Board of Education - Regular Meeting

I did not. I now call this meeting of the Board of Education to order. I would like to remind everyone that some of our meeting presenters may participate by zoom. Mr. Oginski, may we have a roll call, please? Trustee Baskette. Yes. President Feaster here. Trustee. Muhammad. Trustee. Schmidt. Present. Trustee. Wilkins here. Trustee. Wilkes. Present. I would now like to introduce the non-voting member at the table. Jaz parks, superintendent of schools. Good evening. Thank you, President Feaster. And that brings us to the lead in a statement, I believe Vice President Wilkes will be reading that for us. Please. Absolutely. We acknowledge that the Ann Arbor Public School District occupies the ancestral, traditional and contemporary lands of the of the Anishinaabe Anishinabe. Three Fires Confederacy, the Ottawa, Ottawa, Ojibwe, Chippewa, and. Potawatomi. The taking of this land was formalized in a process alien to native cultures by the Treaty of Detroit in 1807. The Ann Arbor Public Schools recognizes that many other native peoples lived on this land at different times, including the Fox, Sauk, Shawnee, Kickapoo, Miami, Muscatine, and Cherokee, many of whom were forcibly removed from their homelands, acknowledge it. Acknowledgement by itself is a small gesture and does not exist in the past or solely in a historical context. Colonialism is a current, ongoing process, and we understand our responsibility in educating students about our participation. We further recognize the ongoing relationship and dependence upon and respect for all living beings of earth, sky, and water. It is our responsibility to care for this land, and we honor with our deepest gratitude the native people who have and will continue to steward it for generations.

Thank you very much for that. President Wilks. I believe that brings us down to approval of the agenda, trustees. Is there a motion to approve the agenda? So moved. Moved by Trustee Schmidt. Second. Supported by Vice President Wilkes. And discussion. Seeing none. Please. Trustee Baskette. Yes. President. Feaster. Yes. Trustee. Muhammad. Yes. Trustee. Schmidt. Yes. Trustee. Wilkins. Yes. Trustee. Wilkes. Yes. Motion carries. Thank you. Missiles. That's good. That now brings us down to public commentary. The board. The board would like to remind everyone the individuals who have signed up for public commentary will have their name called and will be given the opportunity to speak. Comments will receive up to four minutes. And the public commentary period will be limited to 45 minutes. When your name is called, please come forward and speak at the microphone to help manage your time. A clock will be placed on the screen in front of you. We would like to remind everyone that public comments generally pertain to Ann Arbor Public School District matters. Comments about any individual or individuals are expressly prohibited. Also, please understand that board members do not respond to public comments, but we will listen carefully and will follow up as appropriate. Mr.. How many times do we have for this evening? We have 26 signed up this evening. Thank you. Each person will get one minute, 45 seconds. Thank you. Mr.. First is Jennifer Rippey. Good evening. Members of the board. Superintendent parks, I'm here in support of the Michigan ESP Bill of rights, because one job should be enough. Do you know what it actually costs to support a family here in Washtenaw County? The living wage for our county is 1680 per hour. And

that's only two working adults. While the average hourly wage for our educational support staff is 1450. When we compare those two numbers, it clearly shows a gap between what it takes to truly thrive in this community and what many of our support staff are currently earning. These are not statewide averages. These are our local numbers pulled directly from the MIT Living Wage calculator. This gives us a clear, objective metric to to understand the urgency of this campaign. The Michigan ESP Bill of rights is a statewide campaign led by your ESP professionals across Michigan to establish baseline standards of dignity and stability for the people who keep our schools running. This is not a mandate or demand place on the board. It is a framework, a shared commitment to work collaboratively towards contractual improvement locally while building momentum for broader legislation. ESPs are your children. Are your children, your grandchildren. You see every day your bus drivers that make sure they get home from school. Your Ta is helping them master reading and your custodians for keeping your schools clean. Thank you. Gretchen. Alex. I'm here today because I am appalled by the contract that the district offered teachers a few weeks ago. The district needs to treat teachers like the highly educated and highly skilled professionals that they are, and offer a contract with

sufficient prep time, moderate class sizes, and salary increases commensurate with the cost of living increases. The district is lamenting its budget shortfalls, but needs to reminded in the important fact that it is the teachers in the classroom every day who are doing the critical work. That's the mission of the public schools. And yet my understanding is that over the past few years, teacher salaries and benefits have been increasing at substantially lower rates than the district's total budget. I've not been able to track down information about which expenses are growing so fast that the district feels the need to shortchange our teachers. However, I have a suspicion that some of these expenses are technology in the classroom, including Chromebooks for every student. Software licensing. And now is my second grade tells me smart screens. As a professor of engineering at the University of Michigan, I am well familiar with the myth that students need access to high tech to develop his scholars. The reality borne out by my 13 years teaching in university classrooms is that students will figure out how to use technology to their advantage on their own. In fact, tech companies make their tools easy to use, trying to make them into loyal customers. What students really need are human beings who are invested in their learning and well-being. In the public schools. These human beings are the classroom teachers, the special teachers, the librarians, etc. these educators are the people who are helping our kids learn to problem solve, to think critically, and to build foundational skills. How do we expect our kids to invest in learning when the district can't even invest in the learned professionals who teach them? The district needs to re-examine its priorities. Wendy Welch, Wendy Welch, followed by Muhammad Guide. Hi. I'm Wendy Welch, the mom of an APS kindergartner. You may be surprised to know I'm not here

to say you can do more. I'm here to say we can do more as a community trustees, I know you put your hearts and souls into this volunteer job, but, folks, as a community, we're failing. Budgets are moral decisions. What's happening now is a moral failure. Teachers are our family. My child's teacher spends more hours every day, every weekday with her than I do. This is not easy. The good news is we are here to help you. There's lots of expertise in the community, and we're all here to make sure the budget reflects our values. There are similar, well-educated communities like Chapel Hill and Palo Alto who have foundations, who raise millions of dollars to fund public school positions and programs to supplement the district's baseline. But they require a dialogue, a partnership, transparency. We're not going to help raise money or get behind cuts or support ballot initiatives if we can't see where exactly the money is going now. We need a line item budget. You need much more detail in the general fund budget. You and nothing against Superintendent Parks. Her review is glowing, but I think we can all agree her predecessor could have used some help identifying budget errors. We want to help, and we will not give up in ensuring our community values are reflected in the budget. Please engage the community so that we can decide what we all must do so that we can pay our teachers better than neighboring districts. Thanks. Muhammad. Guide followed by Daphne casino. Good evening. My name is Mohamed Gate and I'm a parent of three children in Ann Arbor Public School. I'm here to address a serious concerns regarding student safety and

the district failure to follow its own safety and anti-bullying policies. Before the incident involving my son, there were repeated reports of bullying and harassment. These concerns were clearly communicated to the school, including direct request for help and intervention. Despite the no effective action was taken shortly, the following day, the situation escalated into a physical incident in the school grounds, an incident that could not and should have been prevented with proper supervision and timely response. This is not just about one incident. This is about a veteran. A failure to intervene early. A lack of supervision and failure to consistently enforce an existing safety plan. I also want to make something very clear. I followed the proper channels I reported concerns at the school level. I requested intervention, I escalated to a district level administration and safety leadership, and I believe I contacted many board members. At each step, I clearly communicated the issue was not resolved and that my son's safety remain at risk. Instead of meaningful action. I experienced delay, redirection, a lack of accountability, and that leads to a simple question after reporting concerns and escalating through the proper channels, why did it take to pursue a title nine compliance has to be taken seriously. Thank you.

Daphne Cousino, followed by Emily Buel. Hi, I'm Daphne Cousineau. I'm a fifth grader at Burns Park Elementary, and I think that this contract situation is unfair for the teachers and the students. One big loss due to these issues are the teachers leaving our schools. Every morning I come to school and all of the cars in the parking lot have a sign in the front windows that say working without a contract. And that's really unfair. Who knows what great teachers were going to lose next and how it's going to affect our school system. It makes me sad to see amazing teachers leave our school. Our everyday life is being affected by these contract problems. I recently went to a tap in orientation day and the only teacher there was the principal. All of the other teachers had to leave videos or recordings, which really wasn't the same. Also, this took away one of our school's most fun end of year days field day, when we found out that it wasn't happening. Our whole school was upset, especially the fifth graders, because it would be our final field day. One teacher who has to do a lot already, but must do even more now, is my art teacher, Sarah Connor. She has always held a school art show for us at the end of the year, and didn't want to lose that tradition. She had to create a workaround solution by wearing a hat during a school day that says teacher. But once the bell rings, she is going to change to one that says parent volunteer because her daughter is a student there too. The APS teachers and staff shouldn't have to do all of this extra work, because you won't give them a fair contract. Is that

what you call fair? Please think about it. Thank you. Emily Ball, then Tovah Weiss. I'm an art teacher. And a really good one. I'm not a special education educator. I do not have their training, their knowledge, their expertise, nor do they have mine. And yet you've created a system with a false narrative that we have everything that these students need in order to set them up for success. And we don't. At this point, we are not specialists. We are survivalists. We lean into our humanity, our parent skills, and our trauma in order to meet the needs of these students. And we are failing. And yet you continue to project to the masses that we know so much more than we do regarding special education, consistently setting us up for failure. You create an illusion masked by fancy umbrella words like excellence and exceptional to project an image, not a reality. These kids need exponentially more than you are prioritizing giving them in order to protect not only their learning environment, but the learning environment of all students. I am deflated by seeing and hearing stories of my coworkers and students being put in harm's way of dysregulated students who need additional support. You have chosen not by prioritizing your educators and our teaching conditions to remove our supports. You refuse to pay teenage Tas a living wage. You continue to pile kids into our classrooms. You want to remove our planning time. So even the time we have during the day to try and set up differentiated activities would be taken. You make the process to seek additional support for our most outwardly impacted students. Nearly impossible, and every ask for help becomes more of a matter of what I am doing wrong and rarely, if ever, what you have done to create the problem. I would like to talk about who is exceptional. I want to talk about the fact that we are exceptional. We, the teachers, the parents, the

families, the educators, the staff. We are the ones who you guys, we hold it up. We hold up that exception for you. And if we are gone, so does that exception. Thank you. Tovah Weiss, Tovah Weiss and Zena, firstly. Hi everyone. My name is Tovah Weiss and I'm a senior at Pioneer High School. I'm here not just as one individual today, but as a representative of hundreds of my friends, classmates, peers and of course teachers who share my concerns. Students like myself are experiencing impacts firsthand as a result of the compensation of our teachers and their subsequent work slowdown. The club I lead hasn't met in months. My friends are unable to receive the academic support they need. End of year milestones are being lost. For example, the band program part of has had to cancel their end of year senior recognition banquet. I want to be clear that I have no complaints about the teachers choice to work to contract. I recognize that avoiding under compensated work is a necessary component of their efforts to receive fair pay. But I'm speaking to you, the district executives, today because by underpaying our teachers, the district harms us as well as impacts on student well-being goes beyond the current work slowdown. If teachers are preoccupied by trying to make ends meet on a low salary, the quality of teachers, students educational experiences declines. As a student, I echo what so many teachers tonight have already said more than tech or any other resources. We need our teachers and we need them to get the payment they deserve. Each of you have been shaped by educators throughout your life, just like I have. I don't need to tell you how important teachers are because you all already know. Well, I completely understand that resources are limited. I ask for transparency about financial decisions and that you prioritize teacher and

student well-being as you work to establish procedures which are mindful of financial barriers without sacrificing fair payment. I'm at this meeting tonight to speak for hundreds to ensure that as you formulate plans about how to proceed with these negotiations, student voices don't go unheard. Teacher well-being and rights alone should be enough to be a priority. But if that is not enough of a reason to push the development of a fair contract, I hope that hearing is a student voice. The second one of the evening will help. Thank you for your time. Zena fiercely followed by Zach Johnson. Good evening. My name is Xana. I'm a parent of two Angel elementary students and I'm a and I'm a member of the Angel PTO. 99% of our teachers rejected the contract. That signals a crisis. A district that increases class sizes, cuts, specials, and offers a meager 1.5% raise is not investing in education. Our community invests heavily in this district through our taxes. We expect this money to show up in our classrooms and in our teachers paychecks. You were elected to provide direction for the APS administration. Do better for our teachers, our students, and our community. Thank you. Zach Johnson, followed by Vicki Knowles. Good evening. Thank you for your service on the board. Thank you for the time. Um, when you're balancing the budget, what made priorities or expenditures are currently

preventing the district from offering teachers a more competitive contract? And how are those priorities evaluated against classroom conditions such as class size, planning time and staff stability? Thank you. Vicki. Followed by Shannon McKee. Hi. Good evening. My name is Vicki Ellis. I have three kids in Ann Arbor Public Schools. Um, I'm here because I recognize that a fair contract with fair wages for teachers will probably require cuts. And those cuts in a situation. Situation like this, I think, require trust between the constituency and the decision making body. Um, recently I heard about a proposed AI investment that kind of concerned me because I'm not sure that AI is a great tool for at least K through eight learning, I wanted to learn more about this proposal, and, um, get a better sense of what it was actually offering to do. I couldn't find any clear information online about the company or the, um, the other details about the costs and things like that. I was left with more questions. Who was behind this proposal and what do they have to gain from it? Is student learning the main objective for making contracts with such strong technologies that don't have empirical evidence yet, whether or not they support student learning, and what conflicts of interest might exist by the people that are bringing these contract proposals to the board and to our school district. So I'm here to request more transparency from the board about how money is being spent and what vendor contracts are being considered. Specifically, I would appreciate this information to be presented in a comprehensible way and an easy way to find online so that a regular person like me,

without a finance background, who is not sleuthing the internet on a regular basis at night, could find it, read it, and understand it. I would like to build trust between the people in this room, the people in this community and the people on this board, so that we can decide which cuts match our priorities and how we can support the teachers who are the the trained professionals in the classrooms. Thank you. Shannon Tamaki, followed by Eddie Caput. Hi. I'm going to keep my comments mostly on the bonds. I think a lot of my fellow parents hit on the other points I had. Um, I was pretty enraged at the February 25th meeting in which, a presentation by Gilbane, it was announced that we were pausing future, uh, improvements to the buildings. Um, Gilbane admitted in that presentation to knowing about the increased inflation cost as early as 2021. Um, it's really unacceptable that we waited until 2026 to actually stop and figure out what we're doing with this bond money. Um, why wasn't there a pause where we really figured out what truly needed to be rebuilt from the ground up and what could wait? Um, my kids currently go to Burns Park Elementary, which is falling apart. Um, our Promise Me model is posted for another year, like my fifth grader will never see it. Um, there are boys who have written persuasive essays about how gross the bathrooms are. Uh, the art room smells like burning crayons all winter long. Uh, many parts of the building have not even been painted. I believe in decades. There's almost certainly lead paint and asbestos abatement that has to be done in that building. Yet I don't see that on your agenda tonight. Um, gym entrance is a narrow set of small stairs, which is horrible for accessibility. The gym is also air conditioned and often

has broken fans. It is not at all fair and equitable to have brand new buildings, and some that are just falling apart. It needs all the schools need to be safe and comfortable for the staff and the students. If you can't pay them, can you at least give them a better building? Um, I encourage all voters of this district to remember just who was on the bond committee and approved all these new buildings in unrecorded zoom meetings held on weekday afternoons, which provided very little transparency. November. Thank you. Couples followed by. Okay. Hi, everyone. My name is Eddie Cooper and I'm a freshman. Oh, okay. I thought. Okay. I wanted to address one of the major issues in our schools right now, the ongoing contract negotiations, the contract dispute directly affects me in several ways as a student. Firstly, my grades as a high school student, I take seven classes plus form and school can be intense. The majority of these classes have grades that haven't been updated in days or weeks. Because my teachers are trying to grade 150 students work during contractual hours on top of teaching. Um. However, I don't blame the teachers for this. They're doing the best they can to teach and guide students while being put in an impossible situation. Secondly, special events and forums at community. Every student is a part of a forum which is similar to homeroom, except there's a focus on bonding between students and they include all four grades. This class is an integral part of student life at community, and it'd be devastating for our school if they cut it, which I've heard talk of. It seems no one recognizes the importance of forum as a class and forum. We volunteered to help the

community have a space to connect with other students, work on homework, and receive information about upcoming events. Forum in the events that go along with it are so important to community students, and I'd be very disappointed if it were to be cancelled or modified. The benefits of Forum on Communities community cannot be replaced. Additionally, it seems like it's been forgotten that our educators are real people with real lives, families, experiences and worries. My neighbor is a fifth grade teacher, and I've heard firsthand from her how difficult this uncertainty is, let alone supporting the children she teaches while going through it. Growing up in APS, had I not been able to get the guidance from teachers outside contractual hours, my life and well-being would have been impacted. I hate to see little kids potentially not being able to connect with their teachers as much due to contract issues. It seems like no one realizes how much teachers do for the students outside of working hours to make it impact on young lives. Teaching kids is not just a job, it's for many a dream and a calling. However, it is also a job, a demanding one at that. So our teachers need to be paid accordingly. Thank you. Eden. Coulson. Then Susan Zink. Good evening. Members of the board. My name is Eden Coulson, and I'm a freshman at Community High School. I'm here to express my concerns. In addition, I would like to first say fix the contract, please. But second, I'm here to express my concerns about the freedom. 250 Boundless Horizons concert that's being performed at skyline tomorrow. Freedom 250 is right leading organization formed to celebrate the 250th year anniversary of the United States of America. And they promote a white nationalist view of our American history. According to the New York Times, freedom 250 has sponsored a student contest. This contest is for different artistic representations of 250 different important American figures throughout history.

Some of these figures are prominent abolitionists and civil rights workers. Civil rights workers, and their biographies lack information on slavery and other civil rights things. While the US Air Force has announced that the event is not associated with organization of the same name, the similarity cannot be ignored, and if they wanted to truly show the lack of ties, they would change the name. The event also has a fighter plane simulation, which suggests that the concert is for recruiting purposes. Do we as a society, want to encourage our children to enter the military during the ongoing war in Iran, while our well family members are being sent off to the Middle East to for war that most of us do not believe in, the US Air Force has also recently released within the past year, has released a statement saying that there are no longer recognizing any genders outside of the binary. When the Williams Institute has shown that people using spaces that don't align with their gender include increases harassment. While it might be too late to cancel this event, please reconsider in the future about events like. This. I think. They are. Susan Zink, then Alison Ecklund. Good evening. My name. Is Susan Zink and I am an APS parent. Since the fall of 2019, I have two children at Burns Park Elementary and one at Tappan Middle School. This is my third time speaking at a Board of Education meeting in the last six weeks, because I'm deeply concerned about the state of APS, our teachers have been working without a contract since the start of 2026, and the most recent attempt at an agreement failed miserably. Just last week. The tentative agreement failed because APS didn't show a genuine good

faith effort to compensate our educators competitively and commensurate with surrounding districts. APS seems to undervalue and underappreciated at every opportunity. The very same educators that myself and all the other parents and students in this room tonight value and appreciate so much. But as the weeks and months go by, I find myself moving from just concerned to frustrated, sad, and frankly, a little angry because if we don't do something soon, we're going to lose our teachers and other staff members to districts that have shown they do appreciate their employees. We're just under five weeks from the end of the 2020 526 school year. Our teachers have been working hard, teaching our children and fighting for a fair and equitable contract, and they are tired. But this summer will offer an opportunity for many of them to take a breath, step back and reevaluate whether they want to come back and do this again next year. I implore you tonight, please do not let these contract negotiations go into the summer. I did a quick search today, and Selene, Dexter, Ipsy, Plymouth. Canton, Chelsea, many more districts within an easy drive of Ann Arbor already have teacher and other key staff member job openings posted for the following year. Thank you for your time tonight. Alison Echlin and Corey Williams. Of teaching. As you know and as you've heard, RTA last week was voted overwhelmingly as a no. I teach government, I'm impressed and I'm so proud of our staff for standing up for themselves and more importantly, for standing up for our students. Each of those 1094 votes has a story. Each of them, each of us. We

share many stories at the same time. Today we came to tell you some of those stories framed around the core parts of our to the unacceptable salary increase and pay in so much more. As you know and just heard, my name is Alison Ecklund. I teach government and indigenous studies at Huron. I've been teaching for 18 years. I spent six years at Ann Arbor. I left a district that was well-performing, that I loved. I loved working there. But when I saw the posting in Ann Arbor Public Schools, I knew I could commit myself to this district. I knew this was where I wanted to retire from. This is where I wanted to be. When I came here, I was given steps that previous district had also not had raises, and I took a risk. I took a risk coming here. Since leaving that district, if I'd stayed there, my pay raise, my. They have been giving steps. I would make $23,000 more if I had stayed there. You were forcing us out. That is 15 daycare payments. That is an entire year of daycare in my household. Do better and please listen to our individual stories and respond to our emails. Thank you. Cory Williams. Cory Williams and Peg leader. My name is Cory Williams. I'm a social studies teacher at Slawson Middle School. This is my 10th year in AAPs in 20th year as an educator. My household has two AAPs educators and two APS students. My wife and I are two of the

1094 no votes cast by AA members. We voted no because the Ta would have negatively impacted every member of our household, as well as every staff member and student across this district. We voted no because 3% a 3% raise failed to uphold the pledge. This district, signed 16 months ago with our union that would, quote, build and maintain a salary schedule, competitive with comparable school districts, end quote, teachers are notorious for making do with less. We stretch budgets and we give everything we have throughout the school day. But that spirit of sacrifice should never extend to our compensation. Since 2018, the superintendent's salary has grown 28%. The Assistant Superintendent of Teaching and Learning nearly 29% inflation, 26%, and the salary, the ceiling of a teacher with a master's degree just 7.7%. The real slap in the face is being told that there was no money to pay educators. While central administration salaries nearly grew by nearly four times, then teachers in their own buildings. We are asked to do more with less in our classroom. We should not be asked to do less with our paychecks. I'll leave you with this. Should an educator of 20 years have to give plasma, deliver Instacart, or think about their monthly budgets at night while falling asleep? The answer, just like my vote, is no. Peg letter. Then, Johnny Thompson. Good evening. I am Peg Lederer. I'm a Spanish teacher at Pioneer High School. This is my 28th year of teaching and my

last, I will be retiring this year. Um, and this is why I voted no to the contract. Even though I retiring, I feel I need support. The future of Ann Arbor Public Schools. When I was offered my teaching position in 1998, I accepted it with pride, knowing that this was work that I was ready to do to make a difference. How are we making a difference today? When new teachers and APS are being hired at salaries, about $10,000 more than I was offered back in 1998, 28 years ago, um, inflation has increased about 104% in those years. According to the CPI inflation calculator. The average hiring rate of a new teacher is approximately $45,000 a year, which is roughly only 28% of an increase since 1998. And they are not offered any pension. I was fortunate to be offered a pension when I was hired into APS, and without it, I don't know that I could have survived. My husband was also an educator, and I don't know how we can continue to ask for the best and the brightest, which I think is what we called our teachers for a long time to come to this district with such low pay and not having any future pension. Um. I feel at the same time with the long standing teachers, we have lost money doing, uh, giving concessions and percentages to keep programs running while higher ups have gotten raises. Johnny Thompson, then Caroline Williams. I.

I want to talk. About health care for a bit. The district contributes. A significant amount toward each teacher's health insurance, which is really appreciated, but is only a fraction of the cost of our premiums. Last school year, after the district's contribution, I paid an additional $20,852 for my family's premium. To be sure, it's a lot of money, but my family of five, we managed to make it work because it was superior health care. It was created for teachers designed with us in mind, and it met our needs. Um, within our family. Last year we had teenage cancer diagnosis, foster care fallout. There were a lot of needs that that health insurance was meeting. But little did I know that the years of the district failing to keep up with those rising health care costs meant that every year, more and more teachers chose those cheaper options that were presented to them, eventually leading to the risk pool being undiluted and Mesa deciding it was simply unethical to continue to offer US health care. The insurance company made for teachers. I appreciate their ethics and that really sucked for us, and I was forced to choose a different plan this year. Premiums are cheaper. I'm saving $12,000 a year on my premiums, but when I started to calculate the cost of the out-of-network deductible and all the things that simply are not covered by priority, I'm paying $16,000 more out of pocket than I was with Mesa's health care. This is the kind of disconnect we're dealing with. Everybody wants to pass the buck on whose fault it is and why we can't cover it and all that matters, but right now, we are in a crisis that needs to be fixed. Other districts are able to compensate teachers more equitably and provide Mesa insurance at a lower cost. We need to be able to do that to.

Thank you. Caroline Williams and Phillip Carmen. Good evening. My name is Carolyn Williams and I'm a math teacher here in. High school. This is my 16th year teaching overall and fifth year at Huron High School. I recently. Had a shocking experience when doing my 2025 taxes. I had. Reached the stage where before you're filing, you have to submit some additional information to confirm your identity. I use my 2024 income and discovered that it was $3,979.80 higher than my 2025 income. I had made almost $4,000 less in 2025 than the previous year. I wrecked my brain trying to figure out what would have caused this. I knew that my salary had not changed. I am on step 11 and therefore I will not have another increase in for another six years. Then it hit me. That was the first time the health care premiums jumped up, causing me an effective pay cut of 5.65%. When I saw the to, I could not stop staring at the health care section. The district wanted us to agree to negotiate increases in their health care contributions every year, and only ever by between 3 to 5%. The district wanted us to give them permission not to follow any state or federal law that could potentially change the requirements for cost sharing. Basically, given the trends and health care pricing, the district wanted me to agree to an effective pay cut every year. How would we ever retain high quality teachers in this

district? How would we ever recruit high quality teachers to this district to replace those who left? That is why I voted no. Phillip Hartman, then Noah Norell Morrill. I'm here as a parent, a teacher, and a product of the Ann Arbor Public Schools. And I'm here to tell you why I voted against ratifying the proposed to on all three of these roles. This to would have continued to demoralize teachers and drive them from this district. Even more important than the impact on teachers cutting planning time and treating teachers as expendable hurts our students. Stressed, exhausted teachers cannot give as much to students. I teach English and Language, English Language Arts and believe in show, don't tell. This is why I voted no. Mrs. Wells, my kindergarten teacher at Lakewood Elementary, loved her purple milligram. She taught me what a four on the floor was. This wasn't part of the curriculum, so I voted no. Everyone at Slawson feared Mrs. Butcher, I cannot tell you how many lunches I had to sit in her classroom diagramming sentences before I got it right. It felt like an eternity. So I voted, but I got through it. So I voted no. Liz Gray at Pioneer watched my grades go from A's to all E's because I wouldn't read the class book. She pulled me aside, handed me Centennial, Lonesome Dove, Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, and said, these are the books you are reading this semester. I wrote the first essay I was ever proud of for that class, so I voted no. Pioneer Counselor Connie Branson. Saved my life and the

life of more students. During my junior year. Our classmate, friend, girlfriend stepped into the garage, turned on the parents car, and left us all to deal with a painful lesson in mortality. It sucked. Mrs. Branson pulled us together, got us to talk, kept us from the same fate. So I voted no. I know our students need us this to would have spread us thinner and made us less possible for us to teach these students to read and write and grow and survive and become the amazing home they deserve to be. Noah Morrill, then Marcus Lane. Um. Good evening. Um. I'm mix K, a teacher at Huron High School. Um, last year, wherever I went, I was asked, how can. I raise that up? Oh, really? Can I start my timer over the table? The table? The table. I'm sorry. There you go. There we go. I teach history, not technology. Um, thanks. Sorry. So last year. Wherever I went, I was asked, how can one of the best districts have messed up so badly this year? What I've been hearing has been a little different. How dare they? Are they trying to destroy the district? As a history teacher, I wouldn't be shocked. After all, since in the 1980s, corporate raiders have used

crises to make as much money as possible while driving longstanding institutions into the dirt. But whether we're seeing heartless Reaganomics or simply fiddling while Rome burns or let them eat cake, there is no doubt that our bosses are getting rich as the district crumbles. Shameful. You heard from my colleague Corey about the astronomical increases our bosses have received and the pittance we have, and yet they demand more from the very people trying to hold things together with our kids bearing the cost. 36 students. Well, 36 plus. However many overages increase, class sizes means less time to individualize, to answer questions, to discuss, to sit down next to a kid who needs help, to care for someone who's had a bad day to write readers letters of rec. It's a louder, more disruptive learning environment. These concessions drive kids away from their best learning and families away from our district. They also make our job endlessly harder. And every time a skilled teacher burns out, it's our students whose education is interrupted. So where should cuts come from? Well, we've got a healthy fund balance again, and the state's timer is reset. So that's one place. There's also the millions more than comparably sized districts that we spend on business and opaque other expenses. Um, every dollar spent on AI is actively harming our kids. By the way. And speaking of budgeting being your job, remember those eye popping raises you can think of one easy way to save money, not one raise for a central administrator until your bargaining team offers a good contract. For workers in our district. Thank you. Thank. Marcus Lane and Lena Kaufman.

Uh. Good evening. Uh, my name is is Reverend Marcus Lane. And in addition to being a proud AAPs parent, I serve as the campus pastor at University Lutheran Chapel, where our church is blessed to be neighbors with the outstanding educators at Angel elementary. Uh, my family moved to Ann Arbor nearly seven years ago for my work as clergy and a Christian tradition in which private, parochial education is the norm. But when it came time for our family to make decisions for where our children would attend school, we rejected that convention and instead chose to send our kids to Ann Arbor Public Schools because of its reputation as an outstanding district that provides excellent education, embraces diversity, and attracts great teachers. However, my fear is that over time, this district has slowly departed from its reputation and providing adequate compensation for its teachers has slowly been displaced by other priorities. It's not technology or property that made us choose AAPs. It was and will always be teachers that make our district excellent. I stand before you today not only as a concerned parent, but also filled with righteous anger. As someone whose role as a member of the clergy is to serve the moral well-being of my community. And I want to be clear that my appeal to you today is a moral one for our trustees. To Superintendent Parks, it is your duty to provide the best possible education for this district, and such an education is not possible without providing adequate and competitive pay for the highly skilled educators of our district. I realize that budgets and salary negotiations will always demand give and take. But please, on behalf of our teachers, put forth a genuine good faith effort to correcting the district's present budget priorities, both in this contract negotiation and through demonstrating a long

term plan to bring our spending on salaries. Thank you sir. In neighboring districts. Thank you sir. Your duty. To thank you. Thank you. That's your town. Lena Kaufman, Lena Kaufman, then Stacey McNulty. Hi. Good evening. Board. My name is Lena Kaufman. I have two children in the Ann Arbor Public Schools at Skyline High School. Um, I'm coming here tonight. First of all, to thank you for the April 20th Board of Education study session data. This was very much needed by our community to have this level of data, and I want to encourage the board to continue in this direction, give us more information at this time so that we can understand. Um, but a lot of things we know by heart, we know in our community that teacher pay is needed. We also know that by law, we we can't pass a local bond to give teachers the money that they deserve. It has to come out of the general fund, which has to come out of enrollment. And as a skyline parent, I don't need numbers to know that we're under enrolled. I see it in the parking lot every day. When you see where the you know how empty it is of students, you see it in the emptier hallways. I see it when my daughter has a elective class with only nine students in it. While we're again and again going back to the elementary school grades and making them do deeper cuts. We have our high school class options are 200 dense pages of classes, and it's time that we start getting real with parents

and giving them information early on that we need to cut back on some of the great things we offer. It's hard, but it's not great for my student to have nine kids in her class and then not be able to meet with her teacher after class because it's outside contract hours. Thank you. Yeah. Stacy McNulty. Then Rachel Petrone. Hi. My name is Stacey McNulty. I'm a lawyer here in Ann Arbor, and my kids go to Burns Park. I'm here to talk about the AAPs teacher contracts and pay. Teachers are leaving and low pay hurts our students and disproportionately impacts those students that are most vulnerable. We're here in Ann Arbor, a district electorate that is among the most educated in the country. Our city is shared with one of the most prestigious universities in the world. And yet. AAPs budget contract decisions, because they are decisions, demean and devalue. Are educators, the stewards of our most precious assets by making them negotiate a fair wage, a living wage. Despite. Having the funds, AAPs teacher pay is less than neighboring and comparable districts and contract proposals require teachers to bear a greater percentage of high health insurance premiums. That's criminal. You're asking teachers to sacrifice their health for the privilege of making less money. AAPs has lost sight of its mission educating students and our teachers are talent. They are fundamental to that mission.

The budget should begin with and prioritize teacher salary. Our kids do not need smart screens. A shiny admin building, or other new tech. They need teachers, IEP teachers, and specials that support them as human beings. Respectfully, excuses are not acceptable at this point. The teachers and community have spoken. Other districts have figured it out. Your duty is to educate students and act in their best interests. Please pay our teachers and get it done. Thank you. Rachel. Petrone and John Benson. Hi. I'm Rachel Petrone and I'm a parent of a two AAPs kids. Well, one incoming, and I wanted to echo what a lot of others have spoken about. You've heard some. really important experiences that people have had from students, from teachers, from parents. And I'm sorry. Uh, so what I'm asking is that we really want to work together to make this right. We have we're losing teachers already. We're going to keep losing teachers, and then it's going to be a death spiral at that point, because you're going to lose families, too. And you're just. And we don't want to destroy what Ann Arbor is. Ann Arbor is a community that we love, and it's it's important that you guys work to keep it that way and not destroy something that is so important to us. Part of

the reason that we moved in Arbor was the education that was, um, that we, the reputation of Ann Arbor Public Schools, but our kids are more important. Our teachers are more important if if we can't get this right, we're going to lose a lot of people. And it's just that would be a tragedy. So we love our teachers. I have so many stories that I could share if I had more time, but, um, that's I guess that's all I have to say. Thank you. Thank you. John Benson. John Benson, please. Good evening. My name is John Benson, and I'm a resident father of three. I think most of us feel and see a heightened level of concern and stress about our AAPs. Stress is manifesting in classroom functions, special need functions, central functions, budgeting, and others. What if I suggested all of these stresses have a single common gating issue? The general fund balance. The general fund balance is the emergency savings account of AAPs, the state monitoring level minimum is 5%. Are district level desired minimum is 8%. We are currently hovering around 6% at this level. We're forced into all these tough budget decisions regularly. How does anyone have a savings? You need to spend less than you bring in over a year, or you have to have a change in rate of spend that is at least slightly less

than the change in rate of your revenue over time. From 1819 through 2324. Our revenue are what we brought in increased about 24%. Our largest expenditure item, salary and benefits, which started about 200,000,000 in 1819, increased about 22%. That means that if our general fund budget were solely sized on our largest expense items in 1819 and then tracked the same revenue growth rates through 2324, our general fund balance would have grown by about 15 to $20 million. Why didn't our savings account grow in this time frame? Because the small stuff grew much faster. Non salary non benefit spend. Although just $40 million in 1819 grew over 40% in the same time period, it is nearly 50% higher today than it was in 1819. A 40 to $60 million piece of a 250 to $300 million budget. If it's running 20% high, is it $10 million a year drain on your general fund? You have to look at these items with the same rigor and targets as you do at salary and benefits. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. That concludes public commentary. Thank you, Mr. Kozinski. We appreciate hearing from our community. The board would like to thank everyone who spoke and shared their comments tonight. Miss parks, are there any points of clarification? President Feaster, um, regarding a few of the comments. Um, the parent who spoke about an incident with their child regarding bullying. Um, we don't talk, obviously, about specific circumstances, but we do know that there has been, um, several steps to follow up on that. And we will have the executive director of our secondary schools continue to support that situation as it

relates to bond. Uh, a comment about the bond. We also want safe conditions for all of our students and staff. And so that is our priority as we review what the future of our bond work entails. Um, the next point of clarification, we have consistently said it before, and we'll say it again this evening. Um, central office staff gets an increase when teachers get an increase and their rate of increase is commensurate with the increase for staff. So when people change positions, as is the case in the two employees referenced this evening, including myself, then yes, there's an increase, but otherwise the rate of increase for central office only happens when teachers get an increase, and it only happens at the rate at which the the teachers increase is set. Uh, another point of clarification around the technology and Chromebooks. Those are paid for with bond dollars in not general fund dollars. And we know, as we've shared with the community and and staff and trustees, that bond dollars cannot be used to pay staff salaries. Uh, the last point of clarification this evening regarding the concert at skyline, that concert is not affiliated with the freedom 250. We have vetted that concert with the Air Force. Uh, we have made sure that there is no affiliation and there is not. The concert will take place during the evening. It is optional. There is nothing tied to the curriculum, and there is no assembly or anything of that nature during the day or during the school hours that students will be expected to go to. That is all voluntary. And uh, in the evening. So just wanted to provide those clarifications. Thank you very much. President. Mr.. Thank you so much. In the parks. I believe that brings us to community feedback. Trustees, I'd like to call your

attention to the community feedback for this meeting. And that brings us down to reports of association. Do we have a representative? I see him coming forward. We have. Fred Klein for the. Good evening, trustees. Superintendent, Parks and Arbor Public schools community dedicated and fierce AA members and public commentary speakers tonight. Thank you for your love and your courage. Um, you are appreciated. My name is Fred Klein, and I am the president of the Ann Arbor Education Association, which is a union representing the roughly 1300 professional educators in the Ann Arbor Public Schools. Uh, as always, I'm speaking tonight on behalf of educators of this district. And I want to be very clear about the moment we are in the last time members of our association rejected a tentative agreement was in 1994. That was not a routine decision then, and it was not a routine decision. Now, at that time, the issues were working conditions and compensation, and it ultimately led to a two week strike. And I'll admit, I'm aging myself here. But I was a newer teacher. In 1994. I walked the picket line in front of pioneer and in front of Bally's during that work stoppage, standing out there, it was clear that we were pushing back against a board and administration that had lost touch with the realities inside our classrooms, and with the people doing that work every day. And I'll tell you, standing there together, speaking with one voice and refusing to accept decisions made without us, that was empowering because it meant reclaiming our voices as educators and advocating for

the conditions our students deserve. We are again, at a moment of serious concern. This was not a close vote. It it was not divided. It was not uncertain. 96% of our members participated in this ratification election, 99.6% of those members voted no. 1084 said no. Four said yes. That is not just a result. That is a mandate. A clear, unified message from the educators of this district that this proposal does not meet the needs of our students or our staff. Let's talk about why. First, you've heard a lot tonight. Compensation and health care veteran teachers in this district earn significantly less than their peers in all of our comparable districts. At the same time, and our public schools stands alone amongst those comparables. And in Washtenaw County and not following the standard 8020 health care cost sharing model. Instead, our educators are paying roughly 35% of their premiums, meaning that as health care costs rise, their take home pay continues to shrink and there is an equity issue that cannot be ignored. The higher costs for insurance borne by teachers are effectively subsidizing more substantial district health care contributions for the superintendent and cabinet level administrators. Individuals earning six figure salaries during bargaining. In a sidebar, I specifically asked that those administrators take on the same health care cost

sharing as. Us. As a symbolic gesture of solidarity, I was told that that would increase their costs too much. That response speaks for itself, and it underscores exactly why this issue matters so deeply to our members. On top of that, the district's proposal goes even further, asking educators to agree to language that would allow the district to ignore future laws designed to improve health care affordability. That is not just shameful, it is unsustainable. Second, we rejected this to because of the impact it would have on students. The district. And the district's proposal included real cuts to the student experience, a reduction of one hour per week in elementary essential instruction. That's our art, music, PE, library and Stem programming classes, where many of our students shine the brightest and experience the most success in their school week. It also included a loss of one hour per week of planning time for elementary teachers, time that directly translates into the quality of instruction students receive and increased class sizes across the district negatively impact students and educators. These are not abstract changes. These are decisions that will be felt in classrooms every single day by students who deserve more, not less, and finally, priorities. This district receives more state funding per pupil than all of our comparable districts and all others in Washtenaw County. Yet teacher salaries are lower, health care costs are unfairly shifted more heavily onto educators, and the district holds the lowest fund balance

among its peers. These facts demand honest reflection because they raise a fundamental question are our resources being aligned with our stated values? Our members answered clearly, this proposal is not good for educators, and it is not good for students. But let me also be clear about this educators remain committed, committed to this district, committed to our students, and committed to reaching a fair agreement. We are ready to return to the bargaining table. We are ready to do the work, and we are focused on achieving a contract that is fair, sustainable and worthy of the students and educators in this community. The path forward is still open, but it demands a real reset. Not rhetoric, but action. A willingness to listen, to realign priorities, and to partner in good faith. We did not get here overnight, and recovery will take years, but that recovery begins now with meaningful commitments to invest in students and educators. Without that, we will continue to fall short of being the destination district this community expects and deserves. And the ongoing loss of experienced educators, coupled with the inability to recruit enough to replace them, will only accelerate. I urge you to hear the message that has been sent loudly and unmistakably, and to act accordingly. The question is not whether we can afford to invest in our educators. The question is whether we can afford not to. Thank you.

We also have Miss Claire Arthurs from the EP. Oh hi. Everybody. Greetings, trustees. Superintendent, parks. APS staff. And families watching. Both here and online. Thank you. For your support. I'm Claire Arthurs. I proudly represent a Eep. We have 310 para educators working as education support professionals with Ann Arbor students. 310 is down from 347. I told you earlier this year, we stand in solidarity with our teachers. We can do nothing without. Them and. We work alongside. Them.. Playing with numbers always so fun of our of that number. 20 of them are amazing part time workers working on our afterschool childcare. Of the 290 full time, 230 of us are proud teaching assistants, 28 are preschool para educators, three theater managers for career resource assistants, 25 community assistants, and zero registered behavior technicians presently working in EAP. Talk of folks leaving is heartbreaking. The reality to many of us is that we've been working in a ghost town for the last few years. Our students have lost so many dedicated, high quality staff. It is heartbreaking. Safety reports are brief. I've had a few reports of staff telling me, their principal telling me they told their principal they did not feel safe, and their principal telling them they need to get over it. We are following up, but find this not an ideal message. Inflation is at a record high. Cost of gas is 450 or more per gallon. For a 15 gallon car. It's close to 50 bucks with a starting rate of 1722. Most PTAs earn about 577 a week. A tank of gas is essentially a half day's work.

A half day of the week's. Work. Leaving around 2110 a month to cover groceries, rent or mortgage, other bills. And God forbid we try and have fun. This is not sustainable. This is why several of our members utilize government food and housing programs. I received a chilling call the other day. Someone wanted to make sure I knew that a lot of TA's were planning on leaving at the end of the year. I'd been so focused on these numbers that I wasn't watching these ones. The numbers of staff retiring or quitting as they come and go happens, but I hadn't looked at the number. We're talking about 35 people. We're currently down 47. We haven't been able to fill those positions. Unfortunately, many incredibly qualified long term staff who have both relationships with their students, relationships with their teachers, knowledge of the curriculum they're in and comfort level in their building are leaving. I understand when I hear that lower paid positions are transient in nature. However, it's worth pointing out when you look at seniority charts over the years, it wasn't this way. I'm now the senior Ta at Tappan, and this is my eighth year. When I started eight years ago, there were three people who'd been there over 20 years, and that was very normal throughout our district. Um, doo doo doo, uh, every summer there's natural ebbing and flowing. Um, but right now, the future looks really bleak for our school communities and for any educational school staff support in our schools. At the rate we're going, many of you on the board, I don't personally believe we're responsible for getting us into this mess. I am truly sorry it has fallen in your hands. You do hold tremendous responsibility in this moment as to whether or not you want to fight, to keep EAP para educators providing support to our students with at least 35 Tas telling us they're leaving. Who knows how many haven't communicated this? And who can blame them? Right now, we have no assurance that our pay will increase next year or retroactively. For this. We

have no future dates on the book to bargain because your team has told us they can't bargain finances until the teacher's contract is finalized. We have no assurance of what the heck is happening and all of us. The only assurance we have is right now. We would be frozen on an already too low. 2024 2025 wage scale. I haven't heard any update that we are no longer being asked to give concessions. Your team can absolutely put money on the contract for us without worrying about another group. We have been told that the district can only offer us zero, as the number of financial incentives. If we do not wait until after the teacher's contract is finalized, the teacher's contract doesn't look great at the moment. If you don't act to help our unit, you're going to be losing staff. You have the opportunity to incentivize folks to stay, to show that you're serious about wanting to keep us and retain these educator positions. If you do not do that, you will lose more people. This loss will unfortunately be a district decision, a direct decision of yours. This time, please choose wisely. I urge you to see the value of keeping seasoned staff happy. Many of us have been happily working for next to nothing, doing incredibly difficult jobs for our most vulnerable populations. Please help keep us here. Please advocate and put your money where your mouth is regarding your commitment to students with special education. I'm not going to lie, this speech was really hard to write. I feel greedy, I feel wrong, I feel disloyal, and that's gross. I'm a proud, proud Ann Arbor schools graduate, proud to have graduated Hazily. That's where you send your kids if you want them to be a union president someday. And also proud graduate Community high. We're not going to talk about Maya, but y'all fix that. When you made Ann Arbor open K through eight, the idea that me asking for money for my colleagues in this union could potentially lead to families having to

switch schools or losing their school community truly pains me. This is one of the hardest speeches I've written, and I felt really nauseated about it all day. I understand efforts that have been made to ask to slow down, as well as efforts to look at these mindfully. It is vital that our schools are looked at through a lens of equity and title one funding for our kids that for those who are less fortunate and that they don't get lost in the shuffle. I also feel this is the epitome of educator guilt. It's the epitome of the selflessness that most of us have. We love our students. We want to stay. So we'll just give and give and give and not speak up for ourselves. I urge the board. Okay. I urge the board. As you look at contracts for cabinet positions going forward, to possibly not offer 30 days vacation time in addition to the other days you have and the other bells and whistles. I encourage you to stop letting people who earn six figures have subsidized health insurance. Many cabinet positions receive an annual financial incentive if they incentive if they perform well in meeting their performance outcomes, they're incentivized. If they perform at 80% or better on their goals. To be clear, less than that would be a C plus in school. Does that mean that you are all okay with C plus performance outcomes for your cabinet members as a baseline? Or does it mean that you expect higher performance and that you're okay putting even more money towards these high paid salaries for folks to perform? Literally the job that is being asked of them? These are things I wonder. I'm not an expert in finances, I will say to say the rate of increase of cabinet staff is commensurate with that of teaching and educational staff is laughable. 1.5% of 25,000, which, as a reminder, that's my goal. If I keep retiring and I work for 25 years, I'll get to earn $25,904.

Whew! Um, that's $375. 1.5% of 250,000, for example, is $3,750. You have to invest in what you're selling. I think the product that you are selling is a quality education that we are trying to encourage Ann Arbor families to choose to stay. Right now, you guys are essentially asking Ann Arbor families to increase their already exorbitant taxes even further for a sinking fund that they know will never be able to contribute to staff salaries. The families and community are telling you that the biggest thing they're concerned about are the lack of teachers and educational support staff in their buildings. These relationships that we build with our students are so vital. I'm not a lawyer. I don't know if this is possible, but I'm throwing it out there. If we continue to hire six figure cabinet and director positions, I would encourage some sort of cost of living incentive directing individuals to live in Ann Arbor. To be clear, what I really want is a disincentive for those living out of the city, but I'm pretty sure that's not allowed. The fact that our district is spending several million on upper level salaries, and most of those higher admin staff do not live in Ann Arbor. They can't afford it. They say they do not contribute their tax dollars back into our school systems, and that's concerning because what I'm hearing is that folks who make 4 to 8 times as much as I do annually are saying they can't afford to live in Ann Arbor. Excuse me, but what the heck does that say about those of us who make under 25,000? Our students deserve the absolute best. I personally do not believe they are getting it right now. Everyone who's boots on the ground are trying the absolute hardest we can, and we're going to continue to do so. We love those students. We're floored by the work of our colleagues. We continue to work very hard every day, but it's just not enough. With special ed staffing, we often put the Ta with the students that are the highest need. Make sense? It's equitable, however, because we are so profoundly low on special education staff, it means a lot of students with mild to moderate obstacles

preventing them from accessing learning are not getting the support they need. We recently had the district admit fault in both of our grievances on subs staying longer than 90 days, violating our contract, as well as outsourcing registered behavior technicians from companies rather than inside our union. I strongly suspect that the ramifications of both of these actions are going to lead to fewer and fewer people in the district that the district has been using as Band-Aids to stay afloat. I'm not sure why they would want to stay in our positions if they would earn several thousand dollars less per year, the district will need to do something very soon. If they want to find a way to support their special education staff and special education students at the level they're currently supporting. And many would argue we are currently not supporting them properly. Teachers and educational staff alike already have a foot and a half out the door. It's spring. In spring, we expected our unit, expected our raises in January, and we've had nothing. I'm going to continue to be on track for my $25,904. I'm going to continue to show up every day. You have the power to affect this. Please do so. Please fix this. Thank you. That concludes reports of associations. Thank you. Mr.. I believe that brings us down to the community Group report section. Miss Luzinski, do we have any? Yes, we have, um, community group reports, the Arab-American advisory.

Thank you. Mr. Zelensky. I got the slides. Thank you. Hello, everyone. My name is Yasmeen and I'm a member of the Arab American Advisory Group. This group was established in 2011. And so this year we're celebrating our 15 year anniversary. And the group was set up at the request of the school district because it was concerned that even the most marginalized students in our community were not getting an equal chance to succeed and thrive. As our website states, our vision is that the Ann Arbor Public school system becomes one that embraces all cultural groups, including Arab Americans. So we just concluded our Heritage Month, and I'm here to tell you a bit about what we did to support learning about the Arab world during that month. But before I do that, next slide. I want to say that we as individuals and as a group support Ann Arbor teachers in their struggle for better working conditions. Our teachers working conditions. Are our kids learning conditions and we hope they win their fair contracts. The fair contracts that they deserve. And I will say, when I walked in and saw the room so packed, I was very nervous that we were scheduled for this day. But I'm very grateful actually, because I thought I was a very informed person. I had no idea actually the extent of the struggles that our teachers are grappling

with. So thank you so much for raising my consciousness today. Thank you.. So next slide. So I want to share some aspects of our rich Arab heritage. And poetry is very central to Arab heritage. So I would like to read a poem by the world renowned poet, Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish. And it's called think of Others as you prepare your breakfast. Think of others. Do not forget the pigeons food as you conduct your wars, think of others. Do not forget those who seek peace as you pay your water bill. Think of others, those who are nourished by clouds as you return home to your home. Think of others. Do not forget the people of the camps as you sleep and count the stars. Think of others. Those who have nowhere to sleep as you liberate yourself in metaphor. Think of others. Those who have lost the right to speak as you think of others far away. Think of yourself and say, if only I were a candle in the dark. Next slide please. Our group tries to live up to this call to be candles in the dark by creating space for accurate and meaningful knowledge about the Arab world and Arab-American communities within apps throughout the year, but especially during April, our Heritage Month. Next slide. So, for example, we helped set up school assemblies by Arab musical artists such as Kevin Nagy, who's an amazing drummer and dancer. And you can display in the slide messages that students wrote to him about how his performance made them so happy. Next slide. We also have an amazing reader

program, and actually one of our very own members is a world renowned, published author of Arab Folktales. And we have volunteers from the community, parents, teachers, college students come in and read picture books related to the Arab world in classrooms that want to have that experience. And they also do activities like write kids names in Arabic and draw, play music, sing songs, and share stories about their families. Next, slide. So in this spirit of sharing, I want to tell you today about one more thing from our collective Arab heritage. There are 22 Arab countries and Palestine is one of them. Today. Today I'm wearing a keffiyeh from the last remaining keffiyeh factory in Palestine. The cafe is a traditional Arab headdress and it comes in a variety of colors that differ across countries. The traditional colors of the Palestinian keffiyeh are black and white. This one is in the colors of the rainbow. I wear it in anticipation of Pride Month in June, as and as a symbol of how Palestinian liberation and queer liberation are intertwined. Because, in the famous words of MLK, injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. Next slide please. This is why celebrating Arab-American Heritage Month is so important. It creates space within, within our institutions to fight injustice by experiencing firsthand for oneself directly. Aspects of Arab identity, culture and history. Such experiences are very important in this current moment of rising anti-Arab racism as well as Islamophobia. Nationwide, we see rising violent attacks against our community and hateful rhetoric and ideas have become normalized and mainstreamed at the highest level of our country. This includes, especially against Palestinians, anti Palestinian racism has unfortunately become

normalized through the weaponization of accusations of anti-Semitism by pro-Israel elected officials and advocacy groups. These campaigns aim to shut down critical thinking and multiple perspectives on U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East, and on our country's funding of the Israeli military. Despite what the United Nations, the International Court of Justice, the International Criminal Courts and Israeli human rights organizations like B'Tselem and Physicians for Human Rights in Israel have described as a genocide in Gaza. One such weaponization campaign has decided to target Ann Arbor Public Schools alongside other districts across the country. The well-funded right wing organization leading this campaign engages in doxing and in conflating legitimate criticism with hate speech. It harasses educators who try to teach accurately and honestly about the Middle East or U.S. foreign policy, with the goal of intimidating them into self-censorship. This harassment does not just impact our specific community, it impacts everyone's ability to learn freely. These campaigns want classrooms where only one narrative is allowed about all difficult and often painful topics. So this is not just about our students ability to learn freely about Palestine or or our country's foreign policy. It is also about the genocide of Native Americans and settler colonialism. It is also about slavery and anti-Black racism. It is also about gender and sexuality and discrimination, and it is also about climate change and environmentalism. Now, I'm an educator myself, and I know definitely that encountering new ideas and new readings can be very, very uncomfortable. Now, we can either run away from that discomfort or ask, why are we feeling uncomfortable and use those feelings as a starting point

for a new conversation, for a new learning journey that allows all of us to think of others, to be candles in the dark, in the words of their wish. Next slide. One of my favorite professors in grad school was Renato Rosado, and who did a lot of research on what he called cultural citizenship and educational democracy. And he often talked about the ethics of the Pi versus the ethics of love in the Ethic of the Pi. We imagine that knowledge is a limited good, so that if I learn more about another group, we are somehow learning less about our own. In that framework. If their heritage gets more space, our heritage suffers. By contrast, in the ethic of love, we think of ourselves as connected as all in the same boat. If you thrive, I thrive. More understanding of your experience and perspective does not mean less understanding of mine. We, as the Arab American Advisory Group, do not want to shut down any other groups, narratives or versions of history, even if we believe those versions are factually incorrect or ethically troubling. We want to create space for our own narratives and histories. In other words, we want to be partners in moving our educational institutions from an ethic of the Pi to an ethic of love. So it is out of this ethic of love that we celebrate the recognition of May as Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month. It is out of this ethic of love that we also celebrate may as Jewish American Heritage Month. In fact, this month is also part of our heritage as Arabs, just as their Arab Muslims and Arab Christians. There's also Arab Jews because the dominant narratives about the Middle East are so one dimensional. Many people are very surprised to learn this, assuming that these two identities must cancel each other out. And this

is exactly why we need to create more space in our classrooms and curricula to learn about the Arab world in a more complex and multi-dimensional way. So we look forward to continuing our partnership with Arps so that we can together light candles. I hope many, many more candles in the dark. Thank you. We next have a report from Pisa. Good evening, President Feaster. Esteemed Board of Education, trustees and superintendent. Parks. Happy Asian Pacific islander American heritage month. My name is Jason Hunter young, and I am speaking tonight on behalf of the Asian Pacific Islander, South Asian American Parent Advisory Group, or Pisa. I'm also a teacher in APS and a parent of kids who attend an Ibra open at Mac School. As a representative of a Pisa, I appreciate the opportunity to speak with you tonight. I hope to highlight how collaboration between APS and community groups like ours can have meaningful impacts. Share some upcoming local events and challenge us all to recognize the importance of the moment in which we find ourselves. First, a Pisa is grateful to the continued collaboration with Annenberg Public Schools to celebrate Apia Heritage Month 2026. Marks the fifth consecutive year that our parent advisory group has worked with APS staff to promote Apia representation through stories. Over the last five years, we have been able to host virtual author talks to reach thousands of students, teachers and families in the APS community and brought in hundreds of books to our school libraries that highlight the diversity and strength of the Asian American and Pacific Islander communities. In 2022, we organized a book drive that brought in donations of over 390 books to the APS school

libraries. We also coordinated virtual author talks and workshops with Filipino born Canadian comic artist and author Jake Torres and local Chinese American poet Karina Dewan, who is an APS graduate. In 2023, we had three virtual author talks Japanese American author and lawyer Shirley Higuchi, who is also an APS graduate, presented to high schoolers, Korean-American author and graphic novelist Robyn Ha spoke with upper elementary and middle school students and Taiwanese American author Grayson Read to and drew with our elementary students. We had three virtual author talks in 2024 as well. That year, we hosted local Korean American author King Hae Kim, Michigan author Supriya Kelkar, who is Indian and Vietnamese American author and illustrator Chin Pham. Last year, we had the honor of hosting Pakistani American author Sadia Farooqui and Chinese and Jewish American author Richard Ho. Several of the recordings of these author talks are still available on our website, which is sites google.com visa with two A's at the end. We encourage people who would like to revisit or explore the previously recorded talks to visit our website. There are several additional resources and links for events happening this year available there as well. We appreciate all the support that AAPI is given to help sponsor these. Author talks from helping to pay for the vast majority of the speakers, sharing and promoting talks with staff members, and providing additional tech support for the author talks. The work to make these stories visible, present and engaging for our school communities is powerful and does not go unnoticed. We are excited for the support and collaboration to continue this year. This year we are only hosting one author event and we decided to pick elementary students as a target audience because that is where we have had the highest participant participation rates from previous years. We are in conversation with an author's agent right now to purchase books for all AAPs elementary schools, and host a talk with the author at the end of the month. We hope to be able to formally announce this talk with an award winning author very soon, and we will be sure to follow up with you when that happens. We know this year's author Talk will spark discussions of belonging in our classrooms, our libraries, and our homes. We'd also like to extend a special thank you to Superintendent Parks, Assistant

Superintendent Don Linden, Social Studies District Chair Jared Orman, and Miss and Judge, who all helped to facilitate this upcoming author talk and those of previous years. We think this work is a powerful representation of the positive impact of collaboration between APS and the parent community, and we hope this continues and grows in the coming months and years. In addition to our author talk, at the end of the month, there are also a lot of local events happening in May. This Saturday, May 9th. The Asian Americans, as Storytellers and Educators Showcase is happening in Madison Heights. A number of the of Ann Arbor community members were integral in helping this collaboration gather oral histories and build interviews into lessons that will soon be available to Michigan educators and teachers around the country. In particular, setting a Community High student was selected to be a youth storyteller in this project, and Kathryn Dudzik, a teacher at Bryan Elementary, helped to create lesson plans. Other community members were also involved, and third and fourth grade teachers at A2 steam piloted the lesson plans as well. You can see more about that on the flyer that I've provided you. Furthermore, the District library has several events in the coming weeks. Many of these are in partnership with the Kylin API, AAPI Arts and Culture Festival, and details can be found on their websites. Scholastic Story Voice also hosts Virtual author talks for free with authors, which teachers can access with a Scholastic Book Clubs account, and the Andover Y also continues to host several events in honor of Apia Heritage Month, which can be found on their website. Finally, I'd like to close my remarks tonight with a challenge for us all to listen to each other's stories and amplify the stories of those who are often overlooked, ignored, or outright oppressed. We know that the issues we face right now are numerous, and we know that APS is a district that values equity in a community that values equity. If we expect our actions to demonstrate these values, a piece of hopes that current and future issues will be dealt with in ways that truly center marginalized students and families. We wish to ensure that decision analysis processes pay attention to the financial impacts, but focus on the human impacts of any decisions. We want the district to commit to connecting with students and families who need the most support in our district, as well as the teachers who work with them. We hope you can promise to center and amplify their voices

throughout your conversations and processes, and we aim to support efforts that honor transparent decision making, informed by honest communication and thoughtful consideration of the impacts on vulnerable communities. Grace Lee Boggs, an Asian-American activist and organizer who is based in Detroit, once said, every crisis, actual or impending needs to be viewed as an opportunity to bring about profound changes in our society. She said visionary organizing begins by creating images and stories of the future that help us imagine and create alternatives to the existing system. A piece of hopes that this message of visionary organizing helps us all to think creatively, act collaboratively, and work courageously to create a stronger and more vibrant AAPs community in the years to come. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Next, we'll hear from the Tok. Hello everyone. Thank you for having me tonight. I'm Becca Hogan and I'm here on behalf of the parent teacher Organization Council Tok. We're nearing the end of our annual equity fundraiser, and we ask that local families in the community contribute $30 to raise $30,000 to support our title one toes across the district. Thanks to the generosity of donors, so far this year, we've raised $22,591 and we're just under $8,000 away from our goal. And we believe the community is primed to help us get there. For a bit of history on this effort in 2023. The Tok Equity Committee launched its first ever fundraiser to help close the fundraising gap across AAPs schools, with all funds raised going to title one schools. We have continued this fundraiser in 2024 and 2025, and with generous matches from the PTO

thrift shop, we've been able to give over $180,000 to our title one schools over the past three years. These funds make a huge difference and impact on real students. Last year, One Title One School shared that with an increase in food insecurity in Washtenaw County and inflation this year, they had to double their snack budget and invest $4,000. Around 10% of their annual budget, into classroom snacks. Those classroom snacks ensure that students do not have to try and learn while they're hungry, and that teachers do not have to purchase them out of their own pockets. In total, the donations from the stock and the matching funds of the PTO thrift shop last year equated to over one third of that school's total PTO budget. These are direct investments in student and building equity. Thank you to the district and to principals and toes across the district that have been promoting this fundraiser. In their weekly newsletters. We invite all community members, including the trustees and central administration staff, to please give us a gift today to support our title one schools. In addition to district and principal communications, the link to our fundraiser can be found on the Toks Facebook page. Your contribution provides more equitable access to opportunities for our students. Thank you for helping the Tok work towards a more equitable system for us all. That concludes community Group reports. Thank you very much. Mr.. Luzinski. I believe that brings us to board committee reports, and I will turn it over to Trustee Baskin if she doesn't mind, and I will ask her what occurred in the finance and Planning Committee meeting this past month. Thank you. President Feaster. Yes. The finance planning

committee meeting, met committee, excuse me. Met on April 15th. It was a very efficient meeting. We previewed the financial reports that we'll be seeing today. Thank you. Trustee biscuit, if there are no questions, then I will move down to the Equity and Performance Committee. And I'll turn it over to Trustee Schmidt and ask her what occurred in that meeting. Thank you. President Feaster. Our equity and. Performance Committee met April 27th. We covered the graduation annual report and the high school course guide. This evening. We will be seeing the graduation annual report in detail. Thank you. Trustee Schmidt. And now I will turn it over to myself to give a brief synopsis of what happened at the governance committee meeting. Uh, at that meeting, obviously, we set the agenda for today's meeting. Um, I am told to also make a note of that, that we do have a resignation on May 4th, and that the board will do an appointment to to fill that seat within 30 days. The applications are available on our website, a a schools.org, and the deadline is May 28th. Um. That's essentially all that I'm going to do today. Uh, from governance. Any questions? All right. Then we will move down to first briefing. And I believe we have guests. And I will turn it over to Superintendent Parks to welcome our guests. Thank you very much. President Feaster, trustees, we have our annual wisdom budget proposal for briefing. We have w ISD Superintendent Naomi Norman and wisdom. Uh, associate superintendent. Thank you.

Brian Marcel, who will walk us through the 2627 budget. Um. Do you. Have our presentation? I think we do. I've read it. Okay. Um. I'll just start. By saying. That this. Is a part of an annual process. Um. That we. Do every year. With all of the local. School districts. We bring. Our budget to you to review. Your job. Is to look. At this budget. and let us. Know whether you approve it or not. Either way. it will move forward at the ISD end. But what we value is any of your feedback. So we I'm always open to that, whether it's through this formal process or informally. You can go to the next slide. Um. We just. Put in here the information about that. We do this in May, and you have to let us know by June 1st how you feel about the budget. We go to the next slide. So what is an ISD. As a reminder, we're a regional service agency. We are here to provide service to local districts. We do not actually have an authority in any way. We're actually here to support. We are created by our legislature in 1962 and create, um, economies of scale. We do work across districts where we can together, maybe do something together that will save money across districts. Um, or programming that a single district couldn't do on their own. There are quite a few folks who work at Ouachita Intermediate School District, and we focus on a lot of innovation. Um, I think now I need to add the word equity in there. We're very focused on

ensuring equity of access to education and educational justice, and we focus on teaching and learning and educational access for all students. And you probably notice for the shared programs, especially around special education and early childhood, that we work on. The next slide. Um, we do offer a lot of cooperative programs and services for students across all nine local districts. We secure a number of educational resources, including a lot of grants, and share that funding and programming across the county. We do support the professional development of teachers. We work with your folks here in Ann Arbor to do that work. In addition with our other local districts and all kinds of other services to support children so that they can learn and thrive. Um, I want to emphasize that point. I think we focus as an ISD on the kids that are system doesn't serve well. We always want to turn our eye and say, what can we do to help support the kids that might be struggling within our system the most? How do we support extra programming? How could we do something differently? How could we innovate in terms of supporting them? So the next slide, uh, this budget focuses primarily your approval is for our general education services. We're going to be providing information across both general editor and special ed. And a little taste of what's coming for CTE career technical education. But we're focusing this part on the services on the general education side of our budget. And there are five primary areas that we provide service, technology and data.

Our achievement initiatives, which focuses on instruction, our community and school partnership team, career technical education, and our grant funded programs and services. Really briefly, technology and data services provide a whole host of different service to our local districts, including our fiber network that allows internet access in all of our districts. Um, our state connections to various programming, including the state education fiber network. Uh, we host a number of applications, such as Power School, which is your student information system, your finance system, and New World. And a couple other programs. And we also for districts that request it, we actually contract and provide local technology department services within districts. Let's go to the next slide on our Achievement Initiative team. We focus on learning series's. So a lot of professional learning. We also do custom professional development for districts. And we host learning networks that are ongoing professional learning opportunities that build teacher leaders and a whole number of different areas that are identified by our curriculum directors throughout the county. The The next one. A few examples of the work on the achievement initiatives include some additional kinds of instruction supports. We do some work around health education. We do provide the Senior Exit Survey. You may be aware of that as a county and as a district. We do substantial work around grow your own for teachers or paraprofessionals who want to become teachers. We've been very engaged with that and then have a whole number of professional learning opportunities and efforts related to equity, including

our Justice Leaders series. Next. The Department for Community and School Partnerships, um, they focus pretty heavily on mental health. Right now, we've started an entire team. We call it the Bridge Mental Health Team. And they provide wraparound services and supports to the kids who really have significant mental health needs. So your district can recommend that one of the folks from the mental health team work with a student in your district who might need something more than what you can provide. We provide service to hundreds and hundreds of kids through that program. We also do the Great Start Collaborative, which is work with community partners around our birth to five year old students and the trusted parent advisors work with homeless youth. Our law enforcement partnerships. We're doing a lot of work right now in the chronic absenteeism to try to get to the bottom of what we can do as a system to support kids so they don't have to miss school. And then we do run the court involved youth and jail education programs and support the My Future Fund, which is the childhood savings accounts, uh, countywide. Next, we highlight a few of our different, um, initiatives from that team. I've talked about some of those already. Let's go to the next career and technical education. Um, for those of you who might have seen this presentation, we've updated these slides based on board member suggestions. Um, what's really important about career and technical education until this year? Um, we used our own money and districts pooled money in order to support our efforts around career technical education. Um, we passed the millage. Thank

you for all of your support in November. Which means beginning in July, we are going to be able to start to do a lot of additional work around career technical education, which means expanding programs, which we've been working on. But we can really continue to do that in really innovative ways. We will be in our establishing an advisory council to help us with that. Um, we're establishing an actual formal consortium for the county, and we've been working very, very, very hard over the last 8 to 12 weeks on establishing a budget for the funding, um, which is pretty complicated when you're working with as many districts and community partners as we are. We're doing a lot of work to pilot some work, pre-K 12 for experiential learning. So, yeah, so, uh, we've historically and we'll continue to have state funding, uh, around career technical education. And we put this up here so that you understood the revenue picture coming into next year. So you can see the state was at 1.32 million federal dollars. It's just over $500,000, or half a million. And then 25 million for the CTE millage. And the next slide, we're going to talk just briefly about where that millage, the proposed expenditures for the millage dollars coming in the next year. Um, it was clear as we were working on the campaign, talking to the districts, talking to families and students, and then, of course, the local superintendents, that there were three areas that we had to invest the bulk of the money in. That's our pre-K through 12 applied and experiential learning efforts to create a very engaging and supportive environment for learning for children across the county. Uh, the capital

costs for facilities and equipment. We know that we need to put money aside so you can expand, uh, or renovate or add new programs that require actual physical plant changes or massive or large equipment purchases. And then the bulk of the dollars you can see is salary and benefits for the instructional staff who provide state approved CTE course instruction. We have a couple other buckets there that cover all these other smaller things. Um, it's about 30% of the funding overall, including things like piloting programs, doing the research and development innovation work, the leadership support, the career counseling, all the backbone services. Um, you know, we're going to have to have people that help with apprenticeships and internships and making those kinds of placements, that kind of funding transportation, all the materials. And then, of course, we have to keep a small amount for the fund equity to manage cash flow. Go to the next slide. I wanted to emphasize in our general fund and our general ed budget, all of that work that I talked about, um, basically what we do is we have a small amount of money that we get overall for the ISD through taxes locally, and then that's the orange piece of that pie. And then for like we gave this example for our community school partnership team, 90% of the funding, then we maximize by getting grants. So we end up paying part of someone's salary, maybe 5 or 10% out of our general fund. And then 70, 80, 90% out of grant dollars. So we really try to bring in a lot of grant funding for the work that we collectively choose to do. Let's go to the next slide. All right. I'm going to turn this over to Brian Marcel to talk a little

more in detail about our budget slides. Thanks, Naomi. Good evening everyone. Um. So. Uh, as Naomi pointed out in one of the early slides, uh, the action the board actually has to take is on our general education budget, which is on the bottom portion of the slide. Um, and you can see special education on the top. Um, there are some ISD's that only talk about their general education budget, but given the size of our special education budget and the importance of that funding to our local school districts and public school academies, we make sure to talk about special education as well, because it's four times larger than what our general education fund is. Um, since we're going to be talking mainly about, um, general education from, a approval or disapproval standpoint. Um, you can see in the bottom that by the end of the 26, 27 year, we're projecting to have about $8.3 million fund balance with revenues of around 44 million and expenditures just over 44 million. So we're projecting to spend about $183,000 of the fund balance during the 2627 school year. That will leave us with about a 18.9% fund balance at the end of the year. Uh, the next slide, uh, is a combination of our general and special education expenditures combined. Um, and we like to present it this way because we have a lot of combined expenditures that are for both funds. Um, but it also emphasizes where most of our funding ends up going. You can see on the bottom right. Uh, I know there's three blue slides. The pi pieces of pi. I'm just going to tell you where they are on the page, as opposed to what color they are. Uh, the bottom right, uh, blue section is the direct special education services. That's about 23.5% of our overall budget. Uh, that's going to be the programs that we and services that we operate

on your behalf. For students that are sent to programs that are operated by the intermediate school district. Think of like High Point School, the Progress Park program, and our young adult services with. There are many other special education services in there as well. On the bottom left hand side. Our earmarked grants and projects, that's about 26% of our overall budget. Um, you can think of the idea special education grant, uh, Head Start. Um, so there's all of those grants that are that we receive revenue for that we operate on behalf of students in all of our local districts and public school academies. And then on the top section is funds that are directly transferred to our local school districts, which is about 42% of our budget. Um, and the primary piece that's in there is the special education reimbursement that we provide to, all districts for the special education programs that you operate. So in combination, all three of those sections is about 92% of our overall budget, which is either funds directly transferred to you, special education services that are on behalf of the students that you're sending to our programs or our earmark grants and projects that we are operating on behalf of your school district, next slide. Looking at the Special Education Fund, you can see that the largest portion of the funding comes from local funding. That's the top blue bar. Uh, about 126 million of that 129 million is property tax revenue. Um, we are projecting during 26, 27 to have about a 4% increase in, um, uh, tax revenue from 25, 26. The rest is mainly investment earnings and special education fund. That's local revenue. The state revenue of about 27 million. Um, about $17.8 million of that is the

same kind of revenue that you all receive for the special education programs that you operate. If a student is in a special education, classroom based program, uh, they get an FTE for that, just like you get FTEs for the student. The programs you operate that are classroom based. We also get a foundation allowance for those students as well. Um, and just as you get a 28.6% reimbursement for the special education programs you operate, we also get a 28.6% reimbursement, just like you do. Um, that's about, like I said, about $18 million of of that funding. Um, we also then receive some of the other same funding that you do. So there's section 147 C, which is the retirement, um, funding that we receive from the state to help offset part of our retirement costs. And then a few years ago, there was some change in property tax legislation, personal property taxes. Um, we receive about $1 million in reimbursement for a fund that the state set up to help offset the effects of those things. Um, of those changes in personal property tax legislation. Um, on local school districts as well as municipalities. The federal piece in our special education fund is about $12.7 million. The main component of that is our Ida flow through Grant. Uh, it's about six, $11.6 million of that is actually transferred out to our local school districts, including Ann Arbor Public Schools. Um, so most of that funding ends up going out to help reimburse costs that your district is operating. Uh, and then I won't talk about the incoming transfer because it's that small. Um, the outgoing transfer on the special education side, um, however, is the big piece of where, as I mentioned, most of our funding goes. That's in our special education fund. And you can see we have it mapped out here from

2019 through the budget year that we're looking at 2026, 27. And you can see on the bottom of the screen, we're telling you which, uh, years are actual. So which years are done. And in the books in which yours are still budgeted, and you can see from going from 25, 26, uh, to, to, I'm sorry, 24, 25 to 2526 going from the first actual year to a budget year, the outgoing transfer, which is the blue part of the bar, goes from about 86 million to about $80 million. And that's why we put the budget label on the bottom. Uh, that is our original budget, which is you're knowing right now we are actually putting this together starting in January. It's before we know what, um, property taxes are going to be. We don't know what state aid is going to be. Um, everything is is our best guess at that time, based on past history and our experience with with what's happened with finances around the state. Um, so do I expect the outgoing transfer in 25, 26 to be $80.6 million? No, I know it will be more than that. Um, we've already gone through a budget amendment process. I know it will be more than that. Will be more than $86 million. That's there for 24, 25. Um, but due to, uh, some, some positive property tax changes and some other things in our expenditures, we are projecting that that outgoing transfer, the blue part of the bar will be about $89 million next year. Next slide. Um, so this graph gets a little confusing. So bear with me for a second. So, um, the line graph is, uh, the percentage of all the special education costs that are reimbursed that are claimed to, to the ISD. So the way that our reimbursement process works is you all you have your special education costs, as I

mentioned, you get money from the state and you get some, um, Ida flow through money from us. The net of that is called added costs. So it's the added cost of special education that you're not already reimbursed for. Those costs are submitted to us for reimbursement. And that line graph on there indicates what percent of overall costs in the county. So not each not each district, but overall county. Like what percent of those costs we're reimbursing in each of those respective years that, um, scale for that is on the left hand side. And the percent the bar graph is the local district and public school academy, special ed, what we call non center costs that are the costs that are for the programs that you all operate within your district. Um, and that, uh, scale is on the right hand side in millions of dollars. Um, so you can see that historically we've been very close, uh, since passing the millage in 20 1617, we've been between a 90 to 100% reimbursement. Um, every year, uh, for for all the costs across the county, um, you'll see again that 2526 is a budget year. That's the year that we're in right now. Um, but you also see one of those that bar section of that graph, uh, on the LA special education costs, um, that increased from 24 to 25, about 8.4%, which is more than the property tax increase that we had this year, which was about a 3.6% property tax increase. That's in the budget. So that's why that bar goes down is because mainly because local district costs and public school academy costs have gone up at a rate that's higher than what our property tax increase was. Um, that sort of switches around. Uh, next year, we don't know what

everyone's special education costs are going to do next year. So for 26, 27, we assume they're going to be flat. Um, is that a reasonable assumption? Uh, I sometimes think that that it is, uh, given that we had an 8.4% increase this year, I'm not expecting that there'll be more than that in that next year. Uh, but our property taxes, as I mentioned, are going up 4%. Which is why that graph ends up getting reimbursed at a higher amount. Uh, in 26, 27. Next slide. Uh, the other component of what effects that percent is property taxes, as I mentioned. So the blue bars on this one are the property tax revenue. And as I mentioned, it's going up 4%, which helps to offset some of those costs and is the reason, one of the reasons that it's going up. Uh, for the 2627 budget. Okay. So overall, what are the main revenue changes that are happening in the Special Education Fund? I, as I mentioned, we're projecting a 4% increase in property taxes. I think we just got our property tax values within the last week. Uh, so I think it will actually be more than 4% will probably be closer to 5%, but 4%. So it's in our budget right now. Uh, we're assuming to have a reduction in investment earnings. Um, we keep thinking rates are going to come down, but then our economy tells no, that that's not what we're going to do. Um, but we're still projecting to be conservative that we're going to have a reduction in investment earnings going into 2627 from 2526. Uh, we are projecting to have an increase in state revenue. Uh, all three the House, Senate and, um, governor's budget all included an increase in the foundation allowance of $250. So that's what we included in the budget.

And we are projecting that our special ed costs will be higher. So we have increased the reimbursement that will be receiving from the state, uh, for that as well. And then we generally assume no federal carryover, uh, grants from one year to the next. Next slide. Um, on the expenditure side, uh, we are we did add a blind, low vision teacher, consultant, uh, in a less restrictive environment, T.C., due to student needs. Uh, so it's been based on on demand for services that are for students in our programs. Uh, we did add an instructional coach in our autism spectrum disorder program, which is operated at High Point School. We have a lot of newer staff that are in that program. Um, and so we found a need to have an instructional coach added at that at that location. Um, we've added some additional administrative support to assist with compliance and monitoring. Um, for the past several years, the Department of Ed has taken a different perspective of having the intermediate school district be the primary, uh, entity. Since we are the recipient of the Ida Grant, uh, we are all sub recipients. Um, you and your other local districts. So they're holding us more accountable for exactly what's happening in local school districts. Uh, so we found a need to add additional staff in order to be able to keep a better handle on what it is that's actually happening in local school districts. And to assist with not only compliance and monitoring, but data analysis and providing additional assistance to districts in how to work with students that are, um, they're having particular issue with. Um, we've also added some staffing for succession planning for some known retirements that we are going to be having, um, at some of the senior level positions in our district. And then we had

to add some tech staffing, um, for desktop and cybersecurity. I don't really talk much about the first one, but if you were to look at our budget, you would see a large debt service amount. And that's actually because we rent a lot of spaces around the county. Uh, and that's why we have debt, uh, in our special education fund. Uh, and when we do our budget, we assume all vacancies are filled and that we are going to have step increases. Um, and that our current, uh, bargaining agreement has a 2.5% increase for staff. Um, as well as for our non bargaining staff. Uh, we have health care increases included that as the employer expense side of it at 3.5%. And as I mentioned, when we were talking about the special education reimbursement, uh, districts are currently budgeting for about an $80.6 million reimbursement for 25, 26. And we're projecting that to be 89.4 for the 2627 year. Next slide. So this shows a history of our fund balance. Um, and uh, the thing of course, you're going to note is, well, what happened starting in 2023. Uh, well a couple of things happened starting then, um, one, the state changed, uh, how special education funding was done for local school districts and intermediate school districts. Uh, it used to be that we would get 20. I mentioned that 28.6% reimbursement. We would get that 28.6% reimbursement. And then any kids that we counted that were had a special education FTE, because they were in a basic classroom situation. Um, they would say, well, we already paid you that foundation allowance, so we're only going to pay you the difference between 28.6% of your costs. And what we gave

you for a foundation allowance. And in 2020, 23, 24, they changed that. Uh, we now get 28.6% of all our costs as well as you do, and they now pay us a foundation allowance on top of it, as opposed to just supplementing the difference up to the 28.6%. So that only not only increased our revenue because we count students, but it increased every local school district's revenue as well, because they also count students. Um, so what that did, is it reduced that added cost burden that they were now asking us to reimburse. So when because they were getting more state revenue, that meant more of their costs were being reimbursed. So they claimed less money to us. That allowed that percentage reimbursement, which was on that other graph, to stay high. It's so high that we have several districts and public school academies where we we reimburse 100% of their costs. I can't send them more than 100% of their costs, even though the way our calculation works, it would say, oh, well, this district should get $3 million, but their costs only allowed me to pay them 2.6 million. So 400,000 I couldn't give to them. That ends up in our fund balance. So what we do is we end up putting that money into the following year's reimbursement formula. And so we're going to continue to do that. And so that's what is showing for 2425 going into 2526 is we put that $17 million back into the reimbursement formula for all the school districts. So, um, when we go through that process, as we close out the year, we'll see what that looks like. Um, but we're we are reimbursed, as I mentioned on that reimbursement slide, we're close to reimbursing every district close to 100%. Um, so we can't give away any more money. So at some point we are going to look

at, um, we have other things that can be reimbursed, such as your transportation expenses for special education students. Uh, there could be a reimbursement there, but it could be at some point in time that we get to the point where we will not have to assess the entire millage anymore, because we would, um, we would not want to continue to escalate a fund balance like that to that level. So next slide on the general side. Again, this is the budget that you will mainly be taking action on. Um you can see this one looks way different than what the special education revenue slide looked like. Our local revenue in special and general education is only about $3.2 million. About 2.3 million of that is property tax revenue. Uh, the rest is going to be interest earnings. And then we have a lot of local grants for and other services that we perform. Uh, we have some professional development that we charge for services. Uh, we do fingerprinting services for all of the local school districts, and there's a fee to the person applying for fingerprinting. Uh, that we charge. We have some, um, local community foundation resource grants and other local grants that make up that 3.2 million. Uh, then we have this mysterious category that's in the green called non educational entity, which makes no sense to anyone except the people that developed the chart of accounts at the state of Michigan. Uh, that if you want to think of it as the the county of Washtenaw. So that's Washtenaw County. That's what that means in real words. Um, they classify it as non educational entity. Um, so we have incoming money from there. That $3.4 million. The biggest portion of that is the My Future fund that Naomi talked about earlier. Uh, that makes

up about $2.8 million of that $3.3 million. Um, and the remaining piece also relates to something else we talked about, which was the mental health funding. Uh, we do receive some money from Washtenaw County as well to help offset some of the costs of operating the bridge team. Um, and that amounts to about 580,000 in the 2627 budget. The state piece, uh, there's two state pieces. The first one operations, the 1.9 million is what we think of as our ISD foundation that we get. Uh, it's under section 81. Every intermediate school district receives some level of funding. Uh, in that, unfortunately, we're projecting that to be a 0% increase for next year. Um, but the biggest piece you can see is the red bar, which is the state restricted grants. And as Naomi talked about, we are do we do everything we can to try to get as many grants as we can that are on things that are focused on the the work that we're doing? Um, the biggest piece of that, 23.6 million is going to be the great Start Readiness program, that's about $14.8 million. Uh, we receive funding for adult education. That's about 2.3 million of that $23 million. We received section 31 and mental health funding. Uh, that's about $1.6 million of that funding. Uh, that also helps to go pay for the operation of the bridge team. Um, and then we received the section 147 C, which I talked about in Special Education Fund, which is that retirement offset money that we get. We also get that in the general education fund. That's about $1.8 million in this fund. On the federal funding is about $7 million. That's the purple bar. Uh, the primary, um, uh, section of that is our Head

Start grant, and it's about $5.3 million. Uh, we also receive funding for Perkins, which is in the career technical education side of things. Uh, snap ed funding, newcomer funding McKinney Vento, which is a homeless. Uh, working with students who are homeless. Um, and then title one regional assistance grant funding the incoming transfers a little larger in the general education Fund. It's almost $4.8 million. Uh, one of the biggest things in there are actually most of the biggest things in there. Naomi also talked about, uh, one of those is some of those cooperative programs. So we cooperatively purchase, uh, classes for Michigan Virtual University. Uh, in 2020. Uh, that's a portion of that budget. And then we do shared technology services with we provide the service for the Lincoln Consolidated Schools and the Ypsilanti Community Schools. Uh, we provide their tech department services, and then we also do some other, uh, small specialized technical services for several other local school districts as well. So summarizing general fund major revenue changes, uh, similar to the special education Fund, we're showing a property tax increase of about 4%. We are just like in special ed, assuming a small reduction in our investment earnings. Uh, we're as I mentioned, we're projecting that that section 81 funding our foundation, that we get to be flat. Uh, and we assume generally no grant carryover in the general Education Fund and the expenditure side. Um, because we're not assuming any grant carryover, and we have a lot of carryover into the 25, 26 year if you were to look at our budget resolution, you would see our expenditures were lower. And the main reason is because many of those grants, uh, we're not budgeting the carryover piece going into 26, 27. Uh, we've had we used to have historically in Instructional Services.

Assistant superintendent position. Uh, we haven't had that position. Uh, for several years now. Uh, but we're finding a need. Um, uh, with some of the work that we're doing to add that position back. Uh, we've. And just like in special education, we've added some staffing for succession planning and also the same. The other piece of the general ed side of the tech staffing for desktop support and the cybersecurity. And just like in special education, uh, we assume that all vacancies are filled, step increases in the same salary and benefit increases that we had budgeted. And special education on the fund balance side of things. This is the history of our general education fund balance. Uh, was fairly consistent again. Um, up until about 20, 23, 24. Um, in that year, uh, we did have a couple of things happen. One is we had build some things from 2223 to the tune of about $700,000 that didn't get paid by August 31st. Uh, if you've ever run into this, I don't know if Darcy has, um, but if they don't pay things by August 31st, we have to push the revenue into the following year. Um, so about 700,000 of that revenue where it went from 5 million to 6.9, uh, was a bill that actually happened in 22, 23. So it actually should be more of a steady increase to get to that 6.9. But it looks like a big jump. Um, and then in 23, 24, the other reason that we had some increases there. Um, I'm sorry, in 24, 25 is the 14784 revenue which you all received instead of a foundation allowance that was based on payroll. And while we don't count a lot of students, we do have payroll expenses. Uh, and so we we in our general

education fund got quite a bump for getting that. 147 A for retirement reimbursement money that year. Uh, the other thing that I want to note on, I don't I don't know if I mentioned Naomi mentioned this or not, but one of the reasons we we like to have a decent fund balance in our general education, as you saw on the revenue graph, a lot of what we get is grant funding. Um, and as you know, uh, and have heard for the last couple of years, uh, grant funding is not always relatively stable. And we had at least one grant, maybe two grants that were kind of pulled from us at the very last minute. Uh, we had two weeks to make a transition to figure out what we were going to do with the people that were in operating in that grant. Um, and having a fund balance allowed us to actually pivot and fund them for a period of time. Um, six weeks or so, uh, to make a transition so that it could be a little smoother transition as opposed to just cutting people off literally two weeks with two weeks notice. So. Um, and we have like around 20 to 25 grants that are operating in that general education fund space. Um, and so having an adequate fund balance has been really important for us to, to make sure to cushion against those things. And that's all we had. Unless anyone had any questions. Thank you for. That. Very involved. Presentation. Um. What's shocking. I try to give the short version. Um, what's. Shocking to me? I served. On the East Lansing School Board in 99 to oh four. I am just stunned by how much money goes. To. ISD's now compared to them, and I, I have I don't know if I agree with all of it, but it's

just an amazing thing to see. Um, so in, uh, last year, money was cut from the state budget. Um, 35 D funding for training for teachers so that they can work with children with dyslexia. And we knew prior to that when that money was available, um, ISD's like Ingham County had a really great partnership with like Lansing schools, one of our big urban districts. Um, to have a place and to organize the training. And it was paid for by the state. That money has not been available this year and not I don't see it in the budget. We've worked hard to try to get back in the budget for this coming year. I see that you mentioned, um, there is money that, you know, professional development, things that happen. Some maybe you do, but you're charging an amount. So, you know, there's revenues that you. Get for some of the professional development that we do. Yes. And I know letters has been the thing, you know, but I would ask you in this next year to find a way. And I don't mean just to have a night where you have cats. And Pearson come and talk about dyslexia, but to do something meaningful for the schools in this county, to give teachers access to high quality training in this. And we know the Michigan dyslexia students like the gold standard. And that's a great place. And we know that exists in our state. We're so lucky that they exist. Um, and I don't know if this is the place to bring this up, but I just feel that when I think about the ISD and what it does to help Ann Arbor schools, this could be a big help because we have teachers that are on a wait list that want this training, and the state cut that money. We got a group in last August or September, and as of October 1st it was gone.

So I, I wish you'd entertain that and find a way because, um, there's many times and we all know this being in the business of education, there's a lot of professional development that isn't life changing or makes big impacts on kids. But that kind of training, we know does. And that's why it was funded for 4 or 5 years across the state. Sometimes you lose your champion, get that money. So I just wanted to put that idea out there. Thank you. All right. Yeah. Thank you. Vice president Wilkes. Yes. Thank you. And thank you for that presentation. Um, as I was going through the budget, I didn't see any allocations for, um, the CTE millage that was just recently passed. Um, and how exactly is the ISD determining how that money will be allocated to each district? If you could share that. I mean, I, I. can yeah, sure. So, um, yeah, I Naomi did talk a little bit about the CTE budget. Um, there was a $25 million slide that, that she had, um, up there. Uh, I did not go into that detail because we didn't we were required to talk about the general education fund. And we've always talked about special education. I think what will happen for next year's budget is it will end up being part of the budget that I present as well. Um, and I'll talk more about the CTE fund. Um, there was a lot of planning that that went in with an advisory council, um, local businesses, local school districts, district superintendents, district CTE directors. Um, as to what the millage needed to focus on. Um, and as Natalie mentioned, we've been spending a lot of time within the last probably. And what do you think? Yeah. Since January. Um, trying to work on how how is

the budget going to be structured in a way that works best for students, tries to achieve the things that, number one, we told the public that we were going to do with the money. Um, and then what were the important things that all of our local districts wanted to have? And, um, our district, we have people going around right now to every school district to meet with every school district to talk about what those things are. And all of that's getting fed into exactly what the budget's going to look like for next year. Now, we talked about the budget, the buckets there and there was those those three buckets were about 70% of the funding. Um, that that was the thing. They had the biggest desire to make sure got attended to. Um, and so that that's where that came from. That was not something her and I cooked up in the back room somewhere. Uh, that was based on all input from local districts, from businesses. And so, like, where the where the money needed to go, at least for this coming year, whatever you want to.. Um, a couple things. I'll just add. We identified. $10 million to set aside for. staffing costs. We know that that is roughly based on reports from. Last year. Uh, close. to what we think the cost will be for next year. So we tried to make each bucket as close as possible to the known costs for that particular thing. Allowable expense for a CTE budget. So, um, that was a big factor. Another factor was a proportional share. We know that that came up with our discussions within Arpa, that we ensure that for a number of these buckets, that we make sure that there's a proportional share of the funding going to the district. So the district with the most

students would have the most money in certain buckets. We do have some considerations for equity, um, that are very significant. Um, our current system is deeply inequitable. Um, kids of color, kids in poverty, and kids at small high schools have the least access to career technical education. So as we go forward, part of what we had to do in the budget was make sure that the areas where, um, programs don't exist or kids don't have access, that we make sure we are building programs so they have access. Uh, so there's funding set aside that will go specifically to build and expand programs. So we give more access to kids who don't currently have access. Our goal is 30 programs for each kid within 25 miles of home. So where that's our target. And we're aiming toward that. Thank you for that update. Those trustees. If that's the case, thank you all so much for your presentation and your time here tonight. We greatly appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you. Do we need to take a ten minute break? Thank you. I'll take a break and come back

at 10:00, please.

Okay.

I call this meeting back to order at 10:02 p.m.. And I believe we were at the information section of the agenda, and I will turn it over to Superintendent Parks for 9.1. Thank you, President Feaster. And I appreciate the opportunity to provide some highlights and recognitions during the superintendent's report this evening. On Friday, May 1st, the Ann Arbor Public Schools will celebrate or actually celebrated. This was last week. National School Lunch Hero Day. Our APS Food and Nutrition team truly serves as superheroes. Every day throughout the school year. The team works diligently to prepare and provide children with nutritious meals each school day across our 32 school locations, all to foster a sense of community with our within our schools. By the end of the 2526 school year, they will have served more than 2 million meals, all while keeping the health and safety of our students and staff as they as their priority. We salute our school lunch heroes who work hard to achieve our goal of ensuring quality food and nutrition support so our students can continue to stay healthy, grow and learn each day. This week. This week of May 6th, this National Teacher Appreciation Week, a time to recognize the commitment and dedication of our AAPs teachers. A quality teacher makes all the difference in student growth and learning, both today and throughout a child's development. Our AP, our APS students benefit tremendously from their classroom learning experience under the guidance of our APS teachers. Teaching is not easy work and it requires hard skill and an unwavering commitment to students, even when the work is hard and the world is uncertain. The difference APS teachers make for students in a classroom and a conversation in a child's life is lasting, and we are grateful for their role in caring for and serving our students. We are genuinely and deeply grateful. So, on behalf of the APS and the School Board of Education, we recognize and

thank our teachers for all they do every day for our students, families and our community. This week may six, is celebrating National School Nurse Day to recognize school nurses who serve as value members of our school teams and supporting the whole child. National School Nurse Day was established more than 50 years ago to foster improved understanding of the role of the school nurse in schools and to recognize the essential contributions school nurses make to student school and community success. During recent years, the responsibilities of the school nurse have become increasingly more significant and vital for our students, school teams, and families. Most especially for those students whom access to quality health care beyond the school setting continues to be a challenge. Students with chronic conditions may miss school more often than others, affecting their academic and social performance. For these students, school nurses offer critical daily help in managing their conditions so they can learn and grow at school. We thank our school nurses for their dedication to what they do every day for our students, families and colleagues. This week on Friday, May 8th, we celebrate National Child Care Provider Appreciation Day. Now more than ever, we appreciate and honor the people who work every day to provide healthy, safe, and nurturing environments for our children while their parents are at work or school. Our AAPs before and after care staff of about 50, are the first to greet over 600 elementary students every day, and the last to say goodbye. They are trusted adults who keep our children safe and support our working families. On behalf of the APS and the Board of Ed, we recognize and thank our APS before and after care staff for their dedication, commitment and compassion. May. The month of May is recognized as National Mental Health Awareness Month,

but we know mental health matters this month and every month. This year's theme is More Good Days Together, focusing on the importance of community connection and support. The reality is that many people around us are struggling and they deserve care, understanding and support. Mental health challenges don't define a person. They are simply a part of the human experience. By having open, compassionate conversations, we can break the stigma and create a culture of support. So let's stand together to ensure that no one has to struggle alone. If you or someone you know needs help, care, solace is here for you. This complimentary and confidential mental health care coordination service provided by the school district can help connect you with the provider quickly and easily. That contact information is on our website, and we just want you to know you are not alone. Help is all available, so please do not hesitate to reach out. May is also Jewish American Heritage Month A time to recognize and honor the history of Jewish Americans. Rich contributions to our nation's development. We pay tribute to the generations of Jewish Americans whose lives, resilience and hope contributed to a better future for our country. This month in the AAPs, we take the opportunity to honor timeless traditions and heritage. Jewish Americans are highlighted in lessons and reading selections with our students across classrooms and libraries. In the arts, students explore, study, and perform the works of great Jewish American artists. Lyricists, dancers, composers, and many other extraordinary individuals who have positively impacted our society. We are a stronger school community as we honor, embrace, and celebrate our diversity, continually creating a culture of belonging for all and value the

connections that unite us in an inclusive Ann Arbor community. This is also Asian Pacific Islander, South Asian American Heritage Month, and it's observed each month to honor and celebrate the contributions that generations of Asian, Pacific Islander, South Asian, and Native Hawaiian Americans have made to the to American history, society, and culture. This time of recognition provides an opportunity to listen and learn more about the rich diversity within a piece of communities throughout our country and our AAPs community. Our students will be able to explore the contributions of Asian, Pacific Islander, South Asian, and Native Hawaiian Americans, and literature, history, the arts, and science. During May. We are pleased to share a storytelling showcase that's happening Saturday, May 9th at the Chinese Community Center in Madison Heights, where you can watch oral history narratives, speak with teachers, shaping curriculum, and meet Asian American youth storytellers. We extend thanks to three AAPs individuals community and pioneer high school student Shannon Carraro, who interviewed and created videos as part of the storytelling initiative, and teachers Caroline Summerall and Katherine Dudzik, who collaborated with other Michigan teachers to create lesson plans to accompany the videos. May. It's a busy month. It is also national speech and Language Hearing Month, and we take the opportunity to express our appreciation for our outstanding APS speech Pathologist, our speech Pathologist work to increase understanding and ensure treatment of speech and language. Language issues which can improve the quality of daily interaction and life for students experiencing communication challenges. Communication is critical to connecting with others and is the channel through which all other learning happens. Difficulties with speech and

language development impact a child's ability to learn and socialize. So we join APS students, staff and families in recognizing our AAPs speech pathologists for their tremendous role in supporting and empowering our students to achieve personal, school and live success. As of April 28th, Governor Whitmer signed House bill four 303 into law, declaring May as Chaldean Heritage Month. Recognizing the significant and valuable contributions of Chaldean, Assyrian and Syriac Americans. Collectively, there are nearly half a million Chaldean Assyrians Syriacs in the United States, including about 160,000 in Michigan, the largest concentration in the country. We join with others to thank the Chaldean community for enriching Michigan and the United States cultural tapestry and prosperity through their success in the arts, business, law, politics, education, medicine, architecture, engineering and beyond. Pioneer High School has been ranked as the number one high school athletic program in Michigan, and the number seven ranked program nationally. The only Michigan school in the top ten by the MaxPreps Cup, which recognizes the best high school sports program in the country. Using an algorithm that awards points for state championships, runner up finishes, and national rankings based on size of state. Popularity of the sport, size of the school, and the number of teams in each playoff division. Pioneer standing was based on its strong performance as follows. The winter state championship for the boys swimming team. The fall state championships for the girls field hockey, girls swimming and girls cross country teams. The fall state runner ups for the boys cross country team and the fall national rankings for the girls

swimming team. The girls field hockey team, girls cross country and boys swimming. So congratulations pioneer! All right, so. Skylines. Bel canto treble Choir has been selected as outstanding choir at the VMA All-State Festival. This is the highest distinction acquirer can receive in our state, and we are so proud to have our students perform and represent our district at the gala concert tomorrow, May 7th at Fairchild Theater on the campus of Michigan State University. The concert is free and open to the public and will be live streamed on the Ms. VMA Facebook page. Additional good news to share an ensemble of 20 students from Bel Canto and Cantar. Tbe choir has also been selected have also been selected to perform at the All-State recital on May 8th. So congratulations to Skylands, Bel Canto, Treble Choir. Down to the last couple of updates. We have Miss Langford coming forward with a few clarifications. Thank you, Superintendent Parks. Um. I just wanted. To make a few clarifications. While I respect the confidentiality of bargaining and have maintained that stance throughout the bargaining process this evening, both our AA rep and our AA AP rep, um, brought forward items that were discussed during the bargaining process. Um. While there were several statements made that I could clarify, one in particular needs immediate clarity. Uh, as it's absolutely untrue, Mr. Klein stated that in a sidebar. He asked if cabinet would increase their employee contribution toward benefits,

and that my response was that would increase our cost. That was, in fact not my response. There would be no need for me to state the obvious. What was stated during that meeting was that we are increasing the employee contribution for cabinet, and we have done so for the last two years and will continue to do so moving forward. In regard to Miss Arthurs statement, there was a lot said I would need to dissect it prior to giving a response, so I'll defer my response. Thank you, Miss Langford. Um, lastly, we have just a couple of budget details. Um, Mr. Burton is going to come forward in just a moment. But before that, I do want to share that next week we will we will be having a work session on May 13th, where we will be in advance of that, uh, budget discussion meeting that the work session will be focused on. Um, prior to that, we will be collecting, uh, community questions and concerns and feedback to respond to at that particular meeting. So we will get that out. Uh, via, uh, the Friday message to families so that you can send those questions in advance of that May 13th work session. But again, that meeting will be here at Earhart. It's a work session of the board on the budget. Um, and for this particular meeting, we do want to get some feedback around some specific questions and concerns that the community has regarding the the budget process as well as the long term decisions that we've discussed having to to make for the long term financial health and sustainability of the district. Um, and at this. Superintendent Park, if I can just add to that. So originally I had made an announcement at two of our regular meetings that we were going to have on that date. Um, Doctor David Aartsen, who's a professor

emeritus of MSU, to talk about state funding, to give us sort of background proposal a all that, um, we ran some schedule conflicts, and it was actually perfect how this worked out, because I think there's a bigger, um, need for the type of meeting that we're going to have. So stay tuned in the future, if we still will be able to arrange that type of meeting. Thank you. Thank you. Trustee Smith. Um, so at each meeting, uh, including this evening, we want to make sure that we're discussing, um, our process and progress on our early budgeting planning, as well as the decision making we face to ensure the district's long term financial health. Can you can. You clarify what time is this? 7:00. I'm sorry. Regular meeting time. Thank you. And it. Will be. recorded as well. Yep. Just like a regular. Our one of our regular meetings. Yep. Um, this evening we want to talk a little bit, um, very briefly under the superintendent's report before we move on to our next item. Um, and start to share a slightly different way of presenting the data in hopes that our budget context, um, will be more, uh, digestible, understandable, comprehensive, and communicate the transparency that we aim to provide for the community. Uh, there are many, many equity frameworks out there. And they they all have some pretty common elements that we value here in AAPs. And we grounded our decision making in those, those, those values of, of some of the equity frameworks back when we had to make decisions in the spring of 2024. Um, or around the budget, and we have those same values and goals now. Um, and that includes a focus on equitable distribution of resources, transparency, supporting student success, supporting educators and staff, being good stewards of the district's finances and

resources, analyzing data, engaging our community, etc.. And so Mr. Britton will touch on just a few of those things right now. Um, including these goals and values that we hold and how we're how we're thinking through operationalizing some of the changes that we anticipate making in order to become more financially stable, and healthy. Um, and we're also going to talk in touch on a little bit, um, the short and long term considerations for our planning and preparation for those more in-depth discussions that we will be having next week and beyond. Um, and so I'll turn it over to Mr. Britton at this time just to talk about a couple of those things again. Um, as a precursor to these deeper dives that we're going to go into next week and beyond. So, trustees, thank you for having me. Good evening or good night? I think that means something totally different. Um, but good evening. Um, I just want to spend a couple of minutes. May is also, along with everything else, superintendent parks, uh, mentioned. May is also the beginning of budget planning for us. And it's the beginning of budget planning season for the next year. Um, I want to talk just for a few minutes today about how we're going about that decision making and what that will look like this year, which may be a little bit different than in years past. As Superintendent Parks referred to. Um. Slide, please. So today I'm not going to take you through every point of this slide, but I do want it to be there for your reading and for the public's reading about how we're going to make decisions going forward. How are we going to suggest and recommend some of the necessary changes that have to happen in the district? I think we all agree we are at a point where some changes have to be made, and so we're going to talk about a lot of those changes over the next several weeks in more detail and give more background data. But I want to talk a little bit about

what the rationale is behind how those decisions will be made and how my staff and I are even thinking about those as we go into this budget season. So next slide. As Superintendent Park said, we're going to really focus on how and how we evaluate and how we make those changes is really going to focus on our goals, and that is equitable distribution of resources. We want to be equitable in the way that we distribute, distribute our resources across the district. In doing that, we want to be fully transparent. We want to talk. We benchmark already against other districts, other school systems, even other other just financing tools. That and models that we have. But we want to be risk avoidance. That is one of the things we don't want to put our district or students at risk of being either, uh, either taken over by the state or having or not having any kind of physical stability at all. So we want to be risk avoidance. And that's our goals as we're starting to drive forward next. Next slide please. So how will we make those changes. So we start with students. And it's a student centered approach. And it's a data informed student centered approach. We understand that by supporting our students and supporting the students need both in and out of the classrooms. One of the things that we'll talk about in the next coming weeks is also those support services, which are also vital to students, that the district is currently spending fund funds on, that sometimes gets lost in this discussion. Things like transportation, things like meals and food service, things like custodial services that support the learning, environmental students. We're going to talk about that in in the coming months. We use data, we use research, but we will engage with our community. Superintendent parks already gave an indication that this is part of a much bigger talk that will start next week, but it won't finish next week. This is an ongoing discussion that we

want to have with the community. You as a board, you as a board, but also our community stakeholders, our educators that are out there as to we want to be transparent in the way that we're spending funds and the way that we're utilizing the resources that we're responsible for as a district. But we want to make sure that that's that long, that stability is long term and that we're sustainable for the duration. And of course, we want to act responsibly. Next slide. So one of the things in the first couple of weeks that that I've already kind of taken notice of is our geographic footprint. So I want us to all take a look at this slide. This is just one example of one of the things that has come up in our very early budget discussion. And our consideration. When you look at comparable size schools in in our, in Michigan, um, you look at the size of those schools in comparison to Ann Arbor Public Schools. We have many more buildings and a larger geographic footprint than most of our neighboring schools. That provides a challenge and distribution of resources, resources, not just being funding resources, being staffing resource, being energy conservation, utilities. Those are all resources. And with this large landscape that we have, I think there's an opportunity here to if we reduce the landscape, be able to to to address some of the issues and some of the concerns that we currently have going on. So if you take a look at this real quick, I won't go through each data point, but I will have it there for your reference point is that if you look at these comparable districts and our public schools has 32 basic buildings or programs that we run, Plymouth Canton is only about 600 less students than us, but they have nine less buildings than us. That means their their footprint is much smaller that they have to cover, and their

resources can be distributed in a very different way. Okay. Um, I do want to mention to you that, uh, the five schools that that that I have under specialized programs consist of one preschool, two K through eight programs, an alternative school and a magnet school. So I wanted to make sure we were comparing apples to apples here. So that's one of the reasons why it may be talked about in a little bit of a different way than we normally talk about how we classify our middle schools and elementary schools. This is so it's apples to apples. So we're talking, um, a direct comparison with other districts. Next slide please. So one of the opportunities and we won't get into detail today, but I think there's an opportunity here through just some, some a few things that can get us started going into next budget year. Predominantly the first two that are on the items, which are land sales and building sales. Yes. Those are one time. Those are one time hits, but those help sustain. And I'll talk a little bit about the impact of what some of these things will do on our budget, but that will help us get to a healthier reserve balance if we're able to sell some underutilized and and underutilized and underused buildings that we currently have in our possession. But we also want to look longer term, and we understand that those conversations are going to take a lot, a lot a much different approach. They're going to take community engagement. They're going to take stakeholder engagement. They're going to take engaging with some of our programming experts that we have, both in the districts but also in the school building. So we'll we also need to look towards school consolidations and programming modifications as well. Within those schools, the anticipated savings, by just doing some of these things, and I think some of this, some of this savings can be realized this year is 6.7 to 7 million for one time. And then I mean, sorry for annual,

um, reductions. But then a 10 or 11,000,001 time hit, if we're able to sell some of those buildings, go on to the next slide. I just wanted to quickly show the effect of this. Now, there's a lot of disclaimers on this slide, so I'm not going to go through it. But when we do take a look at this is not all the assumptions that we that we're going to put into a full budget. We're still working on a lot of those assumptions. There are a lot of things, both contractual and both contractual and reimbursement wise. You heard wisdom talk about some of their things with like CTE and how some of that stuff is still unknown. There's still a lot of unknowns out there for our funding for next year. So this is not by any means meant to share what our full budget picture looks like, but it is meant to show you what the impact of some of those building sales could have. It's a 2.54% about difference between our fund balance, which gets us a lot closer to the both the state and the board. The board target of 8%, which is where we're trying to get to next year. And I think it actually raises to 9% for next year. So this will move us a lot closer if we start to look at some of these land sales and build building sales, I want to I do want to mention this, though, as we look at revenues, one of the assumptions that we're making is almost a flat increase in state and for for our revenues for this year. Why? Because even though all three houses, all three branches of the government are proposing an increase on our foundation, a student enrollment decline would almost negate all of that. All right. So if we have and I think it would be neglectful not to anticipate some student decline right now. And so when we're looking at at these early stages and these preliminary stages, we're very much looking at a flat revenue. So we really have to be cautious about managing our expenses, which I will talk about in a lot greater detail about where our

money is spent and how that money is spent going. This is one of the things I really cover a lot in greater detail next week, but I just wanted to show this slide to show the effect that just $8 million could have on our general reserve and that fund balance, helping us get to a healthier place. Next slide please. So just taking a look at some of the impacts. And I talked about this um, a little bit earlier. First of all, I do want to bring up the fact that, you know, we're trying to be above the reserve levels for a lot of different reasons, but one is we want to avoid any kind of state intervention, right, with state. If a state intervenes, if we drop below the 5% again, then a lot of the things that we're discussing amongst ourselves as a community, whether that's contracts, whether that's obligations, whether that's building, closing, whether that's land sales, that's done anyway, without our without our approval, when the state comes and intervenes. So one of the things that this, this, that some of these moves will do is get us further away from that and closer to making these decisions that are, that are going to result in a healthier district overall. I want to point out we want we want these changes in order to invest in our staff. We want to create capacity. I pointed that out in the in this model, we want to create capacity for more competitive teacher and staff salaries. Uh, I mean, I hear the community, I understand that, but we also have to make some sacrifices and we're going to have to make some changes in order to get there. The other part is just operational efficiency. But overall, our guiding principle is about student impact. What impact are these changes going to have on our students? So we'll continue to evaluate that. But I really wanted to just share a little bit about what it's going to look like going forward. Last slide please. So our long term strategic planning

considerations that I wanted to go through today will continue. What will this look like over the next few weeks. So we'll continue to gauge our community and programming stakeholders. When I talk about our stakeholders, like I said, I mean, our district stakeholders, um, here, here at Earnhardt and also in the schools, we'll we'll continue to engage that community. We'll continue our analysis, and we'll share that analysis and share that results starting as soon as next week at the session that Superintendent Parks talk about, uh, we'll communicate more of those building and land recommendations, but we'll also communicate the reasoning behind that. Why are those particular locations picked? Why are those particular schools being looked at? We're going to talk more and more about that and justify that with data. Um, and with with things that we can all discuss and talk about. And that's, that's the last part, the school consolidation and the program modification will continue to go through that evaluation. That is a longer time period. We understand we're not talking about being able to make those drastic shifts next year. But I think looking at building and land sales initially are is going to probably get us there. And that's a good place to start the discussion. So with that, any questions? So thank you for going over the I know this is like more of an overview than really a detail, because next week we'll go into detail. I think it is important. Hopefully next week or for us to decide is first how to define some of these things. So for example risk risk avoidance, you know, what are the risks. You know, what are the risks that we're trying to avoid. So I understand the bigger term. Like what specifically you know, more of like defining those risks. And then the values, but also like what are our top priorities as a district when we're making these decisions. So like for example, the land sales, building sales that especially

if it's they're empty, like they're not they're not, you know, they're they're easy sales. Those are easy to hopefully to do. Um, probably the least impact when it comes to like students and teachers. Um, but like, so that that makes sense. But I think when we start talking about consolidating buildings, like, is that going to be lower on our list or higher on our list? Or, you know, um, focusing on, like for me, some top priorities are, you know, looking at all non classroom student facing positions, programs, staffing and seeing what kind of right sizing can be done or looking at technology. And I understand it comes from the bond. But like can we balance that and add more money to the bond to be able to help, um, fix more buildings, for example? I'm just I'm just giving examples. So I think that would help to just see what our, what our priorities when we're making our decisions. Um. Go ahead. Go ahead. I was just I was just going to say thank you. We agree, uh, a well-defined. Yes, uh, a well-defined, um. Like plan. Or for priorities is critically important. I also wanted to show you that. Some rooted in our equity principles. I also want to assure you that some of the things that you're talking about, where we're looking at, have looked at and can justify. Right. And I think, um, one of the things and this is my first month, so I'm taking a new, fresh perspective for this. No, no. And I'm taking a new, fresh perspective. And I will say this, we've done spending analysis on what we're spending on non instructional. And that's one of the reasons why I highlighted some of those things that might be non instructional but are vitally important to student success. Some of those things like transportation some of those things like food service some of those things like custodial

and grounds. They do require an investment. But I want to be able to show and I will show in the next week or two, like how efficient the district actually is. Being with those kind of services. Um, that is not you know, that's that's not the message that we hear, but the, the data that I see, um, and that I've looked through shows that. And I think these are actually the highest priority for our opportunities to get to a healthier financial place, um, than even looking for some of those things. I think some of those savings are going to come over a number of years. Some of those strategies are going to take years to get to. We need some things to happen now. And if they don't happen now, we're going to. When I talk about risk, the number one risk is state intervention. Right. And so when I talk about risk it's those kind of risks. It's also uh over committing us. Right. If we if we make a mistake in this moment right now by over committing our resources, that's going to put the district in trouble for a long time. And a lot of years. That's the kind of risk I'm talking about avoiding. So when I think about that kind of risk, that's this is some of the preliminary things, I think that we need to take a look at right away, because it's timely. And, and, and an obvious risk that we heard so many of our fine teachers and our parents do speak to is, you know, we don't want to have educators decide another district looks more interesting if they're those people that are making a great difference here. So, um, you know, and we have we have to make some moves, make that happen. Yeah, definitely. And I would also add that another risk would be. Um. A declining enrollment. Yeah. Where enrollment goes down even further. Um, funding is based on enrollment. So, um, that's definitely a risk. And I will mention that too. I mean, and I didn't mention that in my comments, but when we take a look at, like our

footprint on the district, we have to consider the declining enrollment, right? And right now, it doesn't look like the projections are going to go in the other direction anytime soon. And we need to adjust to that, and we need to adjust our footprint to that, which is why this is one of the first things that I'm highlighting. And, you know, even in my first month is because I do think that's an opportunity that's that. And those underutilized buildings where that's probably the least impactful for our students and our educators. Um, so we can really but we it'll still put us a lot more in a financially stable position. That makes sense. May I piggyback on that? I believe it's Trustee Baskett. What's next? Thank you, thank you. Um, first of all, Mr. Britton, thank you so much. Um, we have said all of these things somewhere in the table, conversations, emails, whatever. But I so appreciate you putting it in one place with some really nice slides, you know, to, again, catch the eye and to explain everything. Um, Trustee Wilkes and I attended MSB training Michigan Association school board training this past weekend. Um, to work towards the finance certification. People talk about people, whether they be students or staff leaving for other districts. We're all hurting in Michigan. We are losing population everywhere. Okay? It's not just an Ann Arbor thing. So the grass is not always greener on the other side. And although some districts may have contracts in place right now, anything could change. So again, um, it's you know, I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but it ain't good. Nowhere. Okay, so I again, I appreciate you putting it all together, clarifying very clearly. Um, number one, risk again. State intervention. We see how well they did in other districts. Not okay. So we definitely don't want to be anywhere near that anymore. Um, again, this is not an exhaustive list. As we've said before, but this is a starting

point. And again you put it all here so we can refer people all to this tonight's session. And again we will post this and all the usual places. So again, thank you and welcome. I'd love to have your perspective. Thank you. Trustee. Our trustee. Smith. And that's what I was going to say about the. Enrollment. You know, you have I. Was sending her the vibe. Yes. And if I remember Mr. Bergus here so he can see if I remember this. Right. Um, I just remember, was it last year? We have lost students, but we've lost at least amount compared to the other schools in our county. Right? Overall. And it's like this is happening everywhere, especially if you're in a place you're not building single family homes and things that draw families in. And that's not happening here much. It's mostly apartments and condos. So. Nothing. So I and thank you for outlining kind of comparing us to different districts as far as our footprint. Um, you know, as, as you present more data, I think and I asked this previously, but it would be good to know, you know, in, in building in school consolidations and things like that, like the actual operations savings and not the staff, because I'm assuming we're not going to, you know, when you consolidate two buildings, for example, I don't think you're going to lose as much. It's not going to be coming from staff. It's going to savings is going to come from operations. Yeah. Those estimates aren't just staffing those. Those estimates are all inclusive of utilities and all of that. We're not going to realize all that in staff. That's not where we're going to realize that from. So when we look at those estimates and I will provide greater detail for those estimates, when we look at those estimates, those are not in staffing. I don't I don't want to give you not just in staffing. That's a portion, but it's an operational savings as well. And we've done some of

the studies on what that will be. Right. It would just help because, you know, when you consolidate buildings and I'm not saying this is just everything's on the table. I don't I'm just saying I'm not not that it's going to happen. But if when you do consolidate buildings, um, we have to know if it's worth it because there is a cost savings. But when you disrupt communities, that's a huge that's a that could be a risk. So I do want to point out one of the things that and one of the things I mentioned is that's why it's a longer run for those kind of decisions. Those are not something we're going to make right here in this room or at the district level. Like that's something that we're going to have to engage numerous people about. We're going to have to talk about. And that's why that has a longer, a much longer than some of these land sales and building sales. Right? That those are the things that we do have to talk about. And we do have to have some community engagement on. And we see that. And that's one of the reasons why as, as terms of methodology of going through these changes, community engagement is key. So this isn't just informative. This is also part of how what the process will look like going forward. I want to ensure that people do understand those numbers and some of those challenges and kinds to any decisions that we make. I think we owe them that kind of transparency. Yeah, and definitely one other comment is, um, sometimes the vulnerable schools get, you know, we need to just make sure that, again, the equity piece is critical and that we try to avoid as many of the vulnerable and title one schools as we can. I mean, again, if we, you know, those equity principles are certainly critically important to us also. So they're top of mind for us and drivers for our decision making. And not saying that every school will not be touched, but we are definitely going to be intentional in my when are planning, um, grounded and rooted in the value for equity.

Or something. Okay. So I just want to add this because when you think equity, it's not just a school because we have schools that will be at title one school one year and then not a title one school the next year, and in the schools that have money, there are still children in that school that need support, that are low income, that are whatever. So we can't be so just focused on, oh, if you're a title one school, we have to worry about you more. We have to look at the children and the population of those children and what they need. Mostly. Wilkins I. Just wanted to say that after a really kind of rough meeting, meeting that started out with lots of kind of doom and gloom, this is hopeful to me. And it's I'm really thrilled at seeing this perspective you're bringing to it. And the seriousness you're giving it and the focus on data and doing things right and doing it for the long term. And I appreciate this perspective a lot. Thank you. Trustee. Thank you. Thank you so very much. Greatly appreciate you. Thank you. I believe that brings us down to 9.2. And that is the monthly budget monitoring report for March of 2026. All right. And we have miss Frank Kerr, uh, who is here to present the, uh. Welcome back. Yeah. She's. Hi. I'm back. She's back. With a monthly monitoring report for March. Um, so I will turn it over to Miss Frankau. Thank you, Superintendent parks. This is. Going to be a little bit different format than you. That you saw in February. Um. Hopefully it's. More efficient. It's more what you want to see. So I'll go ahead and jump right in with the disclaimer that March, this

report is based on all the data that we have as of March 31st. So it is a point in time. And so I just like to make sure that everybody's aware of that, are reminded of that. So we're going to start out with the general Fund Summary update. And as we started off the revenues in March as to be expected are lower because we received less in tax monies at this time of the year. February was a little bit better because we still had some tax revenues coming in. Um, also act 18 funds from special education dollars were not received in March. We will the next collection will be in April. And then the final payment of act 18 will be in June. But year to date we are trending as projected for revenues a month, that IT expenditures were slightly less than February's. The big really the only reason was in February we pay the AA group the 27 L two educator compensation program. Payment was made to all of all of the members. And so during that month with the it showed an increase in wage and benefits. Um, for that one reason and one reason only. Um, but our expenses will hold steady until May, which is a three pay period month. So you will see in our trends that we do expect the expenses to go, of course higher during then. But looking at the trends at the end of the march, the fund balance is tracking is projected. But thanks to note is during the months of December through February, the fund balance increased due to winter tax collections. In March, the fund balance begins to trend downward, which is due to decreasing revenues. By June, expense will decrease as well because of we do accrue wage and benefits that are are mostly from our contracted teachers. We have to accrue the month of July and August. We move that back to this fiscal year. But I should have added at this point in the slide two, we do also accrue state aid, state aid. We receive payments

for this fiscal year all the way through August. So those revenues will actually accrue back to this fiscal year, which ends in June. So this is the first trending, um, of the revenue. The graph that we show. And as you can see, we're we're trending right on track. And where we are, you know, projecting to be you'll see the spike at the end of June. That's what I was talking about, accruing back the state aid that we will receive in August. And in July. Expenses the same. We are almost right exactly on the money where we said we we would be at this point in the year. And as you will see, it's going to spike up again in June. But that's also because we are going to accrue back those wages and benefits from July and August. So you will see the trend going back up in June. And also you see in May that's the three pay period month. On balances. Percent of expenditures. So as you see we are tracking we're starting to head downward. But that's because we have less in revenues and our expenses. You you're going to see in May as course is like I said, the three pay period month. And you'll see we get all the way to June. The one thing we did change about this slide. Right now we are projecting a 5.72% in fund balance. But just to note that our board policy this year is 8%. So we are not where we really would like to be at this by the end of this fiscal year. So will you see that bright red line down there? That's the 5% that we definitely want to stay away from. So 5.72% is very little cushion. This is comparison of the general fund revenue and expense expenditures. And this is a comparison to the budget you'll see in the revenue. I'll just point out a few things. Local sources. We're almost fully collected. But that's because we've received almost completely 100% of our tax revenue. We will receive a

settlement payment from the county at the end of May. I have been told. So we will be fully collected as tax revenues go, you will see 55% of the local or the state sources. And that's because July and August are actually considered part of this fiscal year. So we will definitely accrue those revenues back. Our expenses. If you go down, we are tracking really right where we should be. As the graph showed, we were almost spot on where we figured our trend at this point in the year would be, uh, actually in other expenditures, that's a little higher than the others. The only reason being is a lot of those expenses have been more towards the beginning of the school year. So you will see those slowing down. So those will, towards the end of the school year, be right on track. Thank you. Now these are these are some slides that we've done differently. So this slide we're highlighting the Community Services Fund which you will see is they're doing fantastic. Um March. As you see it was a busy month. They have an increase in registrations for both spring and summer programs. And they've done a lot of promotional work around this. So that's why our revenues in that, in that fund is growing at such a positive rate. Our expenses, our expenses, our expenses may be higher than they were in February, but that's we have to expend more in contracted services due to the increase in spring programs. But still, I mean, our overall revenues are our that program is doing fantastic. Can you just reiterate this is a separate fund that runs itself like this. Yes. This is a special revenue fund. This is one of the funds that we have in our district that has to be self-sustaining. We don't want to draw on the general fund to have to sustain any portion of any of our special revenue funds.

And its recommended. This is recommended. Yes, which includes the child care program as well. And so they're doing a really great job. Okay. This food service fund is next. This is also a special revenue fund. But this is a federally mandated fund. So if we don't end up in a positive revenue over expenditures, the general fund is obligated. We have to supplement that loss. If they were to experience the loss. But we are not trending, thankfully. That way. You'll see here today our expenditure or our revenues are up. And or I should say they are on track, but that's due to higher increase in cart sales or state aid revenue. And we've had an increase in meals. We are serving more meals this year, so that's all positive. Um, in March our expense was less than February's because of the timing of vendor payments. I believe in February, two invoices for vendor payments were paid in one month. And it does happen. And that's the timing of when we receive them. So we're doing well in this fund to. So this is the student and School activity fund, which is also a special revenue fund. And you can see we've already exceeded our budget in revenue for the year. One thing that is different this year that we have been working on with this fund is we have have the addition of local local grants in this fund now. And the reason for that is we receive all these really, really generous local grants, for example, from Kiwanis. And with this fund, we are able to roll revenues over from year to year or the general fund. It's not that way. If you get a revenue in the general fund, that revenue pretty much ends at June 30th. Special revenue fund, like the student school activity, it rules. So these funds are going to be available for them to spend into the next

fiscal year. And what are they spending it on? Can you be I know, but just for people that are watching this so that. It would be for whatever the funds were donated, the reason they were donated to a school specific for some, like Kiwanis grants, could be for if a teacher applied for this grant, do they need some resources or doing a special program? And what we do is when we receive these grants, we send out communications to the school and say, hey, congratulations, you've got this. You've received this much money, and they have a specific purpose for what these funds are intended for. And that's what the local grants are. They're very specific. And but the school actually the student school activity is to because people they are very kindly they give us donations for different for different groups, different student activities. And so that's what the funds are intended, or intended, intended to be spent on. So yes, it's very specific. But what happens a lot of times when the local grants, if you get a grant in April, it's very hard to expend every bit of the revenue received by June 30th. So that's why we made the decision to move this into this fund. So they have the opportunity to continue to use the revenues that they receive for their particular grant going into the next fiscal. Um. Just a real quick question. So the source of funding for the student school activity fund is strictly donations. And grants. This has nothing to do with pay to play and all of that. No no. No no, not at all. This is all strictly donations. And like I said, local grants. Muhammad. So because I know with grant funding there's like time limits of when you have to spend it. Is that still or do they know they just get. The okay. No. If if we were to get a grant from some source, some, it could even be a local

source. And they say you have by June 30th to spend these funds. Then we would probably put that grant in the general fund just because the timeline the fiscal year ends on June 30th, but all of the local grants that we have in this fund do not have the timeline. Okay. That's what I wanted. To clear. Yes, yes. Okay. So this is the last slide that I have. And this is cash in investments. And we're comparing now instead of year over year. We're doing it to the month prior. Because the thing is the trends is, is that we really want you to see you can see that in March we have less cash on hand because less revenue. So we don't have the tax collection that we did. So we were about $5.7 million less than we collected in February. You see, community service, they're up. Um, food service, of course, was up over what they were in February. And that's because of timing of vendor payments and an increase in school and student sales and student school activity was down just slightly over February. And that just means we just didn't maybe have, um, a donation that month. Or maybe we spent some of the monies that we had on hand. So the cash on hand on March 31st is a little bit lower than it was in February. Any questions? Thank you so much. You're welcome. Thank you. Thank you. All right. That brings us down to 9.3 A 2025 graduation and annual report. All right. We thank you, President Feaster. We have Miss Linden and Doctor Berger here to, um. Excuse me. Walk us through the annual, um, graduation report. It's the graduation report. Report from 2025. So we are a year in

arrears here. Um, but they will explain all those fine details to us, so I'll turn it over to Doctor Bridget to get us. Get us going. Thank you, Superintendent Parks. Good evening, trustees. Um. Wait for the slides to come up so I can start talking to you. About it. Um, so, as you know, we always look at this graduation report, and it always seems a little odd timing because we're almost to 2026 graduation, but we're just talking about 2025 graduation. And that has to do with the amount of time that it takes to have all of the corrections made and things updated at the state level. So if you go to the next slide, thank you. So so this is based on the prior academic year. As I already said. Um, and tonight we're specifically going to be looking at the four year on track graduation statistic. So how many students finished in four years from the time they started as a freshman to the fourth senior year? Um, of course, we know that that's not the only way to measure graduation. Um, and we, uh, at the in our public schools have continued to work to enhance our strategies over time. Um, to support five year graduation plans, six year graduation plans, um, alternative graduation plans, all sorts of things to get students over that finish line. Um, but today, we're specifically talking about the four year rate, uh, a couple of other contextual things to mention. Um, all of our graduation rates reflect a 22 credit requirement to graduate, which is higher than the state of Michigan. The state of Michigan has a requirement of 18 credit hours to graduate. So we have a little bit higher bar to reach that graduation. So, you know, we're doing some other work elsewhere that will come to you in the future, having to do with looking at the number of students who fall into that gap and some pieces of that. That's not for tonight so much. Um, but that's sort of a preview of things to come. Um, we have a limited use of intensive credit recovery programs to help students get closer to

graduation and to get those credits and graduation intensive focus. Programs like the Grad Alliance, um, and a lot of other strategies for students who need something outside of the normal structure. So, you know, our approach, in summary, is we have high expectations around our graduation requirements. We want our diploma to actually signify a level of achievement, but we want to work diligently to extend the ability of every student who is in the Ann Arbor Public Schools to graduate. So we offer a lot of strategies to support that goal as well. Go to the next slide, please. Um, so as always, I like to just kind of talk a little bit about how the graduation rate is actually calculated. So all graduation cohorts are based on the ninth grade enrollment. So when a student enrolls with us in ninth grade, that is their cohort and that is their cohort all through, um, if they come in 10th grade based on their age, then they become part of that cohort that started the prior year in ninth grade. And the state at the end of the four years, has several different status. Uh, sort of labels that they'll use to identify a student at the end of that four years. Um, first, there's the on track graduated. So that's a student who completed high school with a regular diploma in four years or less. That's considered on track, graduated. Um, and then there are other ways that students can complete. We have GED completed. Such a student who earned a GED certificate. We have other leaders. Um, that is usually a special education certificate of completion and or reaching the maximum age for special education. Um, we have off track continuing. That's a student who did not finish in four years, but is continuing to work on their diploma into a fifth year, or maybe even a sixth year. Um, and then finally we have what the state would put in a dropout category. So those are students who left high school permanently at any time during

the four year period. Or and this is always the interesting one. Um, if we don't know where they are. So that's called a missing expected record by the state. So let's say somebody moves away their sophomore year after being part of our ninth grade graduation cohort, and we don't get a records request from wherever they went. And they didn't go somewhere else in Michigan so that some school in Michigan claims them. According to the state. The state says we don't know where the student is. You can't prove that they went somewhere else. So that's considered a dropout, uh, because it's a missing expected record. Um, so, yeah, that's always an interesting one. So in the in the end, basically the only people that count towards the four year on track graduation rate are those who are in that first category on track, graduated. You take that number divided by the cohort total um, times 100. That gives us our graduation percentage. And I'm going to turn it over to Miss Linden. Now. Thank you very much, Doctor Berger. Uh, this next. slide describes an error that. occurred with this. Past year's. Graduation data. So I want to share some context about this. Um, the error we're looking at here occurred during a period of transition following the abrupt departure of our director of student enrollment. At that time, we made the decision not to immediately fill that position, and we redistributed those responsibilities across our team. Um, the staff did work very hard to maintain all of our necessary processes. But in the shift, there was a gap in this one area. Uh, so as a result, 51 students who completed some graduation requirements during the summer period were not included in the initial four year on track graduation rate. That accounts for a difference of about 3.6 percentage points in our graduation rate. Once this was identified, we partnered with our county auditors and our entire student accounting team to review and verify the data. What you will see tonight

reflects the corrected and accurate number of graduates, and you will notice that Doctor Berger has been very careful to clearly note this on each of the slides for our public, because these data will not match those on my school data. Dot org. Uh, we also took an extra step to review several previous years of graduation data because there were no standard operating procedures for the summer graduates. We wanted to make sure that this error indeed was anomalous to this year, and this transition. Uh, and Doctor Berger and I looked back at several years and found that this was an isolated incident tied to this particular period. So, most importantly, what we have done is put in place a series of standard operating procedures so that this gap never happens again. Um, it is unfortunate because we have some great graduation data to share with you this evening and several areas of good news. Um, so we wanted to make sure the community was aware of this error. Thank you. On this slide, you'll see, uh, a very general overview of those standard standard operating procedures that occur once the summer school credit is completed. There are there's a lot of narrative on this slide, but we want to be transparent with the community and with our board so that you can see some of those steps that are taking place. Um, in the back of the house, we've got a much more detailed checklist with deadlines and windows, but here you'll see a very brief overview of what needs to happen so that we can get from stage one, which is the student earning that credit and summer school to stage seven, which gets us to our pupil accounting specialist submitting those amendments within the amendment deadline.

Thank you. Um, so as Miss Linden mentioned, the rest of the presentation tonight is going to have the accurate corrected graduation rates for our district. And there is a notation at the bottom of the various displays. Um, and I do I just want to reiterate that, like, you know, those 51 students, they graduated, they had no impact on the students. It was just the reporting to the state that was different, um, for these numbers. So just I wanted to reiterate that piece. Um, so overall, um, this is largely a good news story about our graduation rates for, for the four year graduation rates for this year. If you look at the slide that you have up right now, you can see this is over the last ten years, our graduation rates, the blue bars are our four year on track graduation rates. The green bars include the five year graduation rate and the purple at the top includes the six year graduation rate and then the numbers match those colors. Um, the kind of magenta dashed line is the trend line for the four year graduation rates. Um, you can see that this year, 2025, um, is our third highest graduation rate over the last decade. And the two that are higher are the two years that were most impacted by the pandemic, which, if you recall from other conversations, um, more grace was extended to students during that sort of harrowing time. And all of the interruptions that came with it. So this is a really, really good result for our four year graduation rate for this year. It shows that we're kind of on an upward trend. And in fact, the trend line itself over the ten year period is increasing at about 3.35 percentage points per year. So about a third of a percentage point per year increase over the over the ten year period. Um, so so this is generally a good news story. Um, if you go to the next slide please. Um, so just kind of like a key initial takeaways here. Overall, our graduation

rate increased by 0.8 percentage points since 2024. We achieved higher graduation rates than the state overall as well as across student demographic groups with the exception of English learners. And we'll talk a little bit more about that in a few moments. Um, we maintain a similar rank order position overall compared to our normal sort of battery of comparison districts, and we had a mix of basically two flat, um, rates among demographic groups, which are in the table below four. That increased to the decreased, um, most notably the English learners, you'll notice, uh, decreased by almost seven percentage points from last year to this year. Um, and we had a very slight change to our four year dropout rate. It went up 0.1 percentage point, a 10th of a percentage point for 2024 to 2025. Um, if we can continue on and I'm going to turn it back over to Miss Linda. Thank you very much. Uh, we'd like to share with our community. And just to remind everyone, um, several things that are in place to support our students. And our goal is to get everybody across that finish line in four years. However, we do know that there are certain factors that may impact that. So we want to make sure we have services that that cover all the needs of our students. So this in the next slide, we'll share a few of those with you. Overall, we continue to maintain a really strong focus on our relationships. And that's due to our incredible teachers, our counselors, our assistant principals, our administrators at the building level who really work Heard. To make sure that students are known by name, by strength, by need. That they are welcome and that when they're not. There, they're missed. Um, our high school deans and counselors certainly do support higher levels of intervention. Um, they make sure students are gaining access to courses that will help them graduate. Do this through their graduation plans with students. And again, work really hard together with

students and families to make sure all the bases are covered. Um, as you know, we offer a really robust credit recovery process in our district, both through summer school and during the school year through the options program and in the options program. The goal is to catch students at the point of need. So immediately, when we become aware, they may not earn that credit. Um, teachers are filling out forms informing our credit recovery staff of certain parts of the course that they need to retake or redo, rather than redo the whole course. And that helps us to ensure that students have mastered what they need to and can gain the credit. Um, we also work to enhance other programs that help any student who may be struggling with different parts of life and getting to school, health challenges, whatever those may be. Um, and some of the newer things and the things that we're maintaining are listed here. Uh, so the second bullet you'll recognize that trails and sabers and coming up, PBIs are all some of the newer things we've done in the last few years. And PBIs coming up. And we also look forward to revisions to the Rights and Responsibilities Handbook that will help really encourage students to become more a part of their communities. With school. So we can go to the next slide. Excuse me, Miss Linden, do you want questions as we go or. Whatever you prefer? Okay. So I'm sorry. Then if I may. Should we go back? Could you further elaborate? I think I know where you're going with this, but elaborate for all of us, the revisions that were made for the rights and Responsibilities Handbook. So I'm not going to steal the thunder from our school leadership team, because they will be bringing something to you. But they've been reviewing the Rights and Responsibilities Handbook, and the very punitive nature of that handbook, and working really hard to connect that to positive behavior improvement and support. So making that something that is more encouraging of student improvement of behavior as opposed to punishment of behavior, and making sure

students remain a part of the school. Um, so I don't know, Doctor Hayward, if you wanted to share more about that, I capture, did I do okay? I know you have more comments, so it's great work. Thank you. You bet. Uh, finally, we offer many high school options, and we'll share those on a on an upcoming slide, but just to name a few. Uh, you're aware of our three comprehensive high schools. Pathways to success, academic campus, community high school just right here in Ann Arbor. In addition, we participate in the Washtenaw Educational Options Consortium, or Wheelock, and that provides three additional pathways for students to gain their their college or their college, their high school diploma. Um, Washtenaw International High School or why high early College Alliance or ECA and Washtenaw Alliance for Virtual Education or Wave. We also have our own internal A2 Virtual Plus program, and some students are full time in that program as well. So, um, I think we've worked really hard to make sure there's a pathway available for anyone. Um, to try to get them across that finish line. So, uh, we mentioned personal curriculum, um, personal curriculum is a pathway for students who need to modify the graduation required courses. Um, that's done with a counselor with families, and they engage together in it. Um, and that's something we're looking at. And we will be in the next steps. You'll see. We'll be looking at our implementation of personal curriculum to see whether or not there are any improvements that can be made to that use of that particular lever to help students get across the graduation line. We also have achievement teams that are operating in all of our schools to make sure that students get the intervention when they need it. Um, and of course, we continue to have lots and lots of outreach for students who

need to participate in summer school in the credit recovery program. And you've seen some of those numbers that we brought to you earlier this year, and also the provision of some free tuition in there through a virtual based on need. Back to you. So all of these different strategies and different options that Miss Linda just talked about, you know, are, are making some gains for us, uh, among many different dimensions. You can see here this slide is comparison of the state of Michigan, which are the green bars. Um, for your on track graduation rates for 2025 and the Ann Arbor Public Schools rates, which are the blue bars. You can see that we are outpacing the state of Michigan across every demographic group that we're looking at here, with the exception of English learners, where we are, um, about 3.6 percentage points behind the state on track graduation rate. Again, we'll talk a little bit more about that in detail in upcoming slides. Um, if we move on from there, um, we always have this battery of comparison districts that I inherited. Um, you so you can see at the, on the, the left panel are the graduation rates for our public schools. Um, the county, other districts in our county, a set of similar districts which may or may not be similar in some, some ways and similar in other ways, and then a set of high performing districts. Um, and on the right panel are the number of students in each of those districts, so that you can compare the relative size of the districts that we're comparing the graduation rates for here. Um, obviously, the high performing districts, by definition are higher performing than the other districts. So that's why they are there in the high performing districts. Um, and you can see that, you know, we're ahead some of the ahead of some of our county's districts, behind some of the other ones. Um, we're kind of sitting a little bit on the low end of the similar district

group here. Um, I was trying to find a way to quantify what what the differences are and how we can look at similar and different things. And so as I was looking at this, like, one of the things that we know is that the level of economic disadvantage is extremely, um, predictive for graduation rates. So this next slide. Um, so this is a plot of all of the districts that were on the prior slide. Um, you can see Ann Arbor is in a different color and bigger and says Ann Arbor and all the other districts are labeled at the top. And I just did a simple plot comparing the four year on track graduation rate on your y axis and the percent of economic disadvantage in the district. And what I found was that for every, um, an increase of one percentage point of economic disadvantage in the district, um, is associated with a negative 8/10 of a point decrease in the graduation rate. Um, so even though we say some of these districts are similar to us and not similar to us, you can see these sit very closely on this trend line. Um, really largely this is a very strong predictor of four year on time graduation rate. Is this economic disadvantage, which doesn't take take us or any of these other districts off the hook for figuring out how to improve this, for this, these groups of students. But it is very predictive and it does explain some of the graduation rate differences we saw in the prior slide. So this is where I like to just jump in and share some context that isn't on the slides. Um, recently, uh, Mr. Cooley engaged me in an interview about credit recovery. Um, and the reporter was asking questions about our process. Um, and if you've never heard of a credit mill, this is something we guard against. We want that the credits earned in the Ann Arbor public schools to mean mastery. Um, I cannot

speak to these districts that are plotted here. I can I can share my shock, though, when the reporter said that they are hearing students in other districts, um, deliberately failing a course so that they can shift to credit recovery because it's easier to get their credit over there. Um, and I was I was really taken aback by that. It isn't what we experience in the Ann Arbor Public Schools, and it's certainly not true for us. It may not be true for any of these districts as well, but it is a lever that districts control when it comes to credit recovery. And I can just say that every student who earns a credit in the Ann Arbor Public Schools has really earned it. Um, it's important for the community to know that in credit recovery, our tests are proctored live. Um, students don't take those online somewhere else. Um, and high quality teachers do certify all of those, and we take it very seriously. So I'm really proud of the work that that our teachers and our credit recovery team does. Um, so this next slide is another group of similar district comparisons. But here we're looking specifically at our five focus groups. Um, and this slide does show that we do have some work to do. Um, for our five focus group, black African American students, Hispanic of any race, students, students with disabilities, economically disadvantaged students and English learners. Because you can see that we are not in the top spot among similar districts. Um, for any of these groups of students. Um, if we go on to the next slide, um, just some kind of high level overview looks. Yes. Sorry. I have a quick question. Back to the other. The other the previous slide. This one or the prior? Yes. This one. Okay. So I think it's still important I think I mentioned this during committee that we include. So when we're looking at comparing like for example black students

in our school compared to Farmington Hills, instead of putting the the total number, putting the percentage because um, you know, right now, like for example, Ann Arbor Public Schools has 207 black students. It's about like I'm estimating 1.2% of the entire population. I'm just saying, I'm just. It's closer to 12. But yeah. Well, I'm what I'm what? I guess the point is, is that like, when you're comparing it, Farmington Hills that has like, um, when you look at the district, it's like ninth out of 9000. It's about double the amount of 5%. Do you know what I mean? Like there's so for example, the 207 in Ann Arbor Public is not equal to 208 or 209 in Farmington Hills. So just be helpful to have the percentage to see what, how many students they have in their district. Yeah, we can look at that for sure. Okay. I'm sorry. So so further. Yeah. Further. Finish that argument. Because so if if that is true, therefore what. So for example we're looking at graduation rates and we're comparing different districts. So it is important to know what percentage makes up there. For example with black students what percentage makes up the black student population from that district compared to ours. And if it's double the amount it you know them at 87% versus 85. You can't compare the two side by side. So trustee, you're saying the entire African-American population within that district, as opposed to not just those who are graduating? So isn't so the number of students is the N. Those are not the total. Is that the total number of students that have not that are not

graduating? Those are the total number of students who are in that group. So Ann Arbor Public Schools has had 207 black students in the graduation cohort. Yes. Farmington Public Schools had 209 black students in their graduation cohort, etc.. Yes. So when I calculate it based on the total number of students that we have in our district, I calculated that there was double amount of black students that are in Farmington Hills compared to Ann Arbor Public Schools. So you can't compare. But I'm sorry. The school, the school makeup and demographics is very different. Does that make sense? Therefore, you would expect a different graduation rate. No. Okay. I'm asking. Help me understand what having that information would mean. It doesn't mean anything, but it's. You're. We're trying to compare two similar districts, so I'm not saying. I'm just saying here it's like the 207 and two and nine don't mean much because it's just total numbers. And they're not they're not really describing anything. They're not describing the population of the the schools. Okay, maybe I'm missing a trustee. So I don't. I think, I think we should be saying is that if we knew the total number of schools, then it would impact the students, then it would impact how we view the school. Um, environment as opposed to our environment is how I assume she means that. So so you're saying that you want to know that Ann Arbor Public Schools is 12% black or African American, and Farmington Hills is making up a number? This is not true. 20% Black or African American. That's what you're saying you'd like to know. Well, when you're comparing, because when you compare from schools, I mean, you want to compare based on, you know, the makeup of the schools, the economically disadvantaged number of students, the the demographics. I mean, when you're trying to compare schools you want because, you know, I keep hearing this

comment, oh, well, we're not we can't compare apples to apples. But that's why because the demographics are also very different between these schools. I was just about to say, I think it's to get at seeing if we can tell me if this is right, get closer to kind of an apples to apples comparison by presenting percentage of the demographic that versus the actual number. Um. So you're trying to judge the relevance of the comparison, not anything about the students who graduated. Yeah. Well, I mean, then why present the numbers? I guess that's what I'm you're presenting the percentages. So we are still comparing, but the ends don't matter if they're not scaled to how many students because, I mean, it's it's showing when I look at this, this, you know, bar graph that's on the right, it looks like Farmington Hills and and I and I it doesn't matter what group, I'm just looking. Farmington Hills and Ann Arbor Public Schools has the same, you know, number of black students. Um, that's what it's looking like in the bar graphic. But that's not. True in the graduation cohort, they have the same number of black students. Yes, roughly two, two. Difference. Same number, but not the same percentage. Yes, that's what I'm saying. Yes. Yeah. They basically have the same number of students who fit into that particular demographic group. And Farmington Hills got 87.6 of those percent of those students over the finish line, and we got 85.5% in 2025. Okay. Never mind. Um. You know, trying to figure out how to compare. That I'm following. I think that this kind of percentage would apply more in my mind to the percentage of students that are economically disadvantaged, for instance, because then

you'd know that that's a school that, you know, there would be more need. I mean, I can see that. I guess just race doesn't do it for me. It's like. , we can certainly take a look at this slide and see if there are multiple ways to, to to get at it. So yeah, we'll take a look at it. Right. Thank you. Uh so some some kind of high level highlights. We looked at some of these things more in detail in the committee last week, but some high level highlights for all students. As I said before, this represents our third highest four year graduation rate in the past decade, only behind those Covid impacted years the most. The overall trend is point plus .35 percentage points per year over the last decade. Um, and then looking at our five focus groups for black African American students, 2025 actually represents our highest four year graduation rate in the last decade. And while we still have work to do for this group, the overall graduation rate trend over the past decade is increasing about a half a percentage point per year. Um, for our Hispanic Latino students. Again, this also represents our highest four year graduation rate in the last decade. And while we still have work to do with this group as well, because it's lower than all students, um, the the rate trend is about zero point plus 0.6 percentage points per year. So a little more than half a percentage point per year is our increasing trend over the last decade. If you go to the next slide, please. Real quick. What are you attributing. This this increased trend to I know, um, Miss Linden talked about relationships and a lot of things that we're trying to do. Would you say that that's really what's presenting this type of of of data? I would and I will say that we knew recovery from Covid would be a multi-year recovery. So I think some of this is being back in person. You know, we've got kids who've been back for

multiple years now, and that's really anchoring a lot of those relationships in the work that we do. So it's a combination. Of a great trend to see actually. It's really good to see this. Yes. Um, if we continue on to the next slide, then for our economically disadvantaged students, again, this is our highest four year graduation rate in the past decade. Um, and while again, it's still lower than the overall rate, we actually the ten year trend line is 0.9, almost just under a percentage point per year increase over the last ten years. Um, for students with disabilities, it's our second highest, uh, graduation rate for four year in the last decade. Um, only last year was slightly higher at two, uh, 1 or 2 tenths of a percentage point higher. Um, last year. And this one is a little bit over one percentage point per year over the last decade. Um, and then finally, for English learners, this is our group where we saw the biggest drop. Um, so this represents a four year graduation rate, kind of in the middle of the last decade. You can see we had some higher amounts, and then it kind of dipped for a few years and it went up, but it's kind of going down the last couple of years. Um, so this is the group we have the most work to do with for graduation. Um, especially as the population of English learners, um, grows across Michigan. Um, you can't really see it in these little tiny graphs. There's if you want to look at more detail, there's graphs later in the slide show that you can look at on your own. But, um, you know, the the number of English learners in a graduation cohort from ten years ago until now has increased by two and a half times. It's a much larger group. And, um, there's some differences in that population. And again, we're going to look at that a little more carefully. If you go to the next slide. Um, a couple of things I looked at. Why does this keep moving every time I go, okay, that was lined up when I looked earlier this afternoon. Um, it's driving me crazy. So in looking at the various demographics of students and looking at the

students who didn't graduate, um, we found an interesting correlation between the time and district and graduation rates. So students who who came to the public schools before high school graduated a rate of 92.9%. Students who came in their freshman year graduated at a rate of 89.5%, and their sophomore year 88%. So that's just a little dip. Freshman and sophomore year is not a huge difference, but those who came in their junior year, it's about a seven point drop to 80.8%. And the students who arrive in their senior year, uh, 73.2%. Um, and we attribute that to the student being here, being able to be caught early. So you can see that, oh, maybe the student is entering the credits. They're going to need to graduate and to intercede to do credit recovery. The earlier that the student is with us, and you can start seeing some of that kind of stuff and start working on some of those things. The more likely we are to get them to the graduation point on time. So I was not part of the equity committee discussion, obviously, but I have asked this question in the past, and I'll ask it again, because I expect the answer to be the same. Um, when a 16 year old arrives in our district because he or she is 16, we put them in sophomore junior year. Yes. We don't have a choice correct to do that. That is correct. Even though that student may have never seen the walls of a school building for many years, if at all, the expectation is we take a 16 year old, we plop them into what's supposed to be their traditional grade, and then we are expected to help them graduate in two years or whatever. I mean, that's so unfair. And as I so that's by law. Who makes up that rule? Okay, so so we have so that's I mean really that's that's something that we probably should look at and advocate for a change. I mean, again, I'm not taking a position one way or the other, but it just sounds insane. You know, I remember an example. It was a

middle school teacher who told me she received a student from a refugee camp, and that's where it was, um, because she was 12. They put her in sixth grade, but the poor student said, I have no idea what you're all talking about because she never had elementary school. And again, the burden was on the teachers, the staff to support that student. And every time, you know, there was a class discussion and the teacher, you know, unknowing will say, well, you saw this in fifth grade. And she said, no, I didn't. Yeah. I mean, it's just insane. So anyway, something further to to advocate for, but I just wanted to highlight that. And as we have not only a very international community, but a very supportive and welcoming community, unlike other districts, we get these students and again, we plop them in our district by law, and we are expected to graduate them again. Compared to other districts who don't have that population. So that's my soap opera for right now. More later. Thank you. Um. So looking. Oh. I'm sorry. Continue, please. So just to clarify, so when the situation that Trustee Baskette mentioned about a student that comes from a different country, don't they reassess where they're at or they they put them at grade level based on age, because I thought that they would have to reassess and put. Them placed in grade level by age. Okay. I just wanted to. That's correct. I wouldn't lie to you, trustee, about that. It's too important. Well, no, I just wanted to. I just. Trust, but verify, I get it. Don't do. That. No it doesn't. So looking at even more specifically and in-depth, the next slide at the English learner population, because that was where we saw the drop and we see the over time, we were not having the same increase. Um, so in looking at the various demographics of students who did not achieve graduation for years, we focused on our English learners. Um, we found out that 54% of our English learners not graduating on track did not enter the public schools until

high school, some of whom did not have transcripts or in some cases, prior education. Um, a non-trivial amount. It's not like a 1 or 2 thing. It's something that happens. Um, and 35% of the English learners who did not graduate on time did not graduate on time, entered in either their junior or senior year. So, you know, we know that already, students in their junior senior year have a lower graduation rate. Now we're adding into that the fact that, you know, there's there's an English learner. So there's a language barrier in some cases. And they also need to learn the language. Um, and then continuing on, 69% of the English learners not graduating on track were also economically disadvantaged, which we also know has a strong correlation to not graduating on time. So now we have coming in late, maybe without a lot of prior education. We have, um, economically disadvantaged and we have the English learner status, so it's no wonder that, you know, some of these students need extra support to and often need that fifth or sixth year. So the good news about this is that of the English learners who did not graduate on time in 2025, 77% of those. So 20 of the 26, um, that weren't on track and graduated in 2025 are still in one of our programs, are still in one of our buildings, and are still working towards graduation. So, you know, the hope is that with that support and with that extra fifth or sixth year, we will get those students, um, to the graduation and finish line. Uh, the next slide is looking at our dropout rates over time. Um, similar to our graduation rates, the blue is the four year, the green is the five year, and the purple is the six year dropout. Remember that these include the dropouts and the missing expected records that I talked about. Um, the students who we don't know where they went, and we don't have proof that they went somewhere else. So you can see it's, um, unfortunately, it's a slightly increasing trend line over the last decade. Um, wasn't a big change from last year to this year,

but you can you can see the trend line here, um, is not the direction we want to see. So that's something else we can, we can work on in the district. Um, and then the next slide, if we look at the table on the next slide. Um, this is just looking at all of those students who did not graduate in the on track four year. Who were those students in the district. So that's a total of 126 students. Um, in 2025, um, black African-American students, Hispanic Latino students are overrepresented in that group. Um, economically disadvantaged students are overrepresented in that group as our English learners and students with IEPs. Um, you can see, uh, the sort of the status that we talked about. You can see the dropouts, the GED completas, the missing expected record, the off track continuing, and the other competitors. Um, and at the bottom, I put together, uh, those who finished the GED, um, those who are continuing to work on graduation with us, um, in one of our programs. And those who completed in another way, like a special education certificate or something like that. And you can see that of those 126 that did not graduate on track on time in four years. Um, 68 or 54% of those students either finished in some other way already or are still in one of our programs working towards graduation. And I will turn it over to Miss Linton. Okay, we're in the homestretch on next steps. Um, first off, just want to reiterate that we will ensure a clear and accountable graduation amendment process so that the students who were not counted in our graduation rate. Um, so that that doesn't happen again. Uh, second bullet. We're working. Uh, and continuing to do so proactively on our early warning system. I just want to thank the Board of Education for approving the purchase of

Panorama, because it's going to help us a great deal and allow us to look at more leading measures as opposed to lagging measures. So we anticipate that's going to help us continue the trend of our graduation rate climbing. Um, we will investigate the use of our personal curricula. Um, we have a full investigation plan that will begin this summer. Uh, and we'll go back several years. And really analyze students who may have qualified for one. Did they have one? Why didn't they have one? If they didn't? Would it have helped? Would have not helped? The goal isn't necessarily to have more students using personal curricula, but to make sure that it's being utilized for those who need it. Um, we are really working to strengthen our MTS systems, particularly tier one. Um, so that work continues through all of our professional learning around engagement. Teacher clarity. Um, all the work being done on attendance and the peer connection work and soon to be a full implementation of PBIs or Positive behavior implementation, supports. Um, and we'll be evaluating all of our pathways to graduation and examining the success levels that each of our students is having in those programs that they're there. Um, taking advantage of to make sure that we are, um, having students attached to the right program to meet their needs. Um, and maybe some of those need to change. So that's some of our investigation that we'll be doing. And finally, I think the biggest thing is tapping into student voice, really talking to the students for whom the system is not working. Um, continuing to break down barriers, understand what was standing in their way in any particular program so that we can improve those. Um, so that's part of our continuous improvement process. Thank you very much. Thank you. And no questions. We appreciate the presentation. Thank you all. Okay. Um, Miss Linden, I just wanted to thank you for pointing out how Panorama, the Panorama purchase is actually going to

help with this. You know, we make these approvals on purchases, and we ask we try to ask the right questions before we make a purchase. But now we're actually going to see how it's really going to be applied and how it's going to help in this area, particularly with those students. The English language learners I'm really concerned about. I'm I'm concerned about all the students who are, um, not graduating on time. Absolutely. And I'm looking forward to seeing some improvements, especially with the panorama. Thank you. We look forward to bringing those forward. Absolutely. Thank you. That's the best. Good. Yeah I know in previous discussions we've learned about our adult ed program and the continuation. Can you speak to what does six years mean, a six year graduation mean to a student? You know, they they miss the the senior year. They're not graduating. So what do we offer them? Does that include going back to your comprehensive high school, taking those two classes to get over the finish line? Um, virtual. So can you explain. To all of that? You bet. Um, depending on how many credits the student needs to graduate, they can attend for another year. Full time student. We do get full funding for those students if they need 3 or 4 credits. They can take 3 or 4 classes. Um, during that period of time, they can continue on through summer school and continue to work toward their credit recovery that way. Um, so they that's where the six year rate comes in. So they can stay with us for another couple of years. And if they're students with an IEP, um, we happily have them until age 26. So talk to us about the quote unquote adult program that we have so we can keep these students again six years or 25, age 26. What if a student says, I don't want to be back in that building. and that I'm embarrassed? You know, I didn't finish then. What does the adult program look like?

So it looks very similar. Um, students are signing up for courses that meet the credit areas in which they're deficient for graduation. They just take those through our adult ed program. So it's customized and very individualized. And students work together with our amazing team in adult ed. And it's been a while since we've brought that team to you for an update. So and for the new trustees who have not attended a graduation with adulthood, it's very touching. Amazing. I mean, it's incredible. Their stories and their success. And again, we're here. I used to tell people there are 16 million ways to graduate from Ann Arbor Public Schools. Just pick one and do it. So, you know. And we're here for you. That's definitely the message. Thank you. All right. Thank you both very much. Really appreciate it. Good night. Thank you. Doctor Berger and Miss. Linden. Without a second briefing. We can start with an two, two, six, five. Uh, are there any changes? No changes. Any questions? Trustees? All right. How about in two, two, six, eight? Uh, food and Nutrition services contract fiscal year 27. Renewal. No changes to that. Any questions? Yes. Trustee Wilkins. I thought there was. I'm sorry. A change to that. I'm so sorry. What? It was. Yep. You're right. I apologize, I got excited. Um, she's. Looking at the clock, too. I was actually, I did I was like, we can do this. We can do this. Without Miss Margolis and Miss Frank are here with the changes to this item. Yeah. My apologies. We're changes based on the first reading. Um, where if you'll see at the bottom, the stuff on the top is fine. And the second page, um, where we were giving a new not to exceed amount, which is 8 million, 200,000 to be paid from the Food service Fund. And on the second page, I'll probably let Darcy explain this a little

more. But we broke down both the administrative fee and the management fee, and the meal equivalent. Um, from 24, 25, 25, 26 this year. And then for the next year, the 2627, which includes the 3% increase. Um, for all those areas, which is part of the contract. And as a reminder, you remember that we are in this is for year three of a five year contract. And this is a new requirement from the state to have the board sign the renewal. So what we did is in the last the first briefing, the question came up about, okay, we senior food service budget, you were at $8 million. Is this do not exceed 7.1. Is that feasible? So we started looking at it. And the thing about a food service contract is, is the food service contracts not just based on the 3% they're charging us for admin and management fees. It also is based on food costs. It's um, the meal equivalents, which consist of you pay for the meals a price per meal, which is the 3% the meal equivalent, um, consists of not only meals. It's a la carte. It is maybe a little bit. We don't do much catering, but things like that that we get charged for. But the biggest factor is probably the the food that they're purchasing, the labor that's all wrapped up into this contract. So it's kind of hard to say, you know, if we're serving 100,000 more meals in one fiscal year like this year, it's quite an increase that we're going to land it the 7.1. So we did some calculations cases and I did two. Looking at where we're at this year. We were last year and did some comparisons. So yeah, we may have reached a little bit high at the 8.2, but it's a do not exceed. So and it's approximately because you know we want to leave it open to, to grow our meal program. So the more meals we serve it is going to be more expensive. But we're also going to get the revenues.

They're going to counteract those expenses to from the state. We're still doing a lot of a la carte sales that are mostly middle and high schools, so that all, you know, accounts for that. So that's the reason we felt the need for this change, because 7.1 really was pretty low. Uh, Trustee Wilkins. What happens if we do if it does exceed the 8.2? Like for some reason, the price of milk, you know. Well, we did, we did. So we do put in the CPI factor, which right now for food is running at 3.3%. So I did calculate that into this total. So I actually did a little bit more um just to make sure we had a cushion so we wouldn't exceed this total. If you see that the final food service budget comes in at over 8.2 million, it's not necessarily because of the contract, it's because I move indirect costs from the general fund to the food service fund. I take a portion of our supervisors from the general fund. I charge the food service fund. Those are allowable expenses that I can charge that fund. So it's not just about the contracted amount. It's about the overall cost when you see the budget. If so, if the budget comes in at 8.4, those other factors are included as well. You're welcome. All right. Thank you very much. And that brings us to. Thank you. You're welcome. Uh, 10.3 and 22696. The middle school, um, summer 2026 abatement contract recommendation. Any changes? No changes. Any questions? And, uh, 10.4 and 2270 pioneer High School summer 2026 abatement contract recommendation. Any changes? Uh, no changes to this item. So no questions. 10.5 and 227247 old school greenhouse demolition and exterior rehabilitation recommendation.

Any changes? No changes. There are no questions. What does that bring down to the consent agenda? We are now at the consent agenda. Missiles. And will you please read the consent agenda. And dash. 2265 everyday math K-5. Student journals. and 2268. Food and. Nutrition Services. Contract fiscal. Year 27 renewal and. 2269 Slawson Middle School Summer 2026. Abatement contract. and Dash 2270. Pioneer High School Summer 2026 abatement contract and. Dash 2272. Forsyth Middle School greenhouse demolition and exterior rehabilitation recommendation. Approve minutes of the April 22nd, 2026 study session. Approve minutes of the April 22nd, 2026 Regular meeting. Approve minutes of the April 22nd, 2026 closed session. Approved donations from Catherine Claire Beamish, uh, a 2010 Ford Escape was donated to the Pioneer Auto Shop and approve a closed session on May 22nd at 6 p.m. for the purpose of attorney client privilege and negotiations, and possibly see no. That's it. Attorney client privilege in negotiations. Sorry. All right. Thank you, Miss Luzinski. Uh, would anyone like an item remove from the from the consent agenda? Uh, trustee Wilkins. I have a question about one of them. Do I have to remove it and then ask the question, or can I just ask the question? Question about. The minutes for the study session? Should those include the slides that we reviewed during the session? Those be attached? No. Your posed agenda.

Yep. They're posted to the agenda okay. Thank you. Yeah. Good question though. Seeing no uh no no hands for that. Uh, do I have a motion to a motion for the consent agenda? So move. Second President Wilk, supported by Trustee Schmidt. Any discussion? Seeing none. Missiles. SK, please. Trustee Baskette. Yes. President. Feaster. Yes. Trustee. Muhammad. Yes. Trustee. Schmidt. Yes. Trustee. Wilkins. Yes. Trustee. Wilkes. Yes. Motion carries.. That brings us to board action. Uh, looks like we have 12.1 resolution to approve sinking fund millage renewal ballot proposal. Uh, is there a motion? So move. By Vice President Wilkes, this is support. Second support by Schmidt. Any discussion? Please. Trustee Baskette. Yes. President. Feaster. Yes. Trustee. Muhammad. Yes. Trustee. Schmidt. Yes. Trustee. Wilkins. Yes. Trustee. Wilkes. Yes. Motion carries. Thank you. That brings us to 12.2, uh, resolution to approve settlement agreement there. A motion. So moved. By Trustee Schmidt. Second. By Vice President Wilkes. Any discussion? Then none. Please. Trustee Baskette. Yes. President. Feaster. Yes. Trustee. Muhammad. Yes. Trustee. Schmidt. Yes. Trustee. Wilkins. Yes. Trustee. Wilkes. Yes. Motion carries. Thank you. Trustee. That brings us to item for the planning. Are there any items trustee who like to ask for agenda planning? Seeing none. That brings us to number 14 item from the board to trustees. Have anything they like to share soon? None. That brings us down to a motion to adjourn. Do I have a motion to adjourn by voice vote. Are so moved, so move. Uh, moved by Trustee Smith, supported by, uh, Vice

President Wilkes. All in favor, to adjourn, say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Say nay. We are adjourned at 1147. Thank you. Good job.