And we welcome everyone again. Good evening to our General Board meeting.
Roll call Monique Bryant, I present, Sher gay Dan yoga. Present, Angelique Peterson Mayberry present, Dr Iris Taylor, Dr Ida Cindy short, Patrice McClendon present, Bishop Coletta Vaughn present, Michael West present, Naomi vapatu present, Madam Chair, we have a forum to begin. Thank you so much. We respect the rights of all persons to participate in this public meeting of the board and kindly request that everyone engage in behavior that supports the same. In the event anyone engages in behavior that is not in support of the good, we request that you refrain from that behavior.
Thank you very much. This poem, we will ask for a moment of silence
we'd like to acknowledge at this time bereavement for Todd Daughtry teacher at Munger, Jermaine Smith, security officer at Central High School,
Madam Chair, just for point of clarity. So the public comment that we're experiencing for the budget meeting is related to the budget. The public comment experienced at the budget meeting, during the budget meeting is is tied to the budget, to this, to the special meeting, to the special meeting budget. I had the regular general okay, I didn't know if that, if the community understood that.
Thank you. Moment of silence.
Thank you so much. We will now receive the Denby High School Color Guard and the Star Spangled Banner and Lift Every Voice and Sing performances by the John R King Titans. Let's receive them as they come.
As The please stand First time.
Color Guard.
Oh, say, can you see By the dawn's Early
light and the twilight's last gleaming she should
Were so gallantly streaming,
the bomb bursting flag was
still there the faith.
Lift Every Voice
and Sing till earth And heaven Ring with the harmonies
of liberty. Liberty. Let our rejoicing rise high as the listening skies. Let it be sound loud as the rolling sea.
The wave that the dark past has taught us sing a song hold of the hope that the present has taught us. US Facing the rising sign
of our new day. Be Done. Let us march on till victory won.
Is one. Let us march on till victory is one.
All right, let's give him another hand. Fantastic. Thank you, David, for the color guards and thank you. John R King, moving forward for the approval of the agenda. Is there a motion to approve so moved Madam Chair, thank you support. It has been moved by Angela Peterson, Mayberry, and supported by Vice Chair, McClendon. There any discussion? All in favor? Any names so moved? Item number four, the approval of minutes? Is there a desire to tie bar items 4.01 special board minute meetings from May 13, 2025, 4.02 special board meeting closed session minutes from May 13, 4.03 regular board meeting minutes from May 13, 2025, regular board meeting minutes closed session from May 13, 2025 4.05 finance committee meeting minutes from May 14, 2025 4.06 policy ad hoc committee meeting minutes from May 20, 2025 policy ad hoc committee closed session. Minutes from May 20 2025, 4.08 academic committee meetings. Minutes from May 21 2025, special board meeting. Minutes from May 21 2025, 4.01 4.10 special board meeting, closed session. Minutes from May 21 2025, and four point 11, special finance committee meeting. Minutes from June 6, 2025, I move to type, our 4.01
through four point
11. 11, I support the motion on the floor for the time. Bar, thank you
any discussion, all in favor? Aye, thank you as there now a desire to move it forward. Motion. So move support. Support. Thank you so much, any discussion, all in favor. Aye, thank you, and it is so moved. Thank you so much. We are waiting on our computer. We had a little glitch, and I want to just share a little bit of. From some of the concerns regarding our situation at Western board members, I sent an email out. Are you familiar with email? Yes. Are you prepared to move forward with the resolution? Madam
Chair, I just in our and I'm glad that this is early in the agenda. I just want to make clear that in the climate we're in, and I think I answered one of the constituents that wrote, certainly, we already have language and resolutions that's been passed in that regard, as we navigate the waters that we're in, from a national perspective, we want to be clear that the power that lies within the board is just to reiterate where we already stand. However, it is our federal our commission, our congressional delegation and our senators that have the power to move on some of these issues and addressing them, and I've had the conversation with Congresswoman to leave that I believe represents that community and just the sensitivity and how it has to be handled, and that we are cautious in not bringing unnecessary attention that would prevent us moving smoothly and having this issue addressed. So I'm hopeful that that message resonates, because we already stand with Western and the entire Southwest community and all of our students, but we don't want this to turn into an issue where we are inviting those who seek otherwise to push back on what we're endeavoring to collectively do. So I'm hopeful that that message is clear and it doesn't become more of a focal point that that raises awareness to the side that don't stand with us as a sanctuary district already.
Thank you. Board Member, Peterson, Mayberry,
and just to echo, I was wondering why we received another resolution. Because we currently do have a resolution in place. Did it? Did it expire? Because I know we we put a resolution in in 2018, maybe 1819, school year as it relates to be having a sanctuary, a safe sanctuary, school district. So I wasn't sure why we were come. I thought we were pretty vocal about our support for our students, our families and even our staff who may be affected by some of the activity that's happening now, I would hope that as a district, not just a board, but just even as a district, anything within our legal constraints to do, to make sure that we maintain that safe space that we are doing. So I just wanted to lift that comment up as well. Absolutely.
We are only here tonight to restate the previous resolution, and that is that we are a sanctuary district that is already articulated in our sanctuary policy, and that the district is committed to protecting the right of all students. We want to say that again, we are committed to protecting the rights of all students to have access to free public education, regardless of a child or family members immigration status. And this is where we stand, and will continue to stand Dr Taylor chair and recognize Dr Taylor and
I was just going to reinforce that earlier this year, we are reinforced that statement, and that's already recorded in our minutes for this calendar year, that that is our position as a sanctuary School.
Thank you. I'm sorry, Doctor Taylor, Would you repeat that for your mic? I'm sorry it wasn't on. We want the congregation of the audience to hear us. Thank you.
Got a green light. You still can hear me okay. I stated that earlier in this calendar year, school year, that we reinforced that resolution that was in 2018 that we were a sanctuary district and our position and reinforced in the policy a process that if anyone came into the school what notification was to legal, etc, etc, etc. So we have exerted every possible thing that we can do within our environment in support of that community. Thank you
so much, Vice Chair. I just
want to reinforce what Dr Taylor said. As a policy chair, we are in support of what we have already written, and we stand with our all of our constituents, no matter where you are in the city, if you're dealing with this issue. And again, we have we spoke about this just a few months earlier. And just want to let you guys know that we are in support
Absolutely. Thank you. Is there any further discussion? All right, moving forward now, we will thank you. Dr Beatty, we will turn it over to you.
Good evening, board members and community this evening, we are reviewing the financials for the month of April, and we'll start with DPS. We received a little under $400,000 on our 13 Mills capital debt millage. This brings our reserves up to 7 million. As you will know, in April, we made the bond payments. So we used all of our funds available to make those bond payments. We received about $500,000 on the 18 mills the operating millage, bringing that balance to 35 point 9 million. We won't make our next payment until September. On dpscd, overall revenue is slightly ahead of forecast for the month. Local revenue is up due to one time reimbursement from Wayne resa. As Wayne resa has received additional funds. They've passed those on to the district to offset the deficits that we've had in special education. State Revenue is below forecast. That's related to the mixers change in the reimbursements that I notified you about earlier, and then federal revenue was down. That was a timing issue as the draws were completed in May. And this report concludes, through the end of April overall. On the expenditure side, expenditures were coming slightly above forecast, primarily due to purchase services coming in higher for the month. Those are related to school based programs that are happening at schools. This will be accounted for in our final budget amendment. And lastly, supplies and textbooks coming in higher for the month, as we received materials for next year earlier in the year. This year, we typically receive those in June. Some of those started coming in in April. Regarding available cash. We ended the month with approximately 14 weeks of available cash. This is provides us plenty of leeway to continue to build our reserve and get to the summer. As you'll know, the available cash is important, as we don't receive state aid payments in September, and we don't start receiving federal reimbursement on our federal grants until, generally, November, December. So we need the available cash to make all payments in the fall. That concludes my report. Thank
you, Mr. Pedito, we'll move forward to audit, and now we'll go to our student reports. And we're so excited. Micah, how much longer are you with us? Like three hours? Oh, my goodness, congratulations again. Come on y'all, let's give it up for her. Congratulations.
Good evening, board members, Superintendent VD, community members and families. Before we begin this month's report, we would like by starting. We would like to start by introducing the duic. The duic 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 duic. These students participate in team building workshops, professional development and student led networking 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, as
always. Thank you for the opportunity to share student updates and reflect on continued work to uplift student voices across the district. Today, we like to highlight the exciting process we just completed selecting our new student student board members. This year, we approach the selection process with intentionality and transparency. We wanted to make sure the students chosen not only represent their schools well, but also bring a genuine passion for leadership, leadership and advocacy. We alerted high school students about the opportunity to participate at our annual see Conference this past May, where students could sign up, ask questions and get to know Naomi and I personally. In addition, the duic representatives were told to mention the application to students who may be interested, as well as post district issue flyers in their high school. From there, we carefully review applications, conducted interviews and had thoughtful discussions as a team, we prioritized students who demonstrated strong, strong communication skills and understanding of district wide issues and a desire to serve their peers with integrity while we do not have the results yet. Today, I'm proud of the process we follow, and even more excited about the students who will be selected. They bring diverse experiences, strong perspectives and a clear commitment to their communities. I'm confident they will carry this work forward with care and. Determination as my time on the board nears an end, it's powerful to reflect on how this space has grown and how much students continue to shape our district's future. I look forward to supporting our new representatives as they transition into their roles, and I want to personally thank the board and superintendent Vitti for leaving room for students like me to thrive in a district that works every day to support students dreams and advocacy.
Various DYC members are staying true to their roles as the leaders of today during the summertime as they are going through various internships, working training and keeping up with their studies, art disciplines and trade experiences as they transition either to their senior year of high school, freshman year of college or first year of real world experiences, thank you again for your time and your continued commitment to student leadership that includes our board report.
Thank you. Thank you. I wish now that we had some more flowers and some more candy to give you, but thank you for even wanting to come back an extra month. We celebrate your journey, and we wish you well. Thank you so much, Madam
Chair, yes, if I might, yes, ask our student board members, ambassadors, just one recommendation that they would offer us to invite more of their you asked already? I did. Yeah,
okay. No, she can do it publicly. Oh, do it again. Do it again.
Okay, so if you could give us one recommendation of how we could be more inclusive of our young youth perspective and voice at Detroit Public School community District.
Thanks, guys. I will say I already kind of mentioned it before, but I would just say it's not easy to sit up on the stage everyone. There's a lot of work and dedication that goes behind it. But I think, you know, you're representing 50,000 students all at one time. So that's high school, middle school and elementary school. And so I think if I had to add additional comment, even though I didn't tell you earlier, was that I think there should be some type of representation elementary and middle schools too. Maybe they just come and they just come and sit in the front and kind of just like, see what it's like, but introducing at an elementary and middle school level too, because they're advocates too. They know what they want, even if they don't have a how to say it directly, or, you know, articulate the words properly. They know what person they want to be when they grow up, or at least they're starting to. And so a lot of them come and sit in the front and see who's advocating for them. And, you know, see what that's like. I think that would be good. Fantastic.
I thank you so much, Naomi.
I just wanted to say I totally agree with Micah. I think expanding student leadership on a district level is important, and definitely your middle schools and your high schools. And I also want to say, I think it's important for the district to be more involved, like, I appreciate you guys already completely, but I think to be more involved, not only with student representatives to the board, but definitely student bodies, you know, whether it be high school, middle school, elementary school, just letting them know. Because many people don't really know what the district is or what the district does. They just know, oh, that there you are the district. So I think that getting more involved with these high schools and middle schools and elementary schools, and checking up on them and letting them know that you're constantly and continuously advocating for you, for all of you guys, would be amazing.
Thank you. Fantastic. Thank you. Thank you. Is there any more Are there any more board members that would like to express to our amazing young people. A board member, Angelique Peterson,
through the Chair, I just want to, you know, commend those who are interested in this work. I know when we you know, years ago when we thought about having student ambassadors, and I know all school districts don't do that, but since we've started doing that, other school districts have reached out to find out, how do we get student ambassadors, to have student voice sitting and being active around the school work? So I just commend you all for being great ambassadors there. I don't remember a time when we had over 40 students interested in this. So to know that over 40 applicants are applying to come and sit in this space, and it's extremely, extremely rewarding. So thank you for being great advocates. We look forward to the amazing things you're going to do. Mike, I know you're headed to Howard, so we're excited about all you're going to come back and do. Thank you. Yes, we appreciate you both. You.
Aye, any additional board members? Thank you, Vice Chair, I just
want to thank you guys. Your perspective has been amazing. You've been bold and courageous, and you've asked really hard questions that even some of us have maybe not asked before. And so I just want to commend you for your your courage, and just encourage you to keep finding your voice no matter what space you're in and go do great in college and come back, because we need you
absolutely. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. Moving forward, we will go to the Superintendent's report. We do want to make the announcement that public comment has closed, and Dr Vitti, we will turn this now over to you.
Thank you, Madam Chair, good afternoon. Good evening, everyone. We're going to start with recognitions. I'll ask Miss Wilson to come to the stage, and as Miss Wilson comes the stage, I'm going to take the privilege of just excitedly talk about the success at Davis aerospace, you'll hear in a minute, we're going to have four we're going to have four students recognized in a minute, these four students passed the written portion of Their FAA private pilot examination, which is a major accomplishment for the students, but also going to use this opportunity to thank the school board, to thank the mayor and his team and the city council. We have an agenda item later today, but it officially passes a lease for Davis aerospace High School to return to the City Airport, not this fall, but the following fall. So oftentimes, when you talk about reform, it's not changing everything, but returning things that did make sense that were taken away. And that's why I think it's always exciting to be superintendent, because it's not just doing things differently, sometimes it's bringing back the things that were taken away from the district, and it's been an honor and a privilege to be part of that historical process. So Ms, Wilson, I'll let you introduce the four students and then move through our other recognitions,
great. Thank you. Dr V so we talked about it, but let me just state it this one time, our first recognition, and all of our 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. Miles, Hatter, Eleazar, Holliday, Kayla Turner and Herbert Anderson, all from Davis aerospace Technical High School. They have passed the written portion of the FAA private pilot exam. This milestone has not been achieved at this school since 2013 these students represent a new generation of inspiring aviators, reigniting a legacy of excellence in aviation and paving the way for future pilots from Detroit. Let's give them a big round of rising Applause. Applause.
Make sure you take a good look, so the next time you take your private flight, you'll see that our students are we're in good hands. We can keep the applause going for those who are watching us with the Live Stream you
congratulations.
Okay, our second group of fine young people. This evening, we will be recognizing for the core value of excellence of 41 students from Randolph Career and Technical Center, under the leadership of principal Jared Davis, for successfully earning the skills to build certification for construction. This is a high level credential that gets them one step closer to a career in the skilled trades. This marks the first year dpscd has offered this certification, opening doors for students to begin work immediately after graduation. At this time we honor. Principal Davis, his staff, his families, and he gave me the name of a student that we want to recognize, nada haddag. And if there's any of the 41 students who are part of skills or your families that are in the audience, will ask you to stand now and also be recognized, and there will be a photo opportunity out in the hallway. So let's give a round of applause for the skills to build certification down front. I would like to acknowledge Tammy Hyatt. She is the skills to build Michigan Territory Manager. She has a presentation of all 41 students on the plaque. She wanted to drive over here tonight and make sure that we saw the plaque that skills to build provided for Detroit Public Schools community District. Thank you, Tammy. Everybody.
Okay, everybody right here, 321,
Justin, did you want to get Tammy to come over so she you can get her with her certificate in there? All right.
Thank you.
Okay, our next recognition, which is more students of excellence. I love this time of year. This year, 149 students across nine schools earned a total of 153 Michigan seals of biliteracy. They demonstrated their high level proficiency in multiple languages. Dpscd came in second place in the entire state of Michigan. The nine schools are Academy of the Americas, cos tech, high Cody, high Crocket, Midtown, BIA, DSA, Henry Ford, Renaissance and Western International. Tonight, we are recognizing our world language curriculum leader, Sean Gordon, come up Sean with a small representation of the 149 students. So we have Talia Lopez, Jonathan Angulo, Emiliana, Rodriguez, Frank Gonzalez, Edward Cabrera, Shayla Bayton, Valerie, Orozco, Muhammad gay and asiato Diallo, who are here to represent their 149th student cohort for earning their seal, Michigan, Seal of Biliteracy. Applause, yeah, be
careful, congratulations. Thank you.
Congratulations. You congratulations.
Congratulations, y'all go tell the world DPS can read All
these congratulations, you're Welcome. Just go ahead and
COVID. All those who received their award tonight, we have the remaining certificates for the other students that are in the auditorium from Seal of Biliteracy. I know you all couldn't fit on the. Stage, but if you would just please stand so that we can acknowledge you from the audience. If there's any other students in the audience, let's give everybody a big round of applause.
All students who receive recognition at this point, we will have you then go into the atrium where our professional photographer will continue to do group shots. Thank you again to our families and to our teachers. Dr Beatty,
Okay, our last set of recognitions tonight, as always, we try to recognize the key performance indicators in those schools that are moving in the right direction. So every month, every school board meeting, we recognize the top five top performers in each of the KPI areas and most improved so tonight, we're recognizing schools with the highest family survey favorability ratings last year through our surveys, and the five most improved. So I'm going to start with the five highest family survey favorability ratings this. I'll start with the k8 schools, and then move to the high schools and the K 12 number one is Mann elementary principal Simpson, followed by Chrysler, elementary principal Shirley Bennett, elementary principal de la area, Edmonton, Montessori, principal Johnson and Blackwell, elementary principal Gaines. We move into high school in K 12, leading the high schools and the family favorability rating is East English Village at Finney, principal Montgomery. Then we have Central High School, principal Webb Harris School at Marygrove, principal Williams Federer, Douglas Academy for Young men, Dr white, and then we have Davis aerospace. Principal Davis, I'm
going to move ahead and go ahead and recognize our most improved in a family survey. Number one at the Cade level was Palmer Park, principal Reeves, followed by Marquette, principal Sinclair Fisher, upper and lower. Principal Green Man, not only with the highest favorability rate, but fourth most improved. Principal Simpson. And then finally, Carver k8 principal Evan Stewart, most improved High School, not only most improved high school, but the highest favorability rate, East singles Village at Finney. And we have Osborne high school principal, Lewis Central High School Principal Webb Harris School at Marygrove, principal Williams, and then lastly, and certainly not least, most improved at the high school level, CMA, led by principal Cox
i from Just grab it The picture we're
and that concludes our recognitions for tonight, I'll move Now into the review of our school board metrics. You.
School. Fantastic. So as we do every month, I'll review now our our KPIs are key performance indicators for the district enrollment concludes that about 48,939 students enrolled. This is about 1000 student increase as compared to last year, our re enrollment rate will finish about 1% higher than last year, at 71% very excited to announce that our average daily attendance this year increased versus last year by about two percentage points, and this is before final cleanup throughout the district, but our average daily attendance rate will likely end at the highest point it is been even considering before the pandemic. The same thing is the case for chronic absenteeism. As of the last couple days of school will end at about 59% or 60% which is still too high, but still the lowest we've ever had in dpscd since and before the pandemic. Our teachers, with excellent and moderate attendance right now is at 65% which is an improvement, or actually a bit higher than last year, which is an improvement. We're still waiting for all the final survey results from our surveys, we'll be reviewing that over the summer, and that'll be a major part of our principal Academy and principal development over the summer. As far as student achievement is concerned, although still preliminary, our M step data does look favorable as compared to last year. Those won't be officially released until August, but all of our internal data systems predict a strong year of improvement in both English language arts, in other words, literacy and mathematics. We still don't know our PSAT and S A T results that's provided by College Board, and we won't have that until the end of June. We also do not know our final graduation rate for this year, but it is trending higher than last year, and as we know, we have seen a 14 percentage point improvement in graduation rate over the last three years, and we're only four percentage points away from the state average of 82% 63% of our juniors and seniors were enrolled in college or career classes, and 60% passed those classes. We're still waiting for final numbers of that, but that's also trending higher than the year before, and the highest we've seen at the high school level. When I talk about vacancies tonight, I'll talk about where we are going into next year. So this anticipating what we already know as far as retirements and what we know in resignations, coupled with the development of our on the rise Academy candidates, we're looking right now, going into the summer, with about 50 teacher vacancies. About 20 of those are special education teacher vacancies, so we are in a good position to be fully staffed by the fall. Our professional development numbers increased as compared to last year, as we've been talking about with our breakfast and lunch participation rates. These numbers are lower than previous years. We don't we don't believe that that means that students are eating less breakfast or lunch is just how we're calculating that the federal and the state government required us to do a direct
purchase entry with the numbers, rather than counting milk carts or eating trays. So we are continuing to invest in technology to do more handheld check points of exit when students get their breakfast or lunch. We're also going to train our cafeteria staff more on that technology going to the next year and add at schools that need additional staff in those areas. Most of our operation numbers are improving. The only difference between this year and last year would be focused on the areas linked to our facility master plan, meaning processing more capital projects and operational projects. But we're trying to address that going into next year by adding procurement staff to process RFPs and payments in a faster way, in addition to the teacher vacancy numbers that we anticipate over the summer into the fall, right now we have nine assistant principal vacancies, 14 counselors or social worker vacancies, no clerical vacancies at this Time, six pre K pair of vacancies. 54 ese para vacancies. That number is higher because we're hiring more paras than previous years to support our ese students. We have 12 security guard vacancies, 16 GDI, RNA custodian vacancies, 16 cafeteria vacancies, 10 second. Psychologist vacancies when you include contracted psychologist 13. SLP, vacancies when you include contracted SLPs, one OT and one. PT, vacancy. Before I conclude my presentation and ask if the board has any questions, there's two topics that I'd like to address. One relates to just Title Nine. We have seen an increase in parent concerns throughout the district about just handling Title Nine issues. And what I wanted to remind the audience and anyone listening is that despite the federal government moving away from really Title Nine and civil rights monitoring and advocacy. The district has preserved its title nine department and team based on the recommendation of the board. We're going to be adding a staff member to the title nine team to be even faster with investigations and reviews, but as a reminder, at the school level, or even in the workplace, if there's any kind of perceived, real, actual allegations linked to any sexual misconduct, then every employee is required to report that misconduct to the title nine office so that could be inappropriate touching. It could be saying something inappropriately in a sexual manner that would be between students, employee and a student, student and employee, even parents, volunteers, contractors in the work in the district workplace. The way the process works is, when we have any type of perceived or real title nine issue, we advocate for our school leaders to report that issue, and we require them to overly report so even if it is not directly a title nine issue, and it might be a title nine issue, then schools are encouraged to still report it so that the title nine office can review it and determine if it's actually a title nine issue, and that happens through a ticketing process so the schools, the school administrator, or administrators, plural, can enter a ticket saying describing the incident and what actually occurred. The title nine office receives that ticket, reviews a case and determines if it's title nine or not. If it's not Title Nine, then typically, the school will just deal with it as a code of conduct issue, or it'll be an employee relations issue, which requires an employee investigation. If it is actually a title nine issue, then the title nine office, or a representative from the Title IX office, conducts an interview and an investigation into the matter. That can mean interviewing an employee, a student, a group of students, or even parents, based on feedback from parents and directly the board. What we are adding next year is not only an additional staff member in Title Nine, but a full commitment to communicate to the parent if there's an investigation related to their child. I would say most cases, the school is contacting the parent that something did occur with their child, but we want to make sure that that is clearly communicated as a follow up after the investigation. Yes, there are times that title nine did reach out to the parents, but we we are making the commitment moving into next school year that not only will the school communicate that there was or is an investigation or a title nine issue, but the title nine office, when the issue is closed or the case is closed, will call the parent and even give them a concluding report. The board has also directed me to be clear on providing counseling to children that are either impacted by the title nine issue or the perpetrator of the title nine issue, if you will. I think this is largely already happening in the district, but we want to make sure that that's consistent across schools and that can be inputted in our power school system so that is tracked and documented, so we can make sure that there's consistency in that implementation. And then lastly, as we close the end of the school year, we've had quite a few issues related to PTAs and other in schools throughout the district. When the board was empowered again and took office, and when I became superintendent, we made the mutual decision to bring the PTA back to the district. The PTA was removed from schools under emergency management, and we felt it was important to bring the PTA back in order to create a better bridge between the community and schools. We were to the point of basically every school having a PTA before the pandemic. Pandemic hit, that took a backside to just everything else that we were doing throughout the district is to get back to our normalcy. But since most schools do now have a PTA, the. Challenge has been having a PTA versus an active PTA, and that's going to require more district monitoring, more intervention and more ownership on the part of PTA. PTA is a separate organization from the district. It has its own state offices, its own local offices. Those individuals are also elected, so oftentimes, people will email me, email the board and ask for intervention and problem solving on PTA issues, which is largely an independent organization from the district, and it's set up that way. But obviously what we have seen are challenges with elections, proper implementation of elections, following protocols. We've seen increased tensions among PTA leaders in a school. We've seen tensions with some PTA leaders and administrators at certain schools, and it's getting to the point of being distracted, distracted to the day to day work and the core mission of the district. So my commitment as superintendent, based on the direction of the board, is to put more resources in the face team, our family, community engagement team, in monitoring the PTA work that's happening, providing more training and partnership with the PTA. So elected for individuals that are running for offices for the PTA are properly trained before they run. When they do take office, they're properly trained and understand what their responsibilities are, and continuing to just problem solve with PTAs as they want to do different things at the school and working in concert with the principal and the staff in order to do those things. I'll conclude my remarks by just thanking all of our staff. I know many of you in the audience, many of you are listening. I when we look at our end of year indicators, just about everything is moving in the right direction as the district is concerned. And I think all of your hard work and dedication and commitment, no year is easy. This year included new challenges, ongoing challenges, but it's unquestionably true that the district continues to improve, not only when we look at ourselves, but when we look at ourselves, for example, compared to other large urban school districts, compared to other metro Detroit school districts, city charters and even the state. Average this year is no different than our past years since the pandemic. A big thank you to our administrative teams. Big thank you to our students, our student leaders and our families that continue to select dpscd and work with us as we continue to make this district better, day by day, month by month, and year by year, Madam Chair, I'll pass it back to you or open it up to
any questions. Thank you, Dr Vidi, and I'm going to open this up for comments and questions from the board. Board Member Angelique Peterson Mayberry,
so thank you, Dr vidi. I just wanted to talk about graduation for a second. I know that the board we worked really hard to make sure we have board representation at all the graduations. Our young people brilliant, and it was amazing to see the level of support from community at the graduations. I will just lift up one in particular that always does something each year, is the adult ed, and I know we're going to go deeper into this, but to have a mother son graduation team where the mother was 61 years old, and it was one of her seven children who walked across stage with her at Adult Ed, I think it just speaks to the testament of it's never too late for a person to get this paper that puts them on a different trajectory for life. So I did want to lift that up. Lift that up. And then Dr Taylor and I were just asking, I know that there's still summer school graduations that have to happen, but do we have a ballpark figure? Because every graduation that we went to, we heard millions of dollars secured in scholarship dollars for graduation. Do we have a final number yet
through the chair. I know we have a preliminary number by the end of the board meeting, I'll get that, and then I'll share it with the board. I'll announce it out loud. Okay, thank you.
Thank you. Dr Taylor, well, that was my question, because, in particular to the other graduations that I went to, we had students who had 1.9 $190,000 and $1.9 million in scholarships. So I was wondering, the schools that I went to, I was up to about 40,000 $40 million and I was wondering, in total, what it was for the district.
Yeah, no one school that I went through alone was 660, point 6 million, and another one Renaissance, and then another one that I went to was 46 point 5 million. So that would be amazing, and that that just shows that there's some really phenomenal students, and we salute them all. Of course,
board member gay danego, no, I'm sorry. Just. One last thing too, through the chair. I was also just wanting to lift up the staff at the schools, because in those graduations, we also heard graduation rates, the number of the percentage of young people who are graduating. And I know they're a summer school, and so we're going to embrace those young people as well. But I think if we could get an average because of the eight or 10 that I went to, I think the average graduation rate was in the 90 percentile
through the chair. So obviously last year, 78% 4% percentage points from the state average. Well, you know, I know the numbers. I just, I my team is not going to be happy if I tell you the numbers so because they're still moving, but we're pretty close to the state average. So we'll see what happens over the summer. What is the state average? 82% we're close. So we'll see what happens this summer with students attending. And like I said, I don't, I don't want to announce anything, but we're close, so we'll see what actually happens over the summer. Obviously, we want all students to attend summer school and get the credits they need to graduate in four years, but we're anywhere from, I would say, 81 to 82% depending on what the state average happens. They may go up or, you know, may they say the same, but we're going to be very close to the state average based on the current trends.
Now, does that number include in the denominator those individuals who got certificates and not diplomas? Because I know some of the artistic students or challenge students that we have that only get a certificate if they're added to the denominator, then that that percentage is somewhat screwed. So that's why I'm asking that question.
Yeah, great question, because this has been a major frustration point for us as a district. I actually have a draft letter that I'm going to send to Dr rice to state board to answer your question, no, the students that are receiving certificates of completion based on their IEP, which means that they're not on a regular high school diploma track, but they still access the standards and the curriculum through different access points in The state of Michigan, unfortunately, those students are considered non graduates, so they are in the denominator but not in the numerator. So you're automatically penalized for that. And other states throughout the country have problem solved through that by recognizing that differently in the grad the four year graduation rate, so the number of students that we have, the percentage of students in that category, is very similar to the state average, and way above most districts because of the large number of social needs children that we serve. So it puts our district in a disadvantage with graduation rate. I think it's a it's a disadvantage and equity to our students and the families, and it is an area that I plan to advocate for a change this summer.
Then I would suggest to the chair that for this year, we start a new standard where we report both percentages with and without those who get certificates, so that the information presents clarity. Absolutely
agree. Agree. Board Member, gay Daniel, thank
you. Thank you. Through the chair with DPS CD, improving our reading proficiency, telling our story better is important to me, and so as a former policy maker, someone who is watching right now what a former governor is speaking about with respect to a school improvement initiative with millions of dollars, we know that The mayor also has potential plans to address education, and for us to be making the strides that we're making, reaching and possibly soon exceeding the state's graduation rates, and then to be second in the state of Michigan with literacy improvement. How are we telling our story better. The second question I have for one, I just want to say thank you to all of our staff, regardless to what position they hold, but we celebrate meeting after meeting after meeting the excellence and efficacy of many of our school leaders. And the question that I have still persists. How are we utilizing that excellence, and how will we use it this coming school year to ensure that the principals are continue to move the needle at their schools? How are we using them to support our principals, who are still thriving and need a. Additional support so they can also move their numbers, because it's not going to be these policy plans that come from the outside. It's going to be the work that we have with pedagogical competency and academic leadership that we have on the inside. So how are we planning endeavoring to do that and tell our stories better
through the chair. So at the next academic Finance Committee meeting, not only to have a very specific conversation around enrollment, but if not this committee meeting, then the following one is a very specific conversation around marketing. So I know the board, and I've had different conversations about it, so my plan is to present our plan and through your recommendation, through a SWOT analysis, you know, strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats, that's that's really how we've done all of our planning over the last eight years. Break that down for the board and then, and then really listen for feedback on ways that we can improve that as a district, I continue to believe that we're doing a good job at times, talking through the media, but definitely not promoting the district enough, whether It's individual schools, individual students, employees at large. So expect that presentation and that conversation, and then obviously we're going to be doing more around marketing, but it needs to be deeper than that, and we'll have that conversation, and then also different ways of seeing trend lines related to that. And my recommendation is that we invest in polling, and we can see the dividends in a marketing campaign, rather than just saying, you know, well, we got certain number of likes or views, we have this many billboards. Instead, what does the polling number say? I think the latest polling that we saw from the Detroit News, for me, is upsetting and an an opportunity, though, also to say, Okay, well, this is how people think. Then, how can we change that perception in six months? How can we change that perception in 12 months? You know, through an aggressive marketing campaign that goes beyond billboards, but also actually getting in the community and giving presentations engaging, whether it's me the board staff to do that, but that's all part of the plan that I'll present to you and then give feedback. As far as our principals, I think last year, we did a much better job of empowering our most successful principals as mentor principals. So all new principals were matched with a mentor principal, and they were paid our many of our principals this summer are also serving as mentors for summer school administrators. So the principals are not really running summer school, you know, they'll have to deal with some day to day issues at the school, but we really have an assistant principal or a dean that runs the summer school and being shepherded by a principal at that school, and then we also have different aspiring principal programs. That's really more about building the bench. But the other last way that I would concretely say that we're empowering our stronger principals is through more budget flexibility. I mean, for example, some principals have decided to convert counselors after one. All have one, but if they have multiple to a social worker converting to deans. So we're seeing more we're providing more flexibility in the personnel and managing of schools in that way. There's not a lot of money at the school level to do that, but providing more flexibility are just ways that that we're trying to empower principals more
through the Chair. I just have to say that I first of all, I'm appreciative of having the conversation in reaching out to the mayor to share that I want to make sure that he hear from our school leadership as well, and so know that some of your principals, I'll be reaching out because I want him to hear from you on what works, but I want to make sure that we are doing our due diligence to use what works, Giving them the autonomy to share what works, and find some creative way to give them the time to share via professional development or whatever, whatever mechanism on what works. We have to do that from within. The last thing I'll say, not necessarily ask, but when you look at tonight, what we celebrated becoming second in the state, just making sure that we're sending out media advisories in a timely manner, that we're sending out press releases in a timely manner, because if the news is getting the information and not reporting it, that's one thing, but if we're not even sending it, and they have to fish for it and. That's another thing, because I don't want to hear another mayoral candidate even suggest not another that our students can't read, because then they're going to have to deal with me. Thank you.
Board Member, Brian. Don't deal with all of us. They will deal with all of us, because it is simply not board member Bryant, and then I'll come to board member shortly.
So through the Chair, I want to first start with the marketing. So just my brief period of time here on the board and visiting schools, we have to lift up our tech schools and our application schools. I visited Davis, I visited Frederick Douglass yesterday, some extremely great programming that's going on. I would like to see when we come to the academic committee something more robust and focused, and even the enrollment teams, I'm sure I've seen a couple of them out in other schools, but I'm not sure if they have made concentrated visits to the tech and application schools. Definitely want to see that for the academic committee meeting also with the title nine. So with the increased plan you shared, can we revisit? And I think we spoke about this before Dr reedy a report for the board, so that we have a breakdown of these types of incidents, and hopefully we will be able to through our community engagement and some outsourced programs to really help kind of curve The incidents that we're seeing and then to the PTA so I'm very frustrated with this situation here, so I want to clarify that PTAs are only considered official when they have standards of affiliation, and so I'm still awaiting that report that we'll have for 2223 and 24 of how many schools we actually have affiliated So, and I think that's been a problem is you have engagement group parent engagement groups that think they are a PTA without having that affiliation. So that's been a problem. Two, I understand that these affiliate standards of affiliation, they're being governed by the Michigan PTA National PTA, but we have district presidents, so my one question is, are they paid stipends out of a dpscd budget? One, two, you mentioned that you didn't have governance over those PTAs that exist in our district with standards of affiliation, but I have one school that has had an election process hijacked literally, with several violations, and I don't think that we should be moving forward whether you can make that determination, because I have reached out to the Michigan PTA. It's been over a month. I'm a paid member there, and have not received a call regarding my concern. So I don't, I don't think we should be moving forward with individual schools still trying to have elections after this. This may was the final meeting, and we're doing transitions, and these PTAs are not following the bylaws. So what can we do in that regard to put a hold on this till we get this situation taken care of, with how the bylaws should be functioning
through the chair. So I know the school that you have a concern of with, obviously, it's my understanding that the Michigan PTA president is supposed to go to that school June 16 in order to address the issues, it's my understanding that PTAs can function without the the certificate of affiliation, and to clarify, we don't pay any PTA officials elected volunteer. They're volunteers. So, so we're not using any district funds for that, but I agree with your concerns. Admittedly, in my my direct team knows this, then I'm frustrated with the PTA statewide and locally. I think it's an issue of capacity just pure numbers. I don't think they have any district compared to ours, in size and just complexity. And there needs to be more investment at the state local level in training, in monitoring and problem solving as we move forward. I mean the district, the board, because this is a policy issue. The board does have options. It can move away from PTA. It can, we can establish our own parent organizations, and those are all options the board has. The board has identified the PTA as a partner through policy, if I remember right, and so I believe that is strictly with the board. As far as eliminating removing members and all that from my understanding, legally, we don't have authorization to do that. Now, we can go to the extreme and remove people from meeting, from in our schools, interacting with staff, but when it comes to removing PTA elected officials, we don't we cannot do that, but we can say they can't interact in our schools. We could do that
well, we wouldn't be removing elected officials. You have a district, three district presidents that are assigned schools, and so they're overseeing the PTA unit in a school. But if they do not know the bylaws, and they're holding elections, and the process is just is convoluted, from my standpoint, with with how they're trying to run it. If a unit has bylaws, there's no need to make changes or a call for elections that aren't necessary, and you have had circles repeatedly, and I'm still getting complaints about that process. So what I'm what I'm asking is is, do we have, or do you have the latitude to contact the state of Michigan's PTA and ask them to, let's put a whole because nobody's been out to investigate any of the concerns that are legitimate. So you know, can, can we put a halt on transferring units over to PTAs, or whatever that process is, the transition, and have someone come out because at the end of the day, these units are paying dues to both the national and the state, and to not have them come in and do their Job that that's that's not fair to those parents
through the chair. So what I would recommend, and some board members may have already planned to do this, but with the Michigan PTA president coming into town, I know on the 16th what I would recommend, whether it be you or other board members, sit down and let's outline all of these concerns and ask for clarification. I'm I'm not the type of leader that is just wants to pass it to someone else, but I want to respect that PTA is a separate organization from the district, and we, we should not be running local PTAs. We should not be interfering with elections, even running them. All of that should be independent, but that independency has led to the problems that we're seeing. And so I can advise the board on what my personal recommendation would be with all that I'm seeing, but I think we need a separate meeting and a deeper conversation than tonight. But I'd say, let's have that conversation. Then, in the meantime, June 16, I would say the board should plan on meeting with the PTA president and and I'll try to be at that meeting as well.
Now this is the incoming Michigan PTA president.
I think it's a current PTA president, okay? Because I
met the incoming and when I share my concerns with her as a parent, she said, Well, we're volunteers. And I said, oh, so am I? So i That's why I'm speaking tonight, because you. They're just not concerned about what's going on in this district. And I didn't even share with that person that elect that I was a school board member. I'm just, I'm a at that time, I was a parent with a concern, and it wasn't addressed. And she said, Oh, I don't have my business card with me, and didn't bother to take my name or any of those things. So we will revisit this. But I wanted to make sure, because we have some parents that are here tonight that that are very frustrated and online frustrated about this process.
Thank you. Board Member,
Bryant, board member through the chair. I was just going to say the policy 9210 so this is around parent organizations. It specifically calls out PTA, so taking it to the policy committee for the next policy committee meeting will give us an opportunity to unpack that a bit more.
Yeah, and through the chair member, Monique Bryant, mentioned to me that we need to review the policy on PTAs and parent organizations, so that will be a topic at our next policy meeting.
Thank you so much. Board Member. Short,
I have a couple things about three things with the PTA issues. Oh, I thought I have it in front of it with the PTA, with the PTA issues. Member Brian, has been making me aware of these issues. I think we might want to consider in our policies going back to the local school community organizations, the lscos, which is something that we would have control over, as opposed to an entity that we don't. That's just a thought for you all to consider. The other thing I want to talk about is the personal curriculum and diplomas. So you know, we've had the training from the state on the personal curriculum. And the question for me is, since you're asking, how many diplomas are we giving, some of our special ed students can get the personal curriculum as well as our regular students. In other words, all students can apply for this if they're eligible based on their ability to follow through what the curriculum plan is going to be. So if we want to increase our diplomas, we need to look at adding more of the personal curriculum to our programming. Here. That's number one. The second problem that I have with certificates is that they cannot get the Pell Grants, the federal financial aid. You've got to have a diploma. So we need to graduate as many of our people as possible with a diploma. Third, Drew school. I don't remember, because we've been talking about marketing, which has been a pet peeve of mine for a while. So Drew is one of the schools that is not getting the marketing. Drew has a coffee shop where they sell coffee. They want to expand it so they can sell coffee to the public. You know, like you go to a drive in, there are school districts in what is it? The the community south of us, there's several that are doing this, that allow the students to sell the coffee or whatever they're selling, like you were walking up to a McDonald's or driving up. The other thing is, Drew has a flower shop. Most people don't know that we are our kids that are special needs. Kids are selling flowers and making arrangements. They have a horticultural program where they're selling lettuce to three five star restaurants downtown. Most people don't know that, and Well, I'm glad you all knew it, but there are a lot of folks who don't, and they have their special spice, and I regret that I didn't bring some for you tonight, but I'm gonna go back. In fact, I think I'm due back in about a week or so, and I will bring some of the special barbecue spice for everybody here that needs to be marketed. I look at all the different spices and the barbecue spices, but drew school, have their own and is very good. When you compare it to the other barbecue spices, we need to market that and get that into all the grocery stores, local, the local grocery stores. And you know, some of the drug stores sell spices too, but what I'm saying is they need our support. They need more support. And the public needs to know that they can go there and get these these products, and our kids, our students, can make money or get a stipend for doing all this good work. So I drew is one school when we talk about marketing that I really would like to see my. Market it. There are several others that I know all of us have have this. But as you know, I've been fussing about marketing for a couple of meetings now, not at the board, but at the Finance Committee meeting. So marketing is very important. What the people don't know, they don't know. And that's just it. That's it for me.
Thank you. Thank you. Board Member short, board member McClendon, yeah,
and just to thank you. Dr short for those comments. Dr Beatty, I think it's important that we get a list of schools and their specialties. I know we talk a lot about Cass King Renaissance. Those are wonderful schools, but you have Persian that has an amazing culinary school, Crockett that has medical southeastern for mechanics. We just talked about Drew, and when we talk about marketing and we talk about increasing our enrollment, we need to tell people what we offer. And so it's not just drew, it's a lot of other schools that are doing amazing things throughout our district, and not just and again, Micah just told me that there was 98 million awarded at Cass tech and scholarships, but there were also money awarded at Pershing and other schools, right? And so as we talk about this, this, yeah, DSA, I mean, we can. We can go for us who attended graduations, we saw it firsthand, the amazing talent of our students, and we need to be telling the story that our students are excellent, period. And so if we can do just get a marketing plan and a list that is advertised on our district website, easy to accept to access commercial that would be great for parents and students. And when we talk about increasing 1% I feel like we can increase way more if people knew what they were, what the what the opportunities were. And so I just want to raise that my second maybe thought or question is around, I know there are some changes to our ese Programs, and today, I got flooded with a series of cause of parents extremely concerned that they not they have not heard from schools about the changes of their students, right, moving to different schools, moving to different locations. And I hope that you can speak for a few minutes around what is the transparency and the communication to ensure that every ese parent has an opportunity to understand what is happening with their child and the changes that we are making. We talked about it in the academic meeting, but, you know, I don't know that it's according to the some of the phone calls I've received. People are unsure that how it's impacting their child. And so if you can just speak a little bit to how the changes in our ESC department is impacting the children, and what can parents expect? Are they going to expect a phone call, a robo call, an email? Is it on our website? How will people know how the changes are impacting their children.
So just to follow up on a couple of questions that I didn't answer. Dr Whitehead is the individual that is coming June 16 from the PTA,
we can't we can't hear Whitehead. Dr Whitehead
from the PTA. And so when we talk about certificate of completions, I just want everyone to be clear who we're talking about. These are students that through the individual education plan, through testing, officially, through a psychologist, through parent input, through through teacher input, that student is placed on a certificate, certificate of completion. Kind of random plot process is legally required for that to happen. We have about four percentage, 4% of our overall graduates that fall in that category. So basically 4% of students cannot be considered as a graduate, and so that declines our graduation rate by 4% percentage points to just follow up on that point.
Can I ask a question on that point? Are you saying, because they have an IEP, they cannot get a diploma? What are you really saying? No, it's
no, not an IEP. No. This is a this is a student that typically scores from an IQ test below what is considered average, so that they go on a certificate of completion based on accessing the standards, and they have an alternative assessment, not an M step assessment. You rarely does this have anything to do with physical disabilities. It is typically falling below the threshold on an IQ test. But. These are not students that are ASD, necessarily. These are not students that are just learning what's called in Michigan, learning disabled or an LD. These are students that test below the average IQ and therefore are on a different pathway of a diploma.
I'm going to reserve what I have to say, and we can meet later and talk about it.
So as far as the questions were concerned on the ESE changes, so we reviewed them at the finance and the academic committee. After that point, we had a meeting with ese teachers that were in those self contained programs. And this is when I say self contained This has nothing to do with ese centers. It has nothing to do with resource classrooms, where most IEP students are in who are learning disabled. This has to do with self contained classrooms, mainly in ASD Mokai and my chi, which again goes back to the lower levels of IQ based on the IEP evaluation process. So those programs since I started as superintendent have been scattered throughout the city, and often a student would have to attend for up to four different schools, from pre K to 12th grade, depending on where those programs were at. So the changes, as we talked about, were about limiting those changes to two so students would go to a pre K, eighth grade program in one building, and then obviously, when they're done in eighth grade, they go to high school. They go to the corresponding High School. So long term, starting next year or after next year, we would be in a place where students would only go to at most two schools, possibly three, but for the most part, two rather than possibly four in the current configuration, the goal of the change is to get students closer to their home. And by being closer to their home, it means easier to transport students every day, which should lead to students coming to school more often every day, and then therefore improving achievement also by by reducing the number of programs and concentrating them throughout the city, but at least demographic or throughout geographically throughout city, but concentrating them in feeder patterns, we can ensure they have certified teachers. The more programs we have, even with few number of students in them, makes it harder and harder to staff that and as a reminder, it's building out hubs in individual schools. Those hubs will have a separate assistant principal, a separate lead teacher, a separate parent liaison, so that we can improve the completion of IEPs, so that those are more timely and communicate, engage with parents more in the IEP process and problem solve and just strengthen relationships without reduce, without with, reducing the number of transitions from pre K to kindergarten, kindergarten four or five to then middle school to high school. So back to the engagement process. We talked directly to teachers, we talked directly to Paras. We also had a broad ese parent meeting that described the changes, and then from there, we have been calling every parent on the phone, and every parent received a letter regarding the possible changes. So we have been engaging, I would say, over the last month, and that describes the engagement process at this point, but the ESE department has called every parent, and they sent a letter to every parent affected. And so what you're probably hearing now is, as we ended the end of the school year, there's obviously more conversations about the school the child would attend, and we're problem solving with parents explaining why the change, and if there's things that are being brought up that don't make sense and will make the necessary changes. But long term, again, as we talked about with the board, my commitment is that when we look at just a number of constituent requests we have in special education, special ASD, Bucha Mike, I delays in IEPs, improvement in student achievement, improvement in student attendance, I believe these changes going into next year, when we compare the same groups of students, we'll see improvement in those areas because we have more concentrated services. And what I'd also didn't name is these hubs will have specific social workers, a psychologist, just for these hubs for more direct service, which means social workers, psychologists don't need to travel like they are, and they can be more concentrated. In specific schools, rather than trying to serve students across
schools. I've got a couple of questions regarding your remarks. I know you spoke of very strongly tonight on our Title Nine situations. Is there a specific person who is the point person for Title Nine.
Currently it's janiece Mitchell Ford, okay.
Thank you. Thank you for that. Also regarding the students that do not get diplomas and they're on a separate track, if I understand that, is this just a policy of our district? Is this a state law that restricts these students from actually getting diplomas where? Where is the restrictive nature coming from? Is that internal?
Oh, it's statewide. It's through the individual education plan, and this is across the nation, statewide, at individual districts, as a student goes to the evaluation process, after they conclude the evaluation process, then they would be placed on in some states are called an alternative diploma. In Michigan, they're called certificate of completion. It's not a matter of reducing the standards. It's not a matter of reducing the expectation the diploma is aligned with the student's performance and potential when looking at their disability.
So in the situation like that, would the personalized curriculum be a viable alternative?
No, the personal curriculum is more relevant for a special needs student, ese student with an IEP that's on a regular high school diploma pathway. I see the personal curriculum would allow them to have more flexibility and the credits that they need to complete to get a standard high school diploma. Okay,
thank you for the PTA person, Doctor Whitehead that is coming on the 16th. Do we have a time and location where that meeting can occur. So someone that can provide that I just received something that says 730 in the morning. Did you get that board member, Bryant, 730 that's just a hole at 730 and do we have, do we have an idea of where that's going to
take place? We weren't naming the school,
okay? Thank you so that would come out to us. All right. Thank you so much. Board member, McClendon additional, I
just wanted to ask you, Dr be You didn't mention how we were marketing the other schools we talked about cast Renaissance, but I really want to know how we are letting people know that we have nursing and we have met, we have culinary we have and how does that fit in our marketing plan? And is it on our website? How are we talking about these amazing programs that we have? Yeah,
through the chair. If you recall the last board meeting, I made the commitment to meet directly with our career tech principals, and they had given me very direct feedback on things that they wanted to see happen more to market their schools. I sent that as a follow up to the board, but that has to be incorporated in our marketing plan going the summer and the fall that that speaks to your point, specifically about career tech separate schools, specifically Randolph and brighthoff. But you know, we have been putting extra dollars in marketing for our application schools, Federer, Douglas Davis, aerospace, Crockett, but I don't believe we've been strong enough in promoting the career academies at our neighborhood high schools and other schools. And I think when we talk about marketing, I think we have to do a better job of marketing those schools and the students that are benefiting from the programs that some of what you name. Obviously, we've enhanced the school websites. We've tried, we've done videos for individual schools, highlighting those programs and students, but that's obviously just scratching the surface of what we need to do, and a lot of the feedback has been to go back to some basic marketing, and again, knocking on doors, providing pamphlets and grocery stores and churches and more of the just hard copy flyers, pamphlets, newspapers that people might be more familiar with and more comfortable with than just relying on billboards, commercials, radio ads and. I think that's where some of the additional investment in marketing has to happen. Is really just more grassroots, knocking on doors, attending community meetings, even when they're smaller. And part of it also is having the principals do more of that too. Beyond the canvassing, we've done canvassing, but I don't know, I don't think we've done enough community meetings where we're going into actual neighborhoods and relying on whether it be churches or block clubs, and talking directly to people in the neighborhood about the programs in the school. So I think that's part of what some of the career tech principals are telling me directly that we have to turn key in this summer and future marketing plans.
All right, thank you. Does that conclude the commentaries? Questions to Dr Beatty, is that good? All right, thank you so much. Dr Vitti, moving forward to administrative action items, is there, is there agreement to move forward with item 10.01
Madam Chair, I think we need a motion to accept the Superintendent's report.
I'm sorry. Thank you so moved support. All in favor. Thank you. The Superintendent's report has been accepted administrative action items 10.01
i Madam Chair, I like to move that we approve 10.01 the approval of the 2024, 2026, through 2026. Tentative agreement with I, International Brotherhood of Teamsters, local 214, public safety officers. Support.
Support? Is there any discussion? All in favor? So moved 10.02 approved to amend lease for Davis aerospace Technical High School.
Madam Chair I motion to approve 10.02
to can you say it real loud? We want you to be loud. Madam
Chair, I move to approve 10.02 approval to amend lease for Davis aerospace Technical High School at the Coleman, a young municipal airport.
Support, Support, Support, Support. Amen. There's no discussion all in favor and no opposers. Come on. Audience, all in favor. Thank you to all of the people that that have come to support that on every level. Thank you and it is so ordered.
I just have to say thank you again to Councilman Scott
Benson. Can we give him a hand please? Thank you.
Councilwoman Leticia Johnson, let's
come on. Let's give him a hand. And council member,
Gabby, I was Romero, thank you. Thank you. Move the resolution forward at City Council's
meeting. Alright. Thank you to all of those supporters and our supporters in our community as well. This is an exciting, exciting moment. Thank you so much. Alright, moving forward to item 11 consent agenda, motion to approve so move support. Thank you so much. No discussions. All in favor. Aye, thank you. They've already gone through committee, and it is so ordered, Madam Chair of the policy committee, first reads 12.01 amendment to policy 3.1312 0.90. On volunteers, 12.02 12.02 these are first reads. Amendment to policy 443, 0.03 nursing mothers, items, 12.03 amendment to policy 5350, suicide, awareness and prevention, 12.04 amendment to policy 8320, is there any need for discussion on any of the policies?
Madam Chair, I do have one bit of discussion for item 12.01 as we talk about the volunteers, I know the last paragraph speaks about removal of volunteers for various reasons, and it just highlights that volunteers who are removed may return subject to administrative review. I love for us to be able to say what kind of timeline that looks like for someone who's been removed, whether it's a probationary period or for whatever the reason, or if there are levels of once you're removed, are you no longer able to be a volunteer? Year, or what that timeline looks like. So I love for the policy committee to entertain that thought, please. Thank you. Receive Thank you.
Thank you. That was that's policy 312, 0.29 Alright, yes, ma'am, thank you volunteers. Is there any discussion? Madam Chair, Vice Chair, nope. This is a first read, so we will take it back. Thank you. All right. Thank you, nursing mothers. Is there any commentary discussion on that? No commentaries or inquiry on suicide awareness and prevention. Board Member de Nago,
not so much. Not so much a commentary or question on 12.02 but I do have to say I know that it's requirement, requirement. We talked about this in policy, but the requirement is to set aside a room that would be used for nothing else. I just have one caveat. After visiting Frederick Douglass yesterday, I know that there may be instances of a staff person, but there certainly is no student but, but I think maybe we may have to go back and revisit this later. If there isn't any is, if there isn't any a staff person, would it be for maybe perhaps a visitor? Because if there's no staff person, that fits the, I mean, besides Sarah in
the Bible, right? Right, right,
that would utilize the space, and they want to prohibit the use of the space, and they were painting and everything, but just thinking through that there might be minimal use outside of visitors. So I want to just think through the inability to not utilize the room for anything in a setting like that.
So we can come back to, yeah, I know through the Chair, I know we are on the policy committee together, and we will, this is a first read, but we can definitely take a look at this language and see if it fits. Thank you.
That's great. Highlight, suicide awareness and prevention, right? And personnel files, 8320, alright. These are first reads. Madam Chair. Thank you, Madam
Chair. Before we go to public comment, I was so excited about the Davis aerospace resolution that I was prepared for us to go not just with the group consent agenda, but line by line, I just want to put on record that. So there's we went, we did the whole consent as opposed to each item individually. And I don't know if this is a proper setting, but I'm going to move forward with it regardless. I want to put on record I was scheduled or expecting to recuse myself because of a relationship with 11.34 that I'm working on another project that is not related to facilities, but it is related to the film industry. And so I was expecting to talk line item by item, but we moved kind of fast right after so. So I just want to make sure that that is on record. It's not with both offenders, but it is 11 point we go, yes, 11.3 11.34 and just know that next week, on Juneteenth, I'm working on a project that will address human trafficking with a film. One of the providers are a producer of that film, and so I just want to make sure that that is cleared on record with 11.34,
so noted,
so no thanks So noted. Thank you so much. We will now go to public comments, and before you read miss Moore, we have quite a significant amount of commenters tonight. I do want to remind us all of the public comment policy, which is 016, 7.3 which gives you an opportunity if there are more than one or two people that have similar or same comments, that you actually can form a group and appoint a spokesperson, so that each item that you want to visit with the board tonight can be done in group. And so I would like for you all to consider that, that way we would be able to get more comments in. And those of you that go into group, you are extended. Instead of three minutes, you will actually get six minutes. So if you could form those groups for us so that you can appoint your spokesperson. So at this time, if you come together, that would be very helpful for us tonight. Thank you so much. You don't, you're not obligated. But just want to give you. We want to give you the options. That's all. Thank you,
Madam Chair, according to the policy, if there such as the subject that we're concerned about with Western that we understand and the board is clear. We've clear on what our position and scope of what we can do, that they can have a group representative for their comment, and then we can move on. That's what the policy says. It's not an option. It can be a direction from the chair.
Thank you so much. Ms Moore,
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 and the order received, please remain seated until your name is called. For virtual public comment, it will be facilitated through a zoom webinar. Individuals wishing to address the Board may do so by choosing one of the two options, via computer, select the Raise Your Hand option on the screen, or via telephone, press star nine to raise your hand. The meeting administrator will select the individuals and the order received you will remain muted until it is your time to speak. All comments will be limited to three minutes. The superintendent will reply to questions or concerns raised today that do not violate ethical or legal standards, confidentiality, privacy of others or require additional information to respond. If you would like a direct response to your question and or concern, please forward an email to the secretary to the board Vania Moore at Vania dot Moore at Detroit K twelve.org
Thank you so much. Moving forward, I have Mrs. Melanie and Mr. Flint. Mrs. Melanie and Mr. Flint, you would come to the mic please. Over
50
after Mr. Miss, Miss Melanie and Mr. Flint, Mrs. Maya Creighton and Alania Larson will follow these two. Thank you.
I've been a teacher with this district for 20 plus years. How many of you have experienced cruelty at some point in your life. I was optimistic that bullying would not be tolerated, but over time, you have proven that you condone tyrant behavior from principals. I have endured oppression from the principal at Schultz for over a decade, I have persevered her unprofessional and petty antics. Over a decade, multiple support staff and teachers have brought her despicable deeds to your attention, but you simply give her a slap on the wrist, then release her to carry on her sickening and tyrannical tactics. Time after time, she proves that she is incapable of changing or fixing her cruel ways, her superiors are culpable for her behavior. Her superiors are complicit. Is your goal to exacerbate support staff and teachers? Do you think toxic workplaces promote growth in students? Are you not concerned about the morale of people who are trying their best to create productive and loving learning environments for their students? How much longer will her superiors turn a blind eye and show callous indifference to the pain and suffering of support staff and teachers, as if you possess a shred of empathy in your hearts, please do the right thing. You
Mr. Flint, yes, I'm an instructor at Randolph Career Technical Center, and I'm just going to talk. About the general thing about career technical people, they have a value that is not recognized necessarily in this district. I'm just going to mention three aspects. They have to have an understanding of their subject area that they're teaching, which is highly specialized. They have to be able to use specialized tools and use measurements in their instruction process. We also have to have the ability to work with students and other instructors in what they do. It's very important that you be recognized for their specialties and have appropriate payment to recognize that. Thank you.
Thank you, sir.
Ms Maya Creighton, yes,
I wrote the board a letter about a month or two ago, so I'm just going to reread it for everybody to see if I can get some answers today. I wrote this, this letter to advocate for myself, because I feel strongly that I was I wasn't properly represented as a professional in the workplace, in my career, I would be remiss if I do not share the disappointment of my experience in the hopes of preventing further harm to the other future teacher candidates that seek DPS opportunities to the pipeline, I mean, to pipeline them into the career and education. While this was my first year working with GSRP, this is not my first year. I mean my first experience in a career. I mean the education field. First and foremost, I'm the daughter of two educators, one with a master teacher, one who is a master teacher with DPS for with more than 30 years of experience in education, my experience from youth to adulthood have been filled with education, with black professional educators and who go above and beyond to impact and change in the developing minds of the young kid our youth for the future and community of the city, state and country. You couldn't imagine the shock on my faces of finally entering the educational environment as an adult and looking forward to the life, the lives that are other children, in a way I'm not about to read this. So I had issues with GSRP. I went in and I experienced the teacher putting her hands on the child. After I saw the teacher put her hands on the child, I confronted the parent because I didn't feel like I can confront the teacher because, I mean, the principal, because of the system at the school. So after I confronted the parent, I was bullied by my employees, by the staff, by the the principal at John R King, I was pushed out the classroom because I was protecting the kids. I heard a teacher tell a kid that the kid asked a dumb question, the kid they I just experienced a lot with them talking to the kids real crazy and being the fact that I was there to represent the kids and take up for the kids that couldn't speak for themselves. I was pushed out the district. So my name has been floating around this district as a bad person when all I did was take up for some kids who couldn't represent they self or couldn't speak up for theirself. So that's my issue. Thank you, and I was putting a teacher jail because I was they, I guess they wanted me to be quiet about the situation. I don't know what was going on, but I was put in teacher jail. It was never addressed. I shot, stopped showing up to work, so I was terminated, which is why I'm here now talking about my job. So that's all. What's the name? Madam Chair, I'm sorry, the school, the school is John R king. The principal is Spencer, sure her first name, her her
name, we have her name. Her name is Maya Creighton. Maya Creighton, the President I have
Amen. So unprofessionally, so when I lashed out, I was put in teacher jail, but I was at a point where I
was fed up. Thank you for coming tonight. Thank you.
While the mic is open, if Mr. Folks would come next and after that. Elena Herrera. Elena
Larson, thank you. Good evening to board members, guests, parents, students, who may be here, I think the work that you all do for us as um. Well, educators and people in the district is important, and we need to commend you on it. But I am concerned about some things that are going on in my building at Schultz Academy. I'm willing to requesting that we can work collaboratively so 11 people that were notified that they no longer had a job in the building have placement in the end of March of 2025 five teachers, four regular classroom teachers, one elective teacher, and I'm sorry, six teachers, five regular teachers, one elective and five AIS were notified that there would be no place for them in our building. In the fall of 2025 they were advised to go through the transfer portal and make arrangements for themselves to find a new placement for the fall. Then we got an email from Dr vidi stating that, yes, we know that funding is tenuous right now, however, that they did not see foreseen changes in employment or reduction in staff for the next school year. It followed on that it came to my attention that the people in my building that were asked to transfer out involuntarily did not choose to leave my building. Went through the portal as they were told and were responded to from the HR portal that they had no placement and just to hang tight and come back to the building in the fall, and hopefully something would work out now, seeing the budgetary comments that Mr. Petito made, it seems I'm not sure I understand why a building of our size, with usually at least 750 kids, is losing that many staff members. We will be we're already over 30 in the first grade, in kindergarten classrooms and second grade, I believe, where we only have two classroom teachers. If they cut down to two classroom teachers in third and fourth, they'll be over, well over 30. And if they cut down to two homeroom teachers and fifth through middle school will be pushing 40 plus children a class. My first year in the district, I had 45/4 graders in my homeroom and another 43 students in the afternoon section. I'm not sure what data supports a decision to have that many students in a classroom. We cannot address the needs of our student. We will not be a B school as we are striving to be. I yield my time. Thank you.
Thank you.
Mr. Folks.
Yes, I'm Mr. Folks program manager at Randolph Career Technical Center representing Randolph. I have our building rep here as well. I got a couple quick, quick points. One, is there funding available for career tech instructor to go through the teacher certification process, that's my first question. Also as being a 30 year military veteran, a 26 year utility industry professional, I'm bringing a unique skill set to to my profession, is there discussions to have a minimum, minimum, comparable salary range, comparable to the other districts, and in reference to our skill set that we are bringing to to the instructional process.
All right, I want to add to that. So he's referring to that career pathway to state funded not just general education, but also career tech certification as well. So do we have funding for that part? So I want to talk about, I came up here last month talking about career technical education and the importance of having it, because we're closing the Career Tech Center on the east side. Go lightly. Gentrification starts with the decreasing of access to programming and and programmings and opportunities for residents. And that's what's happening on the east side when you're closing a Career Tech Center. I heard you up here. I think Mr. Short, talk about transportation, personal, curriculum, Career Tech. All those three things go together. Durfee, what's the school you mentioned? That's a career technical program, whether we acknowledge or not it is career tech, and the more we don't promote these programs, the further behind as citizens we become. I was in a meeting, a workshop the other day that the primary areas we're looking at is healthcare, business and finance, skill trades, Health and Information and healthcare and information technology. Our healthcare building Crockett is failing. That building is under populated. It's underutilized. We're not even sending students over to that program. The. That's a and it's right in the DMC area, we're not promoting our programs, and we're doing a disservice to our residents. And I always say this, I'm a parent. My children are coming up through the system. I want them to have opportunities. They should have more opportunities than I had. And when I look at it right now, when I look at DPS, we're further behind than when I graduated in 2002 and it's pitiful. Now, I'm not making this stuff up. You can look at this data yourselves. Do I get my extra time for being a group? Um, the downside of a lot of this is that many of the programs that are needed are technology based. That's the way to go
at the group time. Thank you. So I forgot where I was one of the so we got to promote enrollment at our career technical centers. I don't want us to be behind anymore. That was a point I was trying to make technology Yes, most careers are technology based. I don't care. Even in skilled trades, they're adding technology components to that. Nowhere in the district are we having in our career tech centers? Do we strictly have a technology or Information Technology Program? We're building cursion with a new culinary kitchen for $50 million I have nothing against culinary, but if we're raising up students in this district to have in demand careers for the future, then we need to invest in careers that are for the future. I have nothing against culinary. I love to eat, but put that at the medical field, where we putting in dietitians and nutritionists, because we need a healthier city, our insurance for the city, for this district, is out of control. Let's invest in that. We need a future driven board District Superintendent that's putting my children. I have dreams for my children.
Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much. You are heard. Thank you Elena Herrera and Charice Moore, and following those two would be Jeff Jenks and Mother Helen Moore.
Is Elena here, Miss Herrera. She has given her sponsor.
I see all right. Is she present? She's not present. Did you sign in for public comments? All right, and what is your name?
My name is Kristen shuttle.
Give me one quick minute. All right, go ahead, darling. Okay,
hello. My name is Kristen shuttle. I am a Southwest Detroit resident and newcomer English teacher at Western International High School. Newcomers, for those who don't know, are students who have been in the country for three years or less. I am here today to talk about my student, Michael Bucha de arte. I will start at the beginning. My coworkers and I planned a field trip for newcomer students to Lake Erie Metro Park. So we took 70 or 80 newcomers, and the trip itself was a beautiful success, except for one part, a group of five newcomer boys, ages 16 through 18 decided to drive themselves to meet up with the field trip. This was an adolescent mistake. Every single person inside and outside of the situation knows that this was a terrible idea, but I also think we all can agree that skipping school and driving without a license shouldn't be justification for imprisonment and deportation. When the boys got pulled over, when the boys got pulled over on a strip of road with notoriously high pullover rates, they contacted me and my colleague Ms summers on teams, but before we could text back another student through her phone in our hands with a phone call from Michael, this is a testament to the relationships that we've built in our classrooms. So I left the field trip with permission from my administrator. Asked a staff member at the Metro park for a ride and went to the scene. The Rockwood police officer told me that because of the language barrier, he had to call border patrol for a Spanish speaker. The officials acted surprised that these were students. I was able to drive away with four boys, but they wouldn't give up. Michael, Detroit is a city with a long history of social justice activism. We teach this to our high school students in ELA class. We tell our kids that we are fighters. We teach them that our that our country has had a history of unjust and racist laws, and that it's our responsibility to push back against them and ultimately. To break them. Michael broke a few rules here. Sure he was truant. Half our students are truant. Let's be real. He drove without a license. People with more complicated immigration statuses do have to get around. He got pulled over like everyone else does in Rockwood, Michigan, and the penalty for that so far has been losing his job, being cut off from his family and friends, spending 19 days in a prison in the Upper Peninsula, being told one night, he's being deported the next morning at 3am and then being transported to a different prison in Battle Creek, where he's been for two days. He could get deported at any minute. And we just found out he's in a prison in Louisiana. This is the last stop. We know this is an unjust punishment. We know he came to this country as a minor and now has no political protection. And we know that our immigration system is unjust and cruel, and we as leaders and educators know that when a system is unjust and cruel, we have a responsibility to fight back. It has been the power of community that has gotten us where we are. The personal connections of my colleagues got Michael connected to his lawyer at Merck. The ESL team at Western has taken extra care to look after the students most affected by this incident. All these people showed up today because of community, but we need your help. We are asking you to make a statement condemning the detention of one of your students and requesting that he be released from ICE custody in order to continue his studies and graduate high school at dpscd. This is his appeal. We are asking to
put more political
policies of better support COVID students and families. We believe English language
acquisition. Thank you so much. Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you. So much. Thank
you. Thank you.
You. Thank you so much. All
right, Charice mole,
good evening. Good
evening. I have any complaints we can't hear you. Miss Moore, good
evening. Thank you. I
was just here to give y'all y'all flowers. My name is Charice, and I'm a proud parent of a student that attends Davis Technical High School, and I just wanted to say I really appreciate the amazing opportunities and resources that the students have, and as a parent, I personally have seen firsthand the positive impact it has had on my child. A good example would be at the beginning of the school year, the principal would always miss Michelle Davis. She'd Wait outside for the kids to greet them in the morning, and sometimes I would oversleep, and she would say, Get up because I got to get my greeting of the day. So I had to get up make sure it was on time every day this school year so that she can get her greeting every day from Miss Davis, and it's just been so great. They made sure the kids got bikes and eyeglasses and job internships and anything a kid could dream of, or they asked of, like, even going to the pumpkin patch. And I took that for granted, but a lot of kids haven't been, and they made sure every kid could go. And I just really like the fact that they are the whole staff is so supportive of the kids in all different aspects. And I also want to thank the school board and Dr Vitti, because y'all are the rock that make sure these things happen, too. And it's just so exciting, because I'm a DPS graduate, to see how far it's come. And I look forward to the 2526 school year.
We thank you. Thank
you so much.
Mother. Helen Moore, thank you very much. I just like to say a few words to the people that are here. It is important that we love our children. Everything that's been said today makes me believe that the people that are here love their children, so today we had planned keep the vote no takeover. Had planned another way of dealing with the problems we're having with the school system. 11% of our children can read. That's a disgrace, and those of us that worked on the the lawsuit that won the money for $900 million have made a great deal of difference this year, but we still have a long ways to go, and we can't do it by pretend. Thing that we are delivering a good education for our children. It is not true. We're not delivering a good education for our children. 11% of our children can read sad. I go to so many meetings all over the United States of America, and I'm with the National Action Network, and I'm also with the black parents for quality education. It's been 62 years that I've been active, beat up by the security, thrown out of meetings, treated like a dog. But I'm still here. And I'm still here because there's, there's someone that I worship, and I hope you do too, called God, and he's gotten me this far, this long. So the day was not what we were supposed to do. We had it all organized and everything. Some of the people are here, but when we saw the need for that young man, we stepped back and let them take so board members and people in the audience, it's time for us to have a reality meeting. We can't keep going on like this with the children not achieving like they should. We can't be pretending when we get up here and have all these speeches and and awards given. I got so many awards all the way from South Africa that if y'all, if y'all, you would not believe the awards. I don't even tell anybody about it, and I do have a law degree. So I'm just saying today, while you're all here, it's time to stop playing. It's time to not just come when our issues are at stake. The issues are at stake for all our children, they're not getting the quality education they deserve. And so I'm here because we planned it at our last meeting. Dr Beatty and board, we want to meet with you. We want to tell you about our story and our history. We want to make some changes. Somebody up there,
yes, ma'am, we need to have a meeting. Yes, ma'am, Consider it done.
Thank you. Brother Moore, thank you.
I have Jeff Jenks, Jeff Jenks, and then I have Marlena Matthews Gainey. After those two, we have Kate sturvick, and then Steven lett Thanks.
Hello. My name is Jeff Jenks. I'm a graduate of Hampton Elementary, and I was at Mumford High School where I graduated as well. I'm a past chair of the Southeast Michigan Council of Governments, and I'm a member of Detroit Jews for justice. Those of you from immigration that are here, those of you from ice that are here, and the and the superintendent and all of you in the board, there are actions that we can take that will make Detroit and the Detroit public schools look better. Let's ask and push to get Michael immediately from detention and return to Detroit, grant him an immediate 60 day stay of deportation, allow Michael to complete his last three and a half class credits and graduate from Western High School this month, immigration allow Michael and his mother to leave voluntarily, as they had planned after his graduation. Then everyone looks good, and at the same time, there are about 10 local foundations. So if you get picked on because you're doing the right thing, I will help you find the money to replace what goes away from the federal government. Let's be Detroit. All right, all right. Yes sir,
thank you.
Thank you. Mr. James marlenia, you.
Marlenia, Matthews Gainey and Kate Sterrett. Is that stinvik?
None of you are here. Madam Chair, while we're waiting, I want to make sure we have the contact especially for all of our speakers. But the gentleman that just spoke, we want to make sure that we get a more thorough perspective on on the plan. He wants
to Mr. Jeff Jenks, yes, yes. Ma'am, yes, sir. Mr. Jenks, make sure that we get your contact information. Kristen Skittle, I think you've already spoken. Abigail fierra, all right. All right. Come to the mic. I thought she was next. Come to the mic.
Thank you. Hello. My name is Kate stenvig. I'm an organizer with BAM by any means necessary. I want to say that. I mean, obviously the reason that all these people are here calling on you to pass another resolution and make another statement is because there is an actual Detroit student, one of your students, who is being detained by ICE. And I think the response of this, of vidi has been really gross. To say we don't care if he had a permission slip, and you know, and to say that the authorities are following procedure, knowing that ice is acting as Trump's Gestapo. This is someone who's been kidnapped from our community, and the only response this board should have is, this is one of our students. This is someone from our community, and we demand his immediate release now period, that's it.
In the past, there have been, we've been part of campaigns where a student are or the parents of a student have been in ICE custody, have had an immigration court hearing. Western High School and pioneer High School in Ann Arbor have organized, you know, students to and their families to come support the people in their court hearings and organize letter writing so that everybody knows that these are people you cannot just snatch them out of the community, and that nobody will notice that. And this, it is the responsibility of this board to make that clear, that you have the backs of everybody that that responsibility can't just fall on the Western High School community and the staff that has to stand that has to be the whole we are one. This is a city wide issue. This is a nationwide and worldwide attack, and it has never, ever worked, to cower in the face of fascism.
So we are calling on you to make a statement specifically saying that Michael needs to be returned to Detroit, to be released from detention, to be able to go back to school, and we are calling on everyone else here. We invite you to to rally tomorrow at the ice headquarters in solidarity with La Los Angeles has shown us that we don't have to accept this, and that there is a way we can drive ice out of our communities, and we have that collective strength to do that, and this board cannot. And VD, wherever he is, cannot shirk that responsibility and say, Oh, we throw up our hands. So that's all. Thank you. I thank you,
buenas tardes es una Nora style, el dia de Voya key me nombres, Abigail Freire ya COVID terminal, el grado DS and La world and La Wester High School, el proposito Dementor, una you that departay para para para microboy, until a situation that a COVID con el estudiante. Es un gran amigo, un buen alumno. And te todos trabajar respeto e valores y principios. Claramente sabemos lo que suceda con el una gran injusticia para el e para la sociedad Latina, una soon to que consideramos de grande levancia que nos brindan des apoyo y autoridad es principala de que el termine su diploma en escuela, ya que serian Gran paso para subida y para el caso que se llamando para concluding me retinograde ESCO dente, Manos Aten. On April, especially
good afternoon. It is an honor to be here today. My name is Abigail Freire. I am here today with the purpose of my intervention. I am here to provide help for the student. For the student, Michael Bobo, he's facing a very difficult situation. I have had the opportunity to live with him. He is one of my friends. He is actually a great friend. He is a great student, and he is always trying to help others. He is an honorable person with very high values and principles. We clearly know what is happening to him and why he has been detained. It is an injustice for him and for the Latin Society, an issue that I consider of great relevance, that they give us the authority, but they take away our power as citizens to defend him. Please help him, and I'm here asking you to support all of us. Thank
you. Doctor Richard Joseph, Michelle George. The next two after that would be Sidney rice and Shamika Crawford, Thomas. Is that? Mister lett? Yeah, what happened to mister? I called you, you're next. Oh, I didn't hear they coming after you. Oh, okay, you're up next. Mister let Okay. Thank
you. All right.
Good evening, board. First of all, I'd like to thank those board members who reached out to me to hear my story and to get a little more understanding. Thank you so much. It's, it's greatly appreciated. I uh, now that Judge Middleton has confirmed what I've been saying, that this district has intentionally discriminated against me. Um, I'm respectfully asking, how's this board going to respond? How are you going to respond to the serious findings that senior district officials, Dr Nikolai, Vitti, Jeremy, bedito, ms Bernadette Cucuzza and others cooperated to suppress key evidence in an effort to persuade you the board to fire me. This situation demands transparency and accountability. I urge the board to begin by revisiting the very foundation of this matter. It was the audio recording from the from my office of inspector general investigation that meeting included Norbert Grundy. If you need the names, it was Norbert Grundy in that meeting. The DFT vice president, Jason Posey, was in that meeting, and myself and a couple other people that I don't remember. The truth begins when we start listening to that tape and it unravels from there. I was made to believe that this started within anonymous tip, but that's not true, and they're not telling the truth. And if we listen to that tape, you'll hear top to bottom, my story hasn't changed. The facts don't change, and the judge saw through all of those inconsistencies. So I don't even know if you all got the 41 page report and read through a check. I'll send it to you in the morning. Gotcha. No problem. They didn't even notify my union that I was back to work may 2. But he said, board president, you authorized it. So not sure what happened there. Nobody's telling me the truth. I just want the truth. I want to put this behind me. The public deserves to know why I was suspended for six months. Everybody needs to know it was public when it happened. Let's make it public when it's when it's when it's satisfied. I i I've had to stand here time and time again, embarrassing myself, waiting on this day, but this district treated me wrong, and I've been one of the most decorated teachers that we have. That is proven, is documented, and I. Just I believe that somebody should stand up for me, and I appreciate you doing that, and those who reached out know who you are. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. LED, if you could send that to me into the board first thing in the morning. Thank you. Thank you. Mr. Richard. Dr Richard Joseph, Good
evening, Madam Chair, members of the board. Dr Vitti, my name is Dr Richard Joseph. I am the teacher leader in the newcomer program for children in kindergarten through eighth grade at harms Elementary School in southwest Detroit. We appreciate the support we have received from the district in our first year of implementation. We look forward to the ongoing growth and refinement of our program. We have much room for improvement as we seek to teach our students to speak, read and write English and to become acculturated into life in Detroit, Michigan and the United States. Thank you all for reaffirming the sanctuary district policy in 2019 just this past January. Now we are facing issues of detention and deportation of our dpscd students and their family members. This represents an intensified dynamic for our community that we have not seen before. Michael bogoya Duarte has three classes to take to complete the requirements for his high school diploma at Western International High School, he was already in compliance with the final deportation order from 2024 and is awaiting the arrival of his Columbian passport so he can depart the country. He is now being held in an ICE detention facility in Louisiana, facing deportation, I call on you our dpsc board to dpscd Board to reach out to us representative Sheree thanedar and encourage him to pursue Michael's immediate release so Michael may return to Detroit and complete his coursework. I appreciate the delicate nature of the district position in terms of the significant amount of federal funding that we receive and the challenge of advocating for our most vulnerable students without risking unwanted attention from the federal government. Nevertheless, at the end of the day, as a number of our speakers this evening have indicated, I believe it is imperative that our Board of Education speak up specifically in favor of Michael's release as it would not only send
as this direct and unequivocal message, would not only Send support specifically for Michael and his family, but also reassure our larger community that dpscd stands with our students and their education from kindergarten through 12th grade, and I work with the young ones, but it's affecting them as much as it's affecting the kids at Western High School, because it's affecting All of us in the community. There is a palpable feeling of fear and trepidation that we're all experiencing. The issues in Los Angeles have only heightened and triggered this feeling and this fear, but you as a board have the ability to speak out, to reach out to Shree thanedar at his office, use him as an intermediary as well, but if you specifically speak out in favor of His return, then you will send a message, especially to all of us in the community, whenever we are facing unnecessary and support of our newcomers and
dpscd, thank you. Dr Joseph,
thank you. Dr Joseph. Michelle George. Then Sydney Wright rice, I'm sorry. Then Shamika Crawford Thomas, you all would come to the mics. Thank you.
Thank you,
President Vaughn, and to the honorary board and Dr Vitti. First I want to do I want to say thank you to for about Davis aerospace, because that's been a fight for a long time with that so because we want our next generation of aviators and pilots, I also want to address, I don't know about any measles cases outbreak in the school, so just wanted to, in terms of giving you an update, if there is one measles case in the school, it can affect one one person can affect 16 people. So we will be watching that now. I want to, and we will be praying about the deportation, because today is they're deporting communities, but tomorrow it can be any of us. So that's something we going to be praying about. You never know, with the bully, Donald Trump at the at the helm. So I do wanted to address the bully, and it's. Very sad to hear about students are being bullied, and as a nurse, I had to stand in for a nurse that was being bullied. They used to say nurses eat their young but basically, was bullying. They tried to retaliate against me, but I didn't care, because when you can't take care of those patients and you're being bullied, then if I watch it, I'm just as bad as the bully. So what I'm asking about the school board that we address that. So let me say to those that are being bullied by principals, you have rights. You need to contact you need to contact the EEOC, because it will make the school system accountable for allowing bullying. That helps. If someone is being bullied and they feel they have no recourse, that's where violence comes from, and we have to de escalate that. So if you're being bullied by a principal, you have a lawsuit. I hate to say that, but you have a lawsuit if you're allowing that. Because I had to go to a school two couple of schools in the city of Detroit, half the kids are being bullied. So how can they learn? I know we have suicide prevention. I heard 10 year olds say, I want to die, but they really don't want to die. They want the bullying to stop. And a lot of times, people who watch the bully the bullying going on like the young lady spoke earlier, everybody so they'd rather get rid of her. She's the problem. But really the problem is to allow that environment. I'm not an attorney, I'm a registered nurse, but if I was attorney, I would have a good lawsuit. So I just want to reach out to the teachers. If you're being bullied by the principals, you have a recourse. Get an attorney, go to the EEOC, in the Civil Rights Division of the state of Michigan. I'm telling you, I've been in Lansing and to see their very strong board. I know we deal with foolishness on the federal side, where they got other people in place that would not do anything, but I would say, go to the state level and the EEOC to address the bullying. And I will, I'll be reaching out to the governor, because we have to make schools accountable for allowing no child should have to deal with bullying. And so that's something me and a group of nurses is going to take the activism role to have these policies. Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Good evening. Board, good evening. Dr Vitti, good evening people. Thank you for everyone that's came out to support our student. Michael, my name is Sydney rice. I'm an ESL ELA teacher at Western International High School. I am certified in ESL and ELA. I'm coming to speak and raise two concerns with asks of the board in the district. My first ask is that English language acquisition remains a top priority in our ESL ELA classrooms. During the course of this year, I have spoken with district personnel in the literacy department and the curriculum and instruction department the MLL and leadership and administration at my school about how we can remain this as the goal for newcomer English classes to learn English through English language acquisition. My team and I have received directives from these various parties to cease these legal accommodations for newcomers, such as no audio books, no images, no lowering the lexicon level of a text from the curriculum using Newsela and no pre teaching vocabulary. In accordance to the district use App elevation and WIDA MLL standards the and according to the SIOP training that I received in the fall from the district's MLL department. All of these are legal accommodations for MLL students respective of their WIDA level. WIDA is the exam that they take to give them a score for their legal accommodations and where they're at in their English language development. My ask of the district is that there is a research based top down directive that can remain consistent across the district for these accommodations for multilingual learners. We would like the directive to be based in a model such as SIOP, which the ML department already uses in their PDS, that prioritizes English language acquisition while delivering English content, content. My second concern is in regards to funding. According to section 41 in Michigan legislation, the state allocates money per pupil for MLL students based on their WIDA score. WIDA scores 1.0 to 1.9 receive over $1,000 in funding for the school, and with over 1000 multilingual students at Western our schools should be, or our district should be, receiving, on behalf of our pupils, $818,000 per year for all of our newcomers. I am not saying that this money is being used appropriately to support our students. And some ideas of how we could support our students would be to hire more ESL teachers and all. All of the schools in the district that have an MLL population, and to purchase all curriculum that's required for novels in the classroom in English. And also to follow through on getting those students that, or all those teachers that wanted to get ESL certified, actually get them certified, because we had a lot sign up at Western and they did not. Perhaps if Michael would have had the opportunity to learn English in a real environment in our school, he would have
been better prepared
for what happened to him. Thank you. Ms rice, I Jamaica call for Thomas. You
miss Thomas and the next mic. Lindsay Matson, are you present? Lindsey Mattson, thank you. And then following Miss Mattson would be Elizabeth Williams, and then Emma shellen Barker, thank you, Thomas.
Hi everyone. So I'm calling I'm here in regards to the ESE program, I have a daughter who's non verbal and and has autism. This district has transitioned my child into three different schools in the last three years, and in the midst of that, my daughter, I'm not finding out that she is going to another school. And so the new school year begins when I'm taking her to the school that she's been attending, and I'm having to tell and I'm going to the school and they're saying, Oh, well, she is no longer here. Let me go on the system and find out where she is, where she's been placed, and then she's being placed in a different school that I am not aware of as a ese parent, I need to have options for my child. I don't want the district to keep telling me where you're placing my child. I want the district to give me options on where I would like my child to be placed. That should not that should be a discussion. Okay, while you guys are figuring that out, I have this little girl here. The transitions are hard, okay? Dia is an all girl public school that my other girls attend. It is a K through 12. It stops the transitions that school used to have. ESL, why not bring that back there? I mean, ese, why not bring that back? That's an option for us parents who are tired of the constant transition, because when our children get in a routine and they stick to that routine, they thrive. I need my child to continue to thrive. I don't need her to keep getting re acclimated to the to the environment again and again. We need options. As parents, we are tired of being told where they're going and at the last minute, you're changing them again. And we have to keep readjusting. I need that. I need that to change. We need to sit down and talk about it and make it happen. In addition, I want to also give these public safety officers their recognition, because they deal with a lot coming through the front door, and I really feel sorry for some of them, because they are not prepared to handle what happens at that front door or handles through the school. They need additional training. They need support. I was one of them. My principal pulled me as a volunteer and said, I need you to cover this front door, because I don't have nobody here for you. Now I'll have nobody to protect these kids. And I did that, and then I became a public safety officer, but then I found out there's no pathway for them to excel, to move on. Why not? They're our first line of defense, and this world is going crazy. I need them to feel confident and have the support to protect our babies. So can we work on that?
Thank you, Miss Thomas. Thank you.
Miss Mattson. Thank
you, Darren. Hi everyone. My name is Lindsay Matson. I am an organizer with 482 forward. I just want to start by thanking everyone for being here for Michael today, especially to his teachers, his friends, his family. I've been working in organizing around racial and immigration justice in Detroit for about 10 years now. And in particular, I've worked with many students who have experienced the violence of deportation, unfortunately, I mean, fortunately, until now, I haven't had the experience of a student in Detroit school at risk of being deported. We've seen an escalation in the tactics ice uses and the adults in these children's lives. We need to respond sooner rather than later. I'm here as a Detroit resident, asking you all to publicly condemn the detention of Michael Bucha de Arte and to do all you can to advocate for his return to Detroit, to his family and to his schooling. 482 forward, in partnership with my students, dream and the People's Assembly, put out a petition calling on our elected officials as well as the school board, to put efforts into Michael's return. We have over 1300 signatures, over 90% of which are Detroit residents. We also have the support of representative Talib and recently, Representative thanedar reached out during this board meeting. They're both calling for his release and a stay of deportation. Additionally, at least four state senators who represent Detroit as well as other areas of the state, are releasing a letter today asking for Michael's release. Please stand with us. This young man's lawyer thinks that the district speaking out and asking him to return to finish high school could make a huge difference in his case, and if anyone the audience wants to join us in resisting Trump and ice, the People's Assembly has our next meeting on July 13, two to four at Grace in action in southwest Detroit. Basically, what we want to see is for this district, for the board to stand up in the same ways that we've seen board members stand up in New York, in Massachusetts, in places where we've seen other students detained. We know you all can't do everything. We know you all aren't congressional representatives, but you all can make a statement, can stand with us and can't stand up for Michael. Thank
you, Miss Matt Miss Mattson, Miss, Miss Madsen. Can you give us email please about the information for the July 13 meeting, would you send that in an email? What number are you on? Thank you. Going forward to that would be Elizabeth Williams and Emma shellenbacher. You're here. The person after that would be Adrian switch. Thank you. Thank you. Miss Williams. Hi, my name is Elizabeth
Williams. I'm a proud DPS graduate, Southwest Detroiter, and organizers with bam, I'm here because we are at a real turning point in history. Trump is in the process of trying to consolidate his fascist regime, and we can't be like the people in Germany who enabled Hitler. This board has to stay on the right side of history against Trump's attempts at ethnic cleansing through deportations, and if you think that keeping your hands in the sand while we will touch you, keep your funding, you're not only wrong, you're not paying attention, you're cowards, and no different than those who turned in youths like Aaron Frank, our movement for equality is more powerful than the Trump movement. Just this past weekend in LA as ice. Thank you. Just this past weekend in LA as ice tried to carry out mass raids the community was able to confront them, and in mass militant action led by youth, were able to drive ice out of their neighborhoods and continue their defense against ice and federal forces. Now they are on the front lines fighting Trump. LA is a zebra. What we can do for our own heroes? I invite everyone here to join us tomorrow, at 530 at the ice headquarters on Michigan for a demonstration in solidarity with LA, and on Saturday, at 1pm at Clark park for a march against trans fascist ICE raids and deportations. It was due to mass actions that Kimmel Abrego was brought back to the US after being trapped in a concentration camp in El Salvador. And due to mass actions, others are being set free every day, making Detroit public schools in all of Detroit real, a real sanctuary, means protecting students, teachers, workers and community members. It is going to take the community us, the people of Detroit, taking action and building community defense guard networks. Trump is in the sorry. Trump is an illegitimate president. He is a fascist, and ISIS is Gestapo. La has shown the method need to defend ourselves and our neighbors, and made it clear that ice is not welcome in our communities. Everyone here knows the poem, first they came for, then they came for. We cannot let that happen here in the US or here in Detroit. So I do want to add, we need to, we are going to need the fight to make sure public education exists here in Detroit, because that is part of what Trump is attacking, and just like you're talking about bringing students in. But what the. Been one of our own, so it's ridiculous and it's demoralizing, and you need to stand up and Beatty's statement is just proof that he still needs to go. And I'm just I'm so angry, and it's just really ridiculous, and we just have to be on heroes. So everybody see you tomorrow and see you Saturday. You
Miss Emma.
Hello. I come today as an ESL teacher of Southwest Detroit. In specific, I'm here today for Western International High School student Michael boygoya Duarte, who was detained under ICE custody. Unfortunately, Michael is not the first child of Detroit to be detained since 2025 and he probably will not be the last while. I appreciate your earlier spoken support of him and his family. I urge you as the board, as the superintendent and everyone in the audience to take stronger action in support of him and the large community of students and families who are facing very real fears of deportation and separation. I work with students between the ages of five and eight years old, and they themselves can put this into words a lot better than I am. They're scared, they're worried, and they don't know what to do. I hope that as a district, we can take inspiration from the actions and words of Los Angeles superintendent and put forward a statement asking for the release of Michael. I also hope you use your leverage as the largest school district in the state of Michigan to fight back against ice being present in and around our school guards school grounds. Sorry, we've seen ice at Clark Park. We've seen border patrol at Clark Park. If you're not familiar with the area, there are three dpscd schools that face this park, while it might not technically be our school grounds or something that we could control as a district, I believe we can work together with the leverage that we have with our representatives, with the people around to ensure that these threats are not allowed in front of our students. Thank you,
Adrian, thank you.
Hello. My name is Adrian lipkovich, and I am an organizer with by any means necessary. I am here today to demand that superintendent Beatty and the rest of the school board make the necessary and immediate steps to support the release of Michael begoya de Arte and to do more and do more to protect our students, their families and this community from ice and all other fascist anti immigrant attacks. The response from the board in regards to Michael's detention has been disgusting and has seemingly done everything it can to relieve itself of responsibility. The claim said he was arrested while not under the time or protection of the school is ridiculous. He is a student and a member of this community, the action, or rather lack of action, the board has taken on this issue, as well as during the many months of anti immigration grant attacks and legislation, is what is, what is keeping our students in fear. Any claims that your efforts or power are limited is unacceptable when members of our community are at risk, and when schools in New York, Minnesota, California and all over the country are actively doing everything they can to protect their students and get their students who have been kidnapped by ice out of detention.
Thank you. School and
community leaders are making public statements of support, instructing students on making phone calls and writing letters to ice offices and government officials, creating networks for defense guards and making plans for what to do when ice shows up in their communities. The response of this board has been to either shame and silence students and staff or comply with Trump's obviously racist executive orders. You must do more to support the release of Michael. You must do more to defend your students and support our immigrant communities. You must defend your students in action and not just words and not by restating resolutions you have obviously done nothing in support of Thank you,
fellow board members, we are at the one hour mark. Fellow board members, we are at the one hour mark, and we still have approximately possibly 25 to 30 more commenters that have signed up in person. And there's quite a list as well. Virtual what is the will of the board?
Madam Chair, I move that we we do note all concerns regarding our student that we could take. She tried to
No. Madam Chair, I say that we duly note all concerns regarding our students being detained, that we can take into legal advice what it is that we can do beyond what we have in steps, and I think we're very clear about what's being requested.
Thank you. Are there other members of the board? Please weigh in Vice Chair. Vice Chair. McClendon,
I think there are some other comments that may not have been heard tonight that should be heard, and so I think it's important that we continue public
comment board member Bryant,
I echo the sentiments of Vice Chair McClendon, all
right, then I will take a motion that we will extend and go to the next Hour.
Madam Chair, I move that we extend to incorporate the rest of public comment support.
All in favor.
Are there any opposes? Opposed? It is so All
right. Thank you so much moving forward. Board members, thank you, audience for your for your participation. We're going to continue. That would be a le, a O L E, A O L E, then I have Sheldon Hill, Alejandra. Paula, if you are here, please come to the mic. This is part of the
work. Madam Chair, Miss treasurer,
you got it,
Miss, is that? Would you? Would you state your name at the mic for me, please. Did I mispronounced it?
My name is Alejandra. Amalia Villegas. You're Alejandra. Thank you so much. Yes, thank you so much for hearing me. I am an alumni of DPS. I attended Cass tech and Western International High School. Following that, I went on to get a degree in English literature from Marygrove college. And in 2022 I received my master's in religion from Harvard University. I'm speaking to you on my last day serving as an AI from the for the MLL department at Western International High School. I know that you all have been inundated with commentary surrounding the political climate and the situation, in particular with Michael and I trust that you're moving forward, but I really want to speak to how we can contribute or facilitate better conditions in a sanctuary school and uphold the values of providing equal access to education regardless of race or citizenship status or socioeconomic status or any other positionality. So in my position as an AI, I had the privilege of sitting in multiple different classrooms providing support to the department as a whole. Sometimes it felt that this particular department, which has a very new nuance and complex set of situations, to serve their students in the life students in particular, which stands for students with limited interrupted formal education, are often coming from incredibly unstable situations and are still not situated in stable situations. Many of them live in shelters. They're coming from places of deep political strife, sometimes violence and economic conditions that are not conducive to a decent quality of life at all, and as they reside here in the United States, they're sometimes sheltered. They're heavily criminalized, and the facilities in the school are really meant to be their source of stability. However, sometimes that's not able to happen. One of the issues that I really want to address is the way that consequences and recourses and accountability happens for immigrant students, in particular, as we all know in DPS CD, Truancy is an issue, and our only really most. Mode of dealing with that is suspension, but it creates a status quo where student absences are the norm. And my concern is that when that becomes the norm, then not graduating also becomes the norm. And it often seemed, from my position, that newcomers were receiving heightened levels of suspension, and some of this comes from them simply being unfamiliar with the expectations of an American school system, as well as dealing with the stressors of just transitioning and the circumstances of constantly being in a transitional and traumatic situation not
thank you so much.
Miss Paula, is that right? Thank you see
Good evening. My name is Paula. I'm also here with Michael's mom. Here with us.
I want to speak as a dpscd parent of two teen boys, just like Michael, also as an educator, also as an ex dpscd central office staff who resigned in 20/21 I'm also an active member of my community here in southwest Detroit, part of The People's Assembly, or assembly a popular who is a grassroot organization, organizing to support our immigrant community. Today, we are here for Michael, but I also want to tell you that other Detroit residents have been detained by ICE nearby Western High School, Earhart, at least. I know of those because I've seen it by with my eyes. I've been there recording and supporting these immigrants of our community. And your staff knows this too. They have been there with me. They have been here in this solidarity community support too. So just note please that all of us are impacted by this, the whole dpscd community and the whole city of Detroit, the more painful and concrete ice action destroying our community right now, of course, is Michael's attention so far. I hope you get inspiration with examples we have seen around the country of all the elected officials, mayors, governors, school, leadership, etc. Just one short, quick example, Marcelo Gomez da Silva in Milford, Massachusetts, was detained also a high school student of a public school. The governor Healy released a statement along with the community mobilization for his release. This student was released quickly after I know our ask is nothing crazy or impossible, I ask you again to use your public service role and privilege influence to make a statement of support for Michael, an invitation to not look away, to not ignore one of our sons and stand up in the night, in the right side of this dark in the right side of The history on this dark times. Because I hear earlier, because I prepared
earlier that you have restated the resolution of a sanctuary school. That's great, but laws, resolutions, policies are worthless, and words with no meaning if there is no his family
and his community, excuse me. Let her finish. Let her finish.
Point of order, mother, continue. Please continue. Thank you.
So the answer is very simple. So just an explicit statement when you can let us all know that you truly care for one of our children, for one of your students as the general sanctuary city spirit, make it through, make it concrete in a real case that is destroying our community, how you will be negligent and do not care about Michael, one of our children And a district student. Thank You.
Thank you. Thank you.
Over here. Thank you.
Tanya welts, Tanya welts
and Donna stern madam.
Chair, I can't hear you. What's the
name? I think you called my name.
Sorry. I think you called my
name, but I didn't What was your
name? Down, yes, ma'am, we called your name.
I know. I didn't hear the speech. Okay, come on
here. I go after I'd like to leave. My name is investigator, Tanya wells, and to my immediate right is my,
wait just a minute. Wait just a minute. Wait just a minute. Miss wells, are you Tanya welks? I'm Tanya. Is it alright if she goes in front? Just a minute. Is it alright? If she goes she just got done. Alright. Proceed. Proceed. Miss wells,
I've been very attentive to this meeting. Go ahead. Miss wells again. This is my son, Emmanuel Davis. There is no es e person who knows more about ese business than me. I have been trying to advocate for my son since he's been in this world. He has been to four different schools, Dr VD, so he's entitled to a degree of certification other than what he got. Drew transitional center harmed by a child over the summer. They dragged him, cussed him, pushed him, pulled him because he signed he had to use the bathroom, E, S, Y, which is American Sign Language is needed in our vernacular. I understand the micro issue, but we need to be able to he needs to be able to tell me, mommy, I had a good day, or mommy, such and such bothered me. That's not what's happening at Drew transitional center, or any of the center based schools, only the children who are hearing death are allowed to have E, S, Y, the Wayne County Community College District and the Detroit Public School community district, need to get together with y'all districts and figure this out. If I'm going to figure it out, you're going to pay me. If I'm going to do your job, you're going to pay me. I got a phone call from one of the participants in a meeting just last year. I am recuperating from a six month hospital stay. I have had blood clots in my lungs, so I don't have a lot of patience for a lot of stuff. But I wasn't allowed to come inside of drew because I would tell the principal or the teacher, excuse me, you are. You don't look appropriate for children in this building. She had on a spaghetti string dress. That's inappropriate in front of my child. I don't know about nobody else's, but you cover yourself up. So I said that to her. She went to the principal, and I got banned from the building. Now I don't know how you ban a person like me from anywhere, because I'm going to say what I gotta say when I get ready to say it. Period. So Dr Ron, I'd like you to take him here. The actual email is in the bottom of the bag, but the rest of the information about asy, it was given to one of your aides, and she has it for you. I wish you well. Hmm, but I think that we should stay a district for education and start to deal with district for education issues. Thank
Thank you Miss wells. Thank you so much. Thank you and I will we visit you on tomorrow after your email has been written and written. Thank you, darling. Tanya Wilkes, thank you, Donna. Donna Stern, is that you?
I'm Ali O'Neill, did you call me? I didn't. I heard it and I wasn't sure if you call you
are Alejandra, no ally O'Neill,
I think you called me in that first, yes,
yeah, you were number 23 Yeah, that's what I thought. All right, no problem. Okay,
thank you. Didn't mean to mess anything up.
My name is Allie O'Neill, and I'm a resident of Southwest Detroit. I live right across the park from Western High School, right across Clark Park, and I'm here also in support of Michael Duarte, the Western High School student who was recently detained by ICE and facing deportation, and I'm asking you as a school board to make a statement in support of Michael, condemning his detention and calling for his immediate release so he can finish high school and graduate with his classmates. I heard you all say tonight that you don't have power, and I also heard that you've already done and said what you can and that you can't do anything more. But I'm asking you today to speak out, specifically for Michael who is being detained by ICE despite the policies and resolutions that you mentioned that are in place, and maybe it does feel like reiterating what you've already said, but so be it. Why not reiterate it for Michael who's sitting alone in a cell somewhere in Louisiana, apparently, and what do these resolutions that you passed actually mean, if not this? Because this isn't just for Michael, it's also for every family in Detroit who's terrified that their kids could be next. And look, I'm not asking you to fix this issue yourselves. Of course, it goes far beyond the school board and far beyond Detroit, but I'm asking you to try. I'm asking you to try to stand up and do something for Michael now, with the power in the position that you do have, and I'm asking you to keep trying and speaking up again and again, as long as Michael is imprisoned and as long as our students are at risk of imprisonment and deportation. Now, I don't know for sure what will happen, but I definitely know what will happen if we decide we've already done all we can and choose to do nothing more. Now I'm not a parent yet, but I hope that if and when my future kids need you to speak out on their behalf someday, that you'll do so for now, I just ask you to speak out for Michael, who needs your help right now. Thank you. Thank you. Applause.
Donna Stern. Donna Stern. Noel Bellinger, Josh Medina, or Medina amaliano Rodriguez, are you still here? Thank you, and would you state your name please?
Hi, I'm Noelle Bellinger, thank you. Thank
you. First, I want to thank you for allowing us all to come up here and speak and extending our time and listening to all of our concerns and our comments. Absolutely. Hi everyone. Thank you all so much for being here for all the different issues that we're speaking on tonight, and especially for being here for Michael. My name is Noel. I am a resident in southwest Detroit. Western International High School is about a 10 minute walk from where I live. I'm not a teacher at one of the high schools in the area. I have been an educator in museums, and I also work as an organizer for the graduate employees organizing committee at Wayne State University. So I've worked with high school students, middle school students for a very long time. I also work with teachers now. Currently, I'm also a member of the People's Assembly. That all being said. I wanted to speak here on my on behalf of Michael, because even though I don't know him personally, I didn't know his family personally, hearing about the story, and even being there at the time where he was detained in Rockwood, it was horrifying, the fact that he was pulled over for a traffic violation that none of us would even face this type of discrimination, this type of deportation for, is it's unheard of. There's so much that we need to do, and I really implore all of you to use the power and the leverage that you do have to make a public statement in support of Michael. We don't want him to be deported, and to hear that he's in a cell in Louisiana now, after hearing that he was kept in the suit for such a long time, it's heartbreaking. It's horrifying. I'm enraged to hear about that. We want to bring Michael home. We want Michael back. In Detroit so that he can finish off, he can finish up his studies. And you do have power. You do have the power to be able to do that. And we living in southwest Detroit for even just the past few months, for years, but especially in the past few months, we see ice constantly in our neighborhoods, constantly patrolling down our streets. They are separating parents from their kids. Are now separating kids from their parents and from their families. We need to do something about this, and being a part of the People's Assembly, that is what we're doing now. We're combating these types of threats, and we're imploring you to help us do the same. Thank you so much.
Thank you know Ella. Thank you so much. Josh Medina. Medina and emaliano Rodriguez,
thank you, sir. I'm Josh Medina. I'm an organizer with the people assembly, and I'm also, I also work at a community development organization, also as an organizer. With that job I have, I have, you know, I do youth programming, and a lot of those youth go to Western International. And I just want to say it's a it's a tragedy, and it's very painful every time there's an abduction in our community of of a resident, and especially of a youth. And you know, you guys sitting in those in those seats, in that position, you know, I really hope, and we need you to also feel that pain, you know, representing the School District of Detroit. So, you know, I really hope that you feel that as well that resonates with you, perhaps with the misunderstanding at the beginning of the meeting on why we're here. You know, I understand that they that the school district has claimed itself to be a sanctuary School District, right? But like, as people have said, you know, we really, we need to see that in action. For Michael, you know, the time for, you know, I thought that time for action is not right. We, we, we don't need you to tell us your sanctuary district. We need, we need you guys to show us, and you know, and if the residents here, the teachers and different people here are working, are working and doing what we can do to bring Michael back, I know that you guys sitting in those seats have more power than us sitting in those seats to do that as well. So like I implore you, we need you to do everything in that power. You know, stretch, stretch your position as as much as you can, to bring Michael back and you know, go beyond that. You know, take it upon yourselves to to go beyond what you can do and do more. You know, everything this new administration is bringing, it's not going to be stopped through, through declarations or just or by saying that you need to fight or resist. You need to actually do it. We need to actually do it. No, Detroit, the nation, we we need to actually deal with action, right? It's not enough just to, just to say things so. So I'm asking for you to, for you guys, to make a statement condemn the deportation and the detention and an abduction of Michael. We're asking you to release that statement and go further than that, and do everything in your power in that position, and I'll sign that position to bring Michael back into our community. Thank you.
I thank you.
Thank you. Emmaniano Rodriguez, all right, Sudoku downs and Michael Mullen Han, please come to the mic after That would be Melissa RIAs and James RIAs. Hello.
Hi, I'm Michael Mulholland. My daughter graduated in 2005 from DPS, and everybody has spoken so eloquently, and I don't think I'm going to try to fill that paper out for me, it just brings up the poem that keeps being referred to, and I'll paraphrase it. First they came for the immigrants. But I wasn't an immigrant, and I didn't want to get on Trump's radar, and I didn't want to lose any funding. And pretty political expediency told me that I should sit on my ass and not do anything that would bring undue attention to us. And then they came for the trans youth, then they came for women's rights. Then they came for the federal workers, and I wasn't any of those, so you know, I'll be all right. And then they came for Detroit. But look around, there was nobody left to help us. We cannot do that. That's been done in history, and it didn't work out so good, 10s of millions of people died in a totally useless World War because too many good people thought better and thought, maybe I'll wait. Maybe I'll consult with a lawyer. Maybe I don't have a moral responsibility I can dodge behind some kind of legality. No, this is the time where we're being tested. This situation with this young man is just a minimal example of what's happening in this country, in this world, and we have a inability to do something about it. You guys have a platform. You should call a press conference and publicly state your opposition to what is doing is going on, and standing for the people that elected you and that you represent in this city. This city has a long history of electing people who would stand up and say what the authorities did not want to hear. This is that time again. Please stand up.
Thank you. Please state your name for me. Please. Melissa Rios, thank you.
Good evening. My name is Melissa Rios, and I'm here today to put on the record our deep concerns about how the Academy of the Americas and dpscd handled the molestation of our daughter. There were no clear protocols, and when we demanded action and accountability, we were met with retaliation instead of support. The administration's response failed to protect our daughter and caused our family more trauma than the original incident. The hypocrisy we received and experienced from the superintendent made things even worse. From one email to the next, the story kept changing. He defended staff and administrators, citing their First Amendment rights while we were penalized and told to stay silent. Where is the fairness in that when it came to the investigation, no one reached out to us for information or documentation. Instead, we were told the case was closed after someone looked at Facebook. The official report was so careless that our daughter's name wasn't even spelled correctly. This is the level of care we received from both AOA and dpscd, failed, failed, failed. How many more children and families will be failed or retaliated against for speaking up? We demand real, transparent protocols for handling abuse, proper training for all staff and administrators and accountability for those who failed us, our children and our community deserve better. We are asking for action, not just words. No other family should have to endure what we have. Thank you for your time tonight.
Thank you miss us. Yes,
sir, just state your name, please. James Rios, thank you, Mr. Rios, first
of all the Rios families, of course, prayers are with Michael. My name is James Rios. I'm the father of a molested kindergartner at the Academy of the Americas. This happened early this school year, multiple times by the same student. The school response and that of this district has been atrocious. To date, only the dpscd police and two members of this board have reached out and shown our family the compassion and attention we had hoped for during this entire process, we thank you for that. The AOA principle failed to comply with dpscd policy and federally mandated Title Nine requirements, and chaos has ensued in his attempt to sweep my daughter's molestation under the rug, his administration has sought to downplay what happened to my child, and he has retaliated against me, my wife. And our children due to my refusal to let it go, I spent months requesting the proper documentation procedures and reporting of my child's molestation from the AOA principal. It was when I told him I was out of grace regarding the instances and missteps surrounding my kindergartner being molested by a classmate. Did he attack us in an effort to cover up his egregious mishandling of this issue. The principal now states these conversations never took place, and on June 4, I was made aware that he has now told this lie to the dpscd police. The principal's official position is that I have not been raising this issue with him during the months since it happened, and now says I did so only because he addressed what he called a mishandling of an internal PTA issue with my wife the a way president. That is also not true. In addition, he put this horrible lie in the hand of every student at our school in the form of a letter followed with a robot text to every family at AOA. My family has been attacked online and in person by AOA staff and parents due to this lie this Thursday, June 12, at 9am there is a meeting at the DPS, CD police station. I invite this board to attend, to hear how this principal has not only lied to his superiors, the police and our entire community, but also retaliated against me, my wife, our kindergartner, victim and her first great sister in efforts to get us to just simply go away. I hope to see you all there. Thank you. Thank you,
Ruby Baron and Mr. Armand. Ruby Barron Baron and Mr. Armand Stacy Jackson, Carl Taylor. Carl Terry, please state your name,
Ruby Baron. I'm a second grade educator at the Detroit International Academy. It is my pride and honor to serve this city, live in the city and serve its children. I am also concerned that, since we are in a specialized school, low class sizes, when the inevitable federal funding cuts happen, we will be one of the first to go. I think the only thing that will prevent that, or allow us to respond meaningfully is going to be action as a community and as a city, and that is going to come from us taking the first step to reach out to communities that are also affected by Trump's egregious regime, and showing that we will stand together. We cannot expect our community to stand with us if we do not take, as a district, the minimum step of denouncing the ice abduction of one of our students and demanding his immediate release. I appreciate this district sanctuary policy and the leadership shown in 2018 and 2019 and enacting it, and I believe the time is now to bring it to fruition. Thank you. Thank you.
Stacy Jackson, Carl Terry, Mary jolly Ryan Silverstein, Sam Shaffer, Mary Cruz Lopez, Emily Barnes, Amanda, good.
Thank you. Would you? Would you state your name, please? I I got
it. Thank you. My name is Brian Silverstein. Thank you. I'm a resident of the east side. Just live about a mile from here, and I'm a member of Detroit will breathe in the People's Assembly. First of all, I'm here to urge you to pass the resolution calling for the release of May goal. Unfortunately, I've just found out from a call from Michael to his mom that he's been listed for deport, deportation tomorrow, tomorrow. So the urgency with which we need to call for his release and stand up for this young man, for this student of ours, this part of our city, cannot be more pressing. So is within your power tonight to pass a resolution calling for his release. I had a few other things I wanted to say that I was thinking about but it kind of when I when I came into this auditorium, it all kind of flew out of my head, because I passed by that mural that's right by the doorway. And in that mural, there's a, it depicts the civil rights movement, and it shows in there, there's a, there's a there's a man being attacked by a police dog. And I don't think. You know, something that people don't know is that it was the students who were among the first to get attacked by those dogs and to face the face the assault by the police. And that's the same thing that's happening now here in Detroit, in our district, that tells us everything we need to know about this moment and what to do and how to fight back our power is in the street, which is where all y'all should be as well. Pass the resolution and then join the protest as they arise. As leaders in the community, we have to be organized in the streets. That's where our power is. And if this board is moving too slow for the people here, remember that. Remember where our power lies, and the fact that we need to organize independently of the Democrats who are moving way too slow and are hoping that this will just be a good press moment, and then they can go back to running for office. That's not how you fight the right that's not how the civil rights movement is one. That's not how we're going to fight ice today. Thank
you. I Hello.
My name is Marie Cruz Lopez, and I'm an academic interventionist in southwest Detroit. And I just want to say the people of Los Angeles, California right now are in the streets fighting, standing up to the National Guard ice DHS and the LAPD to make sure that every city in the country is a real sanctuary city. The people of La are fighting to make sure that an armed group of ICE officers in Detroit cannot come into our high schools in our neighborhood and kidnap an innocent young man like Michael. We have lockdown drills to teach our students what to do in case of an armed shooter and as educators, as board members, we have a duty to protect our students from those who wish to do them harm. Ice is no different. They mean our students harm. They want to put our students in cages and potentially separate them from their families the psychological trauma of ICE's methods of arrest and detention are just as harmful to our students, because they are lifelong. We have just as much of a duty to protect our students from ice as from mass shooters. By detaining Michael ice is showing us that they are not afraid to go after our students. Our districts have to work together to protect our students from ice and keep families together. So the board now has to use all of the resources at their disposal to bring Michael home so that he can live here, go to school here and contribute to our society and fulfill his potential that I know his parents and his teachers at Western High School see in him. So let's work together to make our school districts and our city a real sanctuary and protect our students and our community from the modern day slave catchers who wish to turn back time and rip families apart. Thank
you. Thank you.
Miss Emily Barnes, good evening. I'm sorry. Would you state your name, sir,
good evening. My name is Sam Shaffer. I'm a concerned community member. I stay just down the street, right in this neighborhood. I'm an organizer with the Party for Socialism and Liberation and the People's Assembly. We're obviously all here for Michael and his family, and Michael needs your help immediately. From LA to Detroit, only the people united will defend immigrant families. We're here. We're united. Are you willing to unite with us and do what needs to be done in a time where already our tortured shell of democracy is facing even deeper contradictions these local democratic bodies, like the DPS school board, you cannot sit back and wring your hands of responsibility with distinctions of jurisdiction and throw in the towel when it comes to the question of power. You have the power to help free Michael. These very moments are when we have to dig into our collective power and use it with courage, build, strengthen and expand it beyond what we see as possible. Today, we're asking you to make a public statement tonight condemning the student's detention, demanding his immediate release by ICE, because we don't have time to wait until tomorrow. When coming tonight, I was thinking about people I look up to, who. Probably many of us know here people who understood the importance of black freedom, black liberation and the need for liberation of all oppressed nations, across all borders. I think about what would Ella Baker or Assata Shakur would say tonight, and I know they'd be here for Michael. Ella Baker said in a speech for Puerto Rican solidarity in 74 friends, brothers, sisters, in the struggle for human dignity and freedom, I am here to represent the struggle that has gone on for 300 or more years, a struggle to be recognized as citizens in the country in which we were born. I've had to learn that hitting back with my fists one individual was not enough. It takes the willingness, it takes organization. It takes dedication. It takes to stand by and do what has to be done when it has to be done. And Assata Shakur leaves us with this. It is our duty to fight for our freedom. It is our duty to win. We must love each other and support each other. We have nothing to lose but our chains. Listen to us. Listen to our ancestors, our elders. Ella Baker, Assata Shakur, listen to Michael. Listen to his family. Free. Michael and peace only if you're willing to fight for it. Thank you.
Thank you.
Amanda, good man. Your name, please
excuse me. My name is Emily. Bucha. Wait just
a minute. Oh, I'm sorry. Wait just a minute. Yeah, next. I'm Amanda good. You're Emily. No, I'm Emily. All right, hold on, just a minute. Who are you? Ma'am,
I'm Amanda Good, okay, you're next. Okay, thank you. So I'm Amanda Good. Better knows Amy, good I've been a Detroit resident for 42 years, and have worked with Detroit youth and families, mostly in southwest Detroit, for 45 years. We Detroiters are largely united. I firmly believe in support of the tremendous contributions made by immigrants with without documentation, and what they've brought to our community for centuries, we recognize immigrants as integral aspects of the strength, valuable diversity and success of our city. They deserve for all of us to stand up for the right to remain in keeping with the purported values of our nation and of our city in particular, students are deserving of all of our support. In my work, I've seen families torn apart by deportation, and it's unspeakably painful for the families, of course, and for all of us. Michael is part of his Western High School community. Let's not allow him to be torn away, leaving all of his classmates to grieve and assaulting yet another family. So please, board members use your influence to say no to gratuitous cruelty, say yes to compassion. Demand his release and please dpscd work to find better ways to support immigrant students and their families across the district. The need for this support and solidarity is rapidly escalating, and with Michael in Louisiana, as we've heard in his deportation orders for tomorrow, his situation is urgent, we must meet this moment today and in preparation for the next similar crisis that we know is coming, if we set a high bar for what we will accept and what we'll do about it now, that sends a message for what we'll do in the future and what we'll accept and not accept. Please use your power to the max. Thank you. Thank you.
Go ahead state your name. Emily Barnes,
yes, I'd like to give my time to this teacher from Western International to provide more critical information to the board, if that's
appropriate. Thank you. Thank you. Hi.
Due to changing circumstances, I was I was not planning on speaking, but I felt it was necessary, and I appreciate you giving your time. What has happened to Michael is an absolute tragedy for the community, the students and us as staff, I am personally very distraught, as well as my colleagues and other students. Michael is one of our many newcomers at our school, there are hundreds of newcomers that need appropriate services to be able to learn English and to express their needs at Western and across this district, I'm asking that the board please help honor the legal service hours required to appropriately teach these students English, as recommended by the Michigan Department. Education and through and is affiliated with section 41 funding, as well as Title Three funding, our students are working so hard every day. They're working extra hard because the language is an extreme barrier, and they show up to school despite large amounts of adversity, ready to work, ready to try. But there are barriers that this board could help us in order to overcome and to provide them with quality education that they deserve as part of their rights. Education does not know citizenship and our students deserve to have quality education. This includes service hour minutes being met by certified ESL teachers. This is a requirement. I understand it is very difficult to staff schools. For example, according to the MD calculator, our school would need approximately 10 to 14 more certified ESL teachers, and that's just at Western. I understand that this is not an easy feat to come by, but I urge the district and the school board to please invest in a community that has invested in you. Our newcomers have chosen to come to Western and to Detroit seeking education that they have not found elsewhere. We bring this district brings in newcomers, which brings in dollars, and as a result, they should be serviced accordingly. Quality education is something we can do for them, and we have proposed, as my colleague stated, we provide scaffold and certified education through our ESL degree that has been argued against in many cases by different levels of the district administration and other personnel? We urge the board to help with future planning. Thank you. Applause.
Thank you. Thank
you. Tracy Peters, Tracy Peters, Lauren Chapman,
Are you Miss Peters, yes. Tracy Yes. Yeah,
good evening, honorable body, and thank you for extending the time so that more public comment could be heard. I will say that I did come out, and I'm saying this primarily for those in attendance that organized this effort. For Michael Duarte, I'm here because of that action and having been a teacher, actually signing my first probationary contract with the district, December 1, 1991 student taught in New York City, 1988 89 this was common. Then it wasn't called Ice. Then, most recently, in Southfield, when I was still teaching in 2002 students from different countries that are often harassed because of the social caste system depending on the country they're from. I mean, limited English coming to this country is a target for law enforcement. This is me as a teacher talking, yes, I did make that transition to go to law school. Want to know why. Because my class and I brainstormed, and this is, I mean, this is true, not that teachers don't change the rules and the world they do, but when you really get an attorney that can get in law and understand the laws and understand that a lot of the things you're fighting, and you know this, we're we're often a function of the state. And so my point to you on that point, elected leaders of my city, are you addressing all these parents concerns here tonight, when they have various issues that they bring up, is there a sub is there a subcommittee within the district that talks about our ever changing landscape of state education law, and how much horrible it's gotten with the executive orders that have been issued recently. I mean, I I don't come to all your board meetings, I guess now, as an attorney, I work more with what you do on a on a structural landscape, but that's what I do. And I might represent a district, but mainly I represent my parents and my kids. It still all comes back to that, because if public education is not working for them, and we know that there is a very strong sentiment to get rid of that. Call it discrimination, call it a budget crisis. Call it whatever you want, but I am here Also tonight, because I believe in public education. That's why I'm formal with elected bodies. I cherish that you know that you're part of a state creation, a community district that shares its authority with unappointed school districts. That's what I've spent the last nine years doing, trying to get the state. To understand the difference between private and public schools, and we were successful at the Court of Appeals and the state Supreme Court, and what I mean by that, and you know this, because, you know public school academies and and and traditional school districts, there is a difference. Think about what would happen to Michael if he was at a charter school. You think we'd even be having this conversation? That's why I cherish public education. I need you to get this letter done. Do whatever you can on this
Thank you.
Please state your name. Are you? Lauren Chapman, yes. Thank you.
Good evening, board and superintendent, first, gratitude and kudos on the progress being made to long overdue facility improvements. However, I am here today to question the wisdom of creating a new football facility at Cooley. This decision is confusion for several reasons. Who are the intended users of this facility? As you know, Cooley has no students, and the facility's master plan does not propose changing this. The field's location adjacent to a spectacular ruin, will not likely attract large games or meets. It will be difficult to convince EastSiders to make the trip even more so for Detroit wary suburbanites, Cooley is not centrally located, nor is it near any schools that do not have their own facilities. Having no intrinsic students or staff makes hosting any events difficult, and the task will likely fall on an already overtaxed athletics department, requiring teams that would be host to travel to this new facility will this will diminish home field advantage and increase bussing expenses. The nebulous vision for this proposed facility makes the price tag even more baffling. It will cost over double what Rockford high school a host of many state level events paid when I inquired about the provision of two pools in high schools with students with students, the cost of $1 million each was deemed too expensive and better spent by being spread across more schools, a point I understood and accepted until This announcement of one $15 million football field at a vacant school. This board does not need to feel so pressured to do something with the site, to decide to waste $15 million instead of accept what it feels like is a low ball offer of $1 million from life remodeled. I am not saying that the funds should not go towards facilities, or that they should not go towards athletics, but that they are better utilized for filling schools and students who already need better facilities, as is, especially regarding swimming pools, which are few and far between in the district and contribute to astronomical astronomically high drowning rates of black and brown youth. I look forward to the public engagement meetings that can justify this incoherent decision. Thank you. Thank
you. Thank you. Victor Jimenez, Victor Jimenez, are you here? Victor Jimenez, alright, Faye Andia, Fay Andia. Are you here? Right? Laura Washington, Laura Washington, are you here? Right? George Washington, are you here? All right, thank you, Miss Drake. Which one are you? Thank you. Is it George Washington with you? Please come now.
Hi. My name is Laura Washington. I'm a I'm a product of DPS schools and also a teacher at Renaissance High School. Last Thursday, I attended the DFT meeting where I first heard this story of Michael and was immediately brought to tears. I actually don't know how we're all remaining so calm in here, especially you all and frustrated at the deaf ears that it fell on and it continued to fall on, and they told the story of him allegedly, I mean, well, he was pulled over for allegedly tailgating, and instead of giving him a ticket for that, they called ice. And in this moment, this student didn't call his mom. He didn't call his parents. He didn't call a lawyer. He teams called his teachers. These same teachers found him a lawyer after the leadership failed to do so. They are now simply requesting a written letter from the board in Dr Vitti that condemns the police. Least for calling ice for a traffic ticket and a letter that asks his judge to allow him to finish high school. And even more basic than that, they're asking for services for their students. They want English language learners to have specific hours of direct English language development instruction. They are asking to be in compliance with federal and state requirements, it is shameful that they have to advocate for that they want trauma counselors for their students who are met daily with terror, terror, excuse me, be it, friends detained on field trips, parents not home when they arrive home from school, ice at Clark park or email saying they have one week to leave this country. These are children we're speaking about. This is your chance to stand up for our children as much as you say you do your sanctuary statement is not enough, and so I'm asking now, will someone make a vote to write a resolution on this tonight, there is no more time. Can someone move for a resolution to write a statement for this student? Thank you.
Madam Chair. Madam Chair. So I know that we have, we've heard from Can I just for one second we have one more one more person. Okay, I'll wait. Thank
you. This is our last person that is in person
that was my daughter, and I second her suggestion that you pass this resolution. I just want to say a couple things. Number one, Michael is just one person, but the truth is, every day in southwest you have kids sitting in classrooms who don't know if their mother will be there when they get home, who get a text message and think it's the text message that they've dreaded getting, or who are on their way home and don't know if they'll be snatched off the street. And it seems to me, I heard all of the stuff about the metrics and the program for education and all that kind of stuff. But if that's the situation, it doesn't matter what you do those kids are terrified and you can't get education, and so I think it is absolutely your responsibility to do everything you can to turn the situation around. And I understand that's not something you can do all by your own but I do want to second Michael Mulholland suggestion. I've been around politics for a long, long time, and I know politicians issue statements and they just go by the wind. It's very simple. This is a very nice black table. Just set this up tomorrow morning. Have your press office send out a message to channel two and four and seven and all of them, and then come in and say that's what happened to this young man, and what's happening in southwest Detroit is an absolute disgrace, and we demand that it be stopped, and tell the President of the United States to get his goddamn thugs out of this city, because they're tearing us apart.
And you're right, that might get you a threat, but we're seeing too many people who are afraid, and only a few standing up. And the question is, will you set up that press conference tomorrow? And will you say that? Because that will make a difference. If you say, what's going on down there is terrible, we're against it. That will make a difference. So I I second what? I second that you should pass a resolution, but you should do more than that. You should publicize that resolution. Finally, I share what everybody has said. We're building a movement. We've got to because we've seen Democratic Party politicians, frankly, all across this country do say little or nothing and do nothing at all, and we've got to build a movement, because this is not going to we're not going to let this happen. We can't let it happen again. So please take steps to stop it now, thanks
going to our
virtual Excuse me. Miss who is that? Miss Moore. Miss Moore, you're on my next list. Could you just I'll get to you right next. Thank you. Nicole Conway, you are on my virtual list, right? Alright. Nicole Conway, online. Miss Drake, are we ready? Thank you, Miss, for the for the record, Miss Moore, is this is Nicole Conway?
Am I on me? Miss Drake,
okay, I'm going to assume so. I'm Nicole Conway, an organizer with bam, a resident of Southwest Detroit, a wrongly terminated DPS teacher. Are fighting to get back, and I am so proud of everybody who spoke on behalf of Michael tonight. You've all said it so well. There's not much left for me to say, except to the board. I hope, after hearing everybody speak, that you have realized your mistake, because the way this meeting started was despicable. Some of you, I have to think, actually support Trump's policies. By the way you are speaking is what it sounded like to me, if you cannot find the courage to make a simple statement of support for one of our own who has been abducted by ICE, then you are not worthy to be on that stage to represent the people of Detroit. Now you have a chance to correct that. I going to support Michael and George's suggestion pass the statement of support, publicize it and send a letter directly to his judge that he needs to be released to come and finish his education. It will make a difference to that judge. We've done many immigration cases, letters from the community, particularly one from a school board will have a lot of authority. We can do this. We need to do this now. Thank you.
Miss Alia Moore, on behalf
of Michael tonight,
even all said so well, there's not much
good evening, and thank you for extending the time and taking time. I just have a few things to say. It's always good to come in and see you all celebrating these students. It means a lot. Means a lot to staff. I keep saying that because it took so long to happen, but I'm glad it's here, and I would love it to continue, because morale is very important. Shout out to the advertisement, gentlemen, because he does a very good job at what he does. If y'all had him here when vidi got here, the morale and the image of this district might be a little more positive, but we're in the right start. As far as the social media. If you all are going to create spaces for parents, why delete posts if nobody is cussing, nobody is threatening, anybody where is ever going to be a space to tell your truth? It may not be the truth that you all want to hear, but it is the truth of stakeholders. So instead of combating us and erasing it, how about just having conversations? You know, that's the space tell crystal Wilson to stop deleting things, or whoever else is on communications, because that's not the space to do that, as far as all of this college money, and it's beautiful, but just imagine the old regime of this board, the Treasurer that is so quick to shut us down and Ma'am, you can leave at any time. It is better to leave these tables than to shut down stakeholders. That makes no sense. If you got somewhere to go, you can go. You already got your 250 for the day. You can have a great night, but don't sit up here and try to shut us down. You know, you don't get this participation often, so when you do, you want to invite people and you want to make them feel like instead of going to sleep, you want to make them feel comfortable. But you can always leave my daughter's IEP compensatory services after I sit down, I don't need not one person coming towards me. I just need a proper location for my daughter's compensatory services for the summer. I don't know what games this ESC department is playing. I don't know if they mad, but who cares? The state of Michigan is here for a reason. Okay, these IEPs and these accommodations need to be serviced. The state already deemed my daughter missed 16 hours. We already went through this process. I spoke with Miss green. I The state is aware of the agreement that we've made, and the only thing that I'm waiting on is an in person service location for these two hours, two days a week, equaling 16 hours, because my daughter will not have compensatory services virtually. Why would she have services that were supposed to be in person, virtually? Dr Nikolai Vitti, so I don't know what this board is doing with this ese department, this bullying tactic with parents because they're choosing to speak up these wrong narratives about the state taking so long, it ain't no long process. But last but not least, just imagine the college if you all agree contract and do right by this money, don't spend no 40 million. Of
dollars in Gregory, Michigan, when that money could be used
here? God bless you. Board Member, may Peterson, Mayberry, yeah, so through the chair, 1235,
more on virtual
it's far more virtual, yes. Okay, so do you want me to wait? Okay, I'll wait, because I was just going to say to the so we've been in contact with Congressman Sri Tana dar since so I've been sitting here and he is now. We just got the number from Michael's mom. That's why we walked out. So he is giving her a call this evening. I do also want to just say, you know, we mentioned about the sanctuary district at the beginning and what that meant, and so I do think it is absolutely appropriate for us to do a a policy where we are doing a resolution to release Michael from ICE custody on behalf of the board, I know Ms Mitchell Ford did send some language to the board for them to review, but I think it's appropriate for us to do so.
So I wanted to revisit that that was my initial recommendation at the front that if we had read it instead it would. We just restated it, but that was very specific, if you read the first paragraph. So that was my initial resolution that I sent to the board. Are we willing now to vote on that? So,
so, so Madam, madam chair
for so I'm about and don't, don't forget that we do have,
I know we have additional speakers, but the media time slot is not going to wait for us to just complete all of this. So so we, if I appreciate the support, but just one, one moment we've running out, trying to do a couple of things and talking to those that are in support. There's an attorney that's moving, there's an attorney that's filing a stay, which is the main way to make sure that if he is being deported, that deportation don't take place, or that's the only thing that can help halt it. So the statement, not just a resolution, but a statement. Our communications person is she still here, if we can get a media advisory, a press statement that can leave out within the next 50 minutes. We can make 30 minutes we can make the news tonight is
Miss Wilson here. Miss Wilson is in the back. Okay,
I have sent, I have sent Miss Wilson, a text message, waiting on the I'm waiting on the statement right now. We need
a statement, a I can write it a little quicker than this, but we need a statement. I.
