Good evening. Good evening. Good evening. We are going to go ahead and get started with our regular board meeting today is May the 16th. The time is 533 and we are being hosted graciously again by Western International High School. Madam Secretary, can we please have a roll call? Angelique Peterson Mayberry President Misha Stallworth, Sonia mais Dr. Iris Taylor sharegate Agnolo the trees McClendon Bishop colada Vaughn, Madam Chair, you have a quorum Thank you
can we have the meeting norms on the screen? Thank you. We respect the right of all persons to participate in this public meeting of the board and kindly request that everyone engage in behavior that supports the same in the event that any one engages in behavior that is not in support of the good, we request that you refrain from that behavior. At this time, we will have our school presentations we have a Mumford High School Color Guard Excuse me.
What domains
or domains.
Mark March.
Thank you, Darren our moment of silence. today. We have two fallen dpscd family members. We have Mr. Darwin Vinson from cook Elementary. And we have young Mr. Jamari Williams from Marcus Garvey Academy. So during our moment of silence, if you can remember and lift up the families of Mr. Vinson and young Mr. Williams
Thank you, if you could please rise for the Star Spangled Banner and Lift Every Voice and Sing done by our students from Duke Ellington and Durfee group
Oh, say can you say?
Sad
So.
Yes, you may be seated. Let's give another round of applause from our students from Duke Ellington and from Mumford High School Color Guard and the Durfee group.
Talented Students will now move to item number three on the agenda, the approval of the agenda as presented. Is there support? Support? It's been properly moved and supported. Any discussion? All those in favor of approving the agenda as presented signify by saying aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries. Thank you. Item number four the approval of meeting minutes 4.01 through 4.08. We have our regular board meeting minutes from April to at 2023. Our regular board meeting closed session minutes from April 18 2023. Our academic committee meeting minutes from April the 24th 2023. Our policy ad hoc committee meeting minutes from April the 26th 2023. Our finance committee meeting minutes from April The 28th 2023 are a special board meeting minutes from May to third 2023. Our special board meeting minutes from May the 12th 2023. And our special board meeting closed session minutes from May 12 2023. Is there a desire to tie up our item 4.01 through 4.08? Is there support the motion on the Florida tie bar from member Mays supported by Dr. Taylor any discussion? All those in favor of Ty barn 4.01 through 4.08 signify by saying aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion carried the chair now entertain a motion for the tie bar of items 4.1 through 4.08. Is your support properly. The motion was placed on the floor by member Mays was properly supported by Dr. Taylor. Any discussion? All those in favor of the tie bar signify by saying aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion carried chair remarks. I'll keep the remarks brief. I know we have a lot on the agenda today. But I did want to lift up as our students are so talented in and outside the district and what they do. Each year we have students who participate in the in a CP art and essay contests and each year we have first second and third place winners So this year, first place for elementary art. We have Miss Carly law, a fifth grader at flics second grade art. Miss REO Edwards fourth grader at Davison Elementary, and third grade art Aneesa Mia, fourth grader at Davidson Elementary. For our elementary school essay, we have our first place winner Kumari law. third grader at flicks. We have that's our only one. for middle school first place from Paul Robeson. Malcolm X we have tie Lea tie Leah Wilson to Elektra lair Wilson to Leia Wilson. What how do you pronounce it? So Leah we have to Lea Wilson first place winner for the middle school art from Paul Robeson Malcolm X. She's seventh grader. We also have second place Malayala Johnson eighth grade at Bates Academy, third grade Xavier Collins fourth and sixth grader at Davidson Elementary. for middle school essay we have first place tie EDA Tasnim eighth grader at Davidson Elementary, second place Fatima Begum, third grader at Davidson LM m sorry eighth grader at Davidson Elementary. And then our third grader is Ishrat ik ball, eighth grader at Davidson elementary for high school art. First place a Marianna Taylor a ninth grader at East English village Preparatory Academy of any second place. Zion Jones 11th grader at Cass tech and third grader Xavier gay Nora 12th grader at Mumford High School and finally for our high school essay. We have first place Kailyn parks 10th grader at Cass tech. We have second grader Kasia I'm sorry that's not our district. And our third place was Skylar Posey, a 10th grader at Cass tech so if we can give all of our art and essay you try branch NAACP winners thank you to their support staff at the school and at home. The students will have their they had their art and essays on display for at a reception. They also will have items on display at the dinner. So that's exciting. The Office of exceptional student education shares the following updates. Gifted Detroit was held on Saturday, May 6 at Cass tech and we welcome foremost expert in underrepresented youth in Gifted Education. Dr. Joy Lawson Davis, we share the best way to support students who are academically talented or gifted. Each participant received a copy of the book bright, talented and black, a guide for families of black and brown gifted learners. For more information you can contact Valerie dot Jackson Detroit K twelve.org. Another first for the office of exceptional students. dpscd hosted the Special Olympics regional tournament on May 6 At eight English big village at Penny. This is the first time this Special Olympics regional has been held in Detroit. The Office of exceptional student education is moving to work toward Thursday, May 18, hosting Detroit Day at the Capitol to advocate for equitable funding for special education. So please check the website for more information. We also know that May is Mental Health Awareness Month, so please make sure to address and maintain your civility with your mental health. We know that it's important not only for our adults, but also for our students. I know our young people have some some announcements so I will save some of these and allow the young people because they're the same so I will allow you all to do that portion. And that will conclude the chair remarks. At this time public comment registration has closed the time is 547547. Public comment registration has closed. We'll now move into our finance report from our CFO.
Good evening board members and community This evening we're presenting the financials through the month of March. As you can see here dpscd Are DPS continue to receive tax collection millages little over a million dollars for both the 13 and 18 mills. The next large payment will be made with the end of the year reconciliation. DPS already is on track to exceed collections for the year based on higher tax collections and an increase in property values in the city of Detroit. We did complete borrowing of approximately $90 million off in school loan revolving fund to make all debt payments on the 13 Mills debt Regarding dpscd local revenue reimbursements were higher than initially projected an additional $1.5 million related to the south eastern repairs, an additional grant of 1.5 million from Goldman Sachs. This was the Balmer initiative, that of the funding that came through that month. Overall state revenue includes additional $25 million in MIPS payments, this is passed through. It was approved by the governor we received the revenue but we have to make the expenses out so the exact dollars that are paid out to mutters as a payment, so there's no additional net gain for the district. overall expenditures are in line with projections. As we look at available cash, this combines the two slides that were broken apart previously are back together in one. So you can see the capital funds in here as well as the overall general fund and available dollars. We have approximately 24 weeks available cash at this point, which is where we want to be going through into the summer, as you and the community will know there are no state aid payments in the month of September. So we'll have available cash to continue to make all payments and salary payments through the end of the year. Lastly, we had approximately $21 million in COVID related expenditures in the month of March primarily related to academic intervention supports after school programming at schools related to and for students. And then additional budget transfers for our facility master plan. And to date since 2020, we've spent $661 million of COVID related funds. That concludes my report.
Thank you, Mr. Detail. Do we have any questions for the CFO member gay tecnova? Thank you
through the chair, that slide before this. I for one we had difficulty here I mean, board member McClendon Thank you bring students and families back to our schools. 4,849,926. Can you expound on that? What that is?
Yes, the question was related to what are the expenditures listed under brings students families back to our school, the $4.8 million. So this related to this specific direct engagement, canvassing phone or phone calls door knocking and engagement of students who were part of the district, but didn't return back during COVID, that you are not allowed to use federal dollars for marketing. So any of the marketing work the district has been doing has been funded through general fund. This is specifically engagement for students who were part of the district but did not return. As Dr. Vidya said we had lost about 3000, we've returned back about 1000 of those kids. But it was the engagement related to those 3000 students.
Thank you. So it's my understanding from what you just said. Basically, $5 million to get 1000 students back. Yes. Thank you.
Any more questions? scuze. Me? Yes. Up to the chair. Remember, Dr. Peter was in salaries? Could you give us a little bit of so for 4.8 million? Was it in salaries? Was it in marketing materials was an advertising what actually took place? For that amount?
Sure, through the chair, as Mr. Video said, we felt like the the best strategy to bring students back to school after the height of the pandemic was door to door knocking. And that happened through schools, through families and through central office, going door to door at the at the going into the 2021 year. It was also about knocking on doors to talk about accessibility to the connected futures device. Talking about schools at least being open for online learning, the opportunity to have laptops repaired or replaced, especially if the connected futures device was not working. And you had challenges with that. But when you think about having students come back to school, I mean outside of door to door knocking and marketing about schools being open. You know, when you think about best practices, I don't know what other best practices there are. The only way to get students to come back is talking directly to the families. I'd also say that we also funded a parent. We also funded a parent liaison at every school. And that also helped with bridging that gap between schools and communities and families. And as you know, we're fun In that again next year through title one. So when you looked at DPS CDS market share in the city, our market share actually showed less last and city charter schools. So we've done something differently and better than our competitors directly in the city. But as we built the COVID budget, we obviously had quite a few engagement sessions, with employees, with families with the community, and I don't recall specific requests to use COVID money differently than we did to bring children back directly.
Okay, thank you. Any more questions? Or comments from the board? Oh, members? Member Hatton? Yes, excuse me, we have a head member head. For the section where it says meet Social Can you come to the mic? It seems like for some reason for the
session that says meeting social and emotional needs of students. What does that include?
Those are directly related to the behavioral health contracts that the district signed, where we have additional license, master's level social workers and counselors in the schools providing supplemental services beyond our counselors or social workers. Those are the supplemental services that are being provided to all K 12 schools.
And do you know if that's equitably funded among all schools and DPS, or is that just certain schools,
also, all schools receive services, we tried to again, prioritize more services and full time work at larger schools. So not we were not able to identify 107 full time employee contract employees to bring on to some schools only had part time staff. We tried to divert full time staff to larger schools and schools that have higher needs. That is also reflected in our Title One allocations. Were larger schools and higher needs schools receive more counselors as part of the regular Title One allocation.
Member McClendon
Yeah, just through the chair, it will be helpful if you could just I know we've talked about meeting social emotional needs, but if you could just walk us through kind of each of the areas, it will be helpful to understand what we're funding. So if you can, we, we talked about bringing students and families back going about what is it? Could you explain, maximize, say, face to face learning and the rest of the areas that you've highlighted here?
Yes. So I will just be happy to provide the four sides and actually the four slides in the detail are available on the website for anyone who would like to go
share I'm sorry. I don't know if it's these these things right here. Something I cannot AV person adjust the sound. We're having difficulty hearing. You can't hear over there. It's muffled okay, it's very muffled. Right.
It may Where's a Where's AV? Okay, can we work on? And I know for us, we have to come literally up to the mic. But can you please work on the podium mic where Mr. perdido is and Mr. Medina. Oh, can you make sure you are directly on the mic?
Yes. Is this any better? Yes. Okay. Sorry about that. So as I was saying, the details are all on our website, Detroit k one two.org. You can go to the budget and transparency page and see all the detailed budgets in the spending detail. But maximize safe face to face learning was related to again, ensuring that our students were safe as returned back to COVID. The COVID testing that was implemented was paid through here, the PPE the temperature checks, monitors the additional sort of supports, again, just to make sure that we are meeting all the COVID necessary protocols, and meeting the academic needs of our students in person and virtually the costs associated with launching our virtual school. The additional technology that was purchased to ensure gain as we went remote and needed to have devices available the technology hubs, the additional teachers during COVID We reduce class size to meet the spacing requirements and hired additional teachers are included in here. Additional academic interventionists that were budgeted for and paid for and hired were here. We talked about meeting the social emotional needs. investing in our employees, we had the learning recovery supplement the hazard pay, we had COVID mitigation pay where we were paying staff to arrive early work during lunch periods. Additionally, we had credit recovery pay, where we are paying additional staff to do credibly credit recovery or additional six period classes for a high school student. And then the budget to transfer to fund facilities that is related to the facility master plan and fully funding the $700 million that will go into the district facilities. There are a few other items that I may have missed the categories on, we have nurses. So we hire nursing. So there's a contract nursing school, and has been there since COVID. And I believe that covers all the major categories. But again, all the details are available on our website.
So is there any doctor at any addition to Mr. perdidos? No. Any more questions?
Just just Madam Chair as a point of clarity, this is through it says through March 31 2023. But for the purpose of clearly understanding it's 2020 or 2021, or is COVID expenditure summary. This is over what period of time,
right? Since the announcement of the COVID pandemic, march 12 2020. This is a tracking of all expenditures the district has made since
then that's what I wanted to get to this is over 2020 2122 23
Correct. The previous slide is just this year that this slide is just experienced expenditures during the 2020 to 2023 school year. The second slide is the cumulative all expenditures since the pandemic was announced. Thank you.
So Mr. perdido is slide the previous slide is that added here, that slide there are those totals in the next slide as well?
Correct. The 140 $4 million that we have spent this fiscal year is included in the $661 million total.
So the the line that says through March 31 2023, is actually through May.
These financials are all through March. All the financials that we're looking at today are through March 31. We closed the month and then we presented at a finance committee. And so for the May committee meeting, you're always looking at the financials through the end of March, or the end of the month and a half before
the previous month. Any more questions for the CFO? If not, thank you, Mr. batido. You file this for auditing purposes. We will now move into the superintendents report. The recognition of district core values.
Thank you Madam Chair. Miss Wilson. I'll please Have you come up to announce those that we're going to recognize tonight.
Thank you, Dr. VD we have quite a few scholars tonight. Excellent. Okay, let's get started. So the core value of excellence states be relentless in your pursuit of greatness. Be bold and innovate. Learn from your mistakes, hold yourself and others to high standards. Each year, United States Chess Federation, known as the US CF host over 10,000 tournaments, over half a million games in over 25 national championships for players ranging from elementary school students to senior citizens. This year, U S. C F hosted the K six blitz competition in Baltimore, Maryland. And the Bates Academy chess team came in first place out of 16 teams.
Tonight, we recognize the following students and coaches for winning the U S. C. F k six, blitz competition. Priest price. Mikayla gaffer Grace Matthews, honor canon Camden or Jace Martin Dylan key, the Ron Coleman Jr. Carter Marquardt. Marshawn. Miller said D. Jennings coach Robert Ellis, Coach Nicole key. Trenton chambers, Madison Walker. Congratulations and thank you for exemplifying excellence and representing these psad and Baltimore, Maryland.
And let's give a huge applause to their parents as we stay for the photo we know without those parents and those teachers would not be here with these young people and others greatness tonight
right Give it up one last time, congratulations. Okay, we're gonna have you guys x squared off the stage so we can bring in our next group, because we're just surrounded by excellence tonight. So again, just as a reminder, the core value of excellence states to be relentless in your pursuit of greatness. Be bold and innovate, learn from your mistakes, hold yourself and others to high standards. And so what were so science, technology, engineering and math are infused in the strategic plan priority outstanding achievement. As you all know, we have restore academic games, chess and robotics to the district. For the first time in dpscd, history, the middle school robotics teams of foreign language immersion and Cultural Studies, school flicks, were invited to the international 2023 For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology championship. They competed against 59 countries and over 18,000 students. Though the team they did not win, Coach Leon Pryor was the recipient of the conference Award, which recognizes him as one of the best coaches in the world. And now he and our students are part are a part of positive DPS history as being the first of the middle schoolers to go to this competition. So tonight, we recognize the following students and coaches and the proud moms who said they've been up since 5am, helping their students and their efforts at the 2023 first championship, so Tanisha Powell, Tyree Ramey, and mom shall Lithia Aslan Fleming and Mrs. Fleming, Joshua Baker, Jasleen Gonzalez, Pharaoh Kirkland, and Inada and budget dash Dan McDonald and mom Veronica, Rebecca Rucker, Coach Dr. John Clark queendom coach Kayla Baker and coach Leon Pryor, who is the best coach in the world. So robotics team, thank you for showing the world what dpscd students are capable of coach John Clark queendom and Kayla Baker for coaching them through the achievement and coach Leon prayer who couldn't be with us today because he is the best in the world after all, for being the recipient of the compass award.
Okay. All right. Let's thank those parents out there who was up at 5am and those teachers and proud supporters, we thank you so much. Let's give him a round of applause. All right, we have one more. So each year the Michigan Department of Education MBE in the Michigan Department of Agriculture and Rural Development celebrate National School Lunch hero day by acknowledging a school nutrition professional who is committed to the students of their district. This year, Carl Williams, Executive Director of the Office of School Nutrition was recognized by the MBE ma rd as the 2023 school lunch hero. He is responsible for school based meal preparation Choosing all 100 plus dpscd schools, all United States Department of Agriculture Child Nutrition Programs and ensuring our students are healthy. We are celebrating Mr. Williams for the core value of excellence because he is relentless in his pursuit of greatness he has been bold and he innovates he's learned from his mistakes and he holds himself and others to high standards Congratulations Mr. Carl Williams.
Empire
next month, all of the athletes
Thank you, Miss Wilson. At this point, I'll review our metrics for the month. As we discuss every month, we review the strategic plan metrics and just an update for the latest numbers for this month. Enrollment currently stands at 40,050 students. This is an increase as compared to last year. As we've already talked about with Mr. Videos update, and we've been talking about for the past three years, we lost 3000 students in the aggregate after the pandemic, rebounding with 1000. And so that continues to be our challenge with next year's budget, and also an opportunity. Our work and enrollment next year are moving into the summer, we'll continue to be canvassing and direct marketing for schools with the greatest potential for improvement based on the market chairs in their neighborhoods, meaning instead of taking more of a city wide or district wide approach with more limited funds, we're going to be concentrating our efforts in schools where our numbers show us that there's a large percentage of school aged children next to those schools. And we will be focusing our canvassing and marketing and those particular schools. Re enrollment rates this is the percentage of students that reenroll from Fall to Fall is about 70,000, which has been consistent before the pandemic are our average student attendance right now is at 83%, which is roughly eight to seven percentage points higher than last year. I'm proud to say with about a month left of school, our average daily attendance rates have rebounded to pre pandemic levels. So if the trend continues at 83%, which I think it will, then we will have rebounded with average student daily attendance at pre pandemic levels. Right now our chronic absenteeism rate is at 63%. This is about a 1314 percentage point improvement versus last year. And similarly, we're almost at where we were before the pandemic with chronic absenteeism. Teachers with excellent the moderate attendance right now at 67% to about a 710 percentage point increase from last year and better than it was before the pandemic Love Challenge prepared which is our focus on climate and culture as viewed by students. The 31% is not final. This is our interim data. We did run questions at mid year so schools can make adjustments based on what students were thinking at mid year, rather than waiting to the end of the year and reviewing the data over the summer and making changes for the next year. That's an improvement versus last year. The final numbers will not be out until this summer, and then all of our survey data will be out in the next couple of months. The surveys are completed but we have to tabulate the data and receive that from our third party. When it comes to student achievement. Obviously what matters most I'm in from a judgment of how the school district is doing is m step and PSATs at our students are completing that process now, we will start to get third grade results relatively soon. But right now our best data indicators are mid year data. At mid year 53% of students were showing at least one or more years of growth at the K eight level and reading that nears pre pandemic levels where we were at 54%, at least for literacy. As I mentioned in previous presentations, most proud of the kind of improvement that we're seeing with students in the bottom 30. At mid year 60% of our students in the bottom 30 Were showing one or more years of growth that's substantially better than where they were before the pandemic at 47%. So we believe that if our our most fragile struggling students are showing improvement, then all students are likely to show improvement, because that's just based on their tier two and tier three intervention process. So definitely moving in the right direction. I think our M step data will show that when students results come back the summer, early fall in mathematics, 55% of students are showing one or more year of growth as compared to 57% before the pandemic, but about a four percentage point improvement versus last year. And again, if you look at our bottom 30 at the K to eight level 64% are showing one more year one or more year of growth. That's about a six percentage point improvement versus before the pandemic. We are trending based on our mid year data on indefinitely improving and adding above grade level performance in both literacy and math on M step. Our mid year data does not show that we will be above where we were before the pandemic but just about one to two percentage points where we were before the pandemic. So the bottom line is if based on our Meteor data if all things go and trend as they were mid year, then by the end of this year when the M step results are back, at least in the aggregate. We should be about where we were before the pandemic which means that the aggregate we've narrowed the gap with the learning loss that was seen during the pandemic. It doesn't mean that every individual chill child has rebounded since the pandemic is a learning loss point of view. But in the aggregate, we are relatively close based on our mid year data. Last year's graduation rate showed improvement about a six percentage point improvement. We won't have next this year's graduation rates until about mid year next year. As far as college readiness data is concerned and literacy or at least students taking college level classes. This is dual enrollment, advanced placement. IB 50% of students at the high school level are taking those classes and at this point 44 have passed. That's mainly based on the first semester data. As far as staffing is concerned, right now we have 20 or 57 teacher vacancies. Last year, we really didn't have any teacher vacancies looking at the surplus. individual schools had vacancies. But when you look at the
scuze me just so everyone can hear. Please let's be respectful. Everyone is trying to hear there's public comment right after this.
So 57 vacancies district wide as far as teachers are concerned, we have about three schools with three vacancies and we have about 12 schools with two vacancies. The other vacancies are spread out across the district. When we look at support staff, we have 42 vacancies that consists that consists of eight academic interventionists 10 security guards 10 para pre K vacancies, an E and 13 ESC para vacancies our enrollment of professional development is much higher this year compared to last year. We are excited about 55% or really 56% of students eating breakfast, but that number is still too low, lower than about 58% That that was our last full year before the pandemic hit. And 74% of students are eating lunch. It's an improvement as compared to last year and even higher than before the pandemic but we are very excited about the cafeteria staff restructuring plan that we have in place next year or our cafeterias workers will make more as far as an hourly rate, be able to work a full day and gain full benefits for working a full day. We think that will help recruitment and retention so that we can finally be fully staffed with our cafeterias throughout the district, our days to process invoices, the first number is overall, the second number is specific to operations. So 18 days right now to process invoices, district wide and 16 days for operations. When we look at invoices past due right now 16% overall and 39% and operations, the main challenge there on the positive is that we're processing more invoices for facility and maintenance upgrades. So we're just processing more invoices. Paycheck errors are less than one per $10,000. That's an improvement versus last year. And we're looking at about 13 days, 12 days to actually from the beginning an RFP to closing an RFP. Madam Chair, that concludes my presentation.
Thank you. Any questions or comments from the board? We know that the subcommittee meetings, there's more in depth working conversations around some of the metrics around what the district is doing as it relates to academics, and policy and finance. But there has been requests from stakeholders to make sure that this information is shared every month. So that is an attempt to make sure that there's information that is shared every month with the numbers. Member gates at NOVA.
Yes, thank you, Madam Chair. So I couldn't hear it. Well, if it was broken down in the staff vacancies? Could that could you clarify? Teacher and then add support staff? If those are breaking broken down into? What are the teachers and what are the vacancies for the support staff?
So T to T stands for teachers, and that's 57, district wide. And then SS stands for support staff. So that would include non administration, non teacher so clerical, Paras security guards? That's basically sums up support staff
out of that S S? How many? Currently Paris? Are we short?
Right now based on at least this allocation plan. So this year's allocation plan 10, pre K Paris. Now that number is going to increase next year, because we're increasing pre K classes across the district, as one of our main strategies to increase enrollment. As we've been talking, and this is relevant to today's conversation that's already occurred around enrollment, when when we look at the city's demographics, we're not seeing an increase in residential rates. But So the opportunity is to have students enroll in our pre K programs. So then that they stay in our district over time. So to answer your question 10, pre K para vacancies. And that will increase, probably at least to this point to maybe 20 to 25, based on the number of pre K classes that we're opening.
Thank you that's based on what's proposed for the new budget. Correct. But currently, how many pairs are we short?
So the I only have the pre K number. As far as kindergarten, Paris, I would say, off memory by memory, probably 2025 kindergarten pair of vacancies. And that's one of the reasons why we're not recommending central office funding of kindergarten Paris, because they have been hard to recruit for that position.
Madam Chair, one more for the virtual school capacity issue, and I know it was discussed to recruit additional teachers. After ordering the move to Northwestern, could you speak to what the actual virtual class size is supposed to look like? And how many additional teachers are we recruiting to? Are we short in the virtual school?
So we don't, I can, I can look up the exact numbers but I don't believe we have any kind of vacancy challenge in the virtual school at all. I don't even anticipate the need for teachers in a virtual school next year. We have about we have 300 about 300 students in the virtual school. And that that low number I don't anticipate a need to recruit many virtual school teachers at during the meeting I'll pull the actual numbers for you regarding the class sizes of the virtual school, but based on the numbers that we committed to at the beginning of the year, we've been consistent in that area, because we haven't seen a large increase in virtual school enrollment.
Thank you. I know, I just know, I've gotten a couple of emails. And I just want to make it clear, when it comes to the class size, what's the capacity, just because it's virtual don't mean the responsibility for serving several students isn't there and may not create a burden. And also just the space where they are. Because it's my understanding that there are several classes taken place in the same room, albeit virtual, but each teacher can hear each teacher and their audience can hear also. So I just want to make sure that we clarify what the plan is, as we move the virtual school and what the capacity of the class size should be.
Yeah, so there are multiple teachers in one classroom space, they obviously they're teaching virtual, they do have headphones, that cancel out the noise of one another, if you will. Okay, so that's right now the what's happening at CMA, when students
Scuse me, excuse me, please, let's just please, there is only one way that everyone can hear. And if everyone is talking, people are texting saying that they can't hear. So can we please be respectful, there will be a time where we can hear from you. Please be respectful for those who are trying to hear the presentation. Thank you so much, we really appreciate it.
So as we transition the virtual school from CMA to Northern, currently, the plan is for teachers to be in the same classroom. If that needs to be revisited, we will. But we also have to keep in mind that the advantage of we may not be able to have one teacher in every classroom, but I, I this issue was raised at the academic committee meeting, or the Finance Committee meeting, I don't remember which one during public comment. And if we need to revisit, better canceling noise equipment, if we need to consider the possibility of people being in individual classrooms, because it's disrupting teaching, then I'm open to doing that, I just think that what we're trying to avoid
what we're trying to avoid is a school situation where we're, we're using a school building the same way as if students are in it. That doesn't make much sense if we're having a virtual school. But I do understand that it could disrupt instruction. So if there's better ways of doing that, and I know DFT mentioned it at the meeting, then we will problem solve to look at that I just don't want to be in a position to commit to necessarily a classroom for every teacher. But I'm, I am cognizant of the challenge of teaching, if you're constantly hearing someone in the background, so
absolutely, just like how it's difficult for us to process when we hear people in the audience speak out, we want to be cognizant of that. If they are if, if they if if there are six people in a room, as it was articulated to me, I could see that would be challenging for me. I can understand though not It didn't have to be one teacher in a row, maybe two. And then like you said, noise canceling boards, they have those things that you can buy the cushion to eliminate some of the sound echoing off the walls. But having having six or even four is too many. So certainly revisit that so that they don't feel like when I mean I'm I'm teaching I'm talking I'm moving. So that wouldn't work with with two of me in a room wouldn't work. So you know, that's something to consider.
Yeah. And similarly, as similarly as to former teachers. I think when we were teaching, we ensure that our teachers were teaching when we were talking so that the class could hear us as well.
Okay, any more questions in regards? So Dr. VD? Is it safe to say that those who are in virtual school the equipment that they need is provided and if not, what needs to happen because it's, we're less than a month away from schools, the end of school so I would have thought that anybody who needed equipment to effectively teach during virtual school went ahead and prior to now,
through the Chair, I know the way I understand the problem now and going into next year. is that it's not a question of equipment. It's the issue of multiple teachers being in one classroom. I have not heard any issues about equipment.
Any any other questions? Go ahead, member small. So for the test, you probably have to just come all the way to the mic so everybody can hear.
Is this good? Okay. So on one of the slides, it mentions the Love Challenge prepared index. I have two questions. The first one is it says 31.2, I believe? What is the scale for that? Is that a percentage? And secondly, is the money that addresses social emotional needs? Is that what the metric that we're using to determine how effective it is?
To the chair? So that's a percentage of students who would based on the survey would be considered feeling love challenge prepared on all three areas. So a student may feel challenged, but not loved. They may feel prepared, but not loved. So you'd have to answer the questions the student adds to the survey, in a positive way, in all three areas to be in that 31%. So if you break down each of those, they may be higher. And so that survey is done by a third party. It's a research based survey, and does ask questions around, you know, does my does my teacher feel that I'm capable of doing grade level work? Does my teacher connect with me beyond the coursework? So those other questions asked, and then they're tallied up? And based on what the response is nationally? And based on what would be considered loved based on the numbers answered, then that's how you get that percentage. And and and teachers can see those results. They're at a teacher level, they're at a school level, and then district level, and are what we have been trying to do is analyze that data so that we can be more reflective on how we're ensuring that that students feel loved, challenged and prepared individual classroom level, school level and district wide as well.
Thank you. And then one more follow up? Is there a way for us to see the breakdown of like students who might feel challenged but don't fit into the other groups? Because I know you said it's through a third party. So I don't know if that's possible, or if they collect that data?
Yeah, we definitely have the data from last year. And we have the interim data as well. So I can share that with you. And you can look at that district wide individual school. And we want to look at the data so that we can learn what where things are going well, and how we can replicate that. And then where we problem solve with the data is lacking.
Thank you. Thank you have any more questions or comments from the superintendents report? If not, the chair entertain a motion to accept the superintendents report. Is their support has been properly moved by member Vaughn properly supported by member McClendon, any discussion? All those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries. Thank you. We will now go into public comment.
Madam Chair, would you Madam Chair, would you entertain an amendment to the agenda? I'm sorry? Would you entertain an amendment to the agenda? Okay. I like to move that we bring forward the Consent Agenda action item and all sub points under it. So all the 13 and all the 14 before closed session. So it will come after public comment. But before we go into closed session.
Okay. So the motion on the floor is to move a consent agenda items item 13.01 through 13.16. After public comment, as well as item 14, which is the second read and first read policies after the consent agenda items. So 13 and 14 will go before item number 10. On the agenda which is closed session. Support. It's been properly moved by member Mays properly supported by member gates ag no go any discussion? All those in favor of the amendment to the agenda signify by saying aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries. Thank you. And we appreciate doing that because we want our student ambassadors to be present for as much of the meeting as possible. We know they are students and that they they have have school tomorrow. So we want to make sure that they are present for those action items on the agenda. Madam,
Madam Chair, I believe we were supposed to also have a section to bring student announcements.
Okay, you want to make an amendment to do that? You want to do that now? Okay, go ahead, put a motion on the floor,
I make a motion to amend the agenda to include a section. I would like to make a motion to amend the agenda to include a spinner report from the other student representative. And
I so so the board members heard her. We know she can't put a motion on the floor, but that is her desire. So if we can have a board member, bring that to the floor and get it supported. Okay, so Dr. Taylor has put the motion on the floor to make sure that we have our student ambassadors. We can Where were you trying to have that on the agenda? One more time? Where are you trying to have that on?
During this time right now, please?
Okay. So before public comment. Okay. So the motion on the floor, is to have the student ambassadors go right before public comment. And after the superintendents report. That is the motion on the floor by Dr. Taylor. Is there support? It's been properly supported by member Vaughn, any discussion? All those in favor of adding the student report? Right now? So after the superintendence report before public comments signify by saying Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries. Thank you. We will now hear from our student ambassadors. Member small you want to go first?
Yes. Good evening. dpscd community and school board.
So you probably have to come directly to the mic. I don't know. Give me one second. So to avi Is there any way we can turn the volume of the mics up? They are up to capacity. Okay, so when you are speaking please just come directly to the mic and amplify your voice so everyone can hear.
Thank you. Um, good evening, dpscd community and school board. My name is Mr. Small and I in longhand will be presenting some things that have been raised by students in the dpscd community. To start we would like to discuss the language barrier between many students and teachers at DIA and Western. Some of the students do not fluently speak English and therefore cannot adequately like participate in classes, they cannot interact with the textbooks. And oftentimes, the teachers do not speak the first language to the students. And it makes a situation where the students cannot flourish in the school environment where they in the way that they should they deserve to. So we would just like to encourage community, supporting to the student and community action to ensure that they can make they can communicate with their teachers and adequately consume their lessons.
Secondly, we would just like to raise the legislature raise the issue about accessibility when it comes to school board meetings. I know a lot of our parents expressed that, especially after school, it is really grueling and straining to come to the school board meeting, considering the fact that they have all of our stakeholders have four days before the school board meetings. It is a bit taxing the time we have it and also the location a lot of students raised a problem with the location I know previously, the school board meeting shifted every six months to one school on the east side and one on the west. So we would ask Could that be rung back? And also is it a possibility for meetings to be held on weekends so that it can be more accessible for all of our stakeholders?
Thank you like to we like to raise some positives in the school community as well. For starters, we would like to highlight serenity Hunt, who attends Crockett who received a full ride scholarship to them.
And we're gonna name a lot of different highlights. So if we can hold the applause at the end so we can get through them more efficiently. Next, the king baseball team is currently undefeated, so they really want to raise that.
For students from Frederick Douglass, Steve Jones, xylon Holmes, Keith Morales and Ashton Colson will be going to speak at the NAF conference and next month I believe.
High schoolers David aerospace are making a difference by helping elementary school students at Carson elementary school regularly.
And lastly, the amount of Otter students at CMA has risen significantly since last year. In some categories and grade levels, it has actually doubled. So we would just like to highlight all of the amazing students in our district and their achievements. And that concludes our report. Thank you. Thank you.
Thank you. So Dr. V. There's a motion on the floor to receive either Student Ambassador report, is there. Is there support support? It's been properly moved by Dr. Taylor properly supported by member Vaughn, any discussion? All those in favor signify by saying Aye. Any opposed? Motion carry. Dr. Vitti, I know language barriers was brought up in particular to Western. For the school board locations, we will be happy when they are in one location, which is going to be the old northern building on what we're like most districts there is a building with adequate space and parking and all of the bells and whistles to have school board meetings. Because that has not existed. Recently, under this administration, we've tried to move the meetings every six to eight months to a different part of the city. So before Western, we were at King, and so the next started in July, the board meetings will be at Mumford. And so we try to make sure that geographically we could hit all parts of the city. And the board meetings are still also virtual. So just making sure that people have access to them as well. We know everyone can't come out to a school board meeting. So we do want to make sure that that virtual opportunity is available as well. And it's, I guess we can put to the board something to think about and marinate on a Saturday meeting. So thank you for bringing that up. Thank you, Dr. Vitti, the language barriers at Western?
Sure. So the district does provide additional resources when we have a concentration of English language learners at schools that typically comes through paraprofessionals or academic interventionist. One thing that we are looking to do at Western going into next year, is to consider a new comer type of program, where students that are newly arrived to the country and do not have very many English language skills, is to put them in more of a self contained environment to provide deeper support, and better engagement. That's something that we had been talking a lot, we were even talking about a new school to do that. But knowing that we were trying to reduce the number of buildings that were using and maximize the buildings, we moved away from that. But we are exploring something at Western in particular, as far as a new Comfort type of program where then teachers would just be assigned to those students. And it'll be more of a shelter type of situation so that you can intensify the support. But to directly answer your question, there are additional allocations for English language learners through parents and academic interventionists.
I have never had. So I know you went into specifically Western, but you mentioned that para educators and academic interventionist are the ones who are helping those students who have the language barriers. When those jobs are laid off at those other schools, how would those students be able to accomplish
that the chair there is no proposal to reduce those individuals, that separate funding source and the different personnel? Also, we did negotiate an agreement with our unions to incentivize the hiring of bilingual staff across the board. So that makes sure that we diversify our staff and we have more students, no more staff that speak the native language of students and parents when they come into the school.
So there's no reduction and no member smile.
Um, you mentioned you went into detail about Western does that all apply to dia as well because I know this is a problem there as well.
So at DIA, I believe by memory. There's also additional staff there specifically for English language learners. I believe there's either an additional teacher allocation and or para allocation at the Detroit International Academy for girls.
