DPSCD Special and Regular Board Meeting, 5.13.2025

    3:30PM May 14, 2025

    Speakers:

    Keywords:

    DPSCD Board Meeting

    agenda approval

    closed session

    public comment

    student attendance

    chronic absenteeism

    career technical education

    school renaming

    support staff training

    discipline issues

    building repairs

    mental health services

    student recognition

    financial report.

    Education funding

    mental health

    career tech programs

    student safety

    school facilities

    teacher training

    student assaults

    federal budget

    school libraries

    parent involvement

    student retention

    school closures

    community support

    educational policies

    student well-being.

    Detroit Public School, community, district, special board meeting. This is a call to order. Ms Moore, would you provide the roll call for us? Please? Monique

    Bryant, Sherry, yay. Daniel go. Angelique Peterson, Mayberry, Dr Iris Taylor, dr, Ida short, present, Latrice McClendon, Bishop, Coletta Vaughn, present, Madam Chair, you have

    a quorum. Thank you. We will now have the call for this special board meeting by the secretary of the board, Miss Vanya Moore.

    I Vanya Moore, secretary to the Detroit Public Schools community District Board of Education, do hereby certify that the foregoing notice of the special meeting of the Board of Education was delivered to each board of education member on Friday May 2, 2025 according to its applicable statute.

    Thank you. Next we will have a moment of silence, applause. Moving forward to the approval of the agenda for the special board meeting. Are there any suggested changes to the agenda?

    No suggested changes, Madam Chair, but I do move that we approve the agenda as presented.

    Thank you. Is there a second support second Thank you. It's been moved by board member, Angelique Peterson Mayberry, supported by Monique Bryant. We would approve this agenda, no discussion. All in favor. Thank you so much. Because we have no amendments, the agenda has been carried. We will now take a motion to move into closed session. So move Madam Chair. I support it. Thank you. Been moved by board member, Angelique Peterson Mayberry, supported by Dr Ida short. All in favor Aye Motion is carried. Thank you so much.

    Thank you so much. We now will move into our closed session and we will return For our regular board meeting. Thank you.

    We apologize for the lateness, but We do thank you for your patience.

    You. Thank you. I call this meeting of Detroit public schools, community District Board of Education to order the time now is

    616.

    Madam, Secretary,

    Monique Bryant present, Sherry yay. Daniel go present, Angelique Peterson, Mayberry Dr, Iris Taylor Dr, Simmons short, Latrice McClendon present, Bishop. Dr Coletta Vaughn present. Michael West present, Naomi Babatunde present, Madam Chair, you may begin. Thank

    you. Thank you so much. Meeting norms.

    We respect the rights of all persons to participate in this public meeting of the board and kindly request that everyone engages in behavior that supports the same. In the event anyone engages in behavior that is not in support of the good, we request that you refrain from that behavior.

    Thank you. And now I have a moment of silence while remembering some of our staff. Regina Durham, program associate at turning point. David Godwin, attendance officer and. Coach for Pershing and Davidson Gwendolyn Harris, first grade teacher at Chrysler, Carolyn Lynn, teacher at Samson Weber and Gerard Rashawn, eighth grade student at the

    Thank you. Let us now receive our color guard from CMA High School, along with the singing of Both anthems by our duet from Wayne elementary school. You

    by The Doors early. Me

    by the door at the twilight's last gleaming who Thus perilous fight all around

    is glad gave that

    off. To the light that

    our flag was still there. Oh, the

    me Lift Every Voice of liberty. Of

    liberty

    sing a song

    for of the faith that the dark past has

    taught us, sing a song

    full of the hope that the present has brought us Facing

    the rising

    up Let us march on to victory is war. Let us march on to victory is war. Is War.

    Is fantastic. Can. We give them both another hand, please. Arousing applause to our CNA as well as the beautiful voices. Thank you so much. As we move forward to the agenda board, I would like for you to take a look at the approval of the agenda and to

    to look at the amendments that we spoke of. Is

    there a motion there? I would like to motion to move our

    item number 10 administrative actions to after our public I'm sorry after our closed session support.

    So the motion is Item 10.03 would now move to become a part of item 15. Personnel actions, 15, oh 102, and oh three in closed session. Is that the motion? Is there any discussion? All in favor? Are there any opposes? It is so moved. Thank you. Are there any other amendments? Amendments? Madam, as noted.

    Madam Madam Chair. I just want to point an order. I wanted to clarify that the motion included was that 10 point 10.03

    is the approval of non renewals. Correct? That is it. Yes, yes. Thank you. That's the motion. Yes, ma'am, thank you. Moving forward, the approval of the minutes. Is there a desire to tie bar 4010203, and 04 that would be regular board meeting minutes from April, special board meeting minutes from April 12, Finance Committee meeting. Minutes from April 16, academic committee meetings. Minutes from April 23 is there a motion for tie bar to tie bar items

    4.01 to 4.0 to 4.04

    is there support? Support? All in favor? Thank you. Are there any opposes? So move now motion to accept, I move that we approve the tie of our items, 4.01

    to 4.04. Support.

    Any discussion, all in favor, any opposes. It is so moved. Thank you so much tonight. There's just one comment that I would like to make. We are gathered tonight at this beautiful place, this wonderful school, this esteemed school in our district, Martin Luther King, Junior Senior High School. But I believe it is important that we take time to address a recent media story about the principal of this great school. The district's preliminary review did not reveal any malefence or illegal activity by this principle. However, it is unfortunate that someone shared the Inspector General's report to the media. This is against our operating procedures and a contradiction to our core values, and was not fair to the principal or to the school community, and we the board, would like to apologize for that breach taking place as the board chair, I have asked that there is an IT review to be conducted to determine who may have leaked the report to the media and that that person, should they be revealed, would indeed face some disciplinary actions and or censor. I am extremely sorry on behalf of the Board to principal Perry, and this is our desire and effort tonight to let the community know that he is an outstanding principal and that there is no illegal activity on mal fans on his part, and we apologize for. The breach in our system, and we look forward immediately to restore him in every way possible. Thank you, principal Perry,

    thank you so much. We will now hear from our students, and we are so excited about them.

    Good evening, everybody. Good evening. Happy educator, and appreciate, happy educator, happy educator. Appreciation and mental health awareness month, you want to especially send our thanks to all educators around the community, no matter their official title and the reality of mental health, to all of our educators and those struggling with mental health. We see you and appreciate you. Before we begin our May Board report, we would like to start by introducing the d y c. The d y c is made up of high school students who are active members of their respective schools, 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 D, y, C. These students participate in team building workshops, professional development and student led network meetings, plan the annual C conference and engage in group volunteer efforts. The duic and the student representatives to the board work together to present this board report each month. First, we would like to acknowledge the success of this year's Student Empower experience C conference that took place Friday before last on May 2, over 300 high school students from dpscd schools came together in WCC CDs Northwest Campus for a morning to noon for growth, leadership and fun. Various workshops were held by professionals, including, but not limited to a debate coaching class, mental health workshop and a music appreciation class. In these classes, student leaders were not only enlightened and empowered by an educational, interactive, interactive experience, but they have fun while doing it, led by myself, Micah and our du YC colleagues, we held giveaways, introduced entertainment from our from my very own DSA at Mumford High School, and embraced all roles as youth leaders of communities. We look forward to greater success next year,

    on May 9, 2025 the duic held our last monthly council meeting, and both highlights and concerns were brought up which will be presented in our June meeting in order to give Dr Beatty and his office time to process the students request with today, May 13, 2025 marking exactly two years since I began serving as a student board representative. I want to take a moment at the conclusion of our report to reflect on this god given opportunity. What many may not know is that I transferred into Detroit Public Schools community district in the middle of my freshman year, searching for more rigorous classes and greater opportunities, what I found was not only that, but so much more I gained a village and a family. At first, my mom was scared. She wasn't sure if DPS, CD will offer her children what they deserved. But today, she thanks me for making the decision to transfer, because this district gave me a future greater than ever imagined. None of that would have been possible without these four women. Miss you. Miss you. Cal Finley, Lisa Gooden, char Willis Gregory and Yolanda Gordon from day one, Miss Finley believed in me. She didn't see me as a student. She saw as a leader. Miss Willis Gregory, my former English teacher, pushed me to find my voice when I was still unsure of it. Miss Gooden gave me a space to lead, grow and ask questions and Miss Gordon held me accountable with love reminded me that excellence is not optional. It's expected. I attribute all my success in the district to them. They are truly my impact educators, because these women didn't just teach me, they raised me, and because of them, I walk into every room knowing I belong. Educators across the district work hard each day to make sure their students feel seen, heard and respected, both inside and outside the classroom, which is why I am sure my story is just one of many. There are countless students across Detroit whose lives are being transformed by teachers who show up with heart purpose and belief in our potential as future leaders, whether it's a quiet nudge of encouragement in the classroom, a tough conversation or staying after school to help with an essay or college app, these moments are changing lives every day. They're happening every single day in dpscd, please help me welcome my impact educators to the stage. Miss Yolanda, Gordon, MS, Lisa Gooden, MS, Char. Willis Gregory, Mr. Cal Finley.

    Applause. Oh, wow.

    Oh, wow. All

    right, hey,

    all right, come on up.

    Let them Get one first you

    Hey, don't be confused. It was the students presentation.

    All issues.

    Power, yeah, but I mean, it's our

    staff so before our students take a seat, we have something for you as well. So Micah is leaving us as a graduate, a senior, and we have a plaque. We are so grateful for your service. We have something for Naomi. Come on, darling, because you all serve so faithfully. Thank you. Can you all? Can y'all stand on your feet? Everybody? Let's give them an ovation. Come on. Let's do that. These are student leaders. The next President of the United States, she's going to Howard University. You

    talking about this discussion

    based on the conversation we

    had, this is what it says is this is

    who signed to Dr Vitti, you have some presentations as well. District.

    Miss Wilson gonna move to recognitions, just because I know people have been waiting. I

    Okay, thank you. Dr Vitti, our first recognition and all of the remaining recognitions tonight is for the core value of excellence, which states be relentless in your pursuit of greatness, be bold and innovate, learn from your mistakes, hold yourself and others to high standards. Our first recognition tonight is for Reverend John Phelps. He is being recognized for his lifelong commitment to empowering youth and revitalizing Catholic parish life in Detroit. He is the co founder and CEO of life directions, and he has been serving Detroit Public Schools for over 52 years. This person. At this time, we honor you, Reverend John Phelps, for your unwavering dedication and more than 52 years of service and volunteerism at Detroit Public Schools and Detroit Public Schools community district.

    Let's give Reverend Phelps another round of applause 52 years.

    And while they're taking a picture, I'm going to introduce our next person, Matthew Bracey from Randolph Career and Tech Center. Mr. Bracey received the inaugural Carhartt skilled trades still Apple Award for his dedication to exceptional education in the skilled trades. This award honors Mr. Bracey's 20 years of service in training students in the construction trades and providing them with great career opportunities upon graduating from high school. Congratulations, Mr. Bracey, make sure you tell your family and friends when they're enrolling in dpscd. We do have career tech education, all right. And for our next student recognition tonight is for admire Malone from Central High School. Admire is a high achieving culinary student who has earned top honors at Bright hop, placed top five twice in Skills USA, won first place in the NAACP act so culinary competition has received multiple scholarships, including the Detroit promise and Sigma Gamma Rho culinary scholarships, and will attend the Culinary Institute of America In Manhattan on a partial scholarship. Congratulations.

    Culinary, famous cooks from Detroit, the legacy and the making. While they take the picture. Let's keep it going. We have two exceptional students who showcase their culinary talents in the district. Ready Set cook competition hosted by the Division of school nutrition. Their dish selected by a dpscd Alumni chef has earned a well deserved spot in the 2526 school lunch menu, bringing their creativity and skill to students across the district at this time, let's recognize Sienna Carter from Davis aerospace Tech High and Jaya George from Pershing High School. Congratulations.

    You. And while they are taking the photo, if all of my red jackets can please stand we have representatives in the audience who will be called to the stage. But if we can get into formation our red jacket. I don't have a fan, maybe a book, but let's read. So this evening, we recognize the dedication of over 175 let's read volunteers who are actually placed in schools. We have more than 200 volunteers trained, but we had 170 placed in schools. They're led by Assistant Superintendent sharlanda Buckman in the Office of Family and Community Engagement. Their commitment to helping students strengthen their literacy skills and develop a lifelong love of reading is truly inspiring. At this time, we're going to invite all the let's read volunteers to stand, and we ask committee member and one of the founding members, Helen Moore, along with tutors, Peggy rucks from Emerson, Jessica madrigal from Mayberry, Robert rovinski from Nolan, they've been part of the program since its inception, when it launched in 2019 so Join us on the stage and come get your plaques, and then we'll have you all go out into the hallway all the red jackets for your district photo. Congratulations. Let's read volunteers. Miss Jessica. Miss what's next? You got

    it congratulations. Congratulations again to our four representatives of the mighty. Let's read Volunteer Corps, and we will be looking for volunteers for the 2526 school year starting July 1, sign up with Galaxy and volunteer to help our students with the Let's Read program again, all let's read volunteers after the photos on stage, you can go ahead and exit and if you have on a red jacket, enjoy all of the volunteer recognitions that have been prepared for you this evening. Yes, if you guys can come down front first red jackets come down front first to Take your picture with the board and the superintendent. Thank

    come on down. If you have on one of these red jackets like mine, come on down to the front. And if we can get the video on, we can play the video.

    I volunteer number one, because I'm retired and I have the time, the kids need to know how to read better, because without reading, you can't go anywhere in the world. Well, hopefully my impact will help these kids I'm working with now read, and when they become parents, they'll be able to help their kids read. So I really go by what they need. So we do the books. I ask them what they need to know, and I ask the teacher also what they need to work oh, I feel happy. I feel good that I've done something to help somebody else.

    Think the Let's Read program is important because we know that literacy is an issue, and I've always been passionate about education, and I know that for that, reading is the key, so it's not even just reading the words, but then understanding what you read. And as a church partner, of course, it makes sense. We want to be the church. We want to care about other people. You know, so many times life, life can be really hard, and so if there's just another caring adult that helps, that can provide confidence for students, one on one time. So the relationship, I think, is the key, but that then allows us, us as adults to work with the students, and then once we have that relationship, that trust, now we can pour into them and impact them, just

    pulling the kids out to class, seeing their excitement about us playing the games and going through the sight words, and then them seeing me in the hallway, asking me, when you gonna come back and get us, but just giving back and just doing more than just volunteering for the fun stuff, but involving myself in the academics as well. It makes me feel good, because I know that it's a possibility that they can help someone else, and then also with them just building their confidence. Now is no telling where that could take them.

    We just want to be able to, like, say, pour into the students in different ways. Literacy, obviously, is an important one. So that if we can help move students from anywhere, where they are on the reading journey, learning how to read, we can help to accelerate that, whether it's that to catch them up or to move forward, then it just is going to improve their academic outlook and achievement.

    And we're going to keep on keeping on with the Let's Read program, because we believe that our children can read and if you give them the right information and the right point.

    Our last recognition tonight goes to a number of schools. Every month, we're recognizing schools for their improvement in our student achievement areas. Tonight, we're going to recognize schools that had the highest growth last year in reading and math in multiple areas, one of the top, highest percentage of students that met at least one year of growth for those students in the bottom 30. So we identify students at every school that are in the bottom 30 for performance. Students, and we do that because we want to make sure that they show improvement, because they need to improve much more than even other students at those individual schools to be eventually at grade level. And then we're going to recognize schools that have the top five most improved percentage in the bottom five. And then we're going to recognize top five performing schools that showed two or more years of growth, so not just one, but two years of growth in both reading and math. So let me start with the top five schools with the highest percentage of students meeting at least one year of growth with those students in the bottom 30% our first school is Nichols, elementary with principal Hayward, 80% of their school, those school students in the bottom 30 showed at least one year of growth. And then we have Bates Academy, principal Bailey, 77% of bottom 30 students showed one year of growth or more. Nineness, Dual Language Learning Academy led by principal Rendon, 76% Ann Arbor trail principal Massey, 74% and Flix, 73% led by principal Woodley in math, the school with the highest percentage of students in the bottom 30, showing at least one or more year of growth, is Blackwell, led currently by principal Gaines clipper, 82% principal Escamilla, third in our betrayal, principal Massey, and then Chrysler elementary principal Shirley and then Barton ELEMENTARY PRINCIPAL, Glover Adams you

    let's Give our principals another round of applause.

    I there, stay

    there. Okay, now we have our schools with the most improved in showing at least one year of growth for students in the bottom 30 in ELA again, Nichols, principal Hayward. Second. We have Coleman, a young led by principal Scott. Third, Mark Twain Elementary, led by principal hence. And we have Mason Academy led by principal Johnson. And we have Marquette Elementary, led by principal Sinclair. In math, the schools with the most improved percentage of students showing at least one year of growth with the bottom 30 in math, we have go lightly, improvement of 27 percentage points principal Naylor Hamilton Academy, led by principal Lewis Coleman, a young led by principal Scott again Blackwell, led by currently principal Gaines, and then Bethune Elementary, led by Principal Jackson. You

    okay, now we have the schools with the highest percentage of showing two years of growth, so not one year of growth, but two years of growth. Leading that pack is Davidson Elementary, 47% of their students showed two or more years of growth, led by principal Coleman Nichols Elementary, principal Hayward, 47% of her students also showed. At least two or more years of growth in reading. Ann Arbor trail, elementary principal, Massey Bates Academy principal, Bailey and ninus, elementary principal, Rendon in math. These are the top five performers with showing two or more years of growth in math. This was led by Ann Arbor trail. Principal, Massey, 60% of her students showed at least two years of growth in math. Barton Elementary, 51% of her students showed at least two years of growth. Principal, Glover Adams, Davidson Elementary, Allen again. Principal, Coleman clipper ELEMENTARY PRINCIPAL, Escamilla and Chrysler, elementary principal, Shirley. You

    one. Last one, all right. Lastly, we have the most improved schools with showing at least two years of growth that was led by Coleman, a young principal, Scott Nicole Nichols, elementary principal, Hayward Law Academy principal, Allen Verner, elementary principal, Daniels And Bethune elementary principal Jackson and and in math. These are the schools with the highest improvement in students showing at least two years of growth in math. This was led by burns, elementary burns, elementary principal, Clayton. Then we have Coleman, a young principal, Scott Barton, elementary principal, Glover Adams, Chrysler, principal Shirley and Bethune elementary principal Jackson you

    let's give our principals another round of applause for their high achievement and improvement. We're so dpscd, Proud of you all you

    again, we thank all of the celebrants and all of those who have been inspiring our children to read. We are just excited. Thank you again, Mr. Vedito, we are ready for the finance report, please and public comment registration has closed.

    Good evening.

    All right, Barton,

    good evening. We'll be presenting the financials for March. As you can see, we received collections on the 13 and 18 Mills, our capital and operating debt millages, just less than a million on the capital millage, just more than a million on the operating millage. It brings our capital debt account to 93 point 5 million at the end of March. We did complete all borrowing and make bond payments in April. And then regarding the 18 Mills, it brought our account to 35 point 5 million. We don't have any more debt payments until September on the operating millage for dpscd, revenue is coming in slightly. I'm

    sorry, Mr. Vidito, excuse me. One minute. Can we get some monitors here? Up a little bit we can't hear. Is that all right? Thank you. Just give us a little volume on the Thank you. Sorry, Mr. Bedito,

    okay. For dpscd, we came in slightly higher on revenue for the month. We're about 9 million ahead, primarily based on an increase in local revenue one time resa money for ese transportation that was received, as well as federal revenue coming in ahead of forecast for the month. Under the expenditure side, we are slightly ahead on expenditures. You may recall that the state adopted the mipsers repayments the 140 7g those payments were processed in the month of March for the first half of the year, leading to slightly higher salary and payroll payments, but those were reimbursed by the state. Otherwise, equipment and capital was slightly higher just based on the timing of when purchases arrived. We ended the month with approximately 14 and a half weeks of available cash. And that concludes my report.

    Thank you. Are there any questions for Mr. Vedo? Board members? No questions. Thank you, Mr. Perdido, we will move this forward for auditing. Dr Vitti, this is your Superintendent's report time, and thank you for all of the recognitions that you have brought to us tonight.

    Thank you, Madam Chair, again, I reviewed our monthly metrics. Our enrollment right now is continuing to trend upward. Right now we're about 1000 students higher than we were at the end of last year. Our enrollment continues to grow. Unfortunately, we're not paid by the state for that, but it is a good thing as we move into the summer, and hopefully that enrollment will stay as it is as we turn into the fall, our re enrollment rate is slightly higher as well. Excited to say that with about a month of school left a little less than that, we're trending higher in our student Average Daily Attendance about three percentage about 2.5 percentage points higher than we were last year. If we remain where we are, then our student average daily attendance rate district wide will be higher than it was before the pandemic. That's one of the last data points to completely rebound since the pandemic. And the same goes for chronic absenteeism. District wide. Right now, 59% of students are tracking to be chronically absent. That's still too high, but that is a seven percentage point drop from last year. And if, again, the data stays as it is or trending the way it is, then we will be lower than we were even before the pandemic, which would be exciting for the district and definitely trend setting. Knowing that the entire nation continues to struggle with absenteeism, it doesn't mean we've solved it, but it means that we are improving, specifically for high school attendance, not on the chart here, but the incentives definitely made a difference. When we ended the incentives, Apple to apples to last year, we saw a two percentage point improvement in average daily attendance for high school students and a nine percentage point reduction in chronic absenteeism. So these numbers also that you see here are district wide, but they're they're definitely influenced by the improvement in high school student attendance as well our teacher attendance right now, about 72% have excellent or moderate attendance. That's also trending higher than it has been in previous years, we did take an interim love challenge and repaired survey. It was very interim, with only some of the questions. This is an official the students did take their official survey survey, and we will get those results in the summer, and this will be updated also with family staff, leader central office, and again, student final survey data.

    It's frozen on the board. I'll just continue to go through. Our students are in the final stages of taking m step, we only are basically doing remake tests right now. The data that you see here is mid year data, but all signs point to another year of improving at and above grade level performance and English language, English language arts and math based on our interim data. And then students are also taking their PSAT sat that should be concluding soon as well. Actually, that is concluded, but we won't have results until after the summer. We won't have official M step results until after the summer as well. But again, relying on our i Ready data, we are projected to improve and add. And above grade level performance. Our graduation rate has dramatically improved over the years. In fact, 14 percentage points over the last two years. We are now only four percentage points away from the state at 82% we're looking to eclipse that, hopefully at the end of this year, but we won't know those final results, because students continue to graduate over the summer. Right now, about 63% of students have taken college going classes, junior or senior year, either college going or career going classes. And then 60% have passed at this point, which is higher than the year before. Lastly, we have about 40 teacher vacancies right now, 35 support staff vacancies, 15, cafeteria staff vacancies, 18 custodian vacancies, only three, Assistant Principal vacancies, only two, counselor vacancies, only five, academic interventionist vacancies, four security guard vacancies, seven para vacancies. Those are pre K para vacancies and 15 ese para vacancies. That is extremely low compared to previous numbers. We strive to be fully staffed, but certainly we are well staffed in most areas throughout the district, our biggest issues continue to be in psychology, or psychologists and speech language pathologists, where we have to continue relying contractive services. We have hired more full time staff in those areas, but not where we still need to be. So that's where we make the difference in contracted services. Based on conversations with the board on how to improve the number of students being counted for eating breakfast and lunch, we are still below where we were last year. I don't think this is necessarily means that students are eating less. It just means that we're not the way in which we track it is different this year, because you have to do the point of sale or the point of receiving the food. We can't We can't count trays or milk cartons. We have to actually do point of sale, if you will. But now we are using the student ID cards across the district. We are monitoring that, and we're seeing an increase in the percentage rate, again, not where we were last year because the way in which we counted changed, but we're going to continue to make sure that the IDs are used, and we're going to continue to train our cafeteria staff in using the point of sale transaction and adding staff at individual schools where we continue to see lower numbers Right now in some of the operational areas, days to process invoices overall is slightly higher for overall and where they are in operations. This is usually the case at the end of the year as schools are processing invoices to close the year out. Voices past due, date of the time of payment overall is trending lower, district wide and lower, also for operations, but not all invoices have been processed, so that number may increase slightly. You can see the number of errors for every $10,000 paid on paychecks is very much down compared to previous years. And then lastly, the number of days of the length of an RFP is higher this year as compared the previous year, previous years. The main reason for that is a large number of capital projects and facility projects that we're facilitating. In addition, we've increased the number of contractors at individual schools in order to give opportunity for more local and minority businesses. So the number of vendors have dramatically increased at schools, which means we're processing more RFPs, which means the length of time is taking longer. One of the recommendations I will be making the board with the budget going into next year is adding procurement staff to make sure that our numbers are more reasonable regarding the length of time RFPs are processed, so that our vendors continue to be paid more frequently. The positive, we have more vendors. We also have more local and minority vendors, but the volume is not being processed timely, because we just don't have a large number of staff in the procurement department. So that's something that we'll take a look at during the budget process. Madam Chair, that completes my presentation.

    Thank you. Dr Vitti, are there any questions board members, Sherry gate and Nico? Thank

    you. Madam Chair, through the chair, as it relates to chronic absenteeism. That number, what is the window for which that number? I believe it was 59% so that's 58.8 I'm challenged with this small. Print. But what? What is the window in which the 58.8 or 59% truancy? What's the date which that's calculated?

    It's as of, right? As of, let's say today is Tuesday. It's probably as of Thursday of last week, I'm saying, but it's from the beginning, yeah, the beginning, beginning of the school year, up until late last week. So now,

    okay, thank you. So it's cumulative. Yeah, thank you. And so with that ongoing 59% truancy, what percentage is taking the the assessment, the feeling love, challenged, is it the 41% or is it giving on a rotating basis?

    So the if you go back, if you go to that row where it says, Love Challenge prepared student index, it would be right based on the interim survey that students took around, let's say right before the holidays, 27% of students would be considered from third grade to 12th grade, loved. They felt loved, challenge and prepared, all three. So some may only feel loved, but the 27% would be at mid year. Of those that took the survey, 27% felt loved, challenged and prepared. I

    guess for me, I'm and I thank you. So I think I'm thinking about just attendance as a whole, the pattern of truancy with 59% I know that that's not a static number, but like, what? What's the number of students that actually took the assessment? Let's go with that, yeah,

    well, at least, well over 90% by memory. I can give you the exact number, and I might be anticipating where you're going, but there is a link between students feeling loved, challenged, prepared and not being chronically absent. Likewise. I mean, there's a direct connection we we actually ran that data last year and presented it to principals and even talked about it. I think if I remember right at the PD day with teachers to talk about if you really unpack the questions in the survey, it obviously gets to students feeling love challenge prepared. But bottom line, there is a correlation between feeling love challenged and prepared and not being chronically absent. 100%

    that's exactly where I'm headed to that the population of constant truancy. We know that there's a subsection of students, our homeless population I don't want to submit. You know, after the story is over, we go back to not thinking about the priority and the urgency around students who are persistently absent, but many of them fall into the category of a homeless population and the McKinney vento where, how are we doing on the partnerships that were to be established With the city of Detroit, Southwest access and any others, and perhaps the transportation needs that were being discussed at some point. Are there any further developments of where we are with respect to supporting students from that will fall into the category of homeless and or McKinney Vento,

    yeah, I'll have to follow up with the homeless office to see if homeless department see if there's been substantial increase in partnerships from what I know, no, but I I'll make sure I know exactly, and if there are additional partners that have stepped up, then I'll be sure to let the board know. I

    just, I just have to say that, because we don't want to let you know a media story that get us all in urgency around providing support, and then we go back to business as usual, and no one knows where these students are attending school, if they're attending school. I know that the department was here and the director previously was recognized for some of the tough work, and we talked about a staffing issue. Have we addressed the staffing issue in that department? Because they were doing the work of probably 10

    through the chair. So there, there is a recommendation for next year's budget to increase the number of full time employees in that department, so we have not implemented that because I was waiting for the budget adoption process of the board would see it be comfortable with it and that would be added into next year's budget.

    Thank you, Madam Chair, that's it for now. Thank

    you. Thank you. Board Member Bryant, sticking

    to this point, I know when I visited, there was additional space needed in addition to more employees in that department. How are we with identifying the space in the building and. You for the next year, increasing that

    through the chair. I don't recall that coming to my attention, but I'll ask and I'll follow up with the board, along with the new partners that have come forward.

    Thank you.

    Thank you. Board Member, Peterson Mayberry, thank

    you through the chair. Dr Vitti, so I thank you for the data. I do want to make sure that we are always lifting up our educators too, as we see that their attendance is much higher too. So let's not let's not negate the fact that we have, in addition to our students, they are coming before educators who are showing up. My question is also around the college and career ready. So I know our four year graduation rate, we don't have graduation is coming up, so I'm hoping our numbers are well beyond the 78.1% but when I think about college and career, there's been some challenges with some of the high schools with their current schedules, and I know we've talked about that before, about them having access to some of the programs like at Randolph or bright off, because I've gotten some emails from parents at certain schools where it's not being offered to their school. So as we talk about the new high school plan, how are we thinking about having those students at those particular schools who aren't able to participate now in a position more so around the Career Ready, not necessarily the college, because they're either dual enrolled or attending it

    through the chair. So obviously the change that the high school redesign structure would naturally lead to more students going in or being exposed to Career Ready courses, because if they're on track after their ninth and 10th grade year, then intentionally, they'll be scheduled to either go to Randolph bright off or to go to Wayne County Community College and take Career Link classes. So that will be the big change in the meantime, one just the way we continue to monitor improvement at schools, looks at the number of students that are either college ready, defined by the SAT or career ready, defined by taking career classes and passing them with certifications, so that continues to be tracked, and student and high schools are incentivized to do that. I know you probably recall that eight years ago, high schools lost money if their students went to brighthoff and Randolph because they were not at their high school for the full, if you call it the FTE, the full day. We eliminated that so that removed the disincentive for that to happen. But we continue to promote, you know, enrollment at Randolph and bright Hall. We provide full transportation there, AM, PM. The numbers have increased since the pandemic, but obviously more students could attend. So we continue to promote and incentivize just based on how we evaluate high schools. The major, I think, solution to this is the high school redesign plan, because students essentially would be scheduled 11th and 12th grade. They would have a choice right now. We don't have enough options for every 11th and 12th grader to be scheduled, because there's not enough seats at Randolph and bright often, and our partnership with Wayne County Community College isn't expansive enough to put all students on the college campus.

    Okay, one final question through the chair, and so I'm hoping that we are getting to a point to where we are introducing the career opportunities to middle school students. I know we've talked about that in the past, and when you go to these celebrations for these students, those students are the best marketers for those programs. So for them to be able to go back to the middle school, it could put young people in middle school on a path for a career as early as sixth, seventh or eighth grade. So I'm hoping we're moving to that space sooner than later.

    Thank you. Any more comments or questions? Dr, short Miss

    chair. Dr, Beatty, just a question under improve attendance, we're showing a daily average student average daily attendance of 84% yet our chronic absenteeism rate is still significantly lower. Can you explain the difference between those two numbers? Sure.

    So average daily attendance is just basically on average. What is the percentage of students district wide that attend school on a daily basis. So basically, what this means is, on average, if you look at this point in this school year and the number of days we've had school, 84% of students attend school on a daily basis. And so that's that number chronically absent. Means that right now, 50 59% of students at the school year ended right now. Well, where we are right now with about a month ago, 59% of students are on track to be either they're already chronically absent, or they're on track to be chronically absent. That's what that number means. So you can be chronically absent and obviously attend school, and you would be counted in the denominator, if you will, to being at school. So that's why the average daily attendance number is higher than the chronically absent. All right.

    Thank you. And then just a question on perfect attendance gift cards. So I've had a couple questions around, or students saying that they're they're not receiving the adequate amounts, or they're having they're saying it might be some fraud attached to the cards. Could you talk a little bit about what we're doing to ensure that our students are getting paid?

    Yeah, so toward we had five cycles of two week intervals. As we got to cycle four and five, we definitely saw an increase in fraud, meaning either students were getting other students' log and password and going in the system and taking the money from the card. That was probably the most frequent example of what was happening. So those students that have emailed us or called the hotline has have been given another card. So if there was evidence of the card being stolen or money being taken off, then we basically refunded the student the dollar amount that they would have received before the fraud. If we're going to move forward with a perfect incentive opportunity next year, which I think we should based on the data, then the recommendation would be to one create a stronger dashboard for students, principals, teachers, to even monitor where the perfect attendance stands. We also would probably move to a physical card being handed out to students on the two week intervals, rather than the online gift card, just to prevent the fraud that we're seeing in the latter part of the incentive. But bottom line, we've definitely promoted the email. It's being used, the numbers being used. People have emailed me, email the board, we problem solve and essentially give, give the $200 to the student

    if they earned it. And so how has the perfect attendance impacted chronic absenteeism? So I see our numbers are spiking on daily attendance, right? That's kind of where my question was going. How has the chronic absenteeism being impacted by having this particular program, yeah,

    if you isolate just high school because only the high school students were eligible, if you just isolate the high schools at the point in which the incentive ended. So if you look at last year to this year, isolating the high school students only, we saw a nine percentage point drop in chronic absenteeism. So, so nine percentage point drop in chronic absenteeism just for high school students, and it's in it, you can't argue that it's not the impact of the incentive our attendance was improving this year versus last year, but nowhere to that rate. So it's it's unquestionable that heist, that the incentives work for high school students. Now the data tells us different things definitely had more of an impact for exam and application high school students. It also had a more positive impact on students that already had good attendance, or students that were just near the chronic absenteeism number like they were meaning, if the incentive didn't happen, they probably would have been chronically absent. So people had already had good attendance, their attendance got better. And those students that would probably had missed 18 days, or let's say, 20 days, 2122 days, they are not going to be chronically absent. What it didn't do is it didn't necessarily improve attendance for those students that are deeply, chronically absent in neighborhood schools. It didn't work there, but it worked for the students that I and

    do you have a hype, I'm sorry, through the chair. Do you have a hypothesis on why it didn't work, and what are we doing if we know that that incentive is not motivating those students? What are we doing to support those students who are in our neighboring high schools, who may who may need a little bit more help? Yeah, and getting to school every

    day. Yeah. Part of so one thing that board member Brian had asked, when the incentive to start is to go deeper with the set of students, so we are interviewing them, we'll have a report, anecdotally, at least, interviewing these students, meaning the high school students that didn't were never eligible for the incentive, primarily in neighborhood high schools. Why? Why didn't. Incentive work for them to get excited about coming to school. I have, my hypothesis is that the there are, as I've always said, there are deeper issues linked to at times, getting to school on a day to day basis, meaning unreliable city transportation at times, and then just the life factors that some of our students and families are facing are just getting in the way of just assuming you're going to get to school every day at a high level. Those other issues now going into next year, based on ongoing conversation with the board, is I am going to recommend we fund a pilot at Henry Ford High School for yellow bus transportation for having me,

    yeah, now I know we mentioned that last year about East English village, you mentioned that you were going to do a pilot. There is that also still an option to do a pilot at East English village. We you and I talked about that personally, because that was one of your higher chronically absent schools. And so I understand a pilot at Henry Ford. I think that's wonderful. But what about some of the other schools that ranked very high? And should we only do one school, or we? Should we try to do at least two or three so that we can go ahead and make a difference and get these kids to school?

    Yeah, the I'll go back and understand why East Indians village wasn't the final recommendation. I don't want to say anything publicly yet. Let me go back and get the facts. I know that the challenge of doing multiple feeder patterns is, factually just access to enough busses contractually to run, meaning the bus companies are have a shortage of busses and drivers. So to add would just be beyond the capacity of a lot of the companies that we use or could use. But I'll go back and find the exact reason why using this village was not the final recommendation. And I'll also go back to push to see if we can do English village. But there was something linked to the analysis and the neighborhood and how the bus routes would run. But again, let me get the exact reason for you, and I'll be I'll have that for it would be the academic committee meeting.

    Are there any additional questions or inquiries of the superintendent? I'll entertain a motion to adopt the Superintendent's report. Is there a second? Second? Who moved? I'm sorry. Dr Taylor. Dr Taylor moved, and board member Monique Bryant supported. Is there a discussion all in favor of adopting the report? Say, Aye. Any opposed motion is carried, we'll entertain a motion to approve Item 10.01 is there a motion?

    Thank you, support or Thank you. It's been properly moved by Dr Taylor, supported by Vice Chair. Any discussion? All in favor, aye opposed. Thank you so much. Item 10.02 their motion the approval of resolution designating DPS, CDs Wayne resa election representatives, which was sent to us by Wayne resa so moved Madam Chair, thank you, support. Moved by board member, Peterson Mayberry, supported by Vice Chair. Is there any discussion? All in favor? Any opposed? Thank you. Is there a desire to now make a move consent agenda as Consent Agenda Item 11. Madam

    Chair, I move that we adopt the entire consent agenda. 11.01

    to 11 point 21 Thank you. Is there a second

    madam chair before I'm sorry I'm trying to do the chair is Gilbane listed in this list. The issue that I had during finance, I don't believe it is Yes, Madam Chair, I don't want to tie bar. We can tie bar all with the exception of 11 point 17. So we won't

    need to tie. Barbara. Are you wanting to omit 1711? Point 17? Right? So we have a motion on the floor.

    But right, beginning of the agenda. We at this moment,

    we have a motion on the floor for items, 11.015 11.01 11.21 minus 11 point 17 is that the desire of the board,

    the motion on the floor, is the entire concern. Agenda, 11.01 to 11 point 21. Board Member, Sherry ganeo, has suggested that we would not include Gilbane. Is that discussion?

    11 point 17. I was awaiting, and maybe I overlooked that communication, but I was awaiting information on why Gilbane was requiring potential Detroit based contractors to provide them with information, and I know that some of it might be related to insurance and or bonding. I think that was where we left off. Yeah, and

    there was an email that did come out to sustain there was an email that came from Dr Beatty to substantiate that there

    was one yes. So okay, so I stand corrected, but I haven't had a chance to review that, so I apologize. No problem.

    Dr v you have the email in front of you. I know that there was to substantiate that conversation. There

    was we, we received in writing from Gilbane. What what those questions were about, and as I assumed and stated at the Finance Committee meeting, it was to receive their financial information so that they can ensure they can go forward and bond and ensure them so that they can be eligible to perform as subcontractors. So that was what was being asked and why it was being asked. And then I had put that in writing, and also included a letter from them. I just got to find where

    check your email board member. It was just reset to so the motion that is on the floor, then is support the motion on the floor. Thank you. It has been moved and supported. That would be Dr Taylor and board member, Peterson Mayberry. Any additional discussion? All in favor? Is there any opposed?

    I still oppose because I I still oppose because I, you know, I know I'm only one vote, but I need to make sure that I have clarity my, you know, one of the most pressing issues to me is making sure that we move minority contractors forward, and if we're putting additional impediments in the way. Granted, I understand the email was sent, so I apologize. We get a lot of information. So there's an oversight with this particular item. I'll find it later. But obviously, the motion is passed, but that is still a concern to me.

    All right. Noted motion is carried. Thank you so much. We have two policies on the agenda tonight for approval. Is there a motion to tie bar 12 01 and 12 02

    so move Madam Chair. Is there support? Support?

    Thank you, all in favor. Thank you. And now to move it forward, all in favor of of those tie bar, tie bar items, their motion for that support. Thank you. Any additional discussion? All in favor. Thank you so much. We will now move to public comment. Miss Drake.

    Members of the public are welcome to address the board during public comment. Individuals wishing to address the board must register in person or virtually prior to the close of public comment registration, the Chair will call the names of individuals registered in person to address the board in the order received, please remain seated until your name is called. For virtual public comments, it will be facilitated through a zoom webinar. Individuals wishing to address the Board may do so by choosing one of two options via computer, select the Raise Your Hand option on the screen, or via telephone, press star nine to raise your hand. The meeting administrator 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 and or concern, please forward an email to the secretary of the board. Vania Moore at Vania dot Moore at Detroit, K twelve.org

    Thank you. Ms Moore, you. I will call the names of those soon as they appear.

    Thank you. Alberta Carter and Stacey Jackson. Alberta Carter and Stacey Jackson,

    I have a crew here to support us. Yes,

    I want you all to stand

    back behind me. I supported this. Okay, thank you. Thank you so Good evening, Madam President, Superintendent Viti honorable board members and guests. My name is Alberta Carter. We are here on behalf of Katherine C Blackwell, my paternal aunt. Blackwell. Institute named in honor of my aunt, opened in september of 1992 and is scheduled to close in June of 2026 due to low student enrollment, we are deeply concerned about preserving Catherine Blackwell's legacy within the Detroit Public School community district, and losing her influence on future generations. Per the dpscd policy for the renaming of school buildings, we humbly request that a school board member champion a school renaming proposal. Catherine Blackwell was a remarkable woman whose contributions to education and the community were extensive. Her accomplishments include introducing African American history to Detroit public schools in the 1960s appointed to the Michigan Civil Rights Commission by Governor William Milliken in 1973 serving for eight years, chairing for two, inducted into the Michigan Women's Hall of Fame in 1993 an Urban League Distinguished warrior class of 1999 served as the NAACP youth advisor and executive board member. Catherine's legacy did not begin or end with her 60 plus travels to Africa where she shared her wealth of knowledge and experience with her students and peers. Instead, it spanned decades of dedication to the betterment of our education system and the enrichment of countless lives. During her travels, Catherine collected various African artifacts, such as paintings, masks, musical instruments, figurines, dolls and jewelry. Her renowned collection was bequeathed to the Wright Museum of African American History and the Detroit Institute of Arts given Catherine's significant contributions, we respectfully request that, following the closure of Blackwell Institute, another school within dpscd, be renamed in her honor. This would pay tribute to her enduring legacy and continue to serve as a beacon of inspiration for years to come. We look forward to receiving a response from a school board member, and hope that we can collaborate to ensure that Catherine C Blackwell's legacy continues to inspire future generations. Thank you for considering this request, and thank you to my supporters who took time out of their busy lives to join us. Thank you. Thank you.

    Thank you. We are back. Thank

    you very much. Stacy.

    Good evening. I am here tonight, representing career tech I heard a lot mentioned, and we also celebrate a lot of career tech accomplishments this year. And I want to speak to the expansion of career technical education around the country. Most importantly, within the state of Michigan, the governor has promised to invest millions of dollars into career tech education for the coming years, it is being expanded. We had the still Apple Award recipient at Randolph Career Technical Center, and they said that they started that award to show appreciation for the skilled trades and the need to raise awareness about skilled trades. I do want to point out I recognize that the district has expanded career technical programs throughout the district. However, I am disappointed to know that there will not be a career technical center on the east side of Detroit, although it was stated that there's no more room in our career technical centers, there were only two mentioned, and that was Randolph and Brian hawk. I always mention that I am a parent of this district, I am a resident of Detroit, and I am also an employee of this district, so I have different perspectives that I'm coming from, and I am aware of the need to continue a career technical center, because it provides exposure for. Students across this district, we have a problem with transportation, getting students from the east side to the west side. And by there not being a career technical center that would allow students across this district to get exposure to various careers, it hinders our growth as a district and to our students. I am a resident of the east side. If my children go to school on the east side, they will not have access, easy access to a Career Technical Center. We have issues with transportation in this district, so I am disappointed they go lightly Career and Technical Center is closing, especially as we're doing the high school redesign. It is very frustrating to me that those opportunities have been minimized and access has been cut off for our students, and it's very important that they have that access. Now I understand that many programs are going over to southeastern High School. However, we know that students from other schools are not allowed to attend southeastern to take those programs. Those are great programs at Southeastern, but I think we need to look at providing more opportunities on the east side for students to gain exposure. These are in demand, high wage careers. I would also like to advocate for more advertising of our career technical service, because not enough students know of the opportunities available. And a lot of times with those schools that you mentioned that aren't coming, they don't think of skilled trades as a college opportunity. But I want to say that many of the apprenticeships require students to enroll in a college program, and many of them graduate between 30 and 60 credit.

    Thank you. Thank you so very much. Thank you for lifting back. Miss Lisa Copa and Michelle Lee. Miss Lisa Copa and Michelle Lee, All right,

    hello, board. I am Lisa culpa. I'm a pre K teacher at Thurgood Elementary Middle School. This is our first year having pre K and I wanted to thank the board for opening up thurgo As a pre K classroom to piggyback off Dr Beatty's statement about more students. The Pre K program actually brought five new families to Thurgood. One family in particular has a total of five students at our campus. I also want to just share public comment to the two people that may be listening in that we are enrolling for the 2526 school year. They can go to Detroit, K twelve.org/pre, K to fill out the enrollment tracker. Finally, I would like to present a token of appreciation to board member, Monique Bryant, for our pre K Easter basket that was received from us. So on behalf of myself. Ms, Lisa culpa, my para professional, Miss Kimberly Mitchell, the students the new hour aid that Mr. Tim Jackson, who's known as Miss JT, and the students in Thurgood, pre k 101, we want to thank you for our Easter basket.

    And they were beautiful. Thank you board members. Thank you board members. Thank you Vice Chair, McClendon, thank you. Thank you all. It was excellent. Thank you Miss COVID. Michelle Lee, thank you. Hi, Hello, Dr

    Vitti and the honorable school board members. I'm president of ASMI. Her name is Michelle Lee, and I want to thank you all for your condolences on the loss of my sister. Dr crystal Lee, thank you so much. I want to take the moment to shine a light on the urgent issue affecting our schools, the lack of proper training for our asthma support staff, particularly in crisis prevention intervention and positive behavior intervention and support asthma support staff are the backbone of our schools. The ese bus attendants make sure the students get to and from school safely. The ese para professionals work side by side with the teachers to support students with diverse needs, helping maintain safe and productive learning environments. Yet, despite their critical role many of these professionals have not been provided with the CPI or PBIS training that is essential for managing challenging behavior and support students in a positive, consistent way. The lack of training is not a reflection of the commitment or. Capabilities is a failure at the district level. All AFSCME support staff being hired should be adequately trained by a trained professional before stepping foot inside a classroom or on a bus with our students. How can we expect our Acme members to perform at a high level, to make the right decisions under pressure when they haven't been equipped with the tools and strategies that they need. What's even more troubling is that some of these members are being unreasonably disciplined. The discipline has included 15 to 30 days suspension without pay, in some instances, even termination for situations that arose because of these very gaps in training. In many cases that comes across my desk has the same allegations and or violations district policy, Po, 313, 9.01 work rules is staff, correct, discipline rule work rule i i have informed investigators in HR about my concerns regarding these patterns across the district. It's the lack of training they're being held accountable for expectations that haven't been fairly communicated or supported. That's not just unjust, it's unsustainable. We must ask ourselves, what message does this send to our ask me support staff, that their role is critical, but their training is optional or non existent, that they are reasonable responsible for outcomes that weren't prepared to manage. If we truly value our schools equity and student success. We need to invest in every adult who works with our students. That means consistent district support training and CPI and support staff. Thank you.

    Thank you, Madam President.

    Good thank you so much, Madam President, Mother Helen mower and Tina Galloway,

    thank you very much. I'd like to thank the board for honoring me today. Appreciate it. Thank you. I just remembered at 65 years I've been involved with the Detroit Public School District, yeah, and I've got four children that are doing very, very well in what the experience they had here in Detroit. And after I finished saying all the thank yous, I'd like to ask you, where are you? I'm going crazy down here with the being over the National Action Network education group on Saturdays. We meet at 10 o'clock. We're planning a real big, well, we're going to actually do it in August, and we're all saying that Trump is a is trying to destroy the public school system. But when I come to this meeting, it's like, we just go on and, you know, act like ain't nothing happening. We're going crazy out here. It is, something happening. And if they stop the school system and our lawyers don't win, I know they will. We're working real good, trying to make sure that we do win. But do you intend to go on like you've been going like, you know, we just take care of business today. Does anybody up there believe I even got this today when I came in, they're passing it out. The American obligate oligarchy declares war on public education. Every day in my house, there's messages coming across all over the country for us to be prepared. Do y'all believe that the way you're acting now that there's no problem? I mean, I am really disturbed at when I come to meetings and y'all just go on like this, and then at home, all of my computer messages are coming across organizing because Trump is trying to destroy the public schools, and especially those that have a black, those that have black, a lot of black children. You know, he's a racist. We know that. And yet, and still, I'm a I'm a nervous wreck when I leave these meetings, because you just keep going on like nothing's happened. I'm thinking, I'm crazy. Today, somebody passed this out the same as I get at all the meetings and wherever I go, telephone rings. I. Get less than 300 messages a day. So Will somebody up there tell me why you keep going like it's nothing happening and Trump is trying to destroy us and our children? That's all I gotta say. Maybe, maybe somebody, I pray a lot, and maybe somebody up there will see what and

    we are one of the blackest

    communities he's in the United States. So when y'all please tell me I don't get no rest at night, y'all go rings

    all the

    doctors. You or Thank you. Mother,

    thank you. Thank you. Mother Moore, thank you.

    Hello. My name is Tina Galloway. I'm Executive Vice President of ASPE. Local 345, ese para professionals is one of the most utilized component in DPS, underpaid and our worth is not valued. One of the issues that I notice throughout the district is that some, not all, some leadership are modifying our duties, and this is one of the modifications eses fulfill all other duties and responsibilities as assigned by supervisors, teachers, principal and the school district on the DPS website, all is not on there, so some leaders are modifying our duties, and this is how we have a high percentage of our Es East finding their self in trouble at DPS. These are some of the examples of how these positions, how these duties, is being modified. These duties are being modified by leaders that that fits that fits them. Some are being assistance to fixing printers, programming laptops, being used as interpreters if they speak multiple languages, and not being compensated, used doing behavior specialist duties as gathering data, ABC, logs, some are being utilized as security guards, and when an incident happened in the school, the first to be called upon are ese para professionals, and we should not be called first. We need the behavior specialists to come out their comfy office, get a caseload and do their job. We should not be doing none of their duties. We have ese para professionals coming out, helping different different positions, and they're getting in trouble. They they are being recommended. They are being in the attention center. So we need protection. We're not trying to be a nuisance. We want everything to work for all parties, but we need help. And I want to yield my 26 seconds to President Lee finish.

    I have one member, Dorothy Brown, who has been recommended for termination today after 27 years of dedicated service due to a situation stem from the lack of proper training. This is unacceptable. Who is responsible for creating the district discipline process, if not not mistaken, discipline is a negotiable subject for the Union toward the union and the district. I'm just asking, Could you please resend her recommendation for termination? Thank you.

    Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you. Mark Davis, Nyla Stringfellow, you we

    come

    down to the mic.

    Thank you.

    Is Ms string fellow present. Nyla, all

    right, thank you. Okay. Good evening. Board members and Dr Beatty. Just a couple quick items. I want to commend Dr Beatty and the district for no to level up trips that our students take to the various. Schools, I went on a few of them this year. Beautiful thing. Also, I like the idea that the district has set aside money for our students to take at least one or two trips a year, and also the money for summer school and bridge programs. Most importantly, I like the idea that the district has set aside money for our students to receive extra services through a mental health or social agency to help them. So I've seen that as a positive thing. I am at a noble however, and a couple of things I would like to see done, as far as with the building repairs. This school was built in 1921 I've noticed that no, we have a number of issues as far as paint chips, asbestos, and they have a basement that hasn't been touched in from my understanding. And over a decade, somebody offered me to go down there and check it out. I said, No, no, thank you. So the bottom line is, we have a lot of repairs, and we have many students with disabilities in the school. They have physical impairments, and now to think that we're in a building that is crumbling, we just need my recommendation is that we have somebody come by and assess the building, just like you would have a building inspector or a house inspector when you purchase a place. We would like to see that done by independent agency and to have things listed far as with repairs and also accommodations made by the district to repair the schools so that it's safe for our students, parents and staff. Couple other items I noticed with attendance. I know, Dr Beatty sent out an email back in November indicating that 45 days absent would be a possible retention. I would like to see a policy that's a little bit more concrete, because it also leads it up to the principal to have the final say. But it seems like it's lacking as far as details and specifics, especially for in my position as a counselor, how No What are we going to do is assume going to be retained or passed, and I could recall policy we had under Rick Snyder, where they we had a DHS worker in the school, where if a student was out, then the worker would call the parent and possibly intercede with their benefits that they might be receiving from the state, and I felt that was an efficient way, because it has a state personnel instead of an attendance agent in charge. Thank

    you. Thank you, sir. Stringfellow, hi.

    I'm Natalie Stringfellow, and I've been in DPS my entire school career, starting at Cook STEM Academy and then Flix. And I'm a graduating senior at Renaissance High School, and I just came up here to shed light on the leadership program and the impacts of it. So my two favorite programs in the leadership program was trap yoga and how to win the argument. They were very interactive and great learning experiences for how to win an argument, just hearing different points of views from other students and just it was just great for public speaking and stuff. And then I also attended the C conference a couple weeks ago, and it was fun overall, just meeting new people, learning new things about the city and stuff. And I would just love for these programs to continue with future students coming forward. So thank you. Thank you.

    Thank you, Juan Patino and Pearl Campbell, Juan Patino and Pearl Campbell, please come

    Good evening. My name is prone Campbell, and I'm with afme Local 345 I am an ese para professional as well. I'm standing here today not pointing the finger, but I'm here for a solution. You guys have to take ese PR professionals serious, hiring people off the streets, not understanding our world is hard. They don't know these kids. They don't understand the kids disabilities. And I feel like at least two weeks of training with the CPI involved with everything you need to check them off to say, hey, they're eligible to hit the floor with us. Would be nice. Don't just hire them. And put them in a building and say, Hey, you going to sit next to a teacher, or you going to, you want to learn from a teacher, teacher don't have time. I feel like you guys need to reconsider the standards when it comes to ese para professionals, the kids. I love them. There's just like elderly people to me when it comes to protection, just like how nursing homes make sure that they're seeing us is fully trained, we need to make sure that ese para professionals are fully trained. Stop hiring just anybody to come in and work with no type of credentials or anything, and then when something does pop off, you got two floors of people in a building that don't understand why they over there for a year or two, turn that building to a training site. You want some help? I come over here. Help. You want to train me? Train me. I help. You know I'm not here to bash nobody. I just want this to stop. It's sad to see our people over there in their holding site, and it's sad to see that they don't even have a clue what ASD is, what SCI is, what it means to be a little more passion with them, what it means to help them get past one goal for the day. It might not be five goals, maybe just one, but please give them two weeks before they see these kids. They shouldn't even be in the building game. They should at least be two weeks somewhere getting all the training they need so that when they come to us, they can understand our world. Thank

    you. Thank you. Thank you. Great. Right.

    All right, community, I got distracted. Was that Miss Campbell, thank you. Is Juan Patino? All right? Dorothy Brown and your name, Nader Dorothy Brown and your name needle

    is there? Phyllis Shearer, Phyllis Shera, is there? Mother Aliyah Moore,

    okay, thank you.

    Good evening. My name is jerna mador. I'm an ese para professional. I have been employed with the Board of Education for 34 years. I started off as a bus attendant and went inside the school, as everyone has spoken about, ese there are things that are happening to us, and we are being tossed around left and right, and I personally had an incident where I went to Concentra and my tailbone was messed up, and I was told I had to go back to work because Concentra would not allow me to take any days off per Detroit Public School community district if I'm hurt doing my job, I should be able to be compensated for that. It doesn't make any sense. You know that we are being bombas and tossed to and fro, and you guys are saying, well, you can go back to work or whatever it may be. I'm not saying this you guys personally, but we as a whole. There's no I in team, but there seems to be a lot of meat Emmys in it, which is me, and nobody's thinking about the big picture, if we don't work together, as a young lady said about Donald Trump, he's trying to get rid of education. All we doing is giving them admonition to do it. I'm just asking for all the all support and take all that into consideration. Thank you. Thank you.

    Thank you. I'm sorry. Is there someone standing there? Thank you. Give us your name, ma'am.

    I'm Phyllis share. I'm a teacher at Flix. Thank you. I've dedicated my life to educating children, not just as a job, but as a commitment to children and their right to a high quality public education. Today, I'm heartbroken and outraged by what's happening to our public schools since President Trump's executive order to dismantle the Department of Education, the destruction of public education has accelerated, but in Detroit, we've been feeling this pain for a long time. Now it's being pushed to a whole new level. The cancelation. Federal Easter funds, money that was already promised and budgeted is devastating in our district. That money wasn't a bonus. It was a lifeline to keeping tutoring programs after school, support, summer learning, mental health care and basic building repairs alive. Now it's gone. It's being used to fund war abroad and at home by an oligarchy intent on taking the world back to the rule of kings, rather than the rule of law. Despite the Master's facilities plan, our school buildings are falling apart. HVAC systems are on the edge of failure. Asbestos abatement has been paused, and yet somehow teachers are supposed to teach in these conditions. Teach through it. Work miracles. While being told that COVID is over, it's not. Kids are still getting sick. So are staff, but now there's less help, fewer services, and almost no safety net. And I'm listening to the sisters talk about the parapros, and that's another discussion for a different day, but we need to hear them, and I hear them we're watching critical mental health supports disappear the same week, we're supposed to be raising awareness for mental health, they're cutting counseling staff, and even we're even talking about shutting down the 988 suicide line hotline. So what are we doing? This isn't just policy. It's cruelty. It's pushing Detroit's children's families and educators into crisis, and what hurts most is knowing that both political parties are allowing it, the lawsuits, the statements, they're not enough. We need real action, not poor, not performative outrage. We teach because we believe in what education can do, because we believe every child deserves a safe space to learn, to grow and to dream, but if we let these cuts stand, we're abandoning them, we're giving up on their future. I won't stand for that, and I know many of you won't either. So I'm calling on every parent, every teacher, every student, every neighbor, speak up, organize and fight for our schools. I'm asking you today to join the Michigan educators. Thank

    you. Thank you. Thank you very much. Mother. Leah Moore,

    good morning, good morning, good evening. It's that kind of day y'all, but I do. Came in parking lot full. I assumed it was the last three volunteers. It's so good to see all of them. I do thank them for just their dedication and also the faith department for putting this together. Thank you for, like I said all the time, acknowledging principals and staff. That's what we've been talking about for years. Those certificates go a long way for a lot of people. But you know, as mother Moore said, it's about the planning for 2627 you know, I saw the bull. You know, the district may be trying to be proactive and sending the kids up to Lansing with 482, forward. Y'all got us writing letters. But what else? I mean, it hasn't been another informational session concerning, you know, parents and just letting them know what's going on. It's just kind of, you know, we just kind of washing this critical situation out, even though we have all these buildings and all these, you know, facilities being brought up, it's just, it's just kind of confusing, and kind of, you know, we just supposed to relax during this when it's a it's a lot going on with Dr Nicola vidy, I'm very confused about the AC situation. Now, when COVID started, we were what going to do AC in five years? He just emailed me the other day talking about another four years. So where are we? Where are the success stories of new air conditions in these buildings, because school after school may be denied summer school opportunities because of the rationale of two hot buildings. I emailed you all when I CC Doctor Nicolai vidy, but it, it's, it's frustrating because, you know, all this new stuff, like I just it just don't make no sense flat out. But I mean, plans can be altered, but we gotta make financial sense, because if we don't know, why are we building and why are we moving forward facilities and grants, I get all that, but just make it make sense more to the public, because I'm coming to meetings all the time. Time, as y'all know and it don't, it just seems fluff. We don't ask for poor perfection. But you know, y'all gotta just give us a little bit more with this critical situation for 2627 and just for our president, I appreciate you, years ago inviting me to committee meetings because I was just a regular attendee. But when I go to these things and I hear the conversations, I hear the facts, it's very disheartening for you as a president to get on a public listening session with parents and tell them that we haven't had new buildings in over 30 years. That is false information, and parents and stakeholders are all the time criticized for either being too emotional about our children's education or not being

    factual. So please be factual when you're talking to parents, because building buildings ain't got nothing to do with y'all actually hearing about our

    students. Thank you. Thank you. Ruth Welch and Emma Bolton. Ruther Welch, Emma Bolton. Is Julia Flagg, present? Julia Flagg, thank you.

    There was someone ahead of me. Is she here? No, no. Okay, great. Hi everyone. My name is Emma Holland Bolton, and I am a proud fourth grade teacher from Thurgood elementary I'm at the point in the school year where I'm totally obsessed with my current students, and I can't imagine ever loving in another class, but I know I will come the fall. At the April school board meeting, a public commenter asked how many school libraries the district has, and why none of the literacy lawsuit funds are being spent on libraries or librarians in our schools. Dr Beatty's response that all district schools have libraries can best be described as wildly untrue. That being the case, I'm going to ask the same question, how many dpscd schools have a library. And how do you know of these schools that have libraries? How many dpscd schools have a librarian or dedicated staff? And how do you know how many dpscd schools have a classification system allowing students to actually find and take out books? And how do you know I only know of two elementary schools in the entire district that have library students could actually take books out of I know of a few more that exist, but they don't have staff or classification systems, so they're essentially book storage rooms. I ask these questions not because I expect Dr Vitti to answer honestly or to even have collected this data, but because I think it's important to make it a matter of public record when Dr Beatty makes statements that can best be categorized as wildly untrue, these questions Do have honest answers. The data exists, and in order to serve our students, we do need to hear them and act upon them. While I'm asking questions I won't get honest answers to as a matter of public record. I'd like to know how many dpscd schools have active School advisory councils. And how do you know, since my school's parent teacher organization was recently disbanded by our principal with the supportive members of the dpscd school board on the eve of our officer elections, I'm curious how many dpscd schools have PTAs, and how do you know dpscd schools have annual Title One discretionary budgets that are to be spent with input from parents of students at the school. And I'm curious, how do schools without School advisory councils and without parent organizations decide to spend these federal monies? And how do you know, are we calling moms and muffins and dads and donuts Title One, meetings. Why not just let parents and teachers form PTAs? How are you ensuring that all schools have School advisory councils? I always say the defining characteristic of dpscd is inequity. Some schools have and others don't. Some schools have libraries and PTAs and School advisory councils, and others don't. But what I want to know is, how do you know what schools have? What I want you to imagine how positively our schools will transform for students when we really do have a library and a PTA and a School advisory council in every school, the first step to getting there is to actually find out what schools have and don't have these things, and to be able to explain how you know,

    thank you. Julia flag, thank you. Thank you. Miss both.

    Good evening. I am merely a volunteer for historical property. 40s throughout the state of Michigan and Ohio, I have a love of history and a love of heritage and a love of learning that Katherine Blackwell had and shared with the city of Detroit, Southeast Michigan, and quite frankly, all of Michigan. My experience from the Hackley and Hume historical Victorian house to the Honolulu house in Marshall, Michigan, and the good old Plymouth Historical Society and the town of Plymouth where I live, have taught me that this is an amazing form of education. And a lot of people like Katherine Blackwell, who spent years collecting an amazing, magnificent collection. There's people out there like her, but those collections don't usually wind up in museums. They usually get shoved in the back of some relatives garage. We are so fortunate that this collection has been given not only to the DIA but the Charles Wright Museum, both internationally recognized museums her name and her legacy and her love of history and her love of heritage and her love of learning should be engraved on a building here in southeast Michigan forever. Thank you. Thank you

    very much. Miss Virginia. Virginia ramus. Thank you. Miss flag. Virginia Ramos and Vanessa Sanchez I

    I'm just here to translate for her, so it might take longer than three minutes. Hopefully you guys won't cut us if she doesn't finish. Thank you. Yep,

    when I started, this is the capital motivo acerca de the Clemente.

    I am here because there is a situation that is taking place at Roberto Clemente elementary school.

    A circle me, who they get career last me who teenagers.

    My child is 10 years old, and he's being accused of wanting to hurt in a really bad way, someone

    acerca they will remember the last familia me mandarona Hospital, el togo Sue valacionan, el hospital E to work on water clinic at those therapy as much time

    she was asked by the school to take her child in as an emergency situation, to take him to the psychiatric unit at the hospital. And she did, she was able to acquire a letter from the hospital saying that her child has no illness, no injury, that he's able to go back to school. She then also went to another therapist, where she got another letter saying that he was fine. And then now she got a third letter, and they're not accepting that.

    Me gusta Yes, el que monitore el trabajo de la trabajadora sociar.

    She would like to know who is overseeing the social workers that are carrying out these therapies,

    when the signers experiencia tiene trabajar COVID News and

    how many years of experience has she been working with children

    last hermanos Masi embargo el escuela nunca de hirona.

    So they asked her son what he was referring to when he said that he wanted to hurt someone, and what he was referring to, which is something they didn't ask him to expand on, was that when he's at home with his brothers and they are messing with him, just like any other child, he wants to punch him, but didn't ask him that

    has to order la carta diciendo que el nino NE So peligro, ni para escuela, ni para los alumni, para No miembros de la familia ya estabiten A recibido niguna respuesta cuando ya le con DPS. El escuela tambien, esta pidiento que toma el un acter Appia del escuela me pidiro.

    So then, with this three letters that she's already presented, they have not allowed her son to return to school, so he hasn't been at school. Visit one since when, since April 14, he has not been attending school.

    You always dig a see me when really that necessary? Yeah, you know.

    So they said that he needs to continue therapy there, although she's already gotten three letters from specialists saying that he's fine, and they have been pressuring her for him to continue to give therapy there, and she said that she does not want them to continue to give them therapy there, that she can if she needs therapy, he she will go to a private with someone else.

    El mir Colas pasado, un meaning COVID que Eva a tener respuesta, just a boy no recibido nada.

    Last Wednesday, she had a meeting with members of DPS from the school and that she would get a resolution to this. But until now, she hasn't received anything as to when he can come back to school.

    Me who is going to be on a carta? Donde is a que tienen miedo? Momento que la trabajar que yondo tenia miedo porque el op yellow pre so

    her son said to her that when the social worker was asking him questions, that he was scared and that he felt pressured to give information that she was asking of him,

    our me, he was a tomato. Does that appear emotional? Mental. I mean, any familiar, so

    now her son is going to therapy, because this whole situation has actually affected him emotionally, not only him, but our entire family.

    Me gusta, yeah, investigacion. Motivo, porque el no el noise, un problema para para Nadi,

    she wants a deeper investigation to be conducted because her son, she said he is not a problem from for anyone or there is no problem going on. She wants him to go back to school.

    Cuando la trabajadora social let's do us in the preguntas. A yellow preguntaba ya la misma, this a yellow respondea, es como que area quieres Bucha? Pregunta lo que ya misma quieres Bucha?

    So she said that her son told her that, and she was present at one of the meetings as well, when her son was being questioned by multiple people. She told me this earlier, but she said now that apparently the social worker who was giving her this therapy that she also said that was volunteer voluntarily, but apparently it wasn't that she was leading him with questioning, trying to get him to say what she wanted to hear, and that's what's really concerning her.

    Por parte del escuela, un questionado tres veces. He piens, okay, noise with just a porque el en togo tres evaluations por parte de professionales. She's

    saying that he has been questioned. Three times already, and he, she doesn't think that this is fair, because he,

    thank you very, very much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you both. Yes, you're on twice. Sanchez, I know thank you.

    Someone's got to do it.

    Yes. Thank you. Thank you for serving

    hola buen as much as hola soy mama del Laura Moroccan.

    I'm the mother of Laura marrow queen, yes. Diana escuela Western. She goes to Western International

    High School. Yeah is young. Then throw the LA cafeteria. Last

    year, she was a victim of a physical assault inside the cafeteria back in

    September,

    these girls had already threatened her when she was actually at Amelia Earhart Middle School.

    So in the

    cafeteria, they got her from behind and they studying, they started beating her. And she actually has video footage of this whole assault.

    Those de las minas for dentro is El reporting.

    So two of the girls did not go back to school, one of them Chris. Okay, but there were three girls, so two of them did not come back to school. One was charged, and one is still in the school.

    He said, reporting

    security. Pero hasta la fecha, no tengo noticia. She said

    she's made the police report and she doesn't have any news up to this day.

    My own security, pero yo quiero que las tres poner cargos until last three years,

    so she want. This is what she wants. She doesn't understand why it was only one girl who was charged and what happened to the other two, especially since one is still in school.

    Lo que paso nos effecto la affectado mucho el ya hasta el punto que que me dicen Yeah.

    So this has been very difficult for her daughter. It's affected her very much to the point that she's saying she wants to die.

    Yo, tengo la Fauci co logomente por no tener a seguranza. No no no tiene. I

    so she was saying that she that it's affected her as well. So she's going to therapy, she's going to a psychiatrist. Her daughter is going she's going to the therapist in school, but it's not helping her, and because she has no insurance, she can't go and seek medical treatment elsewhere.

    Lo que yo quiero es que esto no Well, Papa said que mi ayudin resolver a tener noticias de lo que del caso. Well, she's

    saying that she doesn't want this to continue to happen in our schools and to her daughter, and that she needs resolution for her case

    on a menace, Thinking protection for Casey Eston oversaw. She's saying

    that the regulations that are in the Student Conduct, the book that they are to that they need to change. Because if there were something that had been done when her daughter was threatened, it wouldn't

    have gotten to that point. Log, then throw you for other escuela para que ya este mejor. She

    says that she also would like more support in and out of school, but from the school, because she also need to see someone outside of the school, aside from the the person she's saying there for therapy. Thank you.

    Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you to the interpreter. One more. Thank you

    so the other lady, she was actually here, but she was too afraid, and the student was too afraid to show his face. So this is happening at Academy of the Americas. Is that DPS? I'm not really sure. I think it is. What is going on with these young men is that he, and there's video of this as well. There continues to be, he continues to be physically assaulted. It happens sometimes around the school, sometimes off school, like, they'll wait for him to leave and they'll, like, go get him and like, beat him up badly. He actually has a black eye right now. He had glasses on, but like I said, he was, he's very afraid. And he said he went to the school to the one of the social workers there, and all they said was, well, go file a police report. And I feel, and they feel that as a student, that there needs to be something more done, like something done, something more that can be done, even if this didn't take place specifically inside of the campus. He's still a student of the school, and I would imagine if there is, for example, a child who's being abused at home, the school is responsible to protect him. Right to call Child Protective Services or Department of Human Resource, human DHS, or somewhere to protect this child. However, this is not happening to this young man, and it breaks my heart. I They are too afraid to say anything, so they came to me, and I just want to let you guys know that I keep getting. Seeing messages in my inbox like a lot of different parents that are afraid to come and talk to you guys, but they keep telling me their children continue to be bullied, and that the their schools are not listening to them when they come and complain, and many of them are just afraid because of maybe their background, if you know what I mean. And so then, yes, one of the things that they had asked, and that had mentioned is that the regulations are too loose, like level one, level two, level three offenses. We asked in one of the schools, how many times a kid or a student have to do a particular type of offense. We did not get any specific answer for that, and so we would like to know, how many times does it have to happen, or does it have to happen until the point that it reaches assault, like physical violent assaults, and the other the other case as well, that she was not able to come her child was assaulted outside across from Amelia Earhart Middle School, and she's, I've seen him, and he's having a lot of issues, and she is just exhausted. She couldn't make it because she's afraid that she's going to be losing her job. She had to go and do stuff so she can find a different job. I can't speak too much about that, like she should speak more about it when she is able to. But for the first gentleman, he said he would want to have a private meeting with you guys, because he's so afraid to come and speak to you. Would that

    be possible? We will respond in a moment. Absolutely. Thank you, thank you so much for your time. No thank you. Thank you for your time. Thank you. Thank you for sharing. Thank you for serving.

    Thank you, Miss Drake, we have anyone on virtual you.

    Good evening. Go ahead, Miss Jenny.

    I'm sorry, Inspector,

    Hello, yes, thank you. Go ahead, Miss Jenny,

    with your public comment.

    I don't know if I can be heard or not. There has been a lot of feedback on the Zoom line, so I hopefully you're able to hear me this evening, as our school board meeting was taking place at Martin Luther King, we also had our city wide evening city council meeting that took place at East English Village, and in my public comment online at that meeting, I suggested that as we consider that a lot of the city of Detroit Budget is also impacted by utilizing dollars that come from the school district. A lot of the issues that are being raised when you talk about the truancy, the need for reliable transportation and get the children back and forth to school, those are similar issues that are being raised on the city side. When it comes to neighborhoods being experiencing depopulation. We have the solar land grab going on, people being forced out by eminent domain. Schools closing. The City of Detroit is not a majority white collar city where parents have the privilege of being able to do flex time. So when you have schools that don't have reliable transportation either by way of the public school or by way through public transportation, and then we also have the barrier of the redlining and the high insurance costs. When parents don't have reliable support, they have to make decisions to move to communities where their children can get back and forth to school safely. It's my hope that as we look forward to upcoming elections, that we could consider having maybe joint meetings between city council and the school board with the public, so that as people are raising concerns and also bringing forth solutions, that we are able to find ways to be better stewards over our tax dollars that go to support our schools as well as neighborhoods. I thank you all this evening for this time, and initially, the school the district track meeting meet was due to be scheduled at King, and I was really excited, because I was like the school board meeting and track is going to be at the same location, but then the track meet was switched to Renaissance. So I think that sometimes, if we are able to host events in the same venue, we will be able to increase parent, teacher and student involvement, not only at events, but at meetings. God bless you all. And. You for your time.

    Thank you very much. Thank you so much. Miss Drake.

    Madam Chair, that concludes virtual public comment. All right,

    thank you very much. Thank you very much to the board that concludes our public comment. Is it your desire now to go into closed session?

    Madam Chair, can we actually have Dr Vitti address some of the questions,

    a number of issues to address? Firstly, anytime there's a workers comp situation and challenge, it does require an outside medical exam review. So we do that to ensure that the issue actually occurred in the site, and medical review indicates what the remedy is, and the justification for the compensation, as far as go lightly. Go lightly is a school that is going to be phased out through the facility master plan, but the programs are preserved in our review of career tech programs on the east side at the time of the FMP, the feedback was that we would be able to have greater access to East Side students taking career tech classes in their neighborhood High School. So if you think back to the heyday of funding of city enrollment, most of the many programs were embedded in the actual school, so students didn't have to leave to school. Now, some still did to go to different career tech centers, but a lot of programming was in the actual High School, and it was part of the elective courses. So when we through the FMP and phasing out, go lightly and then rebuilding and you purging and upgrading southeastern it was about putting those programs or go lightly in the neighborhood high schools so it have a direct access to students. So for example, the coronary program I go lightly is going to Pershing, or the new Pershing High School. The Design program that I go lightly will be at Denby, and all the manufacturing related programs will be at Southeastern with this new annex. And then there are some avionics programs at goal, lightly as well, that obviously will be at Davis aerospace High School at the City Airport. That doesn't mean long term. We can't look at existing buildings, new buildings, land and think about a separate East Side vocational programming site, maybe something that represents the same programs that are at Randolph, for example, more on the west side, but initially, or at least through the FMP, the feeling was more East Side High School students would access career tech programs through their neighborhood high schools, which would increase neighborhood high school enrollment. Just a high level update on federal changes. We're as confused as you are about where things stand federally with funding, it was only yesterday that the Congress revealed their plans to balance the budget based on the President's priorities. So as we think about next year, and this will be explained, and this is also why we haven't had any public meetings, because we didn't know what to talk about, because we didn't know the difference between what Trump was messaging and what Congress was actually willing to do or could do legally through the budget process. So we said late April, late April, we would have a better understanding of where the budget is. It's now early May, and at least now we have a better understanding of what the next year's budget will look like. So next year's Federal Budget, as of right now, will not change much from what we're hearing. That budget was already set two years ago and is legally set, and Congress can't change much about the educational federal funding. Again, we'll talk more about this at tomorrow's Finance Committee meeting, and then a week from now, the academic committee, because we'll be reviewing the budget for next year. But as of right now, Congress doesn't look like they're going to make major changes in next year's K 12 budget, there's still conversation about Medicaid cuts and changes that would indirectly impact dpscd with losing about $9 million in reimbursement. There could definitely be an impact on nonprofits with funding through Congress. There could definitely be an impact on the community with funding. But when we think just about K 12 funding as of now, as of today, it doesn't look like we're going to see significant changes for next year's budget. It's, it's, it's two years from now, or the would be the 2627 school year that we could be seeing cuts. Dollars. So there is talk about a 25% cut to Title One, but it's still not clear what that looks like. Is that a straight 25% cut, or is it an acceleration of a voucher program that would take money out of Title One, would take money out of it, would take money out of school district title one funding, and create another account to help reimburse individuals that would donate scholarship money for students to leave public schools to go to private schools, something similar to the Mackay scholarship in Florida. That's two years from now, not next year. So I would repeat as of now, no major changes in K 12 funding federally for next year, possible indirect impact on Medicaid. That's what we know now. Congress can try to change things, but legally they can't, because the Congress sets the budget two years in advance. The challenge is two years from now, and we'll talk more about that tomorrow. So I think the idea would be to have the finance committee tomorrow talk about the adopted budget and what the challenges could be two years from now, have the academic committee meeting a week from tomorrow, and then from there, possibly have more public conversations. But the public conversations are less about changing the budget budget for for next year, and more about possible changes in two years. So that's just a quick update on federal changes and federal funding. It's clear that the district needs to work with our ese Paras and its unions on training. I want to be clear, we do train ese Paras. The challenge is universal uniformity of training at higher and consistently throughout the year. For context, ese paras

    do not have the opportunity to leave the classroom for training because they have to directly support the children that are there. So it's difficult to take them out of the classroom and train them. It's difficult for us to do that for teachers, and the district model for training is not to pull teachers even out of the classroom. Sometimes it happens, but rarely. Most of our training of teachers happen after school, and we try to train our ESC pairs after school. But a lot of our parents aren't in a economic situation. Didn't necessarily stay after school because of transportation and possibly even having another job or childcare services or just being tired. So that model doesn't always work. We try to use our PD days, but most of the training that has to happen has to happen in two consecutive days, and it gets difficult to do that, so we're going to have to create some clear required training that happens up front throughout the year, and unfortunately, it looks like we are going to have to pull the paras more often to provide a consistency of training. With all that said, we can't also allow a culture of child abuse either. And I think it's about creating a balance of definitely providing more training, more consistent training, and also understanding that we can't hit children, we're sending different messages if we're allow that to happen. And I think it's important to understand that challenges with child abuse are not just newly hired para sometimes it's very veteran parents, some that have been, you know, in the mid year or the midpoint of their career. So this, these challenges are multi faceted. It's not just training, but I, admittedly, I do think the training need. The district does need to do more about training and have greater consistency in training. And I look forward to putting some proposals in front of unions to have them require the training and and obviously pay paras to attend the training. But we also have to have more flexibility with when we train Paras. We even tried in the summer, and it's hard to get people to come in the summer, even when they're paid. So there are some challenges that that we have to overcome, that I think working together we can solve. To answer the question about the 45 days absent? Yes, we did Empower schools to review the placement of students back into their neighborhood school if they're absent more than 45 days, and even to consider retention. We did not make that a uniformed decision at the 45 day point, and instead, we do empower the principal, teachers and parents to consider the matter. Yes, the principal has ultimate discretion to make that decision, but we did that purposefully because we didn't want to put people in a corner without options and reviewing maybe the challenges behind the 45 days or more, there are extenuating circumstances. Services that go beyond just missing school that I think the principal in the school should look at rather than having a uniform, you're out 45 or more days, you're automatically retained or automatically sent back to your neighborhood school. So that's why the flexibility exists there. No one is set to receive $7 million in facility upgrades to the FMP Nolan does receive an inspection for its building quality. All schools do that. That's required by the state, and we're compliant with that throughout the district. Everyone can review the website. We do have a facility master plan website, which we created. It clearly shows every school that's due to receive facility upgrades with a timeline when those are going to be completed. The all the HVAC projects are due to be completed before 2029 Yes, that's four years from now Clemente, I don't want to speak publicly about that situation. I will inform the board privately of that situation. We take every threat seriously. We do a threat assessment with every threat. We determine the credibility of the threat, the likelihood of the threat, the extent of the threat, and then we try to consider the individual making the threat, but also the safety of the children at the school and staff. So again, to protect the privacy of the child and even the family, I'll update the board regarding that issue, and we'll continue to work as much as we can with the family and the child at Clemente, at Earhart, there was a fight that occurred after school. There were several boys that quote, unquote, jumped a student. The student was injured. All the students that were the attackers in the incident were arrested. They're all excluded from Earhart, and they're pending expulsion. That was a question asked. I'm unaware of the Western situation, so I will have to research that. But I know staff tried to engage the parent or the translator to follow up, to get more information on the western situation. And lastly, the public comment. Yeah, right. But there was also a speaker that spoke about the incident at Western which I have to follow up on and better understand on the issue at the Academy of Americas. It sounds like the main issue is happening after school and off campus, but let's find out who the child is, what their situation is, and understand where the issue is outside of school, whether it will be our staff or our police can certainly walk the area, be more present in the area, and just problem solve with the family to make sure that the child feels better protected, and that should be the case for everybody. Anyone feels unsafe, they feel constantly bullied. Please talk to the principal, the counselor, and we try to work within the code of conduct to balance accountability and progressive discipline with the child, if children are involved in multiple fights, and that's why we have Detroit Lions Academy. That's also why we're moving to offer the online school, the virtual school, as a better option for those that perpetually are bullied, and it doesn't take multiple fights to be removed from the school, and it doesn't take multiple fights to be suspended either. We modified the code of conduct to empower principals to move faster into exclusionary discipline, as long as continued assistance is provided to the students. Lastly, I'll follow up with the public speaker about active PTAs, School advisory councils and libraries. We can, we can go back and forth about what I said and what I didn't say. Physically, yes, there are libraries and schools. No, they're not all actively used, and my email clearly said that. But I don't think anyone wants to hear it back and forth, so I'll provide that information out through email.

    Thank you. Are there any questions for Dr Vitti?

    I do want to have one madam chair so dr Vitti, so I'm hopeful seeing President Lee here today as we talk about this crisis prevention training, I know we talked about training for our ese paras, but if it needs to be mandatory, then I think that's a conversation we need to revisit, if it's giving those educators the skills that they need to deal with that population of students. And then the other one that was mentioned was around, there's an increase, I know. This is the end of the year, and I know, you know, fights happen, but I'm extremely concerned about the number of suicide attempts and young people saying they're going to hurt themselves and hurt someone else. And so I think we do have to it's now almost being reactive, but there has to be a way that we're reaching not only to the students, but to the parents as well, and maybe that's through robocalls, and that's through assemblies, but there's an increase, and the students are getting younger and younger. For those who are even in the mindset to say so, I'm hoping the stopping the mental health hotline, I'm hoping that is not something that we are looking to do, because it seems like that those needing assistance are getting younger and younger, so I really want us to problem solve in terms of how we can address the behaviors that are increasing and the students are getting younger.

    Yes, ma'am. To that point member, Peterson, we were speaking briefly over here that there are resources available. And I know Dr Taylor has resources as well, so I'm hopeful that someone has gotten the number of the interpreters so we can make sure that those resources are provided. She stated that she didn't have insurance for whatever the reason might be, want to make sure that that's not there are ways to get services, but so that, and that's a very, very important issue, so let's make sure that we do that. But also to speak to the skilled trades piece, the member that's the constituent that spoke to the issue on the east side. I know Dr V pointed out that they will be located at the schools. What specifically I've gone to Randolph this past Friday for signing day. 150 students were signing their apprenticeship programs and or entrance to college absent the cost of excessive tuition. I know that members were there from the building trades. Adrian bond spoke to wanting to make sure that he get with all these folks that we're approving their contracts to make sure that we get opportunities for our students as well. Also, I've asked him to reach out the Laborers Local 1191 today, I went over to Durfee Innovation Center, and I think Davidson Elementary was there, but IBEW operating engineers, LiUNA, plumbers and pipe fitters. I hate to leave any of them out. You know what? SEIU and I went to their rally this morning. But nonetheless, a number of our labor organizations are trying to do more in partnering. So I want to know with specificity, which actual CTE programs will be accessible on the east side, and at a later time, we could talk about how we strengthen partnerships with labor with all of our CTE programs. Yes,

    yes. Thank you. Board member, Bryant,

    I have a question regarding southeastern so with those programs, our students, who are in neighborhood high schools, would they still be able to enroll in those programs without being an exam? School student,

    no, you'd have to be enrolled at Southeastern to access the advanced manufacturing program. So we didn't, we didn't set up so the annex that will be available to students with a focus on advanced manufacturing. We didn't envision having an am and a pm group. It's attending north, south eastern and accessing the annex through southeastern High School, if you will.

    So that kind of speaks to what the person is saying. We're taking golitely out. We're putting programs over at Pershing in southeastern but that doesn't leave the access for those students that are not attending southeastern to go so,

    yeah, I mean, that's that's certainly one way to look at it. I think the other way to look at it is the enrollment numbers for those programs that go lightly are low. They've been historically low, and once they're flushed out at those neighborhood high schools. The program numbers will increase by nature of directly serving the students at those high schools. But with all that said, as I said earlier, I do think that there is a need, once these programs are placed in the school, to look at the. Equivalent of a Randolph on the east side as a separate CTE program, where students across the district, but mainly on the east side, could access career tech programs, am and pm, like they can at Randolph. I do think there's an opportunity for that. And then if we go back to the high school redesign, it's also about utilizing Wayne County Community College and their tech programs for greater access as well through that high school redesign. So I think we all want the same thing, more access to Career Tech, more of our students attending, and greater access on the east side. And so I do I am confident that the numbers of accessibility will naturally increase within the schools, within those neighborhood high schools. So either a we think about an East Side Randolph, if you will, for career tech, or maximizing the programs that currently exist at Wayne County Community College through the high school redesign for the high schools on the east side. Okay,

    so can we see some of those plans in our upcoming academic committee meetings.

    Yeah, I mean, it's, it's, it's what I said, but I can have it on a charge. You can see it go. I think it goes back to the question that was asked, Where are the career tech programs on the east side as we move forward with the dfmp? And I'll be able to show you that. Well, I'm

    just more concerned that our students have the opportunities. It doesn't matter whether it's east side or West, if we if we are funding something in the schools, having access to, you know, for every student who is interested. I think that that serves certainly is worth looking at. If we can get as many students in those programs. Not everybody's going to college, and so we've got to have alternatives.

    Madam Chair, I'm sorry I just had to turn it back in because I didn't before member Brian asked her question. I didn't get clarity on what programs will be at Southeastern Pershing or anywhere else like so will we have? What will we actually have that reflects what we're taking away from go lightly, yeah.

    So the culinary program will be at Pershing, the design program will be at Denby, and the avionics program will be at Davis aerospace High School, which will be at the City Airport, and all the manufacturing related programming, like welding will be at Southeastern, at the annex. So advanced manufacturing, it was really the welding program, and then manufacturing program that will go lightly, that'll be at Southeastern. Okay,

    okay, and we're gonna get to that later. I know we're getting late, but I'm hopeful. So I just have to say this, because when I've gone out and we went for Mother's Day over at Bright hop, and I think you did both go lightly, and just having these conversations between Randolph bright hop, the conversations we're having with staff members is there's been some impediments to students being enrolled in these programs, and I just have to say that as a son who graduate, mom of a son who graduated from Cass went to college, we we have to change the way we think about skilled trades. It's not just because they're not going to college, but because it's an option that that that prevents debt and allows them to make more money in some instances of folks with college degrees. So there's been some impediments. And then let's talk about the marketing of these programs. I'm hopeful that we don't wait until the fall for communications to come out with a piece of literature that show which programs is that which schools, because I'm still having a challenge with how we got communications and marketing. We don't see things that are marketed. But there's some barriers that have been there that have caused those numbers to be low. And every location I've gone to is stating that. So we got to look at some things internally, because there are students that would go and there's, this is a labor town. This is the cradle of the union movement. There would be students in these programs if we properly market it and provide the access and marketing to let people and parents know as a as opposed to, this is where you go when you don't go to college. Change the narrative, change the narrative, and open up the opportunity.

    So I have met with the CTE principals. I'll meet with them again so that they can tell me, you know, face to face, eye to eye, what barriers they see. And then we'll, we'll look at systems and processes immediately to adjust that. I've done that over the years. I'll do that probably in a week or two, and then I'll let you know what they tell me. I know we are marketing. Marketing is something we can always do more of. I'm actually looking forward to showing the board some clear Exam. Examples of how we've marketed schools since January, and then as we go into the summer, I'd like, if the board is willing individually to meet with Miss Wilson to say I'm seeing this, I'm not seeing that. I'd like to see more examples of this so that that can be part of the plan going into next year, so that you can see examples of what you see as gaps, so that this this conversation isn't cyclical. But I know we're doing things, but then the board doesn't always see it. So tell me exactly what you want to see more of, and then we'll do it so that box can be checked. Thank you very much.

    Excellent. Thank you. Are there any more questions or inquiries of the superintendent? Thank you, Dr Vitti, for your response. I'll entertain a motion at this time from the board to enter into closed session support. It has been moved by board member gay Daniel and supported by Peterson Mayberry. Is there any discussion? All in favor? Are there any opposes? We would now do a roll call. Monique

    Bryant present, yes. Sherry gay Daniel Yes. Angelique Peterson, Mayberry, yes. Dr Taylor, Dr Iris Taylor, Latrice McClendon,

    Bishop, Coletta, yes. Madam Chair, there is a quarrel. Thank you so much. Thank you to our public for walking with us through this. There will be a enormous amount of time in this closed session. Do we have any announcements before we go to the board? Do you have any announcements? Because I'm sure that when we come out, I do want to talk about the evening of fine arts that is tomorrow at the Fox Theater, and that's going to be an amazing that's over 600 of our students and population within our schools. Tickets are available and the entrance is free, so we encourage you to come to that as well. Is there anything else

    we just want to go ahead. Thank you. I was just miss Sanchez, yeah, I was going to also say just to make sure that we begin that process according to the policy as it relates to the naming of the school. So if a board member needs to own that, we I can own that, yeah, make sure we move forward with that, and I'll be glad to help you to own that as well. Please, if you could give it to Kia Drake in the back, in the back, miss kia Drake, can you? Yep, she's waving her hand. She's going to come to you, and we'll make sure that that moves forward. We

    will definitely own that. Thank you so much. Thank You. Thank you. Applause.

    Finance, technology, engineer, mathematics, the sim awards on June 5 at 530 here at King. All

    right. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Slow pass. Lopez Sanchez, yes,

    someone I thought media came and talked to her

    is Miss Ashby here, I did see her. You

    Testing, testing, testing. Madam Chair, I'd like to make a motion that we come out of closed session support.

    All right, it's been moved and supported. Any need for discussion. All in favor. Thank you so much. Going back to the agenda items that are before us, terms of personnel actions,

    12.01 I'm sorry y'all give me a minute wait. We got. Go back up to 12.0 15. No, 15. I'm sorry, uh, 15.01 administrative terminations. We

    have a chair. Yes, I'm sorry. Point of clarity, we have to go back up to 10.03 for non renewals, we have to go back.

    We put 10.03 under 15. Remember? Oh,

    okay, no, yeah,

    we amended the agenda and we put, that was the motion you made.

    No, I amended the

    thank you so personnel actions would be 10.0 315, 01, 15, 02, and 15. 03,

    Dr V

    termination calls, administrative determinations.

    Madam Chair, I'd like to make an adjustment to my original recommendation related to 1501. I'd like to modify the recommendation for employee. Mbw, from a 30 day suspension without pay to a 14 day suspension without pay.

    Thank you, Dr COVID, we've heard the superintendent on that is there a motion to entertain that? So move so move their support. Is there discussion ready? All in favor? Aye, thank you. That was 15 03, I three.

    All right, 10, 03 is the board ready to decide on that? Thank you. That is the he has to make a DR Vitti,

    Madam Chair, I'd like to make a change to my original recommendation related to non renewals for employee k a, to remove K from the non renewal recommendation. Support,

    hearing, hearing the superintendent's recommendation. We have Do we have a motion? Thank you. Is there any discussion? All in favor? None, no. Nays, it is so moved. Thank you. 15, 02, Dr Beatty, no changes. Is there a motion

    I move that we support the superintendent's recommendation for 15.02 terminations for calls support board.

    Is there any reason for discussion? None. Yes. Ma'am, Madam Chair.

    Did that include

    one employee with a 48 hour pending termination conditional was that fall under 1502

    48 hours, that is, that is 1502 that is termination for calls,

    is that under 1502 Yes, ma'am, there's one one adjusted,

    yeah, so one of the one of the items in 1502, was amended. We cannot say it publicly, but yes, Gotcha, okay, thank you. The motion is on the floor, all in favor. It is so moved, 15 01, administrative terminations. No, we didn't 15 01, is there a motion to accept the recommendation? Thank you support. Thank you. Is there any reason for discussion? No, we didn't. We went back to 1003. He changed it all in favor. Aye, thank you. Eyes happy. It is so moved, can I have a motion for adjournment? So moved all in favor. Consent is in agreement. Good night. You.