents or students have questions to not receiving through

    the Chair, I'd have to give you the exact number, but I would say I received probably 60, maybe 100 emails from high school students, and that's by pure memory, just What I think I received, that doesn't include emails directly to the problem solver on addressing attendance issues at individual schools. So the number one challenge that high school students have had with the incentive is that they believe that they had perfect attendance, and it wasn't recorded accurately by their teacher. So either the teacher was absent and then the sub didn't input the attendance correctly, or maybe they arrived to class late and the student the teacher didn't update the attendance. And so when you look at, let's say, 60 to 100 concerns, some legitimately had perfect attendance. Others forgot that they were absent, or were trying to get the instead of knowing that they missed multiple days. And so at a high level, that's been the greatest complaint, is that they didn't get the $200 because they had perfect attendance, and the teacher record didn't have that. The other complaints, some questions were from parents students about excused absences, but that was vastly in the minority. Most complaints were about, I thought I had perfect attendance. I didn't get the gift card. How do I get my gift card?

    And my other question is, so we have roughly 15,000 high schoolers. Correct with that, with that being said, those students who were not in the cycle of one and two, what did you look at with their attendance in terms of metrics to maybe encourage them and or some that are at risk. What are we doing for those students?

    Well, that that's something that would happen more at the school level. I know schools beyond disincentive, they have incentives around perfect attendance, improved attendance, whether they're raffles, even additional gift cards, district wide. What we're trying to do is continue to promote the incentive, even if a student didn't qualify the first week, the first cycle, the second cycle, then they qualify the third, the fourth or the fifth. So just getting awareness about the opportunity, regardless of where they're at with their general attendance, trying to promote high school principals using the public announcements daily to remind students, robocalls, Robo texts. I mean that I think those are the best strategies to inform students of their attendance. If the question is beyond the incentive, then it just goes back to what we're doing as a district and individual schools. And that comes down the attendance agent calling parents, doing home visits, problem solving on why students are absent, whether it's transportation issue, whether it's homelessness, those are all issues that attendance agents try to problem solve on, just to promote students coming to school daily. So

    if the intent of the incentive was to have higher attendance rates, I hear the 5% but it sounds like the other 95% we aren't really meeting the goal of the. To give the incentive. And I do understand that it's a one time incentive, but I don't see where we've raised the bar on 15,000 high schoolers, you know, at least more than half of them attending and getting that incentive

    through the Chair, I would say, glass half empty. Glass half full. Right now, chronic absenteeism at the high school level is improved by five percentage points. That means that 700 high school students are not chronically absent where they were last year. I'd also say that at least on the 97th day, our chronic absenteeism at the high school level is the lowest it's been since the pandemic. So I contribute that. I attribute that to just what we're doing district wide and at individual schools, but I think the incentive is making a difference with many students. I wouldn't say all students, but it's making a difference for many. And I think it's a question obviously for the board, is this the right investment with other challenges that we have district wide, and I think we review that at the end of the year and make a decision, but I think the data is suggesting it's working for many students. I wouldn't say that it's working for all. I'd also say, you know, the push that the board had, which I agreed, which is, how do we think out of the box? How do we think innovatively, to do something different that would be appealing to students, especially high school, students that come to school, and the data suggesting that it's working, but I wouldn't say that it's a magic bullet. It's fixed chronic absenteeism, or that it necessarily addresses the root of chronic absenteeism. All I would say is it's making a difference. And more students at high school are coming to school. I think we'd have to decide, is this the right investment, the right amount? Do we scale it back? Do we scale it up, or do we get rid of it based on other priorities? But I would just, I would continue to say it's working for many students, not all.

    So my final question is, what was the target number you had hoped to reach? So we're at 5% now? What was the overall number that you you would say

    yes, through the through the chair, specifically for the incentive, we didn't name a metric, I would say it goes back to the metric that we set with the strategic plan. And by memory, I want to say it was three to five percentage decline in chronic absenteeism. That's my memory. By the end of the meeting, I'll clarify that. But I think this incentive and strategy was about driving to see that three to five percentage improvement or decline in chronic absenteeism, and at least 97 day in we're trending in that direction. But I but by the end of the meeting, I'll define the actual metric, but not specific to this strategy, but I would say it was, it was one of several strategies that we talked about in moving or improving chronic absenteeism. And ultimately, what we tried to do is get to a number below where we were before the pandemic or chronic absenteeism, and right now, we're there. Now. We have to continue to work for the rest of the year to maintain the improvement, but right now, 97 day in we are better district wide than we have been before the pandemic.

    Thank you. Are there any questions? Board

    Member Mayberry, I do. Thank you so much. So I know Dr Vitti, we unpack that a lot in academic committee. So I look forward to we know students have to be in school to learn. So moving this academic data is I expect to see that when students are in school, we know that we will actually move that academic data. I do have two quick points. One, is there a way are the virtual students? Are the metrics for virtual students embedded in what we currently see? Or is there a separate way to see where the virtual students are moving academically,

    through the chair? They're all when we talk about the metrics every board meeting, all students, virtual special needs, English language learners. It's all students. Even when we talk about chronic absenteeism, we're talking about all students.

    Okay, because I know we have some specific parameters around virtual students, and I know we have increased virtual students based on the external climate of certain students. So I want to make sure that we are keeping our arms wrapped around those students. Lastly, the 23 contracted custodial vacancy. So I know we have two vendors. What are we? What type of pressure is being put on a custodial. Contractors. And I'm saying that because, as we visit schools, what we'll often hear from principals is that the staff is skeleton. However, they are really working those that are in the building extremely hard because, because it's a little light in personnel. So it has there been any conversation around our custodial vendors as it relates to trying to close the gap for the custodial services. I know we have the checklist in the schools around what's been cleaned, and we also have the ability for principals to be able to provide feedback, but it's just interesting. As we visit schools, you'll hear some principals who they ran and rave around how amazing their staff is, but they will also tell you that it is very skeleton in terms of the people that are cleaning the building.

    Yeah, through the chair. I think the response your question is two fold. One, we can always talk about vacancies, and remember when, when there are vacancies, the companies aren't paid, so we pay for services, and so when there are vacancies, there is a deduction in the invoice when paid. But what you're hearing from schools often, certainly at some schools, it might be a vacancy question on the contract of services, but more than anything, it's about wanting more custodians, contracted custodians. It's not that could be a question of vacancies, but, but typically schools want, or principals want more people cleaning that costs more money, so we've tried to keep our numbers to a minimum in order to put dollars in other priorities. We can always increase the number of contracted custodians, but that means more money to fund it. So right now, we did. We did this review a couple months ago. I can provide it to the board, just regarding the number of custodians we have versus square footage. You know, what is the standard in the K 12 space? I think what I recall, and I can pull it back up and send it to the board, but we're relatively close to what the standard would be. But then, you know, it's like anything else, whether talking about class size, number of AIS, you know, what are we going to invest in? So certainly we can add but that means additional cost. So

    I look forward to that data that you send as it relates to that, because we know, you know, when you're talking about school, climate and culture, safety, cleanliness, those all fall into that same space, so I'll await your email. Thank you. Yeah,

    and I would also add, and you had said it in your question, we also rely on the survey to determine through the principal's eyes voice, what is the quality of cleanliness in their building through the contractor. So if we continue to see low ratings, then we problem solve with the principal to better understand what is the issue, or with GDI and RNA. And so if the concern is, well, vacancies, well, it's, I don't have enough staff, then that moves into problem solving to where we can shift the aggregate number, or a person within the aggregate to a school, you know, less more, or if there's a continued vacancy problem, then we can also shift the contractor will shift people to that area. So I go back to what it how are we measuring it? We're measuring it through the survey and just walk throughs. But that survey is critical, because that's the first red flag that will come up that the services are inadequate.

    So I just would encourage us to make sure that the principals feel comfortable doing that. I know it's not so much about the services that they're receiving are inferior, but they are concerned that they the people that they have in the buildings, are covering a lot more square footage based on absenteeism from those who aren't coming to work in those spaces, or we just don't have the head count for them. So thank you.

    Thank you. Dr short, I'm

    sorry I forgot the term. I have three questions. The first one is, I'd like to see and understand the reason that some of our students are not attending, participating in this attendance incentive. Because I think if we can do a survey to find out why they're not participating, why they're not coming, then that would help us plan activities or things that they need. I'm not sure what what the reasons are, but I'm requesting that we do some type of survey so that the board can understand why these students are not attending. The second thing that I. I'm concerned about is the homeless population, as you know, we've had, not necessarily, I'm not sure if they were DPS students, but we had two students die, two children die in the parking lot of the casino couple days ago. So, so my question is about the homeless on House students that we have, I like to know if we are participating in the and following the McKinney vento act, and I'm specifically want to know, have we opted out of the hotel provision, where we provide housing for them.

    Through the Chair, we have done surveys with students. In fact, former board member Sonia Mays did this right before she left, where we did a direct engagement session with students that were chronically absent. She engaged them and captured that. But at the end of this incentive process. We will definitely use the opportunity to talk to mainly, obviously, high school students who are chronically absent, who never obtained at least one cycle of the incentive, and ask those questions. And then I'll provide that report to the board. We'll do a regular survey, and then we'll do more of the qualitative, direct engagement with students as well. So the board can expect that over the late summer, no later than the beginning of the next school year, as far as homeless students. So our identification of homeless students have increased. So we have slightly increased staffing in that area in central office and our numbers have dramatically increased. Unfortunately, as everyone on the board knows, the number identified versus the reality of homelessness is not a direct match. We still have plenty of families who are dealing with housing insecurity that have not told us and have not received the few benefits that you received from the district when you are identified. And I can provide you with the exact numbers, but it's 1000s of students that we've increased in identification. The challenge here is, like many, the federal government and the state budget does not give us any particular dollars for homeless students. There's a process to identify through the McKinney vento process, but not specific dollars. So we dip into mainly our at risk money at the state level, and then we use some of that to provide extra services to homeless students. Our services include possibly giving gift cards and Uber rides to school. We give coats, we give progresses. You know, all the things that you know a stable, economic family would take for granted, those are the kind of the services and goods we provide students. We'll work with the family to find a school that's closest to where they happen to live, if that's where they want to go. We don't force them, but we try to work with families to do that. Our greatest challenge is the stigma that continues to go along with it, and families being comfortable being self identified. But every one of our schools have a homeless liaison, and that person is trained to know how to input their data in the system, and then our team calls that family to reach out, to understand the circumstance and provide resources to them, and we track that with logs, with what was provided, the outreach that occurred. So I think the greatest challenge is just overcoming the stigma and identification and then just having the right amount of resources. The other big challenge, you know, is beyond the school district, which is we just have to do a better job as a city to provide more housing. And that's that's what we continue to hear from our families, is and from our staff that tries to problem solve is just not enough places to place students and families who are in need. That is the continuing to challenge, even as they're trying to find secured housing. I I'll follow up on your last question about the hotel question. I don't know the direct answer, but I'll find out before the end of the meeting.

    Okay, because as I understand it, and I could be wrong, but as I understand it, and of course, we in the day of Trumps, we don't know what the federal government is going to pay for, but the federal government traditionally would pay for all those services that you just mentioned. Does not come out of our budget. And I understand from the people that I am working with who are working with homeless, the unhoused families, is that the McKinney vento act will pay for those families to be placed in the hotel. Yeah, so I would like to know if we have opted out of that? No, we have. I want to make sure that we have not opt out of that opportunity for our parents and our unhoused families. No,

    I can tell you, whatever is available we provide. We're not opting out of anything. And the federal government has protections, guidelines, requirements for schools and districts to work with homeless children and families, but unfortunately, it doesn't come along with funding directly through the school system. There's broader funding, but not through the school system. So when we provide those services, we're either using philanthropic dollars or other grant dollars that we it's allowable to use because the students or families are considered at risk, but no direct dollars go for the identification of homeless students to dpscd, so even though our numbers of identification have increased, we don't receive more funding for the identification of students. Let's say like you would for special education or English language learners, where your funding increases to serve that need, ours doesn't

    okay. So I just want to make sure that we are following the McKinney vento act, and that if the parents and the children need housing, that we are working to provide them housing and also that the federal government, from what I understand, supposed to provide the funding for this, pay for this. And I say this because I got a call when I wasn't on the school board last semester where there were some children in a center. They were staying in a shelter and but they weren't going to school, and the request was, Can DPS pick them up? DPS, from what I was told, basically did not pick them up. And the person that I'm talking to made a direct phone call to the feds, and the Feds provided the transportation for the kids to attend DPS. So I just want to make sure that we're doing everything we need to do, because the last thing that I want is for these children to end up dying somewhere because we didn't do all what we were supposed to do. And I'm not saying we're not doing I'm just saying we need to make sure, absolutely sure, because the homeless population has grown exponentially, exponentially, and I know that. So that's that my last question has to do with the virtual school and ice and we've talked about this before, and I just want to make sure that we are communicating on a regular basis to our community in the southwest Detroit, especially about ice and making sure that the community knows they have this option. I know you said you were you have done it, but I just want to make sure we continually do it so that they know they have this option, because one time is not going to be enough. The community has got to

    know through the chair. Our principals have definitely been empowered and clearly know to reach out directly to our virtual school principal their best they're in the best position our principals, our guidance counselor teachers to know where the risks are. You know about coming to school and communicating the virtual option to them and then trying to streamline that process for them to get the virtual school. So I've said it, I've given guidelines, and we'll continue to repeat that, just to be clear that we are, we are compliant with the McKinney Vento and as a clarification point, we when we know that a child requires transportation because of their insecurity of housing, we do provide transportation for those children, whether that's through our Yellow busses, our city busses are even more intimate through cabs or now Ubers, etc. So we do do that, and I mentioned it at a high level, but just precisely in 1718, 685 DPS, CD students were identified as homeless. Today, we've now identified 3182 so and again, that's that's only a small number compared to the need, but it does speak to us, promoting it. You know, our schools having a liaison to communicate the families. And I think that number will obviously grow, because the numbers growing, but I. I think our outreach and the stigma, we're trying to reduce that so families know that they can be provided services. Thank you.

    Thank you. Miss West. I think

    I just wanted to add a little bit of student opinion to the perfect attendance pays program at the duic meeting, actually last Friday, students bring up the program talking about how great it was, how much they appreciate it. But something actually really stuck out to me. When we were talking students mentioned things like they overheard conversations in the hallways or seen social media posts, or students were like, I'm coming to school because I want the $200 and while, you know, we don't want to just say we want to come to school for the money, I think it's important to see that students are saying, okay, in the past, they may have stayed home because they don't want to come to school, but they're willing to come to school now and then, just kind of second, what board member short was saying, I think if we just, like, look at the cycles and see where students may have only missed a day or two, and investigating why they missed that day, we may find they're not missing it because they, you know, couldn't make it to school, but because they have financial or At home, circumstances that are causing them to miss I know in the past, especially with me, I've had circumstances like that, and it wasn't that I didn't want to come to school. It was more or less, I feel like I wasn't going to get the support I needed within my building. But once I realized when I came to school and I was vocalizing my opinions, whether it be to administration, teachers, staff, etc, I felt that support, and it encouraged me to come to school more. So I don't want this program just to be okay. We're paying off students to come to school, but more or less like a learning curve, whether it be for students you know, want to come to school in general or to feel the support, whether it be in their schools, on the school board, or even just with their students and their staff within school.

    Thank you. Thank you. Miss West Vice Chair, yeah, I

    just wanted to echo Dr shorts comments on and really what Ms Wes just said the importance of capturing the voice of our students in an ongoing survey, not like the end of the year, but like throughout the school year, to find out why they're not in school. Because if they're chronically absent, they're never going to be there all at one time, right? So I think it's important that we try to figure out how to do this, starting immediately, finding out what are their barriers, what's impacting them, why are they not showing up? And maybe we need to offer them gift cards for filling out the survey so that we can get the information. The second thing I wanted to ask you is, we're expecting inclement weather tomorrow, and I know tomorrow is count day. So do we have any information on whether or not count day will be rescheduled? What have we been doing to be proactive outside of the robocalls? Because I haven't received my robocall yet as a parent, but I'm sure it's going to hit any moment, but I just want to make sure that people know that tomorrow is a really important day, despite the weather that's coming in

    through the chair. We don't that's the state defines the county. So the count day will be tomorrow, one way or the other. But remember, is a window. So at this point, we will have school tomorrow. I don't think that's going to change. If anything, we'll have an early dismissal, but that's even premature right now. But we will have school tomorrow, looking at and getting an update on the weather before the board meeting. We'll have school tomorrow. You know, we've gotten to the point where we're not we emphasize the fall count, because it's 90% of the FTE for the most part, because of the window and it being spring and 10% we really try not to over it. I mean, we talk about the spring count, but we don't drive it like we do the fall count. I just the feedback to me and staff has been it becomes almost nauseating to be told come to school because we get paid, and they hear it enough in the fall that we just let it go. We don't emphasize as much in the spring, and then we more try to focus on the window rather than the actual day. We don't, for example, we don't have the same amount of activities that we do for the Fall count and the incentives. We don't do that in the spring. We haven't done it for several years now. So that's been the feedback of principals and staff and even students, that it just became too much to do it two times a year.

    So does that mean there are no robo calls. Or do you still, are you still proactively letting people know that count day? I mean, you mentioned it in your report, so I know it's important, so you still are there still ways that we're communicating to our students and our parents.

    We don't plan anything district wide. It's usually individual schools that may add it. I mentioned it because it was on top of my mind as I was doing the review. But we don't have special activities or announcements about it being spring count tomorrow. Interesting.

    Okay, and then my other my last question here is, around, do we have district warming centers that you know, just thinking about these? These young kids who are heavy on all of our hearts today. What are we doing as a district to provide warm environments? How does our health hubs play into any of what we talked about tonight? And if so, could you maybe just remind us where student could go they need, like outside of the city services as a district, where could the student go if they needed to get warmed up?

    No. As a district, we do not provide our schools as warm locations that would require security, police, extra resources that we're not funded to provide. We can explore that, if that the board would like to do. But there's also liability issues with families staying in schools. Where would they stay overnight? Are we going to bring Cox in the school, which brings other liability issues? So our team, our homeless team, obviously works for families to provide and connect them to resources that the city provides, that nonprofits provide, charitable organizations provide, but we try to focus on K 12. What's happening in the classroom during the school day, extra school, extra activities. But I also worry about moving in territory that the city of Detroit has to own and take responsibility of. We can provide support, we can connect them to resources, but every dollar that we spend in a resource that the city should be spending on, then we're taking away from our core function. So if the board wants to move in this direction, we can, but it does mean taking dollars that we're already short of and then entering other liability issues.

    Just one last just my follow up question to your statement. So who are we working with at the city then to ensure that our students have resources? Like or do we have an MOU are we working with a specific department? Is that a relationship that's strong where we where our students have, you know, information about where to go?

    Well, I would say that's all part of the identification of homeless students. So once a student, once a family, provides information that they homeless, that comes with engagement from the team about what resources are available to the parent and the students. It's all part of the engagement package around resources, from where to stay, where to get extra resources, how to provide transportation. That's what our team does with the families and the students. I couldn't name all those organizations, but I can send the board a list of what those resources are so the board can be equipped with it, and, you know, send it to any families. But that's all part of the identification and service process.

    Dr Vitti, one of the things that I think might help the board would be a periodic report from family and community engagement. I know personally, the work that is being done there with our homeless students, without Michelle Parker and MS Shalonda Buckman, I know that that work is very intense, and it's been very productive and very consistent, so very possibly at the next board meeting to have that particular department come and speak to the community and speak to the board terms of The work that is being done there, because I don't want us to not know that there is quite a bit of work being done in the homeless population as well as foster care. So there's quite a bit of work being done also. Dr video, if it is appropriate at this time that with all that is going on in these United States of America, in the Washington, DC area. Could you speak to what our response is as a district to some of the executive orders regarding citizenship and just regarding some of the dynamic activity that is happening in the Supreme Court, some of the injunctions, some of the things that are happening. There's quite a bit of concern and anxiety in the community, and I think we should report out on a regular basis that we that our community knows, that we are aware, and what are some of the steps that we are taking to make sure that all of our children are safe.

    Madam, Madam, Chair. If I don't want to, sorry to interrupt, but before we segue to the emergency from DC, I want to stay at home for a minute. I'm sorry I

    didn't see your seat. Yeah, we see. I don't I'm so sorry. I'm sorry. I apologize. No

    problem. Go ahead, and that is important, but I have to say that we're in a crisis with 3182 homeless students that we know of. And you know, respectfully, just punting to the city who I know don't have adequate shelters for families. It's almost as if we're just kind of like turning a blind eye and saying we're giving a list. And I hope that I hear something more engaging from parent and community, but I understand that the quandary, or the issue, the challenge that we have, I should say, with diverting our budget to address home insecurity, but we have a number of schools and maybe local developers that we could perhaps open up and offer opportunities to create some affordable housing. So it's not necessarily that I want to see us divert our funding to address home insecurity, but I would like for us to explore creating some affordable housing instead of just holding on to the buildings that we do have. Maybe there's some local developers that can help us with that and be a little bit more proactive in addressing this. This is a huge crisis to have this number of students that are homeless. I'm

    glad that you brought that up, because I raised that a couple of years back, that we could facilitate even an on campus living environment, that we could utilize, and I think the conversation began with some of our sheltering and some of our nonprofits, that we could actually transform some of our properties, that even the children who are homeless would also be educated in that same space that will be residential education. So thank you for raising that up. Dr Vitti, I

    was going to say through the Chair. Madam Chair specifically can talk about as we are going through the facility master plan, concepts and strategies. There were conversations about converting vacant buildings to homeless shelters run by dpscd. The challenge was the cost. I mean, we're talking about $30 million at the minimum, to probably renovate an abandoned building in a way that would be be code for housing purposes, and then you got to get into, well, is dpsd going to run a housing location? And then we talked about, well, and we and we still were, and we still are willing, you know, if we have a vacant building and we have nonprofits that are specifically trying to work through homelessness in the city. I mean, there's lease agreements we can move into. All that on the table. I mean, to this point, nothing has come to my attention of saying we want that building. Are you willing to partner with it on that when it comes to homelessness, but certainly willing to do that. So that was beginning to be explored, and what we had said, anything philanthropic, anything private, around renovating a building we would be willing to do, either selling at a lower cost or even lessening it to reduce the cost. So certainly willing and open to do any of that. But nothing concrete over the last eight years has come to my attention about a particular building or an initiative linked to that.

    Well, respectfully through the Chair, I just, I just know sometimes where there are a lot of silos, not only in Detroit, but in Michigan as a whole. And I think that maybe an opportunity to announce this more in a more robust way, that there's an appetite to do this. I don't foresee us running shelters, but I do believe that brokering a partnership with the city of Detroit andor other organizations to allow these facilities to be utilized and attract perhaps even federal funding for the development as we explore more about McKinney vento Vento, how we could actually make them affordable. So I just think we have to. We got to do a better job of telling our story, but also elevating a call to action like this with this many students that are homeless. So I digress.

    Thank you. Thank you. Dr Taylor,

    okay. Dr short, I.

    Thank you, Mr. Degnato, I would like to also, oh, Mike's way over here. I like the idea of thinking out the box on that type of person who thinks out the box. And I think rather than us wait for people to come to us, we have got to go to them. The homeless population is, as you said, Dr Vitti, is going to continue to grow. It's going to continue to grow with Trump's trade, all this crap he's doing with the with the money, he's the what do you call it the terrors? Yeah, it's a terror. And it's a terror on us. But the, well, you know, so, so what I want to say is it's important for us to take the lead and for us to approach some of these homeless shelters. They had this, I can't remember the first name, so and so ministry was on yesterday talking about the fact that they need space. So if they need space, why not lease them our building or give it the building for $1 I really don't care, as long as we provide a place for our kids and their families to be safe, it needs to be explored ASAP, because we don't want to be in the situation where one of our children that are enrolled in our school dies because they have no place to go. I mean, this is so upsetting to me, to date and yesterday to hear that. So I just want us to do what we can, as fast as we can. Yeah,

    absolutely. Vice Chair,

    so Dr Vitti, it goes back to my original question of us really partnering, figuring out who we're partnering with, the city, the housing and revital revitalization department. We need to make sure we understand our partnerships and we can help broker some of those relationships to everyone's point. And Sherry, I really appreciate your comment about we need to put out an open call so that people know that we have these opportunities available. Because I highly doubt that people won't come and say, Hey, we want to help. We want to partner. And right now, more than ever, we need partnerships in our city. So back to my original question of like, let's get those lists of people we're partnering with, with the city, so that we can figure out what next steps are to support our students who are dealing with major issues in their life

    through the chair as a follow up to the board, I'll provide a list of all the organizations that the homeless team is working with, as they as do, parents and families are identified,

    and shelters Are shelters are full. They're full. They're overwhelmed. And I can say this because we work so closely with the homeless and foster care team that there were times just recently, in this very cold weather, the shelters were not even answering the phones. And then we also provide through the McKinney Veno hotel, and hotels were full. So being able to raise this back up, this has been something that I've raised several times, that we if we have the partners, as vice chair has said that we could provide. I know that the Detroit rescue mission was willing. They were one of the conversations to actually oversee the housing component, if the board, if the school district oversaw the education component. So I just think that COVID came and we kind of went dull, kind of went quiet, but I want to raise it back up again. Board Member, Brian, I do see your hand. Thank you.

    So I wanted to circle back around to what we were discussing about the vendors, doing the contractors doing the cleaning. Personally, I kind of think that we're burdening our administrative staff, tasking them with keeping up with how many employees are in the building and what's being cleaned and not my question is, is we have a facilities department. How often are they coming out to walk the school themselves and make a report? Secondly, where are we with the contractors providing numbers? So I hear the report where we're, you know, where we're under staff. Staff is, you know, but particularly what schools, a report that says what school is missing staff? How are we going about putting staff in those areas to make sure that the schools are being cleaned, also that we have the machinery in these schools? I personally know. Because a school or two that had not had a vacuum, or are we checking to make sure that they're ocean compliant with the cleaning supplies? So I think you know, we definitely need to have attention from facilities, not so much just the administrators in the building being responsible for that. And my other question would be, with the 3182 families that we know of, what is the approximate number of students that that that's affected? Those were the students. Okay? So now, in a situation where we have a loss of life here, and I understand we have this this team, how do we elevate a situation where you have a parent that maybe doesn't want to take advantage of the services we're offering. Do we then report that to DHS to escalate? Because, you know, the students now are in grave danger if the parent or parents are not accepting the resources that we're offering

    through the chair, the responsibility of the principal isn't to evaluate staffing as far as custodians, and it's to determine the status, the status of cleanliness in their building. So we're not asking them to say necessarily that we need 10 more custodians or two fewer custodians, is to assess the cleanliness of their building. The principal, or a designee, let's say an assistant principal, we believe, is in the best position to tell us, is this building. Are the classrooms clean or not? Because they're the ones using the building. They're walking the classrooms. They're getting feedback from teachers about baskets not being, you know, taken out, or certain bathrooms not being consistently clean. So we're not asking them to tell us about staffing levels. We're talking we're asking them to tell us what's the level of cleanliness central office staff. When we talk about overseeing GDI and RNA, we're talking about one or three people. We're not talking about a whole team of 2025, 30 people in central office that just go out to schools to look at cleanliness. Those one or two people, one to three people, are looking at the survey to see where are the ratings low to then visit those schools and problem solve with the principal. They may spot check certain schools, and they're working in concert with GDI and RNAs, more district wide staff that oversees their teams. So we don't, we don't have a central office team that's large enough just to visit every school to look at cleanliness. That's why we rely on the principles of valuation. And yes, all the issues around environmental compliance are all expectations of GDR and then RNA in the contract and their expect, expected to implement those according to code, and when there are challenges, we problem solve. So I would just if you're hearing from an individual principal that something's unsatisfactory, something's out of code, please let me know and that staff of one to three people in central office will then problem solve with the team leader of GDI RNA at that individual school or at the company to understand, you know, as training happened, is there a level of accountability that has to happen there, and that's all part of our systems and processes of implementing the contract of services.

    So, Madam Chair, I would just like to rebut that I understand what Dr VD has said. I'm not asking for our administrators to do head counts. What I'm asking is that we have someone from facilities actually go out and check these things. I mean, we they have a contract, and we want to make sure that they're honoring not just with having staff, I don't expect my principals, and I'll say this because I owned a janitorial company before, they're not going to know some things to look for. If it looks clean, then it probably has been clean. But I have been in buildings, and I know that I can't walk to the cart and pick up something that's an all purpose cleaner because the bottle isn't marked. So these are things I physically have seen in buildings myself, and GDI specifically is one of the worst offenders with in terms of the Comp. Things that we've heard at other schools regarding cleanliness, staffing, and issues with product not being in the school and machinery. So I'm, you know, not saying what I think I know. I'm saying what I have seen, and it's been in more than one school, and we have certainly heard enough complaints from parents in schools with GDI being one of the major culprits.

    Thank you. As we get ready to Dr V Do you have any closing remarks on this? I'd like to have a question.

    I want to ask member, Bryant, are you saying? I want to make sure I'm clear what you're saying. Are you saying that some of the buildings are being cleaned with products that are not appropriate? I'm

    saying that OSHA requires, if you have a mixing station, the product is coming out all purpose cleaner, glass cleaner, whatever it is you're using in those bottles, should have

    labels

    and it's marked whether it's hazardous or non hazardous, but it should be clearly identified. So

    my question is, are you saying that our the cleaning staff?

    I'm saying I've, I've seen instances where I've walked to a cart to get something or ask for something all purpose cleaner, and it wasn't in the proper bottle.

    What kind of bottle was it in?

    I mean, if it's just a plastic clear bottle, that's incorrect. That's incorrect. Are you saying

    it's not clearly marked?

    Excuse me, excuse me. Thank you. Thank you. Those things have been noted, and I would like to continue the meeting as we proceed. Thank you. Member Bryant, Thank you. Member short, those persons who are responsible for this. Dr Vitti, if you could get back to us regarding the things that we've heard tonight, as we move forward, we come now to public comments, and I'm going to ask Ms Moore if she would give us the statement of public comments.

    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 closing of public comment. Registration for in person public comment, the Chair will call the names of individuals in the order received. Please remain seated until your name is called for virtual public comment. Virtual public comment will be facilitated through a zoom webinar and phone number for which can be accessed at Detroit, K twelve.org, backslash board meetings. Individuals wishing to address the Board may do so by choosing one of the two options. Via computer, select the Raise Your Hand option on the screen, or via telephone, press star nine to raise your hand by the telephone. The chair will select the individuals in the order received you will remain muted until it's 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 or concern, please forward an email to the secretary of the board. Venue, dot more at Detroit, K twelve.org. Thank

    you. Ms Moore, while they are gathering the names, is there a consensus among the board to accept the Superintendent's report. Madam Chair, thank you support. It has been moved and supported that we would accept the Superintendent's report. Thank you so much. How many? All right, in person, thank you. We have Miss Brenda.

    Point of order, we gotta

    call the boy. Ask for consensus. Vote. Ask for consensus. Oh, we didn't hear you over here. Yeah, I'm sorry. Ask for consensus. Thank you. Brenda Goss, Andrews, Brenda Goss, Andrews, if you would come to one of the mics and Phyllis share, if you will come to another

    Thank you.

    Timers, just give us just a minute applause.

    Me shout out to our media team tonight. Thank you.

    Ready thing?

    No, we're looking for the clock. It's nothing. It's not

    fair. It has to has to

    be testing. There you go. Good evening, Madam President, Dr Vaughn, esteemed school board superintendent, Dr Vitti, parents, teachers and friends. My name is Brenda Goss Andrews. I'm a retired Detroit Police Deputy Chief. I was a substitute teacher out of college long time ago. I'm a resident of the city of Detroit and a Moms Demand Action member. With me today are two moms supporters, Susan and Maya, I'm here today to request a resolution from the board. You should have copies of it. I dropped them off earlier, so I'll just tick through some of the resolution in the time that I have, whereas the safety and well being of our students, staff, administrators, volunteers and parents should be a top priority of the Detroit Public School community district, whereas youth and young adults deserve protective environments to live and thrive, whether it's school, home or in the community, whereas the importance of safe gun stores As it relates to school safety firearms suicide and unintentional shootings resulting in deaths should be a priority of dpscd school community, whereas the national facts and statistics support the immediate need for increased gun safety are as follows, the two age groups are most likely to shoot themselves or others from unsecured guns and homes are high schoolers, ages 14 to 17 and preschoolers under the age of five, close to 400 children under the age of 18 unintentionally shoot them. So over 950 and teens and young people die from firearm suicide every year. Approximately 5 million children live in homes with unsecured guns, whereas all cases involving deaths or injuries are preventable, whereas evidence strongly suggests that secure gun storage is the most effective way to prevent mass shooting suicides and unintentional deaths, whereas keeping students and teachers and everyone safe from the threat of gun violence should be the responsibility of all adult stakeholders in dpsd, whereas preventive measures must be put in place to protect our school committee Now therefore, be it resolved that the board directs the superintendent of dpsd and staff to disseminate safe gun storage material two times or more during the academic year, beginning in 225 stressing the importance of Safe firearms storage, including information on penalties. Be it further resolved that the board directs the superintendent to periodically communicate the importance of safe firearms storage and fire safety and violence prevention. Be it further resolved that the board and superintendent will continue to work with local law enforcement agencies, medical mental health agencies nonprofits to ensure that safe gun storage is disseminated in our schools to prevent useless, unintentional injuries and deaths of our children. Additionally, the board direct the superintendent to allow gun safety presentations in all dpscd.

    Thank you, Phyllis share.

    Good evening. My name is Phyllis share and I teach at flicks and belong to the Michigan educators rank and file committee. I urge you to join us in mobilizing fellow educators, parents, students and workers against the dictatorial policies of Trump. These include the horrific and now ongoing mass deportations this government has already begun shipping undocumented workers to Guantanamo Bay we have in this school system, parents, children and teachers who are of all races and colors, who come from dozens of countries and who oppose the efforts of the Trump administration to divide us between American born and foreign born. We must defend each and every one. The old slogan, an injury to one is an injury to all has never been more important these. Fauci measures start with the undocumented, who are merely trying to work and provide their children a better chance in life. But these attacks are directed against all of us. They're being scapegoated for a crisis created by the billionaire oligarchy and their never ending wars and proxy wars abroad that cost trillions. This has led to attacks on the freedom of speech of students. This will be broadened. Where are the unions aft President Randy Weingarten wrote a letter to Trump, literally begging him to stop recognized sanctuary schools and churches. This, of course, had no effect. However, what would have an effect. Would be the mobilization of 1000s of educators who oppose Trump and want to defend immigrants in our democratic rights and industrial action Weingarten, the NDA union apparatus, they burn wealthy on dues revenues and will not disturb the status quo, no matter what. The plans to shut down the Department of Education is a disgrace for DPS, CD, this would mean a loss of 32 million in federal funds and the accompanying cuts to staff and programs. How will this impact our students and our families? The gutting, the gutting of federal funding, including Title One and idea and the plans to destroy public education as we know it is, is what's on the agenda, if this is not the time to act when is in truth, the Democrats have paved the way for Trump, with Biden Harris and Obama before them, carrying out their own mass deportations and attacks on educations. They've joined the with the Republicans, telling us there's no money to make schools and school workers whole for years of budget cuts. It's not just that. It's not just the Trump who only won a plurality and not a majority of the popular vote, but the Democrats are bowing before him like he's a king. He thinks he's a king like everybody loves him and supports his policies. This is not the case. We're fighting a dictatorship that's of the rich, Father, rich and for the rich, and controls both political parties and serves the billionaire oligarchs, Elon Musk, Betsy, DeVos, the Ilitch, the damn Gilberts of the world, two homeless children died in Detroit as a direct result of these cuts in funding. As tax breaks in Detroit go to the above mentioned, who pay little to no taxes. So who do we turn to and when? And what do we do? We must educate and organize our parents, neighbors, colleagues. What happened?

    I happened? Thank you,

    Gary Bashir Tate with Gary B and then Kimberly Guyton can come forward at this time, Bashir Tate with Gary B and Kimberly Guyton,

    thank you. The next two would be mother, Helen Moore and tabri and Joe.

    Thank you, sir. Thank you. Greetings, board. Greetings, everyone. I hope all is well as we sit here and we talk about students, babies. I know. Two weeks ago, I spoke to Viti and we talked about a task force that the board was trying to recreate. I know we had a task force that came out of the settlement, the task force that was supposed to be for the people to talk about things that you all are talking about, so that not only the district, but also the entity as a whole wouldn't have to worry about so many things. We always separate school and city, but the people, those are two P's in the same pot. We can't say that those two things are separate, but today I am here to advocate on behalf of one daughter, plaintiffs. Again, we're here talking about the district and the state releasing their funds. We'll be still having released funds to all the plaintiffs. I've spoken to video again two weeks ago about this proposal to get our plaintiffs the funds. Two weeks later, we still haven't. Had heard anything that I've been in conversation with dpscd Foundation, we still haven't resolved or came up with a time to meet, so we're trying to at least resolve that before we move on and try to really solve the issue that we were advocating for. At first, it wasn't just about reading and writing. We know that our babies want to learn. We know that they want to come to school, but at school really educate now, babies are obligated to come to school. We aren't obligated to teach them. So when we talk about the incentives that we have here now, for the babies in our love, the students being on the board again and being able to advocate on behalf of these incentives and to speak on behalf of students again on this task force, there were no students I know. Vidy said that the district didn't convene the task force, but they hosted it, cultivated the slides, made recommendations, made the cuts. So if you aren't hosting it, then who is it? Isn't us. It isn't the people, the none of the plaintiffs, but got reached out to about what we would like to see, what. The district. What ideas did we have? Were the students involvement within this we're going to be open minded. Let's truly be open minded. You can't halfway be open minded. Let's really solve it. VD, you've been in a district that has raised students grade levels up three grade levels. What helped you there? I was just in Miami this past weekend speaking to some of those organizations and entities such as Bob Moses project, young people's project, these are entities that we've copied and watered down their design, we know what excellent excellence looks like. We've seen Mississippi improve over a five year span when we said districts cannot improve over three grade level proficiency in a short span of time. We cannot be happy with 1% point percentage gains when our level of expectation has decreased since the pen. So are large students actually achieving because of or despite our school system? Are they just doing better because the bar has been lowered. We have to ask ourselves these questions, what are the metrics? What are we doing?

    Thank you. Thank you so much. Kimberly Guyton, thank you. Good

    evening. Hello. Can you hear me? Yes, okay, good evening. Board members and Doctor Viti, I'm currently a grandmother that has three grandchildren in the schools. We

    can't Could you speak just a little closer to the mic and project, and project. Your voice. Okay,

    hi, thank you. My name is Kimberly Guyton, and I am a grandmother with three children, grandchildren in the school system now, my two adult children, 21 and 31 attended by elementary when they were younger, and now my grandchildren are back at Burton Elementary. I just want to speak on principal Adams and the parent liaison there. I didn't see that when my children were in school, but I think it's a it bridges like it works really well for me. I'm there almost every day volunteering. My grandchildren were from another district. One of my twin grandsons got bullied every day, and nothing was done about it. But here at Barton, there's nothing like that going on, if it is, it gets addressed immediately. I love the sense of family there. I think Miss Adams is doing a great job there. Personally, I feel like my grandchildren are learning. I feel like they're happy. They love to go to school. They get themselves up in the morning and they're eight and nine to go to school, and they have perfect attendance. They're on an honor roll. And they look at the other children like family, they really do. And I see the things that they're bringing to the school, as far as athletics, I'm the PTA president. I should have said that that's my first year, my first year being a PTA president there. So I'm still learning and growing and where I see things that they may need. I feel like it's my job to step in and attempt to help the principal and the parent coordinator. Parents have to step up. You have to, even when my 21 and 31 year old were in school, I used to help their teachers around my job if they need because I saw they had no help, and I just felt like as a parent, that's what I was supposed to do. I know every parent may not be able to do it at certain times, but we ask that you can just help. It could be take home some stuff. I used to help teachers check papers. Anything. You know, this is my first time. Sorry, but I just really am impressed by Barton elementary right now, when my daughters went, they really loved it, and I love them being there, and I know it closed.

    Thank you, Miss geism, thank you. Shout out to Barton mother, Helen Moore and tabri on Joe. You

    Good evening. I know you all can hear me, because I I know I have a big mouth and I'm always hollering and screaming at people, but today I'm going to be. Nice. I'm being nice because something tragic happened in this city with some of our children in a car the other night frozen to death. School did not do what they should have done for these children, and I don't want that to happen again, so I'm leaving it on record that we have to do something. Two children dying in a car, family with no money, gas run out and sitting at the casino because that's place open where you can put your car. It's a disgrace, and we ought to think about that too. Now, the other thing I'm going to talk about is what's going on. I'm so tired of these this board, I've been around 65 years, believe it or not, four children graduated from Detroit Public Schools, cast tech all of them doing well in their lives, and now I'm trying to help some other children and some parents that, because I'm a social worker also, and I have a law degree, I want you to know all of this because I represent several groups, let's read, which is supposed to be a group that's helping the children read and excel in Detroit Public Schools, National Action Network, Journey for Justice out of Chicago, keep the vote no takeover coalition. And I am a member of the Dexter Elmhurst center, and the center has just been named after me. I work out of Selma, Alabama, and I'm telling you all this because sometimes when we get up here to speak, they just look at you and they think, well, they you know, we don't have to pay no attention to them. You going to pay some attention to me today, because I've been out there a long time trying to help our children get where they got to go, and I'm just disgusted with the board members, not all of them, but some of them that just sit there and do nothing. We pay them $250 a meeting. They raised it. And then after doctor V got it raised, they gave him a raise. You We gotta stop all this stuff. Our children come first. So I'm going to say to you now, how long will be we be allowed to exist as a public school under the nut brain President Trump? Nobody gets up here and talks about that. All I get at home when the when the messages come to me from the National people, is you about to be hit? Trump is going to kill Detroit public schools. I get the meetings there. The business goes on when the day comes and he does that. He's crazy. He may not get away with it, but would that's what we're facing. I want all of you to wake up. I'm here to wake up to sleep and diet and look. Look who's in the audience. That used to be days When this audience would be full.

    Thank you mother. Thank you. Mother Moore, thank you, yes, ma'am. Now.

    That was good, Father, that was good.

    That was good. That was good. Thank you. Mother. Moore, taberon, Joe,

    hi. My name is tabri and Joe, long time Detroiter and a member of the coalition to defend affirmative action, integration, immigrants rights, and they fight for equality by any means necessary. Before I start, I want to read a quote. Education is the passport to the future for tomorrow. Belongs to those who prepare for it today. Again, education is the passport to the future for for tomorrow belongs to those who prepare for it. Today. Today is that time that we need to prepare for the cuts that are coming from Donald Trump on public education. I don't want to see this new board do what the old board did and say, Oh, we're going to put a motion to the floor to close 100 schools because we have no funding for the federal government. We need to, I don't hear a plan today from anybody from this board that says that, what are we prepared to do to keep funding and to keep fighting for public education, not just for Detroit, but students. All over this country and this state, we're all under attack by the by a fascist named Donald Trump. Other comments that I want to, that I've that I want to address today is virtual schools. I'm glad Dr Vitti is expanding it to undocumented students, but we've been asking him and this board to expand it to all students since the pandemic, before the pandemic and right now. So we need to expand it to all students, to raise our enrollment up, if possible. And then, when we are expanding virtual learning, have we considered the student to teacher ratio if we do have an influx of virtual undocumented students going into into the virtual education, like, do we have a Do we have or do we have a plan to hire more virtual educators to meet the needs of those Students that coming to the virtual education? No, we don't, and that's same for protecting undocumented students. I mean teachers and staff, if we do have any virtual education, is important for all students who want it. Open it to all. I know. Before Sonia Mays left, she asked for a risk analysis on the Trump administration, and that was back in December. I watched the last meeting virtually, and I hadn't heard anything about a risk analysis from Dr Vitti around the Trump administration. So can we get that as a public can we get that like, what is the what is a plan? Please give us a we are here to support you, and you are here to support our students. So what anything like with the community can do? We will do so that's, that's what I want.

    Thank you, sir, thank you Mr. Joe Sean Williams and LaVale Perry. Sean Williams, Sean Williams, thank you and LaVale Perry, thank you.

    Good evening. All I really just from listening. I initially came up here wanting to discuss this special needs in ASD and ask questions on like, how do you all determine the number of ASD classrooms in the public schools? How do you determine the credentials of the ASD teachers and the paraprofessionals, and why are outside entities not allowed to come into the school to collaborate with the ASD students or in the teachers so that they can have congruent care. I am currently a Wayne State University nursing student, and what I'm noticing that in community health is that education is the main thing that is going to allow our patients that come into the hospital to succeed and have autonomy over their bodies. When I see here numbers like 31% 15% that's great. But what I also need people to understand that out of 15,000 people, only 40, 4600 of those. That means 10,000 people are not ready to graduate college. I encounter this every day when I have patients that come in who cannot read their third grade level. I also have two children that are autistic. I am a Georgia native. I'm also a Navy veteran, so I have traveled all over the world, and I am seeing a big, a huge void in not only learning for non disabled children, but especially ASD students. I went into the school to have lunch with my son, and one day, my son was on the floor in a circle. This is a personal story, so I'm not telling you something. When I hear numbers, I oftentimes wonder, how many people go in and actually observe for themselves. Quantitative data is great, but inductive and qualitative data is better the board you would never come into the hospital, as I heard one person say, I am a parent, and yes, every parent needs to do their thing, but you would never come into the hospital, and I'm trained. Paid and paid and say, hey, when accept me, saying, You know what, I'm not going to do my job as your nurse. You are responsible for your care. So what I'm saying is, I just want all the educators, this is your job, eight hours of a day. You have our children, if the love for teaching and helping them grow is not there. Just like in nursing, people need to revisit what they're doing because blaming parents and not taking the not taking ownership of what we're actually doing in the schools, that's not good. That's not going to help the

    collective. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. My name

    is Lavell Perry. I'm from Detroit, graduate of cast tech, also University of Detroit. Mercy. I want to point out maybe a few things that I feel is very important and that this board should probably take in consideration of either looking at closely or implementing I think we should try to control the things that we can control. That is the school board. You look at the testing right now our fourth grade is at the bottom of the list, and I know that we have said that we were making progress in certain areas of attendance, which is fine, but we need to also measure that against the other districts and let people know where we are. But the goals of this board should be articulated to the teachers, and they should be held accountable. The board should be held accountable as well. Everyone should be held accountable in order to move forward, because right now we're in a we're in a crisis, a crisis we have AI that is dominating this world, and we're not talking about four or five years from now. We're talking about tomorrow, and it is coming fast. And we have kids right now, our kids at the fourth grader at the bottom of the list, that is unacceptable in today's climate. It's unacceptable. And if we don't take the time to really take a look at what we're doing and measuring you have to measure it. If you can't measure it against the competition, you're kidding yourselves. You're kidding yourselves. You can't say that. I'm doing well, and we're making some progress. But how does it compare to the masses the other school districts in this in this state? How do we compare? Because that is how the city is going to exist, by attracting new businesses, homeowners, builders, you name it. If you don't have good education, it is not going to happen. The other thing that we need to sort of look at is also creative thinking. If you look at the bell shaped curve of that of the statistics of where we what we're doing, whether it's attendance or our reading, under the bell shaped curve, there's a standard deviation plus or minus that deviation, there's obviously people who are doing some things that are good. Are we taking those good practices and expanding them to everyone? Are we looking at other school districts to see whether or not they are doing some things that we can learn from? There's nothing wrong with copying as long as you copy from the best. Okay. Now the last thing I want to mention is that we have to monitor and evaluate that is so important if you don't monitor it on a consistent basis, because right now, the house is on fire, we got to make sure we monitor this situation very closely and also evaluate and adjust. If we do that, I think we can start to see some progress. But as Sigmund Freud says, given the proper stimuli,

    thank you. Thank you so much,

    Jose. Jose and Danielle Dabney, Jose, if you take one mic and Danielle Dabney, thank you. I

    it Ms Dabney, you can go ahead. Thank you.

    Okay. Can you hear me? Yep, hello. My name is Daniel Dabney. And I have a junior here at King. Unfortunately, she was provoked to do something out of her character and was suspended pending you guys approval for her to return to school. Her teachers, coaches and people of the community who know her has sent in character statements to you all in her defense, to get her back in school while being at home, her life has been threatened by the students she had the incident with and. And I went to the school about it with evidence and still no communication from anyone. She has been home for a month now with no communication. And I would just like to know how long does it take to come to a decision, and is it normal to leave kids out of school that long with these attendance days affect her passing to become a senior, and who do I speak to directly to get her back in school, whether it's here or somewhere else, because honestly, her crime doesn't fit the punishment she's serving right now, a month away from school is way too long. I'm sure we can all agree with that. We have

    to ask Doctor,

    thank you. And how long had this I'm sorry, Miss Dabney, excuse me. Miss Dabney, how long has your student been out of school, since January 11? January 11, yes, ma'am, and the school is the this school king high. Yes, ma'am,

    thank you. Thank you. Yes,

    ma'am, thank you. Someone is going to come to you. Miss Dabney, someone is on their way to you. Thank you. You're on your way. Thank you. Thank you. Yes, ma'am, thank you, Miss Mayor. Weather. Is Jose present? Jose? Are you present? All right, James Beasley and Felicia Tate, James Beasley and Felicia Tate.

    All right, before I begin, I'd like to ask Miss Moore if she could send an email which had the presentation that I'm going to talk about. Can you please put that on screen before you start my time I sent the email to you and to all the board members. No, sir. So, so, so, so, so I can't do it. Uh, you. You refuse to do it. We don't have it.

    So you can proceed with your public comments. Alright,

    my comments today deal with the current and these comments are going to be going to the board members, and it's dealing with the current state of our NAEP reporting. And I think it's important for us to take a look at that right now NAEP nationally, we think get a national problem. 31% of the students who test test proficiently across Michigan. 24% test proficiently. Grade four reading in Detroit is at 5% five because that means five out of 100 and third reading on M step is at 11% you know, I had these numbers so the community can follow with us, but conveniently, you don't have them, so we'll continue to go so this problem is an American reading problem in a jurisdiction, if you look at what the normal reading and growth should be, it should be at about a quarter of a standard deviation. As we begin to take a look at our performance, we can measure that in years. We only have 13 years in academic life of a student. So nationally, America's growth problem has cost them at 3% Michigan, I'm sorry, three school years. Michigan, we've lost three school years every school year, and in Detroit, we're doing the same thing, losing three school years, but the pandemic learning loss is even greater. Nationally, pandemic learning loss is required, equated to six school years. And if you look at $70,000 per student in terms of loss, that's a loss of 3.3 point 5 trillion over the life of the students Michigan loses six years of the pandemic learning loss. And that's a total earning opportunity loss of 96 billion. And when we start to take a look at the grade three learning loss that could be computed out to even to 1.7 5 billion. That's what 35 and that's what 14 years learning loss. And that's computed by taking what Stanford says should be the growth every year of a quarter of a standard deviation, and realizing that we're going backwards. So when we begin to take a look at where we at as a school board, and I'm talking to the school board because these numbers now are your report card, and as a citizen of the city, Detroiters tax paying citizen my whole life, I'm disappointed there's a lot of members, because I take the time to do the work, and I get this level of respect. Take the time to communicate with you, and I've communicated with some of you via by mail. We don't get a response. The board has ability to set the policy, and the policy is reflected in your numbers. So what I'm publicly asking is for an opportunity for myself and other members of the community. Work, to meet with you, to give you input, so you have numbers, so you know the extent of what we're dealing with. This is genocidal for our kids. When you look talk about a meritocracy, if you can't read, you can't learn, so I'm asking to have an opportunity.

    Thank you. Thank you.

    Thank you. Thank you. Hello, hello, hello, good evening, miss. Felicia Tate, yes, Superintendent, board members, community, everyone. My name is Felicia Tate. I'm a Detroit native, educated in the Detroit public schools like my children and grandchildren. I am a proud Martin Luther King, Junior Senior High School, Crusader 92 I can see one of my alumni in the house Angelique. Good to see you as always, and I am now serving as a substitute teacher for DPS. CD, I stand before you today with questions and concerns about enrollment and compensation. I listened to the talk about the enrollment and the numbers, and I must ask if any of you as board members have children enrolled outside of DPS. CD, how can you effectively address the very issues driving families away, because that's basically a disservice to our community. We need to focus on what's lacking within dpscd that makes you choose other districts. How do we improve our curriculum? Attract and retain quality teachers and bring your children and other families back home? So my question is, what innovative approaches will you take to achieve this critical goal? My second concern addresses compensation. Major automakers in Detroit pay their employees weekly. Why can't DPS return to that policy and practice? The initial excuse was paper usage, but now, with direct deposit being so prevalent, that argument is obsolete. Our educators and staff deserve the financial stability of weekly pay. Furthermore, how can we ensure substitutes are compensated for weather? Days when it's hot and cold, holidays and professional development days, we are essential personnel and our time and our commitment should be valued as well. So we should get paid for those days, because we have bills to pay too we don't have, you know. So keep going education. Education was once highly a respected profession, but now it feels like we are taken for granted. We dedicate our careers to shaping 1000s of individuals, imparting knowledge and skills that form the foundation of our society and our next generation of children. This dedication warns for an annual profit sharing bonus for all dpscd employees, from administrators all the way to the custodians. Now you might have asked, Well, where are you going to we're going to get profit sharing bonus from glad you asked. The funds for this profit sharing exist. The Michigan State Lottery Commission, student fund aid, established in 1972 generates substantial revenue. Last year, 1.3 billion was generated by the Michigan Lottery for schools. However, this figure is misleading. Much of this money doesn't reach classrooms, According to Robert McCann, the executive director of the K 12 alliance of Michigan, the legislative action over the past 14 years have diverted these funds to other areas of the state budget. This transfer, as it is now called, diminishes the resources available to our children's education. We must advocate for our full allocation for the school

    fund for DPS, additionally, the go unclaimed annually,

    and these unclaimed bullets,

    along with the transfer money, should be redirected to a profit share before the fall of the DPS and

    that will fill up some of those vacants. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you.

    Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Miss Tate, thank you. Richard Joseph,

    Good evening, madam. Chair members on the board and Dr Vitti, my name is Dr Richard Joseph, and I am the teacher leader in the newcomer program at harms Elementary School here in dpscd, I would like to thank you our board and Dr Vitti for your leadership around support for our dpscd students and families in response to possible interactions on district property and in other spaces with immigration officials. I certainly also appreciate the clear communication around the RE commitment to our district's sanctuary policy. This guidance is essential to providing a concrete plan of action for all of us who may face and encounter with us. Nice as Dr Vitti just mentioned, this tonight, we have mlls Multi Language Learners in more schools throughout the district than ever before. There are students from countries all over the world who live in a broader and more expansive list of neighborhoods than people may realize when I taught on the far east side of the city, I was a bit surprised two and a half years ago to encounter a family from Cuba and a family from Columbia at our neighborhood elementary school. But I will say, initially, I thought they must live far away, but it turned out they just lived two blocks down the street. They still live there today, and they never had even heard of Southwest Detroit, which, of course, is the historical center for Spanish speaking families in Detroit. Issues around immigration impact students in our schools from eight mile to Jefferson Avenue and the west side to the east. A concern that has arisen in many schools throughout the district is the impact that recent enforcement actions by ICE have had on our students ability to attend school. Frankly, people are scared. A number of individuals are afraid to leave their home for fear of being apprehended and deported on the street in their vehicle or while dropping off or picking up their children. Schools have been calling the families of every child who has missed school since january 20, and we have determined that more students require door to door transportation in order to consistently attend school. As responsible adults who used to bring their children to our campuses are no longer willing to do so today, I stand before you humbly to request that as a district, we consider creative transportation solutions to maximize the number of students who attend school each day, as we all know, students cannot learn if they're not at school, and this is an issue that we must address, as it's highly unlikely this will normalize in the foreseeable future. We owe it to our students and their families to work together to maximize our stool our students attendance. Finally, we in the newcomer program are very proud of our students and their willingness to learn and grow every day. Many have experienced considerable trauma simply from journey into the United States. And we welcome you, members of our dpscd board and Dr Vitti to please join us at the newcomer program. Know that you have an open invitation to come and meet our students and our dynamic educators, and we know when you see the light in our children's eyes, you will appreciate the passion for learning we all have Thank you.

    Thank you so much to our virtual community. Ms Drake,

    hi, Alia Moore, please go ahead with your public comment. You

    Hi, Alia Moore, please go ahead with your public comment. You

    uh, is the is there a issue? Can we hear it?

    Not really. You can hear bits and pieces, but it's scribble scrap.

    Madam Chair. I'll ask her again. She wasn't responding. I see

    no she is responding. I can hear like a little.

    Hello. Can you hear me? Yes, ma'am, yes. Go ahead. Miss Moore, Hello, yes. Does she need to mute her other Yeah.

    Can you hear me? Yes, ma'am, I

    don't think she can hear us.

    Miss Moore, if you can hear us, you can go ahead with your public comment.

    Can I be heard? I don't know if I can be heard. I don't

    if you're running YouTube and the zoom. Hello, Mama Moore, i

    Madam Chair, can I move to the next caller?

    Yes, please.

    Hi. Jeremiah Mars, please go ahead with your public comment.

    Someone in, in in the auditorium. Could you mute your phone as well? Because we do hear your phone. Good

    evening. There you go. My name is Jeremiah Mars. My employee ID number is 358768, I want to be reconsidered for my employment with the district for a few. Reasons. First, I managed to establish a living as a single father of Samaya, my daughter after gaining custody of her through the foster care system. She's 10 years old, and she attends golfers, Elementary Middle School. Second before being transferred to Jerry l white high school, I was not trained efficiently on how to restrain or apprehend a student who is cognitively challenged. I believe that compassion is essential when dealing with adolescents who have cognitive challenges, care about the safety and health of someone else is necessary to have as an attribute when communicating with young and young men and ladies. Respect for cultural differences and social norms is a prerequisite to being employed in a school setting. Thank you.

    Thank you. Someone

    else has your phone. Miss Drake, hi,

    Madam Chair, I believe I saw Joyce Jennings in the auditorium.

    Joyce Jennings, okay. Thank you, sir.

    Good evening, everyone. Good evening. I just wanted to acknowledge this morning I received a call from my cousin Willie may Gaskin, 90 years old, acknowledging that two of the young people who passed away frozen in the car were our family members, Darnell, age nine, Amelia, age two. I'm not going to ask for a moment of silence, because it's so much trauma going on with so many people dying. I think we need to Shabbat, for those of us who are in the Lord, we need to yell out a war cry, because there are too many people who are part of families, too many people who are part of church, churches for so much suffering to be going on when we surrender our power to A lower level of government, and think it's the government's responsibility to do something that the people of God should be doing. We have to power up people of God. Today I was on line with city council, and I heard them rejecting cost to demolish a Detroit Public School building, and one of the board members mentioned that DPS got $1.2 billion in ARPA money. Let DPS demolish their own building. Let's stop demolishing buildings as I come home in transport of my daughter to school, I passed by Kettering going to Cass and returning home. It's no reason why Kettering high school should have been demolished, especially when that was one of our schools that had special needs education and the special needs wing of Kettering have received recent upgrades before it was closed in 2014 we told it, were told it was going to be used for agricultural uses. I just want us to do better the city and the Detroit public schools should be working together. We have too much land and property in the city of Detroit for people to be living the lived experience of homelessness. It's not just children who are homeless and families. It's Detroit Public School employees. It's police officers, it's firefighters. We have to do better as the people of God to come up with solutions to the problems God expects, the least of these to be taken care of by the people of God. Once we become knowledgeable that there's a problem, let's work together to pray and take action.

    Thank you. Thank you. Miss Jennings, I

    phone caller, please go ahead with your public comment.

    Hello, hi, go ahead with your public comment. Hello,

    yes, hello,

    hi, go ahead with your public Okay. You guys can, okay, sorry, good evening. My name is Carla, and I'm the mother. Of a kindergarteners, kindergarten student who was recently removed from his program at Flix I'm here today because my child was unfairly dismissed due to a lack of proper policy enforcement, and I want to ensure that no other young student faces the same unjust treatment. My son, like many five year old children, is still developing emotional regulation skills. However, instead of receiving the guidance and structured support that's outlined in the school's code of conduct, he was abruptly removed without the proper steps being followed. There were no progressive discipline, no meaningful intervention, no opportunities to correct his behavior, the policies that are meant to protect students were not properly enforced. As a result, he lost his educational environment, his routine, his sense of security. You know, he's no longer in the Detroit School District. He had perfect attendance, very high i Ready scores a very intelligent young, young boy, if a kindergarten student is at risk of being removed from their school, there should be clear steps in place to support them before such an extreme Decision is made. Students at this stage of development need structured interventions and opportunities for growth, not immediate exclusion. Schools should be places that nurture young learners and help them navigate challenges, not remove them when, when things get difficult. I've sent multiple emails. I tried to reach out to his principal. My first time meeting the principal this entire school year was January 15, January 27 and my son was expelled. Upon meeting that principal, I found out that principal had a whole nother job that she was working, which is why, when I was trying to contact her, I could not contact her, and how I know that she had that other job because I was also at that location where her other job was at. I urge this board to ensure that all policies are applied fairly and consistently. Kindergarten students should not be treated as disposable when challenges arise, there must be clear accountability in how disciplinary actions and decisions are made, and schools should prioritize intervention and support over exclusion. I also ask this board to review my child's case and consider implementing better restorative practices to support young students. I just want to say thank you guys for your time, and I hope this board will take the necessary steps to ensure that young students receive the support and guidance they deserve, rather than being pushed out due to policy failures, especially in the middle of a second semester. I haven't been able to put my child in school yet because he was released in the second semester. And if there's and if there's any reason to release a child, you should know that, at least going into the end of the first semester, or, you know, let them know first grade. We don't know if this is going to work or some type of communication.

    Madam Chair, thank you.

    That concludes, virtual public comment.

    I'm sorry, Miss Drake, did that parent identify the school? Was it flicks? That's correct flicks? And it was a kindergarten student. What was the student's name that was not shared, I see, all right, someone will return the call back to her. I'm sure a is as soon as possible. Thank you so much. Dr Beatty,

    through the chair, there was a request for a gun resolution. Years ago, the board had considered a gun resolution.

    Dr Beatty, we can't hear you hear me.

    Okay, years ago, the board had considered a gun resolution, can you hear me? Yes, and apparently it did not pass the board or go through a board vote. So we'll go back and research that and and define whether it did happen, when it happened, if not, why not? Okay, that's what I thought,

    too. Thank you. Through the Chair, the resolution did pass, and I saw Mia read, who's one of the leads for every town and Moms Demand Action here, we work together on that. And former president Angelique Peterson Mayberry, their understanding of resolutions from different government entities. Some of them actually get a hard copy in a frame, et cetera. She wants that. I text her and told her, we will provide that. But that resolution was adopted and passed. Thank you. Member, Brenda Los Angeles,

    yeah, that was my recollection. But we're struggling to find the end record, so we'll follow up for clarity. The dpscd Foundation is the entity that provides the funding to the plaintiffs for the literacy lawsuit. It's my understanding, based on. A particular plaintiff that we're waiting for, power of the attorney, documentation for the foundation to provide the dollars that should go to that student and plaintiff, former student and plaintiff. I don't want to speak too much in detail about dpscd, schools, families, names, students names, but our preliminary review of the student, one of the two students that tragically passed with being in the car overnight on a cold night, one one student obviously was not school aged, so was not in dpscd. It appears as if the other student was, at one time, enrolled in dpscd, and that there was a request for homeless services, there was an attempt to reach the parent, and that attempt failed, probably because of a connected Phone, disconnected phone, so not a reliable means to communicate with the parent. We also have documentation that the school had reached out to the parent about attendance and enrollment. This was back in the spring of last school year, so our records at this point did not indicate that the student was enrolled for this school year, but previously enrolled last school year, but there's no there's no evidence, and I will certainly share with the board and the community if there's evidence of dpscd or particular school dropping the ball on providing support services to the family or the individual student. Let me walk through some of the challenges linked to the federal government. I'll do this quickly without slides. It was something that the madam chair asked me to do as we were talking through the metrics. One I think everyone needs to realize that an executive order by the president is not necessarily lawful. He can issue executive orders, but they don't most of the things that he's declaring need to be approved by Congress. So there we're heading toward, if we're not currently at a constitutional crisis where the President is naming certain things through executive order that require congressional action or approval, and that has not been the case on already a number of executive orders. So I think everyone has to keep that in mind when an executive order is released and the media reports on it, it's not in effect law. Immediately, most of his executive orders are being challenged in courts and so, and some have been ruled against the president. And so the question, I think, that we all are considering as citizens, and what we're considering as school district, is, if the courts strike down an executive order and the President doesn't move forward with abiding by the law, then then what? And I'm not trying to get outside of my space as superintendent, but this relates to DPS Ed, because I think where we're headed is whether it's the dismantling of the Department of Education, whether it's tying federal funding with certain requirements that can all be done through executive order, but most of that requires congressional approval, if the courts even strike down the executive order, if you will, the President could likely withhold funds or direct administrators to withhold funds. And as most of you know, 32% of our budget is linked to federal funds. We could use the fund balance to fill the gap. Initially, the state is already talking about using surplus funds to support districts, possibly if funds are withheld, but I also don't think we have to. We have to try to be patient through the legal system when executive orders are issued, because it doesn't necessarily mean they immediately need to be implemented. The first executive order that had an impact on dpscd was one related to the identification of sensitive locations and activating ice. Dpscd responded by stating that ice cannot come into one of our buildings or be on our property without a judicial warrant. If they're at the door without a warrant, they will not be let in. If they end up getting in the building, they'll have to show a warrant. We have a crisis protocol response process where an officer will report to that school or district building and interact with that ice agent or immigration official and reviewing the the warrant, seeing if it's valid, and we also trigger immediate engagement of our legal counsel and myself. At this point, ice has not tried to enter any of our school buildings. They have not contacted us for information. All students information is protected by FERPA, so even if asked. About number of undocumented families or students, which, by the way, we don't know, or the status of any child where they live. We are not obligated to provide any of that information, and we are not providing that information. ICE has been reported on a parking lot of a school, and they left and but that would have triggered, for example, a need to die to show a warrant to be even on the parking lot. But in that case, there were multiple parking lots because the school is shared by other entities. The other significant challenge that may be on the horizon is the elimination of the United States Department of Education, again, that requires congressional approval, but if issued through an executive order, and the Department of Education is not staffed, there is in a naming of positions, and it just becomes defunct, then ultimately, what would happen is this, the dollars allocated through federal funds would drop to the states, and the states would then allocate the dollars. Our concern would be changing the formula in which just versus that those dollars. We would hope that the state, or MDE, Michigan Department of Education, will keep the formula same, at least going into this year, so that the funding would remain the same we have received, or the states have received all federal dollars, so there's no title one, title two, Title Three, title four. Idea cannot be interrupted for this fiscal year, because those dollars have already flowed to the states and school districts. The issue is more next year. The other challenge under eliminating the Department of Education is the enforcement of Title Nine. Now in Michigan, we have the Elliot Larson Act, which is equivalent of Title Nine, which really protects all students, employees around issues of race, ethnicity, identity. So theoretically, legally, you would assume that school districts would still implement that state law regardless of what happens at the federal level. As I mentioned, we don't need the federal government to tell us or to ensure we're doing the right thing. We have board policies, we have trained employees. We have a title 19 that will remain in existence regardless of executive orders. We will implement the law as is at the federal level, and the Eliot Larson act. And then lastly, the other fear is tying federal funding to certain initiatives that the President has, for example, around the issue.

    Who ordered him out of the meeting? He's not

    doing anything. No No one. No one has ordered mister Beasley out of this meeting. No one has ordered him out of this meeting. Excuse me, security, let's get an understanding. Excuse me. Doctor Viti Excuse me. Excuse me. What? Security, what? What is going on here? Passing out literature. I'm sorry, mister Beasley, cannot pass out literature. When he told me that I haven't passed out, you are welcome to stay, sir, Mr. Beasley, please have a seat. You are welcome. Please

    have a seat. Like really, this is

    ridiculous, passing out paper I'm embarrassed.

    No, he's Thank you, Mr. Beasley, Mr. Up.

    No, it is not I'm sorry. Dr Beatty, please carry continue.

    Sure. So the last threat right now is that for next fiscal year, that federal funding would be tied to certain initiatives that President Trump campaigned on and says is a mandate of his voters. So those mandates would be linked to, for example, dismantling and not implementing any Diversity Equity or inclusion policy strategies throughout the school district. Another may be not implementing critical race theory, and another would be linked to gender education, linked to possibly transgender students or LGBT etc. So that has not been declared, but it's understood through some of his messages through the press, that going into next year, in order to receive funding, you would have to commit to possibly those three criteria, and then the last threat would be an acceleration of choice, so more choice to families, possibly continuing to challenge things that have already been ruled in court around caring. So. State or federal funding with students to private schools or other school districts. Now, as you all know, Michigan is a is a very aggressive choice district already, but actual taking federal funds and tying it to a student and allowing that student to translate that into some kind of voucher system is probably the direction that President Trump would want to move to. The courts have already struck that down a number of times, but we're possibly looking at another situation where that's tempted through executive order at a high level. Those are the more immediate threats that we're facing as a district right now. There's not much we can do until the these executive orders run through courts and the administration in the different offices at the federal level start to implement and provide guidelines and administrative guidelines on how to implement any of these executive orders. And so what we'll do as a district is continue to give updates. We've talked about maybe engagement sessions. I can dedicate part of my presentation on where we are on some of these things monthly, and I'll wait any direction the board has on that strategy, as well. As a reminder, the virtual school has always been open to all students, with the exception of some special needs students, simply because you can't implement the requirements of their IEP through a virtual setting, mainly because of their physical disability and possibly their learning needs cannot be met in virtual school. The beginning of the year, any student can apply to the virtual school, and then we do that at the second semester, and we've opened up the window, obviously, to allow any families that feel unsafe regarding the push of ice to consider the virtual school, certainly willing to add any ASD partners to our schools. You can email me directly about ideas that you have in that regard, we are always comparing ourselves to the state average, to other districts. Every year after state data is released, I provide a ranking of where we were when we started on this reform, where we are now. Every accountability areas we moved up the ranking. I just want to continue to remind everyone that Nate proficiency, or even M step proficiency, or even i Ready proficiency is not equivalent to being able to read. A proficiency rate is your ability to answer a certain number of questions based on a passage or information you know about literacy or literature, I should say a literacy test is a basic literacy test of can you read the content at that grade level? That's not what children are being asked to do in 2025 they are given a set of passages that is based on a national standard of proficiency and cut scores and a number of questions that you answer correctly, that's not to minimize scores one way or the other, but as a city, we have to stop talking about children being illiterate because they're not getting a certain score on a state assessment. In Birmingham, if you go to a board meeting, we're not talking about illiterate children in Birmingham. We're just talking about children that are not passing a test at a certain number. But that's not literacy states, decades ago, moved away from literacy tests. Now it's the ability to apply what you read, interpret what you read, which is a higher level thinking skill and analytical skill, which is much harder than when I went to school, or most of you in this audience went to school, that was a literacy test. Now, children are applying what they learn and what they read, which is much harder, and what is defined as proficiency is much higher. So that's not to dilute excuse to dismiss any critique about us needing to do better, but I would just hope as a community, we stop calling children illiterate, and we stop saying that they can't read. Because if you give a child a passage, even when they don't answer the question, right, it doesn't mean they can't read the passage. It means that when they read the passage, and if they answer the question, they may be struggling on how to interpret the passage or to find the right multiple choice question, but they can read the passage that's not illiterate. Lastly, there has been a lot of talk about vans being sent to individual schools, especially in southwest Detroit. We're continuing to explore this. One challenge is not necessarily having access to immediate bands, there's been conversation about maybe partnering, partnering with community based organizations that may have access to vans, or even churches that may have vans completely open and willing to do that, trying to wait for a little bit more information from our principals, especially with high concentration of immigrant students. Issues to see where we would pick them up. Can we get outside partners to do this with us? I'd also say that the threat in doing this is we're clearly defining who may be undocumented based on who's getting in that ban every morning or going home, and that might be the proper target that immigration officials may want but very open to it. Just need to continue to receive information from principals about what students, what families, what neighborhoods and what partners we can bring along in that process. I have to look into the specific concern about the kindergarten student at Flix my assumption would be possibly undiagnosed learning needs that cannot be met at Flix. But I'll look in that and I'll provide an update to the board the last point, a lot of conversation tonight, properly slow about chronic absenteeism, and we definitely will, throughout the year, at the end of the year, continue to analyze and hear directly from students why they're chronically absent, why they're missing school. I don't think a study or surveys of interviews will really tell us much more than we already know students are chronically absent and miss school because of transportation issues. What does that mean at the high school level, we rely primarily on city busses. Sometimes they're on a reliable they're late, they're too far away from where the child lives. We are not funded, at least now to provide bus services, as we did years ago through yellow busses for high school students. We're talking about 5060, maybe $100 million to bring back that level of busses and hire people to do that. Unfortunately, under emergency management, that was all decimated, and the cost is enormous to bring that level of transportation back. The other issue on transportation is 50% of our children don't attend their neighborhood, k8 or k5 school. That's because of under choice, choice without guard rails, choice without accountability. Families went to where they thought they would be best educated their children, but that creates a huge burden on the transportation system and on families. Lots of families struggle. They have access to a reliable car. They're relying on mass transportation, so when they don't send their child their neighborhood school where they can be provided transportation and put their heavy burden on the district and the family to get to school every day. So in other words, lots of our families are struggling to get to school every day, and right now, we're not equipped to provide the corner to corner, curb to curb, house kind of service from one neighborhood to the other, relevancy, especially middle school and high school, students struggle to understand, why am I going to school every day? How is this connected to what I'm going to I need to know for life after this experience, mental health. Children cite mental health issues and the need for more support. Students cite, I don't feel love challenged or prepared when I go to school. They're not connected to certain adults or the learning community. And then lastly, just family support. A lot of families are not in a situation to always provide the kind of love support for their child. And then that child is not pushed, held accountable, to attend school every day. I think we know these things, the challenges continue to work at scale and with individual children at schools and families to overcome these challenges. So again, we'll provide another report, another update, but largely speaking, these are the five to seven things that we're definitely going to hear from children.

    Thank you. Dr Vitti, are there any comments from the board? I almost said, Madam Chair,

    no, that's you. Thank you through the chair. Dr Vitti, I think it's also important to note about property. School properties. I know is at a community meeting a couple weeks ago, and there was a question about if we were being socially responsible with the school in the neighborhood, and it wasn't our school, it actually belonged to the city. So I know one of the schools that were mentioned, Kettering High School, how that is privately owned. But I think it's important for the community to know that every DPS, or DPS, I will say DPS school that was traditionally ours may not be ours at this point. So if you if there's a way we can direct people, if that is listed on the website in terms of what schools we actually own, so that the energy is directed toward the right body

    through the chair. I have to check to see if it's still on the website, or it's on the website, but if it's not, I'll have it up there by the end of this week, and then hopefully from this point on, whether it's the board myself. Staff, we can direct people to there. We only own roughly 28 former school properties. The rest are owned by the city. But I I'll definitely do that by the end of the week, and I'll give the board the link so that they can share that with any constituent that wants to purchase property or thinks that one of those vacant properties are one of ours? Yes.

    Very helpful. Thank

    you. Thank you. Dr Vitti, there was a Inquisition about risk analysis. Do you have any response to that about a risk analysis that was requested by prior board member, Sonia Mays, oh,

    yeah, through the chair. Well, the risk analysis would would basically be what I just explained. I can put I have that on slides, okay, I can present that at the next board meeting. I can run them through the committees. I mean, from a financial point of view, the greatest risk right now is the Title programs. Title One, title two, Title Three, title four, and Ida, again, that equates to about 32% of our overall budget. That's the risk. And again, I think from checks and balances, you know, the old, executive, judicial, congressional checks and balances. We should get to a point where we don't lose any of that funding. But I think that the real threat, when you look at this challenge pragmatically, is the holding of funds. That's where I think we're headed, and I think funds will be held to try to negotiate. So what I foresee happening is the President not directing federal administrative offices to give dispersed funding and holding that to negotiate with Congress, possibly to get what he would like. That's that's my concern. So the risk is starting the year without traditional federal funds and the amount, and trying to run the district without those funds. To address that issue, we would rely on our fund balance and try to make up the difference or rely on the state to Give us, us your funds to fill the gap as we wait to federal funds to come in, I can put all that on slides and talk about it to the committees or next board meeting.

    Thank you. Dr Beatty, thank you, Madam. Dr Taylor,

    I'm sorry. Dr Taylor, all right. Board member, Bryant,

    I'm just wondering, Madam Chair, we have several individuals here who have made comments in terms of what we're doing with with the literacy and ideas that they have, what are or what can we do moving forward to be more collaborative and more inclusive with individuals who desire to partner volunteer. I mean, we are in a crisis, and I think, to everyone's credit, they've come out numerous times. I don't know what, what are we doing to follow up with with individuals?

    Dr Beatty, with individuals. So

    we groups or well persons or individuals. I mean, we're getting emails. They're coming to the meetings. So obviously, I'm not sure if there's a follow up, you know, or plan to meet with individuals. What if anything? Is the plan moving forward? So the protocol

    board member Brian, is that when groups and or individuals come to the committee meetings, there is an in there is an immediate follow up, and usually doing the board members, board meetings, as tonight, our general board meeting, there are staff persons that are in the audience that do follow up With those persons, and then we will get the report as a result of those follow ups. That's been the normal protocol. Okay,

    so when can we expect these follow ups? I know I'm new. I just started January 1, but I've been in this district eight years, and some of these same individuals have been asking for collaboration, have been sharing information, and they're still here. I was sitting where they were, and now I'm sitting up here and I'm still hearing the same the same things. So what are we doing in terms of, again, having a plan? I mean, I know. Have the Let's Read program, but you know, what are we doing to be more inclusive and collaborative with individuals that desire to see our students achieve

    through the chair? I think it depends on the constituent. So if we're talking about a vendor, then there are RFPs that have been posted for years that can be applied to those vendors. Products and services can be reviewed, considered by central office staff or individual principals, to be used. If it's a general community member, then I think, let's read. Is the first opportunity to volunteer and get involved directly with children, to raise student achievement. If people are just generally concerned and want updates about where we are, where we're headed, what are the strategies? I recommend that they read the Literacy Plan that I believe, is on our website and to attend our academic committee meetings, where we more regularly review data, and during public comment, they can ask questions, and either I or individual board members would ask about it. I think the reference tonight to an email to the board that's up to the school board, the board can meet individually with a community member, and certainly ask questions about what we're doing, what we're doing differently, but at a high level, I try to break down what might be the right avenues, but willing to understand something differently if I missed

    it all right. Thank you.

    To the board if we can move, if you are ready to move to item 12? Doctor, I'm sorry. Board Member, Sherry gay, Daniel, yeah,

    Madam Chair, I don't, I don't want to prolong, prolong the hour. I do just want to speak to this before we come back. Not sure, I know the foundation, we have a chair member here. That is, I believe, the Chair of the Foundation the literacy question did come to our finance committee, the young man asking to address the plaintiffs, I would like some kind of report of how that works so we can find out what is the pace supposed to be, because I heard it at the Finance Committee, and I'm hearing it again tonight, and I don't want to wait until next month to come back. I do think we need to also look at opening our local authors program a bit more and or providing a vendor's professional development. I have seen ongoing communications for Mr. Beasley. I had an opportunity to go to the pinning ceremony at Cody this past week, one of the days this week, last week, and poet laureate graduate Jessica Care more is hailed across the country, and has been trying for a very long time to even get her literature in our schools. We she's a Cody graduate, and is reflected across the country world, and so we have to do better in opening up our program for a local, local authors. And so if it means someone from the procurement process sitting down with them to show them the process in which they did and how the process works, then we have to do that. And the reason I say that the Chamber's event here just a few weeks ago down at Motor City, one of the speakers was the Oakland County Executive and his team lead. They have a format that actually opens up the procurement process and walk individuals through that process. We have to adopt something similar, instead of allowing our money to continue to go out of state and out of the city of Detroit. And so I just want to make sure that that becomes a priority moving forward, because we can't say that people didn't follow the bid process, because in many instances, some of them may not really fully understand the bid process, and we're, you know, shooting our own selves in the foot by continue to send our money elsewhere. Thank you. Madam Chair,

    thank you. Thank you. Dr Taylor, if you could respond to that,

    yes to the Chair, I'd like to respond to the question regarding the payment. The individual that the payment is designed for has not come forward himself, an individual here is representing him, and we have requested that the power of attorney be given to the foundation in order for us to communicate with the representative of the individual in order to disperse the funds and. They've been attempting to contact this individual Since 2021 so that's where we are. That's what Dr Vitti was summarizing. And as soon as he produces a power of attorney that we can vet, then they'll move on to the next step, which is the action plan that the state has to approve.

    Thank you. Madam Chair, thank

    you. Thank you. Dr Taylor, thank you. If the board desires to now move to item 12, which are personnel actions, and we've had an opportunity to review that in our board docs, is there a motion to accept?

    So moved Madam Chair, I move that we accept the administrative terminations offer job abandonment, as recommended by the superintendent. Support.

    Support has been moved in second, moved by Angelique Peterson Mayberry, and supported by Dr Iris Taylor that we would accept the superintendent's recommendations for administrative terminations. All in favor. Are there any opposes? Seeing? None. It is so moved. This next item is Item 13. There's 13 01, excuse me, and 13 02, the first item 13, 01 is the approval of the Detroit Public School Library Commission, committee selection. The committee selection, excuse me, is Mr. Candia Milton. Candia Milton, that was the committee selection, and we want to thank those who applied and those who responded. But now it is up to the board for approval. We are going to do a roll call vote,

    make a motion that we approve the selection of 13.01

    support. It has been moved by board member Sherry gay Dan Diego, supported by Angelique Peterson, Mayberry, roll call

    Monique Bryant.

    No

    sherry. Gay Day, yoga, yes. Angelique Peterson, Mayberry, yes. Doctor Iris Taylor, yes. Doctor Ida short, I

    must abstain, because I'm on the Library Commission right now, and it would appear to be a conflict for me to vote. Thank you.

    Thank you. Latrice McClendon,

    yes, Bishop. Coletta Vaughn, Yes, Madam Chair, you

    have a quorum. You have a quorum.

    Five yeses, one, no one abstained. Thank

    you so much. It is the consensus of the board that Mr. Milton would move forward as the library the newest library Commissioner. Thank you so much. It is so moved. Now we have the approval of the appointment of members to the DPS, CD, police department oversight committee.

    Madam Chair, I move that we approve the individuals that are identified in action. Item 13.02,

    is there support? Support? All in favor? Aye. Are there any opposes? It is so moved. Item Number 14, the consent agenda. Agenda 14, 01, I approval of additional funding for district dual enrollment programs. 1402 contract with Allied Media people in education, for school based museum work. 1403 approval of contract increase with Rockford. 1404 approval of the contract increase with Gilbane building 14 05 approval of the contract with a ace com, Great Lakes, Inc, 1406 approval of the contract amendment and increase with plant moraine, 1407 approval of the contract increase with luck roofing. Is there a desire to move this

    forward? Madam Chair, I'd like to propose a tie bar for 14.02 through 14.07 I do have questions and concerns about 14.01

    I support the tie bar on the floor for 14.02 through 14.07

    for consent. And because these have already been to the consent agenda, there is not a need for for a actual tie bar. But board member Sherry, would you please share your. Discussion for item 14, 01, thank

    you. And I mentioned this during finance, and I did send an email late this afternoon. I did see I was driving, so I did see an answer come through. But I just want clarification. I want to make it crystal, crystal clear that Wayne County Community College is the only community college that pays taxes, both in the city of Detroit and throughout Wayne County. These programs, we know, are in a Cohort Format, and so while the number is small, dollars going to Henry Ford Community College, when Wayne County Community College can accommodate those students, is still puzzling to me. Additionally, the college was sent some type of RFP communication, or it said, RFP like communication and so with again, Wayne County Community College being nationally recognized, accredited, leading institution, not just in Michigan, but around the country. I'm not completely clear on why we're requesting some type of a RFP process, and I'm being very straight forward on this, because there was a move earlier last year to try and regionalize our community college, and we fought in the legislature on several occasions to make sure that We stop the encroachment of Harry Ford and any other community college from impacting Wayne County Community College District. So I want to clearly understand what that process is and why Wayne County Community College would be expected to go through that process with our with their dual enrollment program. Thank

    you. Dr V, do you want to respond to that? Sure.

    So, so the the question and the comments are certainly relevant for the future. So, so the what went out was a not an RFP. I may even said RFP in the email. It was really a response, to engage, to negotiate, as we think about the high school redesign work, which at a high level for new board members and community members, it's basically trying to expand, do enrollment opportunities, career tech opportunities, internships at the 11th and 12th grade year in particular, and so what we're trying to do is engage, to throw the net out, try to engage as many universities on being possible partners with the district as we try to ramp up scale access to college or and or career opportunities. So Wayne, Wayne County Community College would be, obviously our main partner in that. And we've always said that what we're trying to do is beyond Wayne County Community College, what other universities may be partners in providing these dual enrollment college career opportunities as we expand high school redesign. So what we're trying to do is hear from universities on their ability to scale like, how many kids could they take of ours as in the future? What programs could they offer? Are they in a place to provide transportation for our kids to travel there? Do they have the, you know, the number of professors to offer classes? Would they work with us to get our teachers to be credited to offer classes? What? What? How many seats they have available on certain campuses? All that is what would be discussed under this engagement process. And we're asking Wayne County Community College to engage so we can start working through some of these details. It's not, it's really, it would be misleading to say they won't be selected. It's really more about let's start the engagement process so we can move to an MOU that defines this scaled and expanded work. The item tonight actually has nothing to do with that. Okay, the actual item tonight is simply an amendment to this year's do enrollment work, 2425 and the expansion of that. And as we talked about at the Finance Committee meeting, you know, this agenda item has about 70 575,000 going to Wayne County, community college, and the next highest is Wayne State at 104,000 University of Michigan, Dearborn, 74,000 Eastern Michigan, 20,000 Henry Ford College, about 10,000 University of Detroit, mercy, 1000 500 and then Lawrence Tech, 8900 so proportionally, obviously we're favoring Wayne County community. That should be the case. They're our neighbor, they're they're right here, and they have expansive branches and campuses. So that's an inevitably where the majority of our kids will be. We're just trying to bring other universities to the table to fill in gaps that maybe Wayne County Community College can't provide, and what other gaps, maybe certain programming, maybe geographically, where they're located, they can, kids can access those programs better. But that's less about this year or even next year. It's really we're talking 334, years

    from now. Thank you. That's helpful through the Chair. I just don't want to see the continued, you know, growth or encroachment from Henry Ford when we have capacity at Wayne County Community College, I get the other universities, but I like to know where some of their former Upward Bound dollars are to even help with that cost, because that used to help with the cost of dual enrollment programs. So I digress, but just want to make sure that that's on record, that we're clear, that our priority should reflect as it does on this line item, the lion's share does go to Wayne County Community College, but hearing for it, you know, Dearborn don't really necessarily send us students, so that's it. Thank you.

    So Madam Chair, I move that. May we thank you.

    I'm sorry. Miss shorts. Short in the mic,

    you got to speak in your mind, in the finance committee and and to support what my colleague is saying. But I want to say a little bit more and take it a little bit further. We collect tax money from the people here in Detroit to support Detroit Public Schools, and so we need to make sure that we're supporting Wayne State and Wayne County, community college. When we send our tax dollars to other communities outside Detroit, we are supporting other communities and vicariously, we are supporting the state movement for for schools of choice, which means you pay, taking your tax dollars, paying for everything, private schools, religious schools, charter schools and whatever. In addition to that, we're falling into a trap, which is the same trap that Trump has, which is we're he wants to take money to pay for private schools, religious schools, and on and on and on. So it's important for us to send our money to state public institutions. We are a public institution, so we're undermining ourselves when we send money to the private schools, and particularly when we send them to the private schools outside of Detroit. Finally, I want to point out that we as a community, if the students and the parents want something different, we need to make sure that that difference is not being, is not allowed or is not offered by Wayne State and Wayne County Community College, and the reason is we have a fiduciary responsibility to make sure that we are providing the best that we can for our dollars. And I don't think private school education right now with our tax dollars for freshman year is important for us to be doing, because in the freshman year, the students are taking the same kind of classes. All of you here have degrees, you know that, so we should not be taking our tax dollars paying for private first year education unless there's something that Wayne State or Wayne County does not offer. And so that's been my cry. It's going to continue to be my cry. And it's not just because I teach there part time. I'm putting it on the record because I only value say, well, she got this conflict. No, I've been a supporter of Wayne County Community College since it was first created by Dr Jackson and a whole bunch of other folks. Some of these people are deceased now, including him. So I want us to be supportive of public education, because we want the public to support us too, but not if we sending our money to private schools.

    Well said, Dr short, well said, Thank you,

    Madam Chair, I move that we approve 14.01 under consent based on the support

    14 01 if we can just take 14 completely, because it's already on consent agenda. So you are support

    you. So we get a motion on the floor to do 14.02 through 14.07

    so these are already consent agenda items, so it doesn't need a tie bar, but it was a motion to pull it out. Okay? So we accept that. Yes. Yes. Alright. Support all in. Favor. Aye, thank you. Now, may I have a motion for 14 for for the consent agenda to move forward to

    approve the consent

    agenda as as listed, thank

    you. Support. Is there support? Support, all in favor? Aye, so moved All right, moving forward to item 15 announcements. Are there any announcements or report outs from any of our outside responsibility I know Wayne resa and MasB are meeting this month, this week as well. Are there any other report outs? Dr Beatty, I

    just wanted to give the board a quick update. Just remember, we do have a local authors panel. I'll remind the board of the link. You can share it with any local author. Our we have central office and teachers that review the book. Board

    Member, board member, Sherry. They go, I think there's answering your response. So

    there, once that book is selected, we have a budget? Schools can purchase a book through the author's panel, invite the author to the school. So I'll share that with new board members. Thank you. And then, just you know, when we talk about engaging city minority vendors, we run 30 workshops a year to do that, I'll give all those dates to the board. They can share that with vendors. And you know, this is really a testament to the board and the administrative team, but we've gone from 38 million to $71 million to minority contractors. And we've gone from 78,000,200 4 million for Detroit based companies. So that's just over the last couple of years. So I just want to remind the board that we got a long way to go, but we're definitely making progress with that work.

    Thank you, Dr Vitti, and thank you Board Member Sherry Kane dennego, that continues to keep that high on the list of our priorities that we are supporting minority and city contractors. Thank you so much and female and I am

    appreciative of the dashboard and everything that's been created in the communication. We just have to do a better job of like those 31 meetings. We do need to know those in advance, and we need to do a better job of circulating in and out make sure. So thank you to all of those who are working in procurement that we don't see. Thank you also, thank

    you. Thank you to our media team tonight. I don't know if you are are watching our YouTube channel. Thank you to Crystal superintendent, Crystal Wilson, for improvement, to our YouTube stream tonight. We also were streaming live on PBS, so we are making inroads to we have a three camera shoot tonight with lighting and our you our actual YouTube stream, we actually look human. So thank you so much. And cameras were directed at the time of our public comments. So please, if you'd like to go back and watch that, and thank you for those of you that have joined us online. Our virtual community. Tomorrow is count day, so we are looking for all of our students to be present for count day, also in the earlier moment of silence, one of our deceased retired teachers was omitted. I do want to call her name Evelyn Harrison, who is a retired teacher of monger also because we have heard tonight of the dismal situation with those two children. So I'm going to just ask before we dismiss for just a moment of reflection.

    Thank you. Is there a motion to dismiss so moved Madam Chair, is there a consensus of all without objection? Thank you so much to our audience, to our stakeholders, thank you so much. You.