Board of Education - Regular Meeting

We're going to recall our special meeting at 7, 10 p.m. We're going to recall our special meeting.

Is this mic on? Is this mic on?

Stand for us! Stand for us! Stand for us! Stand for us! Stand for us! Stand for us! Stand for us!

Let's just keep it moving.

Let's keep it moving. Let's just keep it moving. Just talk louder.

We had this happen before.

All right, we're resuming our meeting. I believe we're back from our special meeting. I now resume the special meeting at 7, 10 PM. Please speak a little bit louder. We have Ms. Kimberly May here. Thank you, Ms. May, for helping facilitate our closed session. We appreciate it. Kimberly May is an educator with 27 years of experience in both public and charter schools. Can't hear you. Can't hear you. And is a strong advocate for our children. Currently, she serves as a school board member and holds a position as a central office administrator in a public school district. Her extensive career includes roles as an elementary classroom teacher, curriculum coordinator, building administrator, and central office administrator.

President Feaster, we cannot hear you at all, President Feaster. We cannot hear you at all.

Well, we can recess the meeting, or we can... Yeah, I think we should. All right.

I knew that we recessed the meeting.

Yeah. We'll take a recess at 7, 12 p.m., and we'll come back if we're able to have our meeting. If not, we'll cancel our meeting. So...

We'll resume the special meeting at 7.18 p.m. Right now, I'll entertain a motion to adjourn the special meeting. So moved. Second.

Excuse me. We're adjourning without action? We are. Okay, thank you.

Moved by Trustee Schmidt. It was supported by who?

Second by me, Vice President Wilkes.

Thank you, by Vice President Wilkes. Any discussion?

Ms. Olszewski, please. Ms. Olszewski, please. Is the motion to adjourn? Okay. Roll call? Yes, please. I'm sorry.

Trustee Baskett? Yes. President Feaster? Yes. Trustee Muhammad? No. Trustee Schmidt? Yes. Trustee Wilkins?

Yes.

Trustee Wilks? Yes. Motion carries.

Thank you. I now call the regular meeting to order. I would like to remind everyone that some of our meeting presenters may participate via Zoom. Ms. Ozenski, may we have a roll call, please?

Trustee Baskett?

Yes.

President Feaster? Here. Trustee Muhammad?

Here.

Trustee Schmidt? Present. Trustee Wilkins? Here. Trustee Wilks? Present.

I would now like to introduce the non-voting member at the table, Jazz Park, Superintendent of Schools.

Good evening. Good evening, President. Thank you.

We will now move to the moment of silence in memory of Natalie Jones. We'll take a moment of silence in memory of Natalie Jones.

Okay. Thank you, President Feaster. It is with the deepest condolences for her family, friends, and all who knew her that we share the sad news of the passing of one of our students who was lost too soon, Natalie Jones. I ask that we observe a moment of silence in Natalie's honor. She was an eighth grader at Slauson Middle School and the daughter of Lakia Jones, a resource room teacher at Ann Arbor Open. Natalie was a beloved student of the AAPS school community who also attended Allen and Carpenter Elementary. We extend our heartfelt condolences to Lakia, Natalie's family, friends, educators, and all who knew and loved her. So we will observe a moment of silence at this time.

Thank you, Superintendent Parks. I believe that brings us to our land acknowledgement statement. I believe Trustee Wilkins offered to read that for us tonight.

We acknowledge that the Ann Arbor Public School District occupies the ancestral, traditional, and contemporary lands of the Ashinabek, Three Fires Confederacy, the Ottawa, Ojibwe, 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, Muscatoon, and Cherokee, many of whom are forcibly removed from their homelands. 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, Trustee Wilkins. We are now at the approval of the agenda. I would move that we add the motion to adopt the 2025-2026 superintendent evaluation as presented to board action. Is there support? Support by Trustee Wilkins? Oh, we had a question?

I'll support. I have another change, is adding the closed session at the end of the...

Okay, well, first, I'll add a motion. Okay, that's fine. So moved. Second. Okay, so moved by me, supported by Trustee Wilkins. Any discussion on that part? Okay, Ms. Osinski, we'll call, please.

Trustee Biscott? Yes. President Feaster? Yes. Trustee Muhammad? Yes. Trustee Schmidt? Yes. Trustee Wilkins? Yes. Trustee Wilks? Yes. Motion carries.

Thank you. Now, Trustee Muhammad, you had a motion?

Yeah, so I wanted a motion to add a closed session when we adjourn the meeting, after we adjourn the meeting.

Trustee Muhammad moved to add a closed session at the end of our regular meeting. Second. It was supported by Vice President Wilks. Any discussion?

I'm sorry. Did you say what it was for?

I'm sorry. Is that for attorney client privilege and negotiations? Yes.

Thank you.

Is that still, you still second that?

Yes, I still second.

Thank you. Any discussion? Seeing none, Ms. Ozenski, please.

Trustee Baskett? Yes. President Feaster? Yes. Trustee Muhammad? Yes. Trustee Schmidt? Yes. Trustee Wilkins? Yes. Trustee Wilks? Yes. Motion carries.

Thank you. I believe that moves us...

All right.

Is there a motion to approve the agenda with the additions?

So move.

Moved by Vice President Wilks.

Second.

Support by Trustee Wilkins. Any discussion? All right. Ms. Ozenski, please.

Trustee Biscuit. Yes. President Feaster. Yes. Trustee Muhammad. Yes. Trustee Schmidt. Yes. Trustee Wilkins. Yes. Trustee Wilks. Yes. Motion carries.

Thank you. And that brings us down to our first public hearing on the proposed budget. Our first item on the agenda is the public hearing for the AAPS fiscal year 2027 proposed budget. Ms. Kozinski, do we have members of the public here to speak on the budget?

I do. I have six people, and when you hear your name, please come forward to the podium.

I will remind speakers that our rules for public commentary apply during the hearing. When you hear your name called, please come to the podium and speak into the microphone. Each speaker will be granted, is it up to four minutes? Four minutes. Up to four minutes, yes.

First is Ryan Bartholomew.

All right. Good evening, everybody. Can you hear me? Yes. All right. Fantastic. My name is Ryan Bartholomew. I'm an Ann Arbor resident. I'm a city council candidate endorsed by these lovely people behind me. And most importantly, I'm the husband of an Ann Arbor teacher. This board and this town have not been doing right by our teachers and thereby have not been doing right by our kids. If I'm lucky enough to be elected, I'm going to work hard to ensure that the city school committee that exists within City Hall brings more perspectives to the table beyond what it's already been doing and fosters a stronger collaboration between City Hall, the board, the teachers, the parents, and the students. But I'm not here to campaign. I'm here to elevate the voices of teachers who deserve a fair contract.

so now i'm going to turn it over to my favorite teacher hello i am his favorite teacher and i do not like public speaking my name is carly bartholomew and i voted no on the most recent ta that would have guaranteed a 19th and 20th consecutive year that ann arbor teachers have taken effective pay cuts My student loans payment increases 3% a year. My insurance goes up every year. And inflation on average is 2% a year. So that is 20 years of pay cuts and less money in the bank account for Ann Arbor teachers. I am empathetic and I try to view things from everyone's point of view. And I am sure that running a district has gotten way more expensive over the past 20 years. But for years to balance your budget, you have treated your largest line item piece, your teacher salaries and benefits, as a spongy item that can shrink to make your budget work. If Ann Arbor is a destination district for students and teachers, which I want it to be, and I pour my heart out into the work I do to make it that, then you need to pay us like it and you need to plan for us like it. I am working as a teacher because I love it, because it is my dream job to work with students every day and get them to believe in themselves that they are scientists. But I am here working a career, not a hobby. Pay us, please.

Erin Wolf, then Angela Prince. Erin Wolf, then Angela Prince.

Hi, everyone. My name's Aaron Wolf. I am the father of two elementary school students from Wines. And I'm here to talk about, to talk in support of the teachers finding a fair budget, or excuse me, finding a fair contract. And I'm here to support transparency of the budget and spending looking back over the last 10 years. The people of Ann Arbor have been sold a line that the teachers are being paid too much and that it's hard to make a budget work. And we understand that it is hard to make a budget work. But if you look at the revenue, the growth in revenue cumulative since 2018, teacher compensation has always been, every year, lower than the growth in revenue. What has grown immensely was everything else. And we don't know what everything else means because you don't have transparency in the spending. We can't tell.

So, excuse me.

while the teachers' compensation has remained below revenue increase year on year. What has gone up is everything else, by 56% compared to 24% cumulative growth revenue. That's more than twice. Now where is that money going? Partially, we don't entirely know, because we don't have transparency. But based on a presentation that was made here last month, we know that for four years, The spending specifically on software was $4 million. 3.8 in the last year, between three and a half and $4 million. I remind you, we have a deficit of $4 million. Additionally, there has been $2 million increase in the spending on teacher supplies and textbooks. I support supplies and textbooks, of course. But there are lots of different places where the money is being spent. We already tried doing a teacher pay cut. We tried that in 2024. And because that was not the problem, we are back here again. We can't do it again. We can't keep trying the same thing and expecting a new result. We have to address the actual problem. The actual problem is the growth in transportation costs, the growth in supplies and textbooks, the growth in software spending, and everything else, a million little things. And the truth is that in order to solve this budget problem, we're gonna have to make hard decisions, but those are moral decisions. They're decisions about what you value. So please, please, Think of the fact that teachers are what makes public education work. It is built on their talent. It is built on their hard work. That is a sacrosanct part of this process. We need to figure out everything else, all the little cuts that need to happen in order to make it balance. Please provide that information to us and to yourselves and make a good decision moving forward that will mean we're not here again in two more years. And I will end with one more thing. If you don't, we're just gonna lose all the teachers. It is already starting to happen. We don't want that. Thank you very much.

Angela Prince, then Ian Marshall.

Good evening, Superintendent Parks and trustees. My name is Angela Gilardi Prince. I'm a pioneer alum, an AAPS parent, and a finance professional. I'm here to discuss the budget that is up for review tonight. I want to acknowledge how much work goes into a budget book of this scale. My comments are meant to be constructive. I have four items. First, on process. Board Policy 1410 charges the Financial and Planning Committee with reviewing the proposed budget, and for the last at least four years, it did, as a named agenda item before the first briefing. This year, the committee met Monday, and the full year 26-27 budget was removed from the agenda within hours of the meeting. This is despite the district's own timeline still published in the budget book as of this morning that has it set for that date. The committee won't meet again until after the budget is likely adopted. So the board's analytical committee will not have publicly reviewed this budget before tonight's briefing or before its adoption. for the first time in at least four years this step disappearing from the process is an example of the district becoming less transparent not more at exactly the moment we desperately need to rebuild trust second on substance the budget projects a 4.3 million dollar deficit more than triple last year's and a fund balance of 5.05 well below the board's own nine percent policy minimum printed on page 22 of the budget book. And all the spending growth is outside the classroom. Instruction grows 0.4%, non-instructional support 5.5%, transportation 15%. And it isn't new. Over the last six years, revenue grew 24%, while salary and benefits just 12%, and all other spending 46%. This budget continues that trajectory. Third point, on board governance. This board is being asked to vote on a budget below its own policy minimum that continues a multi-year spending pattern. Decision like these would benefit from a trustee with deep financial oversight experience. The appointment of a new trustee tonight is on you, but I'd ask for you to weigh financial governance heavily and bring on that skill set this district desperately needs. Finally, I have a proposal. These challenges are bigger than any one trustee or administrator. Not everyone can serve on the board, but the whole community is your constituency. and there should be ways to contribute. A Citizens Financial Advisory Committee with community members with backgrounds in forecasting, audit, and procurement, this group wouldn't be a decision-making body, but would certainly, and would not replace the Finance and Planning Committee. They could act as a support to the administration, provide representation for the community, build transparency and help advocate for the difficult decisions that need to be made by the larger community. At the very least, they can supply another set of hands and eyes on our financial challenges. There are people with the right skill sets in this room, ready to volunteer and do the work. The pieces are in place, it's just a matter of putting them together. Let's get back to educating our kids and let's pay our teachers. Thank you.

Ian Marshall. Ian Marshall, then Ryan McCarty. Ian Marshall. Ryan McCarty. Then Adriana Rodriguez.

Hi, I'm Ryan McCarty. I'm a community member, a parent of a couple of kids, a former longtime high school teacher, now a lecturer at Michigan Educational Researcher. So I came in here today thinking about the budget from all of these different hats that I come and I wear. And I was trying to make sense of it. And I'll just cut the first part short because as so many of my community members have said, I can't make sense of the budget because I can't see the budget. I mean, I'm an English teacher, so my math might not have hit hard, but I can read things really, really well, right? So then I started trying to think about what I know about schools as a long-time high school teacher, and all I could think in all of this was that what we know, the oldest of old adages, is that our teachers' working conditions are our kids' learning conditions. These are the exact same things. I grew up in a town that didn't have schools like Ann Arbor. They were not Ann Arbor schools. And so when I was bringing my kids here to start kindergarten at STEAM, I was so excited to have a place where I could have all of these people supporting them. And my son had some troubles, and there were a lot of teachers who could help him through them and who could pick him up. But if they're trying to figure out how they're making their bills or they're trying to figure out how to pay their increasingly raised health insurance coverage, if they're trying to figure out how they can do for their own kids or they can do for their own families, how they can put food on their tables in this increasingly expensive city as you continually deflate their wages, how are they going to pick my son up? How are they going to pick everybody else's kids? Like, we can't expect, it is long past the time where we can expect teachers to bleed for our kids without being actually cared for themselves. These are working people in a working city. And as a teacher, I know that, like, I was... I was a union rep for a long time, and I kept trying to tell everybody, like, we can't just work and work and work without getting paid, guys. And then I would work and work and work without getting paid. Like, that's what teachers do. But that's right. Thank you, teachers. But y'all can't take advantage of that. And I feel like, as a parent, my kids' teachers are being taken advantage of because they're lovely people who care about kids. And then, as an educational researcher, I think about the role of software. $4 million in software? My son never learned anything from a piece of software. He never got picked up when he needed something by a piece of software. And when I, well, it's the software. They're calling. And so the thing that I think that we should think about here is not how little we can squeeze teachers for or what sacrifices teachers have to make, but think, good God, what would y'all do if there weren't all of these people right here? If all of these people stood up and walked out and stopped doing even one of the extra things that they do every possible time they get an opportunity to. They're not gonna do it, but shame on anybody who would take advantage of that, that's all.

Adriana Rodriguez. Adriana Rodriguez, please.

I've got some tough acts to follow. My name is Adriana Rodriguez. I am the parent of two AAPS graduates, one this weekend. We came to Ann Arbor in 2008. They started at Angel, went on to Tappan, and then graduating from Huron 2024 and this year, 2026. But tonight, I am here on behalf of the Huron Parent Teacher Student Organization. I'm not an expert. I've followed Ann Arbor Public Schools, many things over the years, trying to learn about the system. educate myself about what's going on, understand what the needs of the community are, the needs of my students' classrooms, my kids' classrooms and their teachers and the schools. So I do bring that to the PTSO, but I am here on behalf of the Huron PTSO. We urge the board to direct the district administration to reach a fair contract with teachers, one that provides them with competitive compensation reflecting the value that teachers bring to students and to our school communities every day. At Huron, which is the district's most diverse comprehensive high school, perhaps the most diverse high school in the district when you look at all the metrics, not just one metric, but all of them. Teachers are the critical factor in meeting the needs of our diverse student body. Teachers do far more than deliver curriculum. They mentor students, they sponsor clubs, they write recommendations, they support families, and they provide the stability and connection that help our students succeed. And they do more. This year, at Huron, and a lot of different high schools across the district, students experienced the consequences of the prolonged contract negotiations. There were canceled activities, reduced support opportunities, and growing uncertainty. These weren't abstract labor issues, they were things that directly AFFECTED STUDENTS. THIS DISTRICT ALLOWED CONTRACT NEGOTIATIONS FOR THE INDIVIDUALS THAT SUPPORT OUR STUDENTS DIRECTLY. THIS DISTRICT ALLOWED THAT TO IMPACT THE STUDENTS. We recognize that there are serious financial challenges, and I am not a budget expert. Perhaps there are some here on PTSO, but they're not here today. We recognize that there are serious financial challenges, but the long-term stability cannot be built on our teachers' personal sacrifices. I've seen these sacrifices over the years. And thank you for your sacrifices. And I've seen them in different countries. That's not unique. But what is unique is the apparent disdain and disregard for the sacrifices that they're doing here.

So we're urging...

We're urging you to act with urgency and to direct the administration to deliver a contract that supports and retains excellent educators. Because investing in teachers is investing in our students. And it's investing in the future of Ann Arbor Public Schools and in public schools. And that's it, thank you.

I believe we go from one public commentary to another.

Yes, we do.

Okay. The board would like to remind everyone the individuals who have signed up for the public commentary period will have their name called and will be given an opportunity to speak. Commenter 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 we'll follow up as appropriate. Ms. Ozenski, how many sounds do we have for tonight?

We have 19 signed up for this section. Each person will get two minutes and 23 seconds. 25, sorry, two minutes, 25 seconds. I will call a couple names at a time, so please come up quickly. First is Wendy Welch. Next is Michelle Ding.

What a community, huh? I know some of you left the room for a couple minutes. I would urge you to think of these people as being behind you, not in front of you, but behind you doing the right thing. Thank you. Thank you for continuing to take time to help our public school and try to do the best by all of our children. I am grateful for your public service. Thank you too for being ahead of the curve with the cell phone ban. We look forward to your research, talking with students, teachers, and parents in writing the forthcoming policy. Today, I'm here to urge you, as smart people who stay ahead of the curve, to look at technology in general. Last month, LA became the first major school district with a policy limiting screen use. They're banning screens under second grade and have a policy and limit on screen time for all other grades and subjects. And they're performing an audit of all technology contracts. Like LA, AAPS is a leader. We pay attention to the research. Recent meta-analysis reveals screen use for those under 10 results in more socio-emotional problems later and more screen use later. We know it's addictive. We also know pedagogy. And while equity is always a factor, real equity occurs when we're thoughtful and don't expect tech to solve every problem. We also know there's a lot of money in selling head tech, but tech billionaires are sending their kids to screen-free schools. Like tech billionaires, Unlike tech billionaires, that is, you have our kids' best interests at heart. Please keep your hackles up surrounding tech usage and tech purchases, and don't abdicate your critical role in oversight to staff or ed tech salespeople or even well-meaning high schoolers excited about AI. Our future depends on you. Thank you. Oh, and pay the teachers. Let's value humans. Let's value humans. Value humans more than technology. Thank you.

Michelle Ding, then Cindy Giffen.

Hello again. Good evening members of the Board of Education. My name is Michelle Ding and I'm a parent of one kid from Burns Park Elementary and we go to First Baptist Church of Ann Arbor. And I'm here because our community deserves transparency and our students deserve support. We've heard about a $7.8 million miscalculation connected to the special education student services. I wrote this rap song to reflect the concerns many families, teachers, and community members are feeling right now. Thank you for listening. 7.8, 7.8, million dreams. 7.8, 7.8, gone that way. Kids need help, don't cut that line. Fix that now, don't waste more time. Yo, Shane Channing in Arbor. I wasn't following everything before, but a friend showed me what the meetings were for. 7.8 million wrong in the plan. Now everybody wondering how this began. Cuts to the special ed said it would save. The classrooms lost help that students need. Less support, more problems, numbers went down.

Now teachers and families worry all around.

7.8, 7.8 million drinks. 7.8, 7.8, gone that way. Kids need help, don't cut that line. Fix that now, don't waste more time. help people see what's happening here if you know more from the meeting speak up please we all want what's best for kids in schools meetings be moving but answers feel thin people keep asking where the truth has been not about blame just fixing the frame so the kids don't suffer from a numbers game 7.8, 7.8, what's the play? 7.8, 7.8, come that way. Kids need help, don't cut that line. Fix that now, don't waste more time. 7.8, 7.8, say it loud. 7.8, 7.8, in the crowd. Who needs help? Keep it right. Do it better, make it right.

Cindy Giffen, followed by Benjamin Badalamente.

I think I have the least enviable position in this lineup. An injury to one is an injury to all. My name is Cindy Giffen. I'm the president of the Lecturers Employee Organization, the union of non-tenure-track lecturers, librarians, archivists, and curators at the University of Michigan, AFT 6244. I'm here tonight in solidarity with the AAEA and as a fellow educator to urge the board to bargain a fair contract with the Ann Arbor public school teachers and paraprofessionals that fully recognizes their value to their students and to our community. Over the past six or seven years, being a teacher has gone from a difficult job into one that's nearly impossible. COVID, AI, crippling inflation, economic uncertainty, and now threats of ice at bus stops and the school drop offline. Teachers can't just focus on instruction and pedagogy anymore. Now they have to be social workers, public health professionals, and security guards. So why do they do it? Why would anyone do that job? Because they love it. They love their students, they love their subject areas, and because they know how important public education is to our community and to our society. But the reality is job satisfaction doesn't pay the bills. Teachers can't keep doing their ever-growing jobs without significant increases in compensation, increases that properly value their contributions. Ann Arbor Public Schools produces excellent students, some of whom I have had the pleasure of having in my classroom, one of whom is here tonight because she went from my classroom back to your classroom as a teacher. Now she's working without a contract. A high quality of education cannot be maintained if teachers bear the brunt of budget woes through subinflation raises and increases in healthcare premiums. I urge you, bring an economic proposal to the bargaining table that fully recognizes the critical role teachers play in this district and in their students' lives. And to my fellow educators in the audience, I'll see you on the line.

Benjamin Badalamente. Then Chai Montgomery.

Hello, my name's Ben Badalmenti. I thought there was gonna be a lot more people signing up, so I kept my comments short and sweet. So we'll get out of here a little earlier. But after 20 years of raises, under 2%, Ann Arbor public school teachers aren't asking to get ahead, they're asking to stop falling behind. Calling this tentative agreement gap closing when comparable districts are offering more is like driving slower and claiming you're catching up. If Ann Arbor values great teachers and excellence in the classroom, then the contract has to reflect it. Thank you.

Chai Montgomery. Chai Montgomery, then Sue Lloyd. Sue Lloyd.

Hello, everyone. I come from a different generation, but I have a lot to say. First of all, my name is Sue Lloyd, and I am a member of the Ann Arbor community for 45 years. I have been a teacher, and I'm retired now, for 40 years. And I have a lot of experience in this realm. I raised three kids who graduated from Huron High School. They went on to become, to gain extra, I better look at my notes. I don't want this recognized, or memorized. advanced degrees and become contributing citizens of our state and communities. So I'm very proud of them and I'm very proud of the education they received in Ann Arbor schools. So it's my purpose in being here tonight, it's first of all to represent our organization, Delta Kappa Gamma, which is an organization that has existed internationally for 17, in 17 countries. And we do what we can to support education, teachers, and students. And so we felt compelled to be here tonight to talk about the situation that is going on here now with the Ann Arbor contract. obviously there's a problem but the most important thing that you need to remember is that teachers deserve respect and they deserve respect for the formal education that they received before in preparation for becoming a teacher for the advanced degrees and other professional development and other certificates that they have earned to enhance their own teaching skills. They deserve respect for their dedication to teaching to the very best of their ability every single day, every single hour of their teaching time and well beyond. They also deserve respect for their determination. Determination to be the best for all students and guide them along their path to gain better understanding. Wow, I'm almost out of time. So, I just want to say, if I can, that the important thing is that Teachers deserve respect and the contract that you have presented to them is disrespectful.

Thank you.

Thank you.

David Kastner. David Kastner. Then Rohan Toyama. David Kastner first. Rohan Toyama.

Good evening members of the board. My name is David Kastner and I serve as the president of Ask Me Local 369. Many people know me as AFSCME Dave. I am a City of Ann Arbor employee, a resident of the Ann Arbor Public School District, and a parent of a young child who will soon be entering school. You can hear him right there, hey buddy. I'm here tonight in support of the educators and the staff who make Ann Arbor Public Schools one of the most respected districts in Michigan. Like many parents, I've been deeply concerned by reports of budget challenges, administrative decisions, and important educational programs being reduced or eliminated. My greatest concern tonight is the message being sent to the people who actually deliver education every day. When employees endure nine separate wage freezes or cuts over 16 years, the consequences extend far beyond the next budget cycle. The effects ripple for years. A comparison with your own peer district shows that a teacher with a master's degree stands to earn approximately $289,000 less over a career here in Ann Arbor. That is not just a statistic. It's a powerful incentive for talented educators to build their careers elsewhere. A fair contract is not just about wages. It's about recruitment, it's about retention, and it's about maintaining institutional knowledge. As a union leader, I know firsthand that strong public institutions depend on strong workers. As a parent, I know that my family's future depends on the quality and stability of the school workforce. You have an opportunity right now to turn this around. The choices you make in these current negotiations will help determine the trajectory of this entire community. My wife and I chose to live in this district because we believed in the strength of its schools. But if the district continues down a path where educational opportunities are reduced and educators are not treated fairly, families like mine will inevitably begin asking difficult questions about whether they need to seek alternatives. I do not want that for Ann Arbor. I want Ann Arbor to be a destination district once again. I urge the board to work towards a fair contract, rebuild trust, and make decisions that invest in students rather than diminish their opportunities. Thank you, sir.

Rohan Toyama, then Ida Kirka, then Mandy Gagel.

Hi, my name is Rohan Toyama. I go to Angel Elementary. I'm in fifth grade. I like to eat tater tots. Hi, my name is Rohan Toyama. I go to Angel Elementary. Hi, my name is Rohan Toyama. I go to Angel Elementary. I'm in fifth grade. I like to eat tater tots. I'm here to talk about teachers' pay, and I think she'd be much higher for three reasons. First, AAPS teachers are really good. For example, my teacher, Mrs. L, is the best math teacher. She gives math homework every day and explains things very well. She has five math teachers' awards on her wall. She makes sure everybody understands math. It's not just math. I wrote this statement with her writing format. Second, if we don't pay them well, our teachers will leave. That's what happened to my fourth-grade teacher, Mrs. T. Last year, she told us she was leaving for a school in Novi. Finally, our teachers work very hard. This year, because they don't have a contract, they are not doing activities outside of school hours, and we've noticed. Our musicals happen during school hours, our band recitals happen during school hours, our teachers didn't come to our talent show. All of that they normally do, even though it's outside of school hours, and that's even after all the after-school grading they have to do. This year, our school won a Blue Ribbon Award, which only 16 out of over 3,000 schools got in Michigan. Here is the petition that 25 of my classmates signed. to please pay our teachers well, because they deserve it, and we deserve a good education. Thank you.

Thank you.

Ida Kirca. Ida Kirca, Jennifer Oldham, John Huser.

All right, good evening. My name is Ada Kirca and I'm a graduating senior at Skyline High School. I'm here as a representative, as a student, and as a representative of the Skyline Post to read an excerpt from our editorial titled, AAPS's Tug of War of Negotiations, The Rope is Fraying. Our call to the District Board of Education, teachers should not consistently bear the burden of budget mismanagement in such an affluent district. The AAPS board has been seemingly complacent with the status quo, but complacency does not create equilibrium. It breeds resentment. In these tug-of-war negotiations, continuing to pull for the status quo only frays the rope. This benefits no one in the long term. Both sides of the conflict claim to have students' best interests at heart. However, the board's negligence towards teachers has trickled down to taint student success. Our school district's motto is lead, care, inspire. As the board of education, it's time to hold yourself to the same level of excellence as you do your educators. Not being able to count on letters of recommendation is a great risk for juniors who have been planning their futures. Seniors last year at AAPS has been spent without the solace of many of the teachers who have helped them get through high school. We will walk the stage without them. We are all missing the community and opportunity clubs and our teachers have provided. Now we ask you, what will you do to make amends for the harms you've done? When will you invest in your educators to invest in your students? If you don't listen to the pleas of your own teachers, who will you listen to? If our district loses these remarkable educators who have raised generations, who will be there to raise the next? And you can read the rest of the editorial on page three of our newspaper. Yeah.

Jennifer Oldham, John Huser, Kelly Powers.

Good evening, trustees, superintendent, teachers, parents. I'm here to ask you, I'm Jennifer Oldham, I'm mom to three AAPS students and a candidate for the board in November. I'm here to ask you to engage the Ann Arbor community in planning for the future of AAPS, starting with the highly qualified applicants for the open seat you are interviewing tonight. As evidence for the effectiveness of this process, I want to talk to you about two prior committees. In the 1990s, we had a budget steering committee that at its largest had 112 members from all different walks of life. And what it did in the 97-98 year, with the assistance from the Business Services Division, it held a series of public forums to expand awareness of the district's fiscal situation. A call for action survey was developed and publicized on television, radio, and the local newspaper. Ideas and values generated through this process, totaling more than 1,500 comments, suggestions, and ideas, were considered in developing subsequent budget plans, resulting in recurring savings for the district. In the 1980s, we had the Committee of Excellence on Education with 21 members, including recent graduates, community leaders, activists, businessmen, and elected officials. And they looked at futuring for both a long-range plan and a five-year financial plan. Some of the issues that faced them included declining enrollment and school closings. They put years of careful consideration into planning for the future, including the school zoning we largely use today. Today, the teachers have said loud and clear, plan for us. Our teachers have taught more than half the school year without a contract. These professionals give their full selves in the classroom every single day. They hold our children's hearts, skills, and confidence in their hands. And they have families, dreams, and futures of their own. The teachers need stability and security, and we need the teachers. So we must work together to plan for them. Please do not let a single one of these highly qualified candidates walk away without an opportunity to help plan and problem solve.

Thank you. Jennifer, I'm sorry, John Huser, Kelly Powers, Oscar McArthur.

Good evening. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak. My name is John Huser and I'm a teacher at Dexter High School. I'm also our union vice president and the vice president of the Washtenaw County Education Association. My grandmother was a retired Ann Arbor teacher. My mom is a retired Ann Arbor teacher. My sister is currently a speech pathologist in the district. We've lived in the community, my family and I, for 35 years. And my students, or excuse me, my own children, three of them, graduated from another school in Washtenaw County. And this school, about 15 years ago, although the district's very different from Ann Arbor, faced some serious financial and their ultimate decision and way to approach fixing them was to do what Ann Arbor is continuing to do, which is freeze wages, don't give teachers steps, don't give teachers lanes, and the result of that was very unsuccessful. It started a spiral which has continued and is continuing to this very day. About 10 years ago, the youngest of my children graduated. A couple days ago, the school held its graduation, graduating class fewer than half of what it was just 10 years ago. And predictably, what's happening with teachers is what I'm hearing about a lot tonight. Teachers who can leave do leave. The teachers who stay suffer from lower morale. And as a parent, I saw that going on throughout the last few years of my own students education in this particular district, and I feel like that's starting to happen here. And regarding what I've heard a lot about teachers leaving for other districts, I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but Dexter Community Schools just hired a teacher who had worked in Ann Arbor for the past few years, and the hire is becoming official this week. So thank you for your time.

Kelly Powers. Kelly Powers, Oscar McArthur, Elena Geary.

Good evening, my name is Kelly Powers. I'm the UNISERV director for the rest of the county. And that's what George Podolsky does for you guys. So I'm here to thank you, board, because all of these other districts are gonna grab your quality teachers. And that's a promise that's going to happen. It's happened in Manchester. It's happened in... Basically, that's what the previous speaker was speaking about. They're going downhill because they didn't pay their people. If you don't continue to pay your people... you're gonna lose them. And we will gladly take them because trying to get staff right now is not easy. And quality people, especially. I was a former administrator. I was a former teacher in Ypsilanti. My parents were on the Board of Education in Brighton, both of them. I know what you're doing. I know it's difficult. It's not easy to be in your position, but you gotta listen to those people that are in the ranks because they are the ones that drive the education for your students. This used to be the place to be. Ann Arbor was the place to go. You got paid more. I have seen several of my former union members from Ypsilanti in this crowd. Why did they come to Ann Arbor? Because they were making 10 grand more than everybody else. Are they now? No. They're absolutely not. The rest of the county, because I bargain those, is getting more. And you're getting more per pupil. You're not spending your money the way it needs to be spent. This is where it needs to be right here. If you don't, you're gonna lose them. Not only are you gonna lose them, we'll gladly take them. Ladies and gentlemen, come on over to the rest of the district. We would be glad to have you. Thank you.

Oscar MacArthur, Elena Geary, Chavi Nana.

Thank you for coming out of your little mouse hole over there to face us.

You can raise the table up.

There we go. There we go. Members of the board, my name is Oscar McArthur, and I'm a sophomore at Skyline High School. I'm here tonight to share my disappointment regarding the teacher's contract. Teachers need livable wages, and that means a raise to keep up with the rising cost of living. Inflation is three times higher than what you guys offered. I know that there's been lots of discussion about this lately, but you're forgetting student needs as well. As a large majority of teachers are currently working to contract, I and all of my peers are losing educational and formational opportunities. In previous years, teachers have been able to write letters of recommendation, grade work at home, respond to emails outside of working hours, and run clubs. Now, students are missing out on these significant experiences, many of which will help them grow and succeed. In addition to this, I want to be sure that there will be school in the fall. There are so many things me and my friends are looking forward to. And right now, there is a real possibility that my education is going to be compromised. Because of your steadfast opposition to supporting your employees, the students are losing out on the education that they deserve and the support they need. The simple fix to this is to keep teacher salaries in line with inflation. Everybody expects their wages to keep up with prices. The return on investment would go way beyond what you would spend, as it would encourage teachers to do what they have always done, go above and beyond their contracts to help students. It'll also invite more skilled professionals to work for the district. It'll be the first step to creating the world-class education that you promised everybody in your mission statement. Ultimately, every negative action and disrespect aimed at our teachers trickles down to the students. Let's get back to being world-class and how we support the 17,000 kids that rely on this district for an education and the additional 1,000 teachers that need better treatment. Thank you.

Elena Gary, Chavi Nana, Stacy Ebron.

Hello, I'm going to lower this a little bit. My name is Elena Gary and I just graduated from Skyline High School. Like many students, I remember starting high school and being terrified, but unlike many of my peers, it was because I didn't know anyone due to the fact that I was new to the district. I remember on my first day, I went to all of my classes and I felt so out of place until I walked into Ms. Stark's room. I started eating lunch in her room consistently and we talked about things from Sights to See in Chicago to Taylor Swift's new album. Ms. Stark was the first person who made me feel like I had a place at Skyline. As the years went on, I started to feel more and more comfortable in high school, thanks to the help from my teachers. Ms. Stucker taught me how to actually study for a class and spent the first half of this year working with me on an independent study and taught me something that no other class would have. Ms. Ray taught me how to write better than any teacher I've ever had and was always there for me when I needed her. All of this to say, I and my classmates would not be the people we are without our teachers. The teachers make the schools in the district what it is. Due to the unfair pay that our teachers are getting, I watch more and more of my favorite teachers look for different jobs outside of the district because they are no longer able to live off of their wages. Teachers should not be focused on how they're going to be able to afford the next bill when they already have so much on our plate. As the Board of Education, you have the power to fix this problem, so what are you going to do about it?

Chavi Nana, Stacey Ebron, Aaron Puno.

Hi, good evening everybody. I'm Chavi Nana. I'm the mother of children at Tappan and Angel. I'm an AAPS alum, in fact student of Carolyn Sieber here. And also the president of Angel's PTO. So I'm back, hello again. Last time I was here, I was here to talk about screens. This time I actually signed up to talk about the budget. But essentially, the motivating factor behind me being here for both of these occasions is because I want to support the teachers in actually getting the pay so that I can see teachers, more teachers and not tech, in front of the classroom for our children. So I have a few concerns about the budget, and all of them revolve around the fundamentally important work that the teachers do for the students. So the budget foresees a fund balance of about 5%, which is well below the board's target for 9% to 15%. For the last 18 years, the AAPS has met its policy target of 8% only seven times. And in that intervening period, it has also cut teacher salaries and benefits in many areas. So my question is, what are you doing in this new budget to rectify that and to bring our teachers up to par with teachers in other districts? Second, this budget only provides for one year of accounting, not the five year forecast that was previously discussed. Teachers, on the other hand, have been asked to negotiate on an annual basis with real salary and benefits decreasing for over a decade, often told every year that the money is simply not there to pay them properly. Another one-year budget provides little comfort to parents and taxpayers that the district has a plan to redirect focus and funds to our most valuable resource, the teachers. Third, the summary nature of the reporting on the general fund with an allocation to basic programs of 138 million does not provide enough detail to ensure the teacher salary and benefits are met. Has this board asked for a line item breakdown of the budget? If not, why not? And if so, please share it with the public. Finally, this budget provides very little detail on the cost-saving measures like school consolidation and changes to programming that were presented in May. Parents and taxpayers need to be assured that these cost savings don't result in larger classrooms and or a choice for investment in ed tech in place of teachers. APS parents have been clear that support for teachers is a high priority. The board must act on this mandate. Thank you.

Stacey Ebron, Erin Puno, Lena Kaufman. Stacey Ebron.

Hi, my name is Stacey Ebron and Rohan, I like tater tots too. And I especially love math students who like homework. I'm a math teacher, a proud math teacher at Slauson Middle School, and I'm a teacher working without a contract. During this time, I want to say thank you to the community for your support. We feel it and we need it. But tonight I'm coming to ask you for support for another cause. Tonight I'm here to ask you to help fund the Keisha Ferguson Memorial Scholarship Fund. Ms. Ferguson was a math teacher at Clegg. She was a veteran teacher working for 32 years in the Ann Arbor public school system. She was a lifelong learner. She was deeply devoted to education and to nurturing and inspiring students in Ann Arbor public schools. I'm asking you to help fund a scholarship that would honor her legacy. It would provide $20,000 for college scholarships for Washtenaw County students who are first generation students or who are students of color or have financial needs. It would honor her legacy because she cared about higher education and removing barriers to higher education that exist for students in marginalized communities. In addition to working for Ann Arbor Public Schools, she also worked for Wolverine Pathways where she did that work to help students access college. To fully fund the scholarship, we need $20,000. And I'm happy to say that we're almost there. We have $2,600 left to fully fund the scholarship by June 30th. What I'm asking is, if you have the means to help support the scholarship, that you would go to aaacf.org, that's the Ann Arbor the Ann Arbor Area Community Foundation's website and click on Give Now. You can search for her name, Keisha or Ferguson, and you can make a donation, a tax-deductible donation to fund the scholarship. Thank you.

Erin Puno. Then Lena Kaufman.

Good evening. My name is Aaron J. Puno. I'm a 2023 graduate of Pioneer High School and a candidate for Ann Arbor School Board in this November. My presence before this board and indeed in the hallowed halls of the University of Michigan and indeed in the hallowed halls of the Michigan State Capitol was made possible by the blood, toil, tears, and sweat of 13 years worth of Ann Arbor Public Schools teachers. In those 13 years, I have seen the faces of intelligent, compassionate leaders become ever more dim at the prospect of taking home a paycheck worth less and less given inflation. Not only are our teachers criminally underpaid, they're expected to do more with less. I remember the Snyder years when we had to have classroom drives to pay for Kleenexes and colored pencils and hell, we're still doing this. because teachers are expected to pay for essential supplies on their meager salaries. I remember the countless sacrifices of these committed individuals to deliver for their children, and yet time and time again this body fails to deliver for our everyday heroes by giving them a living wage. I was recently informed by one of the old heads in the union that our teachers have not gotten the cost of living adjustment since 2006. I was born in 2005. I turned one year old in 2006. I'm 20 now. I can vote, go to war, and buy a Miller's High Life in Ontario. And so how can our teachers be expected to lead, care, and inspire How can they be expected to do that when their pay has barely gone up since the days that Arkansas sent three Democrats to the U.S. House of Representatives? I beseech this board, I beseech this board to give Ann Arbor teachers the pay raise they deserve. I beseech this board to adhere to the overwhelming judgment of the Ann Arbor community by signing a contract that advances the needs and causes of teachers, students, and the community as a whole. And I caution the honorable members of this board that if our reasonable demands are not met, we will remember in November. Thank you. God bless you.

Go Tigers, go Blue.

And go Pioneer. Thank you.

Lena Kaufman.

I get to follow that. That's awesome. So as you can tell, the community is aligned on the need for the overdue increase in teacher pay.

I think we all agree on that.

I hope most are also aligned on the somewhat painful cuts that we will probably need to do to make that happen. I want to thank the board for the May 13th budget study session presentation, and I hope everybody in this room and listening at home goes through those slides because they are very important. They make clear that selling buildings can help us restore the fund balance, but a one-time Input of cash doesn't solve a salary issue because we're going to be right back there the next year with the same problem. Getting rid of some administrators is not enough to give teachers the pay raise they need. Consolidating schools gives us a very small one million and would be hugely disruptive to enrollment with a lot of parents leaving. The presentation made clear that the best move that gets us the amount of funding we actually need to raise average APS teacher compensation to match similar districts is to cut programs, which is hard. So I'm here tonight to speak for parents, teachers, and AAPS staff who may have assumed those programs will be here next year. Let them know now if those programs are not going to be here. Tell them now in June, don't wait till August. If a family enrolled specifically for a certain program like international baccalaureate and they get to August and find out that's not reality, they're going to be really upset and also really limited in what they can do for their student. Likewise, if a teacher is employed in one of these programs or a staff member is employed in this program, they can't wait till August to find out that that job has disappeared and they're going to have to find some other job in the district or outside the district. So please do the right thing and let the community know about cuts now while they can make appropriate enrollment and career plans based on that information. Thank you.

That concludes public commentary.

We appreciate hearing from our community. The board would like to thank everyone who spoke and shared their comments tonight. Ms. Parks, are there any points of clarification?

Just a couple. There was a comment about cutting special education services, and that is not accurate. We have not cut special education services as a result of one of the budget assumptions that was made last year. In addition to the last comment, those decisions, should there be any, will be made right here at the table so that our community, our families, our staff will be aware when those decisions are made.

Thank you, Superintendent Parks. I believe that brings it down to community feedback. Trustees, I'd like to call your attention to the community feedback for this meeting. That brings us down to community group reports. Ms. Olszewski, do we have any groups signed up for this evening?

We do. We have a member of Aspire here to speak. First up.

good evening ann arbor public school board of education trustees and superintendent parks it's good to see you um thank you for being here my name is andrea huang i'm a parent to four children in aaps one at forsyth middle school and three at wines elementary and i'm here to share a statement from aspire ann arbor parents intent on racial equity with you all tonight Before I share my statement, I just wanna address, I'm going off the cuff here, so other folks in Aspire don't know this, but I just wanna say, I just wanna address the atmosphere in the room and just say that I have a lot of sympathy for you being on the receiving end of what can feel like a lot of emotion, a lot of activated emotion. And I'm gonna continue. And just want to encourage you to lean in and listen with your heart because I think what is being spoken here really are people who are desperate, desperate for you to listen, desperate for you to come to the table and to collaborate and work well with them. I think it's easy to be defensive, easy to dismiss, easy to ignore. But my plea to you is to listen, to listen well to what the community has been saying over and over and over. So I'll stop there and share my statement from Aspire. As parents and caregivers committed to racial equity in Ann Arbor Public Schools, we write in strong support of a fair contract for the Ann Arbor Education Association members. We believe that equitable schools require equitable investment in the people who make learning possible every day. Our teachers, our paraeducators, our support staff, and the students they serve. Competitive compensation and sustainable working conditions are essential to attracting and retaining educators who can meet the needs of all students and help create inclusive, thriving school communities. We urge the board to prioritize the actions necessary to support a fair and timely agreement. We recognize that the district is facing real financial constraints, and we also know trustees and administrators are capable of doing hard things in this moment. We ask the board to dig deeper into creative and equitable solutions. Across the board, increased sizes, class sizes, and reduced planning time in an environment where many of our black and brown students are not being served is not equitable. We encourage you to explore additional areas for budget reductions, considering administrative solidarity pay decreases and reassessing spending priorities across the district. We want APS to become a district that prioritizes teachers and students over expanding technology expenditures and high administrative salaries. We also want to encourage you to get connected and stay connected in the statewide fight for increased revenue and funding for our public schools. Racial equity cannot remain an abstract commitment. It must be reflected in how resources are allocated, whose labor is valued in our school district, and what the district chooses to protect during difficult financial times. Stable, supported educators are the foundation. They are foundational to educational equity and student success. Public education is a cornerstone of our community, and investing in the people closest to students benefits us all. So thank you for your attention, and again, just encouragement to lean in and to be present in what is being shared here tonight. Thanks for your attention and for your continued commitment to the students, families, and educators of AAPS. Thank you.

Next, we have a representative from APAC.

Good evening, trustees, Superintendent Parks, members of the Ann Arbor Public Schools Leadership Team, educators, and families. My name is Karen Gerke, and I'm speaking tonight on behalf of APAC, which represents parents and caregivers of students receiving services under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act and Section 504. This year, APAC has continued its mission of strengthening collaboration between families, educators, and the district to support student success and educational excellence across Ann Arbor Public Schools. Over the past academic year, we are proud of what we have accomplished together. We have expanded parent engagement, increased communication between families and school, and continued advocating for equitable opportunities for all students, as well as demanding meaningful access to the curriculum for all. We have continued to create opportunities for families to share concerns and experiences, advocated for inclusive practices and student supports, and worked to elevate the voices of families navigating special education services within our district. We have worked to ensure that caregiver voices remain an important part of the district conversation and decision making. As we look ahead to the next academic year, our goals remain focused on partnership, transparency, meaningful inclusion, equitable access to resources and services, and student success. We would also like to highlight which district policies and procedures are in place to address situations where a student's FBA and BIP are ineffective, particularly regarding maintaining a safe learning environment for children and school staff. We plan to continue building stronger connections between families and schools and work collaboratively with district leadership to address the evolving needs of our students and educators. We want every student, regardless of ability, to feel supported, challenged, included, and valued within the Ann Arbor Public Schools. We urge the Board of Education to honor both the letter and the spirit of IDEA by ensuring that decisions are guided not by the minimum the district can legally defend, but by what each child truly needs to learn, grow, and thrive. We also want to take this opportunity to recognize and support our teachers. Our educators show up every day with dedication, professionalism, and care for our children, and they're some of the most vulnerable kids in this district. The educators are the foundation of our schools and the driving force behind student achievement. Excellence in education begins with excellent teachers, and excellent teachers deserve to feel respected, valued, and supported. Our educators are advocating for the conditions necessary to continue providing students with the high quality education our community expects and values. For that reason, we want to express our disappointment that teachers are continuing to work without a contract. While we understand negotiations can be complex, we believe our educators deserve a fair and timely resolution. stability, trust, and mutual respect are essential to maintaining the high standards our community expects and our students deserve. At this time, we would like to remind you of the mission statement of the Ann Arbor Public Schools, which is to ensure each student realizes their aspirations while advancing the common good by creating a world-class system of innovative teaching and learning. With a reminder of the mission statement, we would like to emphasize to this board and this leadership team that supporting teachers is not separate from supporting students. It is central to it. When educators are empowered and valued, students thrive, schools grow stronger, and the entire community benefits. Excellence in education begins with teachers, and that is especially true for students with disability. who rely on skilled, compassionate, and well-supported educators to meet their individual learning needs. Thank you for your time and your commitment to our children. And I'd like to draw attention to the addendum we wrote that was in response to our unanswered requests at our last board report. Thank you, have a good evening.

Next, we have a representative from PTOC.

Good evening. My name is Mandy Gagel, and I'm here representing the incoming board of the PTOC here. And I'm also a parent of a third grader at Abbott Elementary. The incoming board is Kelly Pfeiffer, Chair, Kate Fernandez-Lee, Vice Chair, me, Board Representative, Becca Hogan, Treasurer, and Heather Espy is Recording Secretary. And the following is our statements. As the incoming board of Ann Arbor's Parent Teacher Organization Council, which represents families and teachers across every school in our district, we speak here today with both urgency and optimism. We recognize that working with the current budget deficit is a complex and difficult task. We also recognize that we are in this situation because of countless factors out of our control. At the same time, we remain hopeful that a resolution honoring the voices of all stakeholders can be attained. You have already heard the community speak clearly the countless mess and spoken testimony. Further, in the May 13th budget study session survey, 318 of 522 respondents at 61% named teacher compensation as the number one budget priority. It was the dominant theme across every stakeholder group, parents, community members, staff, and students. One respondent put it plainly, quote, break down the whole budget, pay the teachers, and rebuild everything else around it. That is the community's ask, and we are here to echo it. We recognize that as trustees, you are not directly involved in contract negotiations. However, any agreement reached by the bargaining team ultimately requires your approval, as does the budget, which we are asking to be built first with foundation, of competitive teacher salaries. As the fiduciaries charged with overseeing the district and authorizing the final contract, you have both the authority and the responsibility to ensure that the bargaining team advances these clearly communicated priorities. Competitive pay, affordable health insurance, and sustainable working conditions are not a luxury. They are the foundation. When teachers are not compensated competitively, we lose them to neighboring districts, as we've heard. That turnover carries real costs, academic, emotional, and financial, that ultimately falls on students and families. Trust and continuity are not automatic. They are built teacher by teacher, year by year, and this is our moment to recommit to that work together. Like many Ann Arbor parents, we love being a part of this community precisely because of the public school system. The number one reason our kids enjoy school and are thriving is because of their teachers. Investing in our teachers is an investment in our community. Because as we all know, healthy public schools yield a healthy Ann Arbor for all. We are partners in this work. We want AAPS to thrive, and we believe it can. We ask that you let the community's voice, heard clearly over the past months and again on May 13th, guide the decisions ahead. Put teacher compensation first, build the budget around it, and bring this contract to resolution. Thank you.

Should we move on to reports of associations?

Yes, please.

We have Mr. Klein here from the AAEA.

This is what democracy looks like. Good evening, trustees, Superintendent Parks, Ann Arbor Public Schools community, and the dedicated and fierce AAEA members and allies that are here tonight. Thank you. Thank you for standing up, for showing up, and for speaking up tonight. And the dude left before I get to share that I also like tater tots. And he called me old. I'm not denying that. So as we close out the 2025-26 school year, I want to begin by thanking our AAEA members for the important work they do every day on behalf of the students and families of the Ann Arbor Public Schools. Educating young people is one of the most rewarding professions there is, but it has also become increasingly challenging. Each year seems to bring new demands, new responsibilities, and new hurdles. Our educators continue to face escalating student behaviors, inadequate support systems, and the growing burden of redundant data entry requirements that pull them away from the work that matters most, teaching and supporting students. Despite these challenges, our members show up every day with dedication, professionalism, and a genuine commitment to the students and families they serve. The countless hours they invest, the care they provide, and the love and joy they bring to their work deserve recognition and respect. I also want to give a big shout out and a huge thank you to our crisis team. Sarah Anton, Matt Johnson, Xander Judge, and Brian Bowes. Thank you. Your work has been vital to our efforts. And also thanks to our AAEA Action Team. Thank you for the unprecedented member engagement you have fostered and the actions you have awakened in our union. I heard the estimate was 1,500 tonight at the rally. I also want to acknowledge what was perhaps one of the most difficult and challenging aspects of this school year. That was the circumstances that led our members to engage in work to rule actions. This was not a decision made lightly. Our educators chose this path because they felt they had no other viable option. Work to rule required personal sacrifice. It demanded commitment from educators who would much rather have been focusing on their students. What this action revealed to our community is something that educators have always known. AAPS relies heavily on the countless unpaid hours and voluntary contributions made by AAEA members. It highlighted just how much our educators do beyond the scope of their contractual responsibilities and how much of that work has become essential to the day-to-day functioning of our schools. Our members don't want conflict. They do not want disruption. What they want is simple, a fair contract that respects their work, values their contributions, and allows them to return their full attention to doing what they love most, serving the students of the Ann Arbor Public Schools. Rejecting a tentative agreement is not a routine decision. In fact, as I said before, the last time members of our association rejected a tentative agreement was in 1994. The issues at that time were compensation and working conditions. Sounds familiar. And the dispute ultimately resulted in a two-week strike. I was in my fourth year of teaching at Hazley Elementary at the time, and I walked the picket line in front of Pioneer and Ballas. What I remember most was the feeling that educators were standing up to a board and administration that had lost sight of the realities inside our classrooms and the needs of the people doing that work every day. I also remember the power of standing together, speaking with one voice, refusing to accept decisions made without us. It was empowering because it meant reclaiming our voice as educators and advocating for the conditions our students deserve. Over 30 years later, our association continues to stand strong together in the face of an unacceptable tentative agreement. The vote was not close. It was not divided. It was not uncertain. 96% of our membership participated in the voting. 99.6% of those voted no. 1,084 educators voted no, four voted yes. That is not simply a vote tally, it is a mandate. It is a clear and unified message from the educators of this district that this proposal fails to meet the needs of our students and the professionals who serve them. So, why was it rejected? First, salary and healthcare. Veteran teachers in this district, as you've heard, continue to earn significantly less than their counterparts in comparable districts. At the same time, AAPS stands alone in Washtenaw County and amongst our comparables by refusing to follow the standard 80-20 health care cost sharing model. Instead, in Ann Arbor, educators pay approximately 35% of their health care premiums. And every time those rates go up, that GROWS AND THE DISTRICT'S CONTRIBUTION PERCENTAGE SHRINKS. OKAY? IT'S ALSO MADE WORSE BY THE DISTRICT'S HARD CAP ON THE CONTRIBUTION, AND THAT PUSHES THE YEARLY INCREASES ALMOST ENTIRELY ON TEACHERS. AS HEALTHCARE COSTS RISE YEAR AFTER YEAR, TEACHERS ARE SEEING THEIR TAKE-HOME PAY SHRINK. As troubling as that is, the district's proposal went even further. It asked educators to agree to contract language that will allow the district to disregard future laws intended to improve healthcare affordability for its employees. That is not responsible, that is not sustainable, and it is certainly not a partnership. Second, our members rejected this proposal because of its direct impact on students. The proposal included a reduction of one hour per week of elementary essential instruction. For those that don't know, that's art, music, physical education, library, and Project Lead the Way. These are not extras. These are classes where many students discover their passions, build confidence, and experience some of their greatest successes. And these are the very instructional components the district highlights on its website when touting its world-class and unparalleled programming. The proposal also would have reduced elementary teacher planning time by one hour per week, limiting the time educators have to prepare high quality instruction to provide meaningful feedback and meet the individual needs of their students. And it also would have increased class sizes across the district. These are not abstract budget decisions. They are choices that will be felt every day in classrooms throughout this district. They represent a reduction in opportunities, support, and attention for students who deserve and need more, not less. Finally, this vote reflects growing concern about district priorities. AAPS, as I've said before, receives more state funding per pupil than almost all of our comparable districts, and certainly more than any other district in Washtenaw County. Yet, teacher salaries lag behind those same districts, healthcare costs are shifted disproportionately onto AAEA members, and the district maintains the lowest fund balance among its peers. Those facts should prompt serious reflection, because they lead to a fundamental question. Are our resources truly aligned with our shared and stated values of leading, caring, and inspiring? Our members have answered that question clearly. The district's proposal is not good for educators. It is not good for students. Frankly, it's shameful that in a community so highly regarded for its standard of living and its standards for education, that our public schools fall behind so many of our surrounding districts. You can no longer hide behind the reputation of Ann Arbor when the choices made here fly in the face of the ideals that make this city what it is. Still, our educators remain committed, committed to this district if you can believe that committed to our students and committed to reaching a fair agreement we are ready to return to the bargaining table on june fifteenth we are ready to do the work and we are ready to partner in creating a contract that is fair sustainable and worthy of the students educators and families we serve the path forward remains open but it requires a genuine reset not more rhetoric but meaningful action it requires listening It requires realigning priorities, and it requires a commitment to partnership built on trust and good faith. We did not arrive at this moment overnight. The challenges facing this district have developed over years, and meaningful recovery will take time. But recovery begins with a decision, a decision to invest in the people who make this district successful every day. Plan for us, plan for the future. Without that commitment, we will continue to fall short of being the destination district this community expects and deserves. The loss of experienced educators will continue, recruitment challenges will intensify, and the gap between our aspirations and our reality will only grow wider. The message from our educators cannot be clearer. They have spoken loudly, they have spoken overwhelmingly, and they have spoken with one voice. And again I say the question before this board is not whether we can afford to invest in our educators, the question is whether we can afford not to. The AAEA wants to save the Ann Arbor Public Schools. Do you?

Next we have a report We have a report from the AAEA paraprofessionals.

That brings us down to Claire Arthurs. It's on the right hand side.

Greetings trustees, Superintendent Parks. whoa uh thank you to the community both in this room and around um for showing up for us tonight um we stand with the teachers we stand with our office professionals we are in this together we are in this moment um that is very challenging i'm claire arthur's i am the very proud president of aaeap the paraeducator union we are comprised of teaching assistants thank you Teaching assistants, community assistants, preschool paraeducators, and registered behavior technicians. And we're leaving. We're leaving in large numbers, and it's very heartbreaking. There was some concern regarding how I presented the state of negotiations in my last report, so I would like to clarify. The district has full authority to bargain financials. The amount of financials the district is willing to bargain for our unit is zero, unless we give up concessions. We have almost zero concessions to offer. Because of this, it was a mutual decision between the district and AEAP to suspend bargaining for the time being. We are on track to start the 26, 27 school year, approximately 70 teaching assistant positions short. This year we began 47 short and ended the year having filled only a handful while losing several more teacher guilt is real. NTA guilt is real too. And when these people are quitting, they are heartbroken. They love their students. They love their jobs. They just need to be able to pay their bills. Um, Sorry, I'm a little emotional about it. The TA positions, it was hard this year. It was hard this year having only 47 gone. Being down by 70 TAs would be catastrophic. I strongly urge this board to reconsider what the district can offer our unit. If one in eight students, sorry, if one in eight students in AAPS qualifies for special education services, it is in the best interest of our schools and our students to take measures to retain the teaching assistants that you have. We used to be the district's best word of mouth advertising for these positions. We would like to again, and we are confident that we can fill these positions if we were adequately compensated, communicated with, respected, and felt safer and better supported in our roles. I had an interesting conversation after the last meeting with a very supportive mom. She mentioned her child was a Tappan student and then suggested I probably didn't know them because they didn't qualify for services. This is a very understandable assumption, but it made me realize that there's a little bit more knowledge to share. I know some of you already know this, but I want to make sure the public, and some of you may not. All special education students are general education students. Full stop. The goal of special education is to provide the supports that are needed to help a student overcome any obstacles in accessing the curriculum. The purpose of LRE, or least restrictive environment, is to grant students the most access to the general education curriculum as possible. On the student side, what this means, is that, sorry, is that depending on the needs of the individual, they might be in a self-contained classroom or they might not be. The district has several different self-contained classrooms, often grouped together by a shared trait, such as autism, cognitive impairment, or emotional impairment. But even the term self-contained classroom is a misnomer. The majority of our self-contained students' classrooms serve as a hub where they are provided some instruction, but those students also spend much of their time as possible in the rest of the building with their peers, as well they should. The majority of special ed students in AAPS are not in self-contained classrooms. They're fully integrated into classrooms with their peers. All of the students have different needs. They deserve dignity. One's disabilities should not present them from accessing the curriculum, playing with their peers, or having social relationships. Some students might need help just with reading. Others might be pulled for small group testing, but nothing else. What this means is us teaching assistants go throughout the day. We work both closely with students with IEPs, but also the entire class. The concept of FERPA is designed to protect a student's privacy, but also their dignity. It's essential we don't stigmatize them. Because of this, many teaching assistants float throughout the classroom trying to not draw attention to any particular student. Often students don't know which students we are technically assigned to help. I had a student last quarter say, Ms. Arthurs, what do you do here? What is your job? And it was a very funny question because I couldn't tell her. So I'm going to tell you, these are some things that I regularly do on my job. I certainly support the students I'm assigned to and the way I'm assigned to do so. In advisory, I regularly help a couple of students with homework for other classes. I also really hotly debate which Wings of Fire character is the best. I sometimes serve as a bathroom pass to a student who needs extra reminders to get back to class after the bathroom. They would rather be in the hallway. I make copies for a teacher at the last minute because they don't have time between their preps to do so. When I see students in the hallway ramping up pre-behavior struggles, I either de-escalate them myself briefly or I shoot a text to my admin and the team to let them know what's going on. I'll also email a social worker a heads up if I see a student who's looking a little down and want to make sure they know what's going on. Most years, not this one, I enter data into a spreadsheet for at least one student I'm working with. The building team is analyzing what further supports they might need. Often this means I'm multitasking, both trying to capture any specific behaviors from student A while providing personalized chunking of information to student B and reminders for student C to raise their hand and all while trying to loosely follow the lesson of what the teacher is saying. When I need to talk to a teacher about a student concern, we don't have a shared prep time, mostly because I don't have prep at all. what this means is i usually try to sneakily discuss student needs using encoded language with teachers as my students because i'm secondary have left the classroom and new students are coming in the alternative is i and many other in my position use personal time at great length to email teachers and others to let them know what's going on i'm in no classes with the case managers of my students so this is the only way i can inform them is using my own personal time It's also worth pointing out that schedules often change multiple times a year. Without being experts in these fields, it could result in a TA finally learning how to turnkey what they've learned about sixth grade math, only to overnight be expected to help an ELA or social studies class that they don't know the information for. I praise our students for their amazing performances and plays and musicals and theater. I ask how sports meets went. The list goes on and on. The list of specific day-to-day duties for each in our unit is different, but all carries the same theme. We're all relationship building with the students. We're directly assigned to, but also the building as a whole. It's a tricky line to navigate. But that's why when there's a substitute unkind, we are the safe spaces that our students turn to for support. Relationship building with all of the sixth grade students I'm in class with enables me in future years, even if I don't know everyone, to kindly yell amongst the eighth graders, hey Mr. Feaster and Mr. Feaster's friends, need to get to class, go. And they listen and smile. I had to pick a name, that was the name I had. The supporting students and evolving process. The goal is to set them up for independence as much as possible. This may mean a TA is working incredibly hard while they visually appear to be sitting at the back of the classroom not doing much. In a constructivist-centered education approach where students are making their own learning, depending on the assignment, it's actually often the best interest of the students for the TA to be peripherally aware of the student's movement, but not helicopter around them. This will create an illusion, sorry. This creates an illusion that the individuals are not working hard when in fact that individual may be inconspicuously reporting data on a sheet or doing something else available that others need that data for. As the year goes on, the amount of verbal prompts we're giving our students and the amount of arrangers should be decreasing. At a recent bargaining session, one of the last ones we had, someone mentioned, oh, the many faces of Claire. that was a weird comment it was kind of unprofessional but it was sort of strange but i we were talking about when to bargain and i realized that when i've fervently said in quarter one i can't do this my students need me i meant it and now that we're in quarter three or quarter four if i've done my job right they don't need me they don't need me as much um and not understanding that process could be confusing to someone Okay, sorry. We also often receive students who either did not receive a proper diagnosis when they were younger or whose puberty is suddenly kicking in and manifesting new challenges chemically in their bodies. You also see a lot of students start in general education and then there's rigorous testing and a data process to collect to figure out whether or not they should be in special ed. TAs are a vital part of this data collection. We're proud of our graduating class of Grow Your Own Paraeducators and grateful for the opportunity for our paraeducators to receive a free education to become teachers. It is important to highlight the way they've been treated this year. They started the year with MacBooks and were suddenly transitioned to Chromebooks that they were unable to hear their professors on. This required them to purchase their own computers at a significant cost. While the change is understandable and we applaud the district's financial conservatism, the abrupt change at the start of the year was not ideal. Several in the next Grow Your Own cohort are gonna student teach this fall. Unfortunately, they were incorrectly told repeatedly that their student teaching would be unpaid due to the college they attended, despite this not being accurate in our memorandum of understanding. We've since worked with HR and revised this to a new memorandum of understanding, and they all know that they're gonna get paid leave. But this was a considerable amount of distress as wrong information was repeatedly provided, emails went unanswered, and our paraeducators tried to determine if they suddenly needed to abandon their program in their third year because they couldn't afford their life. Grow Your Own educators were told on May 8th, please do not purchase your textbooks. The district will provide them. Some reached out and made sure to inform them that the syllabus uploaded was incorrect. They had an assignment due in 12 days, which they needed the books for. They shared they're behind on their assignments, they can't turn in late work. They weren't rude in the email, the email was forwarded to me, but they were clear in saying every semester books have been late and it creates stress. Rather than empathy and apologizing, the response seems to chastise our paraeducators for not giving grace to folks who don't reply to emails. I find this odd. Many are frustrated at their wit's end at this point. They're watching the teacher's contract closely. They're watching the teacher's working conditions closely. They will fulfill the obligations of their programs, but they're no longer talking up the program. They're no longer recommending it to others like they used to. I really want to thank the principals that we've worked with this year. I'm incredibly grateful for the support personally. More significantly, I'm really grateful for the overwhelming majority of admin who truly support their staff and make their schools a wonderful place to work. It's a common refrain among many in our unit, particularly teaching assistants, that their frustration is feeling disrespected at a district level, but their homeschool, they feel loved and cherished. They just feel under-resourced. The overwhelming majority of principals and assistant principals in our unit truly seem to value their staff and make them feel part of the family. Shout out to the principals and the teachers who see us as professionals who work amongst you in a team to support our shared students. Unfortunately, this is not the case for all of our schools. We do have a very small percentage of schools where staff continue to feel demeaned, unsafe, unsupported, that they have no place to go. In collaborative council, while brainstorming with HR and special education, I brought this up. And HR and OSC absolutely don't want this for the TAs and offered that they'd be happy to speak to the individuals who feel unsafe. I had to explain, the staff aren't here anymore. They quit due to the working conditions I warned you about several times. Exasperated, I said, we've been talking about this for six months. What can we do to change it? It was suggested as a solution that I was encouraged to contact staff who had left and make sure that they fill out exit surveys from HR. Now, I understand this is a process, but it was a little bit of a discouraging answer. A paraeducator texted me recently concerned they were injured at work and just trying to see as a reminder, where is that injury report sent to? This is one of several things I've been reassured a thousand times that everyone knows how to do, everyone has a handle of, and I just need to stay in my lane and trust this system. Well, I don't trust the system because when I told them the forms needed to go to HR, they seemed surprised. They talked to their coworkers and their coworkers said, oh my gosh, we have to send them so many more. We didn't know they had to go to HR. I do not believe this is the fault of TAs. I do not believe this is the fault of office professionals. I do not believe this is the fault of principals. I believe there's a lack of common how to plan communication rather than continue to have communication in silos where one person tells this person who tells this person and we believe the message will be properly relayed despite learning nothing from playing the game telephone as children instead there should be all district emails explaining a new protocol so everyone is on the same page so much time is wasted just figuring things out This time could be better spent serving our students instead of collectively figuring out what the heck we're doing. It's an inefficiency that can be remedied by having a little less pride and a little more systemic communication. With the district unable to hire TAs and to meet the needs of our students, many substitutes were hired as TAs from Edgestaff. We also saw a large increase in the hiring of registered behavior technicians to do work we historically considered TA work. As this was done outside of our unit and the source of a grievance, we've repeatedly asked, how many RBTs are there? Where are they? How much are they paid? What companies are you using to hire RBTs? Is it just 360 Behavioral Alliance, or are there other companies? We've asked to clarify from us, what is an RBT job versus a TA job? Because they seem to be used interchangeably.

We've been told they get back to us.

Months went by. We voiced the same questions. More months went by. Recently, we received the numbers of how many RBT's are at which schools. Cool. Still none of the information on all the other stuff we've been asking for.

Cool.

Problem is, the numbers were wrong. And I knew they were wrong because we filed our grievance based on the RBT numbers at Tappan where I work. And when I mentioned that they were wrong, I was told it's an evolving process. Which is true, and I get that, but this data is from December, and I filed a grievance on it and made a big deal about it at this meeting. So I feel like they should know. These are three statements I have heard recently shared by AAPS. One, we are going to be so transparent about everything. We know where the money is. Two, we have safety protocols that cause us to vet people, and we know every single person on our school campuses. Three, no, we don't know how many RBTs we have or how much we pay them. I don't know if you've ever played two truths and a lie, but it seems just incomprehensible that all three of those things are correct. If HR and the Office of Special Education do not know this information, someone should tell them. If AAPS's infrastructure is such that departments don't talk to each other, that is a problem. TAs are concerned about safety and bringing up concrete fears about threats. They're being told to get over it. We tell you we don't feel safe and we're told we are safe. It feels like talking to a wall. The teachers recently I heard talked about smart boards and how they didn't feel, how much of a problem it was going to be. And they were told in response, they're great, you're gonna love them. It all feels a little like a cautionary tale of the emperor has no clothes. Most of the employees in this district, the worker bees that are getting stuff done, we know the emperor has no clothes. We are not confused. And honestly, we're cool with that. We're very accepting. We don't judge. But it's infuriating when we hear repeatedly and repeatedly these falsehoods. It's concerning whether we don't know, is it a systemic gaslighting of the Board of Education, or is it a simple, complete delusional state of lack of self-awareness? I beg the district staff to please stop saying that we're okay just because you say so. I urge this board to consider. I've heard of other districts, and I believe even AAPS many years ago, the superintendents and cabinet members furloughing themselves or reducing their salaries as part to increase their staff, to truly lean into what is important to them. I don't know if anyone has considered doing this, but I think it would be a very powerful gesture. I admit, I know it won't fix the entire money problem. I understand it's larger than that, but I think it would be powerful. I also would like to remind those of you who have the lower cost insurance that the TAs and the OPs have, but make more money than I have digits on one hand, our teachers are really struggling. Opting out of these benefits could be so powerful. You could move to show that you are behind the staff that you lead. What an investment in the students and the school district that would be. We're in a pivotal moment. And Uncle Ben in Spider-Man says, with great power comes great responsibility. Our students deserve better. Our staff deserves better. We need change. We need change now. Please plan for your students. Please plan for your staff. Please plan for us. Thank you.

And that concludes reports of associations.

I believe next we have a report.

No, I'm so sorry. We have AAEA Office Professionals. My apologies.

7.3. Let's go. Good evening.

Good evening. Good evening.

Good evening.

My name is Maya Fields Jacobs, and I'm the proud president of the AAEA Office Professionals.

And I am Danielle Simswood, the vice president of the AAEA Office Professionals.

Today, we stand here united six months without a contract because we refuse to be ignored. For years, our group has been the afterthought when it comes to planning, compensation, and respect. Yet every single day, we are the people who keep this district running. We are the first faces families see when they walk through our doors. We are the first voices they hear when they call our schools. We are the first people students turn to when they need help. We're the first point of trust between our schools and our community. We are the people who answer the phones, manage student records, support administrators, assist staff, help families and ensure our buildings operate smoothly every single day. This district runs on the backs of office professionals. Yet for years, the district has failed to plan for us. For years, our wage increases have lagged behind the value that we bring to this district. For years, our members have received full steps, partial steps, or no steps at all. Until the state law finally required school districts to stop using wage step increases as a bargaining chip. And still, we showed up. We showed up for students, we showed up for families, we showed up for staff, we showed up for administrators, and we showed up because we care very deeply about this district and the students in it.

But caring about our community should not be required us to sacrifice our own financial well-being. Being dedicated should not mean being expected to work for free. This year, members in our high school were asked to work graduation ceremonies on a Saturday. When we requested compensation for our time, we were told our work was essentially volunteer work. Volunteer work, let's think about it. The district wants the work done. The district needs our expertise. The district relies on our labor. Yet when we asked to be paid for our time, we were told it was volunteer work. We have administrators telling us the extra work simply can't be paid, there's no money in their budget, and simply not going to pay OP for doing work outside of their contractual time. That's how it's always been. We reject that thinking. Our work has value, our time has value, our professionalism has value, and our members deserve to be compensated for the works they perform. Today, we are also sending a message to the district regarding these negotiations. We are tired of starting from zero. We are tired of being told there's no money to invest in the people who make the district function every day. We are tired of hearing that wage increases can only happen if employees give up something in return. Y'all seen our contract? What do office of professionals have to compensate other than our salary schedule? Let me know. Our contract holds no financial outside of our salary schedule. We have already sacrificed. We have already done more with less. We've already carried the burden. The time comes for the district to invest in us instead of asking us to give up more.

This is not simply about a contract. This is about respect and dignity. This is about respect, understanding that the people who keep this district operating deserve fair compensation at a seat at this table. We represent office professionals that care and nurture for the students in our buildings in ways you cannot even fathom. You cannot fathom the things that we see and do to care for our students. But I have office professionals who care for children, they pack up their bags every day at the end of the day, and they go stand in someone's food bank line to put food on the table for their families after the work they have done all day long. So today, we're not asking for special treatment, we're asking for fair treatment. We are asking for the district to plan for office professionals, not just today, but for the future. We are asking district leaders and the school board to recognize that attracting and retaining qualified office professionals requires competitive wages and a meaningful investment. And we are asking them to acknowledge what every building in this district already knows. When office professionals don't show up, the work does not get done. So today, we stand together loudly and clearly to say we deserve respect, we deserve fair wages, and we deserve a contract.

And we're not going away until our voices are heard. The school district runs on us. Thank you for your time.

That concludes reports of associations.

Thank you, Ms. Ozenski. I believe that brings us down to board candidate interviews.

We just have a five-minute break. All right, looks like we need a break.

Let's take a break at 9.16 and come back by 9.25. I got you. I know, I get it. All right. I recall the meeting of the Board of Education to order at 9.31 p.m. We are now at Board candidate interviews. It says, in accordance with the Board of Education bylaws and state law, the Board will conduct interviews to select, appoint, and seat an incoming member within 30 days of a trustee resignation. This process shall include the opportunity for public presentation and interview of all candidates. Once the public interviews have been completed, the board will participate in discussion as necessary and then proceed with the voting process for the board appointment. Each candidate will have their name drawn and will be given an opportunity to answer questions in the order they are drawn. Candidate's responses will be timed as follows. Candidate introduction and statement, two minutes. Interview questions, three questions asked by alternating trustees, two minutes for each response. And candidate final statement, two minutes. Following the interviews, the board will discuss and vote through roll call, motion, or paper ballot to select the candidate they wish to appoint as trustee. The appointed trustee will be sworn in and seated at the table. Immediately as a voting member the appointed trustee term ends December 31st 2026 I'll ask miss Olszewski if she would not mind drawing the candidates names and given the order First candidate is Maria Princeton We have John Benson Mandy Mitchell

Carolyn Siebers, Steve Norton, and Becca Hogan.

Thank you. So at this time, I'll ask Ms. Parks to ask whoever her staff member is to help escort the five trustees that are not first. Candidates. And Maria Princeton is our first, and I ask her to please remain in the room.

Thank you, President Pister. Ms. Alston, you will escort the candidates to another room.

Okay. So, Ms. Ozenski, do I just invite Ms. Princeton to the podium, and someone's going to set the clock for her, too?

Can you put that clock up? We can put a two-minute clock up. Thank you. And Ms. Princeton didn't have a slide deck or anything like that, so she can take up to two minutes for her opening, and then we'll proceed with questions.

Thank you, Ms. Osansky.

I'm frequently the smallest person in the room, but this is perfect. I'm Maria Princeton. I grew up here in Ann Arbor. I went to Ba Open and Forsyth and Pioneer. I have three kids. The oldest is finishing kindergarten at Eberwhite. The youngest is a year and a half, so I will be an AAPS student. for two more decades. I submitted this application because I have a skill set and a background that I believe will be helpful to the board, particularly with the upcoming budget planning cycle. I work in finance. I also have a social justice and nonprofit background. I analyze financial data and interpret financial statements. When I worked in corporate finance, I was managing complex data sets and building variance and factor analysis for monthly, quarterly, and annual reporting. I've led budget planning for a $650 million budget with over a dozen sub-organizations across capital budgets and operational expenses. My experience on the revenue side includes forecasting and trend analysis. And I've learned over the years that finance can really be a common language. MY ANALYTICAL SKILLS TRANSLATE ACROSS INDUSTRIES AND ARE REALLY RELEVANT FOR ANY ORGANIZATION, PUBLIC, PRIVATE, NONPROFITS, LARGER CORPORATIONS AND PUBLIC. I THINK THE REAL ART TO DATA ANALYSIS IS DISTILLING NUMBERS INTO A USEFUL FINANCIAL NARRATIVE. AND I HAVE ALMOST A DECADE OF EXPERIENCE CRAFTING THE FINANCIAL STORY THAT INFORMS LEADERSHIP DECISION MAKING.

SO I WELCOME YOUR QUESTIONS NOW. Thank you. Do I start, Ms. Osinski?

Yes, you can start, and then we can just go around.

Okay, so I believe the first question, as the board examines budget realities and pressing financial decisions, how would you approach this important task? Describe how you would work with your board colleagues to accomplish this.

I ran a growing investment advisor firm for five years, and one of our challenges as a growing space was trying to allocate resources with minimal resources. And I know that the district faces some of those challenges here today, so I'm familiar and comfortable with that kind of hard decision-making. I think when it comes to financial decision-making, While we all have different skill sets, it really is coming around a common goal and accomplishing a certain mission that we've all agreed upon for all of the board members. And I would say that financial decisions have lasting repercussions, and even if it feels like you know, it's a drop in the bucket today of, you know, a million dollars here or there. Those can have a pattern that'll, you know, reach out forecasting in the next five years to a decade.

Thank you.

Do I ask all three or how we rotate? I'll try.

If I may. Listen, please. Okay, great. Welcome. What are the superintendent's responsibilities and how do you envision working with our superintendent as a board member?

So my understanding of the board is to set the policy. That's sort of the what, and I see the superintendent as being the one who carries that out. And you lead us all. We are grateful for that. I understand that there needs to be a close working relationship between trustees and the superintendent. And I think understanding the types of decisions that fall down to superintendent parks are a really important part of helping to create a positive working relationship whether that's finances or curriculum or or what not thank you and welcome also if you're selected to join the board what do you hope to accomplish what are your top priorities so I mean, with my background, I am a finance professional and I would love to be a part of bringing the district into balance. There's a lot of politics moving around, I understand, but setting the educational future and being able to think beyond the next semester and beyond the next year I think is really integral to having a lasting financial health for the district. Um, and what I'm hoping to contribute is, is just that my financial expertise and ability to see numbers and, and put a story to them. Um, My general priorities are just for the remainder of this year, so I guess that would be the budget planning cycle. And thinking through some of these harder decisions about how we raise enough capital to increase the All right. The fund balance. And that's really where I see my expertise coming into play because, you know, I'm not an educator and I am a parent. You know, we all bring different things to the table and what I would like to help with is the financial and analytical aspect.

Thank you. Thank you so very much. And I believe that brings us down to the last two minutes where the candidate has an opportunity to give a final statement. And as soon as they reset the clock, there you go, you may begin your conclusion.

I've alluded to some of this already, but I see the role of a board member as one who helps, who offers expertise when appropriate, who listens and collaborates, and ultimately who aids the board in governing for the greater community good. I love this town. It's my hometown, and I'm blessed to be back here. It's the community that raised me, and it's the classrooms that shaped me. If I can help, I'd like to contribute my experience, especially at a time when the board needs finance expertise. Truly serving on the Board of Education would be a new experience for me, but I'm eager to learn from the collective wisdom of this group on how to be a good steward for the district.

So, thank you for your time. Thank you so very much. We greatly appreciate your interview.

And you can stay in the room and we'll...

If you like.

Yeah, you don't have to go. Thank you.

And at this time, someone will please bring Mr. Benson.

Are the decks... Did you have it?

I did. Did you send it to me?

Yeah. I asked for it. 348 though yes I mean I have it here I can you know along but it would be nice for the last page especially it's just a PDF it's no it's uh should be a PowerPoint I think you asked that that was okay he doesn't it was just a second to try to figure it out is that okay

Yeah, I don't know either.

There we go, there we go.

I had it at 1.52 on the last one. Not that I'm a numbers person.

All right All right Thank you very much. Mr. Benson for coming in to interview We'll start off by having your candidate introduction statement. You have two minutes to give that begin when you're ready

Thank you, trustees. Thank you, other candidates. Thank you, admin, Jazz Parks, for hosting this. I'm John Benson, board candidate, father of three, with the oldest in AAPS. I have kids in AAPS for the next 15 years. Raised by sociology PhDs, but am a 25-year professional in finance and governance. This background mix has helped me solve financial structural and transparency issues for many different businesses, and especially for a variety of stakeholders. My professional expertise is at the intersection of the primary business functions, finance, governance, and reporting. I work with global teams with a wide array of cultural, language, and religious backgrounds. I pride myself in understanding progress requires collaboration across all backgrounds. I am here through love and encouragement from the community and my family, and I'm told and believe that I can bring some new analytic perspectives to AAPS budget and finance picture. Next page, please. In 2008, for a large New York City investment firm, my contract standardization processes were used to renegotiate, consolidate, and further standardize hundreds of millions of dollars in existing contracts amidst the 2008 financial crisis. In early 2020, at my current Ann Arbor pension firm, my budget scenario cash forecasting framework provided guidance and balancing against multiple policy targets during the COVID-driven market shocks. This framework has been used for billions of dollars in cash movements since then. So contracts at AAPS are the ultimate driver and predictor of spend. Can we create an explained budget forecast and scenario view exclusively in the common terms of our contract-based obligations? This is just a thought to leave you all with. I think I'm close to two minutes or should be.

Thank you very much for that introduction. We greatly appreciate it. I will ask Trustee Muhammad, if she does not mind, starting with the first question, please.

So thank you for being here. So as the board examines budget realities and pressing financial decisions, how would you approach this important task? Describe how you would work with your board colleagues to accomplish this.

The first thing I like to do when I'm in a new business environment, a new working environment, is have some social sessions, working sessions with each of the people I'm going to be working with. I like to understand the styles, the nomenclature styles, the sort of backgrounds of analytic ability that make them think and tick. After that, I WANT TO LOOK AT THE BUDGET FRAMEWORK AND TRY TO UNDERSTAND WHERE WE CAN ULTIMATELY MAKE CHANGES TO BUDGET. AND IN MY OPINION HERE, IT IS AT THE CONTRACTS LEVEL. I THINK ONE THING THAT IS MISSING IN A LOT OF THE VIEWS OF THE TOTAL BUDGET PICTURE is having them in terms of the run of contracts, whether through the collective bargaining agreements, underlying salary benefits, contracts with vendors, and so on. I think that kind of view and some statistics about the contracts in that kind of view would be able to create easily comparable movements and forecast parameters, percents growth, renewal rates, averages, down to any single contract. That is something that I think needs to happen. So scenarios I've seen are good, but we need a couple of more scenarios. And I really think the one we need to start with is a scenario that encompasses where the final movements are made, which is the contracts.

Trustee Wilkins, if you don't mind. Second question.

Welcome.

What are the superintendent's responsibilities, and how do you envision working with our superintendent as a board member?

The superintendent is who establishes the initial proposals, functioning proposals, financial proposals, financial frameworks. and the vendors executing services, the structures of those services, and they provide support, again, especially with the CFO hired now, in what we need to review as a board. And so, We have to be an active member of that process, although we are in a way a little bit responsive, but there is a feedback loop there. So we have to be first very good listeners in understanding what they're working with, what they see the constraints as, what they see the realities as, and then we have to listen to how we got this position in the first place, which is our community, and try to bring that perspective back in a fair, analytic way to have a loop of negotiations, understanding, and eventually sign off on what they are proposing and bringing before us.

Thank you very much. Vice President Wilkes, if you don't mind the third question, please.

Okay, welcome and thank you for being here. If you're selected to join the board, what do you hope to accomplish and what are your top priorities?

My top priorities are serving the students, the futures of the students, the futures of my children, the futures of the community, the reputation of Ann Arbor Public Schools in Ann Arbor. I think right now to execute that is to be able to come up with first some internal review processes and collaborations amongst really the people in this room to help get maybe another level of understanding another scenario or view that we can discuss about the financial situation and and then come to some terms on how and if that REVIEW PROCESS OR SOME SLIGHT TWEAKS IN HOW WE ARE LOOKING AND EXPOSING THE BUDGET SPEND INFORMATION, FORECAST INFORMATION CAN CREATE A NEW UNDERSTANDING AND SHARED OPENNESS WITH THE PUBLIC. AND I THINK THIS IS VERY ACHIEVABLE. I REALLY THINK IT'S VERY ACHIEVABLE. That's my number one thing right now. And all of it is so that we can have, look, I have a strong numbers background. I have a strong collaborate to solve the math problems underlying the business. What I want to do is let the great policy minds, program decision minds, get back to having discussions about How do we have good balance equity? How do we have STEM versus arts balancing? And right now, all I'm seeing is that axes are being handed around the tables here, and it's swinging at the budget. So I want to help stop that so that you all can do the jobs that I think you really want to do and our experts at.

Thank you so very much for answering those three questions. Now we're down at the last portion of the interview, which is where the candidate has an opportunity for a final statement. You have two minutes to give that conclusion and sum up why you want to be on the board or anything else you think is important. And you can start that whenever you're ready.

Thank you all for this opportunity. It's been fantastic to study the board meetings. I've watched hours of them. I do that because, again, I like to study the people that I may work with, and I see fascinating minds. I see fascinating teachers, mentors, potentially for my near future. I'm applying for this position as a practical collaborative colleague. My career has been in building transparent structures for finance and budgeting. INCLUSIVE OF RELATED GOVERNANCE AND POLICY REQUIREMENTS. I ENJOY HELPING COLLEAGUES FEEL MORE EMPOWERED IN HOW THEY'RE ABLE TO WORK WITH BOTH DETAILS AND SUMMARIES CONNECTED CLEARLY. WHEN THE FINANCIAL AND BUDGETING PICTURES ARE CLEAR, MORE TIME CAN BE SPENT ON THE CRITICAL DIRECTIVES OF THE ORGANIZATION. FOR THE AAPS BOARD OF EDUCATION, That's the educations of Ann Arbor children, including three of my own. I'm a big believer in process legacy. You cannot control all the environmental factors like tax revenue or population trends over a four to ten year span of service. But you can steer the practices, the tools, governance, and policies that will be handed to the next set of citizen volunteers and administrators. So that whatever the financial conditions, the process steps are that much more clear in managing them. I am excited by the prospect to work with the recently hired CFO. I have been incredibly encouraged by his throughput and transparency reporting since he has joined. Good processes enable fair discussions and fair outcomes. Please consider my comments and my background as an ally to those principles. Thank you.

Thank you so much, Mr. Benson. We really appreciate your interview. You're welcome to stay in the room if you like. And I would ask whoever Ms. Park's assistant is to help with the transition.

They're coming in now.

Thank you.

Hello.

Hello, thank you for being here. The process is pretty simple. To start, you'll have a two minute opportunity to give a candidate introduction statement. Please feel free to take the full two minutes and tell us anything you think we need to know that might be helpful for your candidacy. I believe Ms. Osinski will add a timer to the screen, there you are, and you can start whenever you're ready.

Okay. Uh, thanks for the opportunity to, um, speak about what I would bring to this role. Uh, my resume shows that it's been my job to analyze, support and improve government administration, which has required me to understand budget cycles, procurement, risk management and compliance to read and make sense of laws, financial documents and contracts. I know that doing this work well requires constant learning about institutions, about local, state, and federal government, philanthropic and advocacy orgs, about their histories and functions. The side of this work that's not on my resume is that I know what it's like to navigate intense political and ethical pressures. I've been the person who identifies where incentives are misaligned and speaks up for change. I know what it's like to present my best work at a public meeting only to be met with criticism. I've had experience working with others to correct mistakes that we didn't make. My resume shows that I've oriented my career around equity from my doctoral research to my current position with Detroit Civil Rights Department. I've pursued work that is explicitly anti-racist and anti-ableist. and that seeks to expand representation and economic opportunity for underserved groups. What the resume doesn't capture is that I've often been in a position to promote equity even when the task is not explicitly about equity. And I believe that's actually the more important work because most work is not explicitly equity work. By training and by practice, I am attuned to the ways that institutional processes and programs can be exclusionary, and I have and will continue to take an equity in all things stance. Finally, I'm a hard worker who brings intention and care to my commitments, and I would bring that ethos to this role.

Thank you very much for that introduction statement. Do you want to start? Oh, certainly.

Okay.

Okay, thank you for coming tonight. As the board examines budget realities and pressing financial decisions, how would you approach this important task? Describe how you would work with your board colleagues to accomplish this.

I think that everything that, you know, the big framework for my approach would be that as a trustee, my understanding of the role is that A trustee is supposed to contribute to setting board policy and vision and mission and making sure that the management of and oversight of the activities of the district are aligned with that mission and vision. And so that would be kind of the big picture. I think it would be important to talk, to have those hard discussions about what is the vision, what's the mission, and what are the priorities? So what are the things that are non-negotiable? And then I think on the application side, I have training in, I received training at the University of Michigan when I did my policy degree, in public budgeting, and I know how to do a fiscal health assessment, I know how to read numbers, and I think, maybe more importantly, I know how to read numbers in context, in thinking about the moment that we're in, some of the political and macroeconomic stresses that might be causing prices to rise, Um, so I would take kind of that, bring that big picture and then also the, the, um, specific foundational skills to those tasks.

Thank you so much. I'll be asking the second question. Um, what are the superintendent's responsibilities and how do you envision working with our superintendent as a board member?

The way that I understand the superintendent's responsibilities in relationship to the board is that the superintendent is kind of the executive arm and the board policy setting and visioning and kind of oversight arm. And so the board and the superintendent work collaboratively in the sense that the board is saying, this is what we want. This is what we want our students to experience. These are the kind of citizens that we want to produce. These are the kind of workers that we hope to release into the world. These are our values. This is how we want to engage with community. And then the superintendent's job is to execute a more granular plan to achieve those goals. And then the board, again, is offering oversight and advisement in the execution of that plan. thank you so much let's see basket if you would not mind not at all thank you welcome if you're selected to join the board what do you hope to accomplish what are your top priorities I would say that my top priority is the thing that I've already spoken of which is equity in all policies equity in all things. I think that the way to achieve that though, I think of equity not just in terms of outcomes, but also in terms of processes. And one of the things that we heard here tonight is that people are feeling left out of the process. I've done a lot of thinking about democratic processes and how institutions can be more democratic, be more transparent, how they can engage community members or leave community members excluded. And I think that I would be helpful in trying to bring community together and trying to bring community into the process. My background is in education and I'm a well-practiced communicator. I think that having those open channels of communication and messaging in the right way is super important. And because I'm also an institutionalist, I believe in the power of institutions to do good. I believe that institutions can be, you know, we can make them better or worse. I think that I would be good at you know, institutional design and thinking about what specific mechanisms could bring community members together and bring all the stakeholders in the district together for the tough decisions that the board is facing.

Well, thank you for answering those three questions. At this point, you have an opportunity to give a candidate final statement. You would have up to two minutes to give that statement. So please feel free to give us any information that you think might be helpful in making our decision and start whenever you're ready. Thank you.

So thank you for giving me a chance to speak tonight. And I want to close by coming back to the idea of being an institutionalist and believing in institutions. I was speaking with a coworker at City of Detroit who expressed that they believe in institutions and that made a deep impression on me because this was a person who had every reason to be skeptical and distrustful of institutions. But I believe that we can work together, we can listen to community, we can identify specific measures that increase participation and representation, whether that's a data dashboard or holding meetings in neighborhoods or just holding up and articulating a policy vision that serves all of our students and families, especially those who face historic or structural barriers. And I also just want to underscore that Ann Arbor is my home. I've never felt more at home anywhere than I have in Ann Arbor. My kids' teachers, principals, social workers, rec and ed staff, and lots of others have given our family a lot, and it would really be an honor for me to be able to give back. Thank you.

Thank you so much for your interview. We greatly appreciate it. At this time, we will ask Superintendent Parks and her staff to bring out the fourth candidate. Thank you. Hello.

Hello.

Thank you for being here today.

Thank you for listening to me today.

We greatly appreciate it. The first portion of the interview is a candidate introduction statement where you would have up to two minutes to give us an introduction and tell us why this might be a good position for you. And please start whenever you're ready. All right.

In Ann Arbor, we take pride in our excellent reputation. Sustaining excellence requires data-driven decision-making by the school board. I am seeking a seat on the board to serve and preserve all of its resources, students, teachers, tax monies, buildings, and grounds. As a teacher, coach, principal, and researcher, I have broadened my perspectives on the complexities of district operations and the components of effective schools. I believe I bring a unique blend of public school experience, commitment to education, and an openness to problem solving. With these qualities, I am well suited to support the district's emergence from current tensions and gain trust with purposeful transparency. My priorities include focusing on students, supporting teachers, and restoring fiscal sustainability. Focusing on students requires recognition that every child comes to us with different backgrounds, strengths, and needs. There is no one size fits all approach to education. I will champion research-based strategies that prioritize human connections over screen time, ensuring our students stay engaged and motivated. To support students, we must retain our experienced teachers. Effective teaching requires much more than subject matter content. It demands knowledge about how students learn. To truly deliver for our students, teachers need autonomy and professional respect. A fair contract and a seat at the decision making table. When we empower educators, we are advocating for the environments all students need to thrive. Finally, I see the systemic founding challenges our district faces from stagnant for pupil funding and unfunded mandates. Our structural deficit actually began about ten years ago. I just say to report trust and transparency, I urge the board to establish a stakeholder budget committee led by administration to rigorously analyze our budget, establish funding priorities, and chart a course toward fiscal sustainability.

Thank you very much. I believe that brings us to our three interview questions. And I believe Trustee Schmidt has the first.

You may have a chance to still say what you want to say in these questions. Okay. Okay. So as the board examines budget realities and pressing fiscal decisions, how would you approach this important task? Describe how you would work with your board colleagues to accomplish this.

Well, certainly, funding in michigan is a complex task and i would work collaboratively i ask questions i'll study i'll take the things home and i'll figure things out and ask other people and i think One of the things I'm really interested in seeing is a more concise breakdown of what the various expenses are in the various categories. Because for prioritizing budget, you really need to know a little bit more about what each thing is to decide whether that's something that we need to keep or maybe possibly that could be something to be eliminated. Because the truth is, we're not gonna be able to add things. We're spending more than we're getting in. We have to make tough decisions about how we spend our monies and which things are most important.

Thank you so much. And our second question will be asked by Trustee Muhammad.

So thank you for being here. What are the superintendent's responsibilities and how do you envision working with our superintendent as a board member?

Well, the superintendent is the educational leader for the district. Superintendent is the one that charts the course and sets the mission and a direction for the district. I foresee that the I mean, the superintendent is really the only person that the board has interaction with. And I would see us having discussions about the state of the district and what she sees as the ways forward. And just to be able to ask questions and see where the money is and how we might be able to move things around to meet our obligations for all the things we have to do. And it's just a lot with not a whole lot of money. And we've been used to that kind of that old thing where you could ask for more millage and you could get more money, but that's just not the situation anymore.

Thank you so much. And I believe the third and final question will be asked by Trustee Wilkins.

Welcome. If you are selected to join the board, what do you hope to accomplish? What are your top priorities?

Interesting that you ask. As I said, they are focusing on students. I really think we need to get back and narrow our focus and think about kind of those things that are happening in the classroom and the things that make our students, you know, help our students learn and, you know, some of the other stuff we're just going to have to kind of put to the side and really, really focus on students and their learning and study data to see where we might be falling short. Not all of our schools are performing at the same level, and I think that's a concern for me, and that is one thing I would hope we could talk about is what kinds of interventions might we try in some of those schools for students who aren't performing in the way they might be able to perform. I know that we generally have to cut, but we also have to recognize that in those schools where students, they're not really getting equitable education, we need to explore the kinds of interventions that we might be able to use with them. So that might actually require additional funding. So I'm kind of making the problem harder. And again, you've heard it a lot tonight, but I think it's important to Have conversations with the teachers. I mean, not us personally, but the district. To have conversations with the teachers and come to an understanding about how you can work together to make a contract work. And finally, the budget. Yes, the budget. It is very difficult. We were just looking at a graph of funding and looking at where Michigan used to be like in 2000, about the same as Massachusetts. And our performance then was about Massachusetts too. Now, shh. And we're not with Massachusetts anymore, so. Thank you.

I'm not done yet. One more portion.

Okay.

Thank you so much for answering those three questions. We truly greatly appreciate your answers. The final portion is the candidate final statement. You have up to two minutes to tell the board why you think you might be a good candidate or anything else you think might be important. You have two minutes, and please start whenever you're ready to start. Thank you.

I have served in the Ann Arbor Public Schools as a teacher, administrator, coach, and researcher. My 40-year career in public education included 14 years at Community, teaching mathematics, and four years at Pioneer, principal for the class of 2000. Subsequently, I served as South Redford's high school principal and a Wayne County mathematics consultant for Wayne ISD. We provided teachers with intensive mathematics professional development by grade bands. We were awarded National Science Foundation grants for programs in Highland Park and Hamtramck. And ultimately we were awarded a multi-million award for a statewide series of classes titled Algebra for All. Hundreds of teachers and teacher teams throughout the state participated in this project. And we worked with all of the ISDs around the state. I have devoted my life to education and finding ways to remove obstacles to student learning. I have first-hand knowledge and understanding of the complexities of district operations. My diverse background and experience in education gives me a unique perspective on effective school management to prepare students for happy and productive lives. Now that I'm retired, I have the time and energy to devote to the intensive work of a board trustee. I'm guided by my belief in the vital role public education plays in our democracy and by my pride in the district's excellence. As a former district employee and 45-year resident, I am committed to the Ann Arbor Public Schools and the importance of an effective school board in maintaining excellence and building community trust. Thank you for your consideration.

Thank you so much for your interview. We greatly appreciate it. This time, we'll Excellent in the parks and have her or help us escort our fifth candidate All right, thank you Thank you ma'am Good evening Thank you for applying and for interviewing tonight. The way the process works is you will have a two-minute window to give a candidate introduction statement. After that, we'll go through the interview questions and so on and so forth. But whenever you're ready to start your two-minute kind of introduction, please start at your – whenever you're ready.

Okay. Well, thank you very much. Thank you, President Feaster, Trustees, Superintendent Parks. Thank you for giving me this opportunity. Is this working? My name is Steve Norton. Raise it up a little. Sorry, what? Raise it? On the right, yeah. Hello? Does that work better? Got you. Okay. My name is Steve Norton. I'm the proud parent of two AAPS graduates, and I've been involved in school finance and policy matters professionally and as a volunteer for many years now. You already have the details of our education and experience in front of you, but I think it's important to back up from the details and tell you what I would believe. I believe that every child deserves to fulfill his or her own potential. and that it's our common responsibility as a community to make that possible. I believe that the human connection between a child and their teacher is central to the process of learning. And I believe that this connection between student and teacher requires an ecosystem that fosters that relationship and provides both student and teacher with the help and resources they need. That's why I'm here. I hope to contribute to protecting those relationships and keeping a healthy ecosystem going in difficult times. So I look forward to taking your questions.

Thank you so much for those statements. I believe we're back to Vice President Wilkes, and I'll ask her to ask the first question, please.

Thank you for joining us tonight. As the board examines budget realities and pressing financial decisions, how would you approach this important task and describe how you would work with your board colleagues to accomplish this?

Well, first of all, I would hope to be part of an effort to make sure that the Board can work together in a constructive and positive way. I know that that hasn't necessarily always been the case, but I hope that it's growing that way, and I would want to be part of that. Secondly, I do think that there has to be a lot more discussion with the community. We need to understand and we need to communicate precisely what our options are and what we can and cannot do. I think that sometimes people think that there's some money out there floating that could be used for stuff, and I've been working in this field long enough that I know that that's not the case. But that reality doesn't necessarily get communicated very well. So what we need to do, what you need to do as elected representatives, is to engage the community to make them understand that they have hard choices to make, they are real choices, and that unfortunately it's going to mean choosing between priorities rather than trying to fund all of them. I know that that's very difficult. I've been at parent meetings in the past when we, you know, budgets were proposed and saw parents screaming at one another about whose programs should get cut or not get cut or which schools should be closed or not get closed. So it's, um, There's nothing that motivates people like you're worrying about your own child. And that brings out both the best and occasionally the worst in people as they're trying to protect their family and trying to protect their kids. But I think that the only solution to that is to have an ongoing process of engaging with the community and making sure that everyone understands how the system works, that nothing's being hidden. And that we're going to try and do the best that we can. And that's not something that a single board term can do, it has to be sustained over years.

Thank you so much for that answer. That brings us down to the second question, and I believe it's my turn to read that one, so. What are the superintendent's responsibilities and how do you envision working with our superintendent as a board member?

Well, I think the superintendent's responsibilities can be a little flexible depending on the circumstances. But in my experience, the superintendent is sort of the public face of the district. and also the person that can go and advocate in the community and speak their mind about policy issues, about problems. I spent a lot of time going around to different schools with Todd Roberts when he was superintendent and worked with a number of people since. And I think that aside from the administrative duties, which as an outsider you don't necessarily see very well, What was really important was the superintendent's connection with people and being able to talk freely and honestly about things that were happening, hopes that they had, problems that they were having, things that they couldn't do. I think that that public communication part is extremely important. Going onwards, I know that there's usually a hands-off approach to working with the professional staff versus an elected board. But as an elected body, I do think that the board and the individual members do have a justification to be able to ask tougher questions and to ask questions for more explanation and to work collaboratively with the superintendent and her team to try and find ways out of some of these binds. It can't just be, well, tell us when you've got a proposal ready and we'll just say yay or nay. There's got to be an interaction there. Everyone has to understand what's going on. Everyone has to be able to explain what's going on to their constituents and to their stakeholders. Think that the in the best case the superintendent and board members can be allies In trying to do the best thing for the entire community Doesn't always happen, but ideally that's the way it should work Thank you so much for that answer and I'll ask trustee basket if she wouldn't mind asking the final question

Welcome, Mr. Norton.

Final question. If you're selected to join the board, what do you hope to accomplish and what are your top priorities?

Well, I suppose I should say up front that I do not intend to run to fill the remaining two years of Don Wilkerson's term for better or worse. I'm not sure that that would work out. So that said, um, I think obviously the top priorities have to do with trying to lower the temperature in some of the current discussions and debates and contention in order to work backwards so that we can find sensible, minimally acceptable solutions together. whether that is the contracts with the bargaining units or whether it's precisely how to arrange the budget, balancing and deeming to be careful with funds versus making sure that cuts that seem like we must do them don't impact vulnerable communities. No matter how much we want to be able to pay our teachers, things like larger class sizes can actually hurt some students more than others. Reductions of programming can hurt some students more than others if families don't have the ability to backfill and give kids the experiences that they would otherwise have gotten through school. These are all, they're not impossible questions, but they're extremely difficult questions. I suppose I would say other than the normal duties, you know, as you go on for the board member, if I were appointed and if I had that chance, if we were able to come to a resolution at least temporarily with some of the severe financial issues facing us, then I would feel good about stepping down in December.

Thank you. Thank you so much for answering those questions. We greatly appreciate it. This brings us to the final portion of your interview, which is the candidate final statement. You have up to two minutes to give a final statement to tell us why you think you might be a good board member or fill in any gaps that we may have missed, and you can start whenever you're ready.

Thank you, Mr. President. I appreciate the opportunity to appear here tonight, and let me close with a few thoughts. Our schools and this board face difficult decisions in the next few months, as we just discussed. And I want to emphasize that much of the reason for that rests with policies set over many years in the state capitol and not here. The enemy is not in this room. We have legitimate differences, frustrations, and hopes. How we address those differences and frustrations will shape how our community's children are educated for years to come. But for decades, policies have been made in Lansing which were subtly intended to foster the very conflicts and anger that we have seen in our community and here tonight. We must not play by their rules. What we must do is to have open and honest dialogue about what we need, what is possible, and what we might do. The board, on one hand, has a responsibility to see that the professionals who educate our children are treated and compensated fairly. The board also has the heavy responsibility of being a careful steward of the resources contributed by our community, limited though they may be. Everything should be examined, but nothing should be done in haste or without considering the impact it may have on the most vulnerable. All the district stakeholders should be allies in finding solutions to difficult problems, not adversaries butting heads while others elsewhere quietly smile. It would mean a great deal to me to be part of that process of working together to serve our broader community. Thank you for your time.

Thank you so much, Mr. Norton, for your interview. We greatly appreciate it. You can leave it on. Thank you. At this time, I think Superintendent Parks will have her staff help bring in the sixth and final person. And she is here. We welcome Ms. Hogan to the podium. Thank you for interviewing tonight.

Sure.

You can lower that on the right-hand side if it's too tall, on the front right.

Yeah, there we go.

All right. The first portion of the interview process is the candidate introduction and statement. You have up to two minutes to give us a statement as to why you think you want to be a board member or whatever else you feel comfortable telling us. And you can start whenever, well, let's get the timer. Oh, you have slides. I do have slides.

Okay.

So we won't have a timer. Ms. Ozenski will keep the time. It won't be on the screen.

Right at two minutes. Yes.

All right. So you can begin whenever you're ready.

All right. Thank you for the opportunity to be here tonight. My name is Becca Hogan. I applied for the open seat because I'm running for the Board of Education in the general election on November 3rd, and I'm ready to get to work today. First, I want to acknowledge the amazing community that turned out tonight for a joyful rally in support of our teachers and in support of a strong district that can serve all students. Additionally, I'm thrilled to see so many strong applicants for this open seat. AAPS is in a very challenging position. Let's be completely honest about that. Our fund balance is low, our student enrollment is declining, and our educators have just overwhelmingly rejected the tentative agreement offered by the district. And yet I'm here because they have a very deep sense of hope for our future. Our community is engaged and active, and I truly believe that if we harness the energy and collaborate, we can do amazing things for this district. You've had a chance to review my credentials, but let me take a brief moment to refresh your memory. I'm a parent of three kids in the district, two of whom attend a Title I school here, and the third will join them in the fall. I've been an education advocate and activist for 20 years since I served as an AmeriCorps VISTA in Romulus and Detroit public schools. I've taught second grade extended day in Washington, D.C., high school math in East Los Angeles, and coached teachers across classrooms in Chicago public schools. Teaching humbled me greatly, and I truly believe it is the hardest profession one can choose. I hold an MPA from NYU, where I studied public finance and policy analysis, and I've worked in policy from Capitol Hill to state senate offices and the office of the Manhattan Borough President. Now that my career has taken me in a different direction, I spend all of my time outside of work as an unpaid education advocate. I sit on the board of our PTOC Council, I advocate with the Michigan Education Justice Coalition for more funding at the state level, and I recently spent all summer and fall collecting signatures for the Invest in My Kids ballot initiative to increase the fund base for our schools. I do not say this lightly, but I was made for this work and I've dedicated my life to it.

Thank you so much for your introduction statement. I believe we're starting with Trustee Schmidt.

She'll start with the first question. As the board examines budget realities and pressing fiscal decisions, how would you approach this important task? Describe how you would work with your fellow colleagues to accomplish this.

It's a great question. So I would like to look at all of the data that's provided by the CFO. Obviously, we've had some data that was provided in May. And I know that the budget that was presented today or isn't going to be presented today does not, unfortunately, project out the five years like it did in May 13th. So I'd like to see that. I would work with my fellow trustees because I know many of you have been working in this position for a while and I know some of you have gone to the Michigan state board, uh, and doing some financial training. So I'd like to learn from you and what you learned in those positions. Um, and I would like to listen to the public and the public has been telling us just based on, you know, you have all asked and you put out a survey that asked the public what they wanted to see. And overwhelmingly the public said that they wanted to see teachers and educators paid first and the best rest of the budget built around that.

Thank you so much for answering that question. I believe our second question will be asked by Trustee Muhammad.

Welcome. What are the superintendent's responsibilities, and how do you envision working with our superintendent as a board member?

Thank you. The superintendent's job is to enact the policy that the board has chosen. So the board writes the policy, whether it be financial and things like that. And then the superintendent enacts those. The superintendent oversees all of the workings of the district from the cabinet all the way down to what's happening in every single school. And that's one of the most challenging jobs that I think you can have aside from being an educator. And so I would want to build a very strong relationship with the superintendent and everyone that works in the administration because you're in the schools daily. Obviously being a board member is an unpaid volunteer, pretty much volunteer position. And you all see day to day what goes on inside the classroom. So we want to build a very cordial and collaborative relationships that we can work together across.

Thank you so much for that answer to the question. And your final question will be asked by Trustee Wilkins.

welcome if you're selected to join the board what do you hope to accomplish what are your top priorities

So what I would hope to accomplish is that we need to make some very difficult decisions over the next six months and into the future years to make sure that this district stays afloat and to make sure that this district is sustained for the long term. So I would want to work very closely with all of my fellow board members to look deeply at the financials and make sure that we support and retain our teachers first and we build the rest of the budget around it. I would want to bring in my very strong connections with the community and make sure that the community can build back trust with the board because that is something that has been deteriorated over the course of the last few years. And as you can see here, we have like a very strong community and a community that wants to collaborate. So I would like to bring that back to the district and to the board so that we see both sides, we hear each other and we work together. Um, if we do have to make very difficult decisions about changing, closing, closing schools potentially or changing, you know, consolidating new programs, I would want the community to be completely fully bought into those changes. Um, otherwise we're going to see more of what we did today and more antagonism, which is just going to drive our community further apart. I would like to see our community come back together for the best of the district.

Thank you so much, Ms. Hogan. We appreciate you answering those three questions. The final portion of the interview is the candidate final statement. You have up to two minutes to tell us why you want to be a trustee or give us any other information that you think might be helpful in our decision. And you can start whenever you're ready. Take your time. Have your drink.

Thanks. Thank you again for having me here today. You asked us to optionally answer some follow-up questions by email, so I'm just going to reiterate what those are for the public here as well. You asked, what, in your opinion, is the role of a board member? And I believe the role of a board member is first to engage deeply with the community, to effectively represent their needs. This includes students, families, teachers, and the broader community of Ann Arbor. I also believe we need to collaborate effectively and respectfully with one another and the administration. And ultimately, to be a board member is to make the policy and budgetary decisions that will positively impact the future sustainability and success of Ann Arbor Public Schools. How will I be an asset to the board during the upcoming budget season and financial decisions? I'm gonna bring my personal experience in multifund accounting that has been crafted over my career. I was a lead trainer at OpenGov, a software company that builds technology for government financial transparency. In my master's degree, I studied policy analysis and public accounting. My role at Workday, I designed courses on payroll accounting for government and higher education customers. And I've spent the last several years advocating at the state level for increases to public funding for schools, and I've worked as a circulator and invested in my kids' ballot initiative. To say I care about the financial position in AAPS in public schools in general would be an understatement. And personally, I'm deeply connected to stakeholders across the district, including parents and leaders from every corner of this community. When we make decisions that need to be made, some very challenging decisions, through my relationship building and my ability to simply explain complex information to the general public, I will be an immense asset to the board. Thank you.

Thank you so much Ms. Hogan, we greatly appreciate you taking the time to interview. I believe some of our trustees want to take a little break and let that sink in before they cast their ballot. So if you all wouldn't mind giving us about ten minutes so they can take some time to review their notes before we cast our ballot. We'll take a ten minute recess and we will come back at 10.50. Recall this meeting of the Ann Arbor Public School Board of Education order at 1050 Thank you all for making it back on time. I believe trustee says she has a motion.

Okay So I did want a motion that we do table the first briefings to another meeting in the near future and then so that's that's my motion is tabling the all the first briefing because it's it is a I don't know when we're going to be able to get to it tonight, but we will table the first briefings to hopefully a future special meeting or another meeting in the near future. So that's my motion. Yes, excluding the budget.

Okay, so that's been moved by Trustee Muhammad to table the first briefing items excluding the budget to another meeting date. There's support?

support all right it's been moved by trustee muhammad and supported by trustee wilkins is there any discussion trustee basket i'm not a fan of this um we are here if we've and we've got staff here and i know you're all tired but i'm tired too okay um when is the near future we have a hard enough time getting four of us together with this and the summer schedule is coming i say we just knock it out But before that, can you tell me, Superintendent Parks, is there anything time-sensitive that has to be done to look at an order? I can't remember the ordering of equipment or issuing contracts. Textbooks.

There's textbooks. There's E-rate. There's textbooks. There's the catalog.

We had another meeting before.

Before when?

We had another meeting before the 17th so that we had second briefing on the 17th. We would still be okay.

So you want, so we're thinking of a meeting before the 17th and then the 17th? Yes.

I'm not in favor. Question, did we originally have a meeting scheduled for the 17th or not? There is one.

But now we have to have one before in order to do the approval for the second briefing.

Uh, the reason why we have such a large agenda agenda is because we did not have a meeting last week. We did not have a quorum. And many of us were at the Washtenaw County commissioners meeting. Um, I would be like trustee basket. I'm tired as well, but I would rather just plug right along and let's get this done. Um, there are some items that are timely that we need to address as superintendent parks just mentioned. Um, I would be for continuing.

Muhammad so the reason why I'm moving to Postpone at a future near future meeting or table The second or the first briefings is because there is still the budget that we need to talk about We're gonna have lots of questions about the budget. We still have to decide on the candidates. It's already almost 11 and I don't feel comfortable with trying to feel, and when we talked about this in governance, I do not want to rush through these big, big ticket items that are being first, we're seeing it for the first time and the public is seeing it for the first time. So I think it is, I would feel like it's, It is important that we do take our time and I would rather have a special meeting focused on the first briefing before the next meeting, if we can. Based on how we're going right now, we'll probably be here and then keep, I want to bring this up now because to respect the staff that are here, we would probably be past like at least 1 a.m. discussing this and we still have a closed session.

So trustees you've gotten all of the information for first briefing before this meeting and you've had the opportunity to look at those items and to bring questions I have not heard any questions of the items that came out of first briefing obvious out of the Finance Planning Committee so obviously there may be other things if people have questions I don't know about but trustees the Governance Committee you knew this was going to be a packed agenda you created the agenda so i thought i thought i thought we were prepared we got the the agenda we got all the items so that we would be prepared to knock this out now when i look at what you're talking about between the 17th that's like next week 17th i'm sorry in order to fit a meeting in you're going to have to fit it in next week my schedule is pretty full I can't speak for everybody else's, but of course, you can do the work without me. I mean, it's been done before, but I would advise everybody to look at their schedule and see what they're doing next week. I mean, this is already Wednesday. We don't usually meet on the weekends. I don't anticipate that. But for new board members, prepare yourselves. I mean, so. Again, I just don't think it's feasible. We're here, knock it out. I know the staff is tired, but I have to say, we have met beyond 1 o'clock in the past, so just one of those things.

And just in fairness, Trustee Muhammad did bring this up at the governance meeting. Yes, she did. And she said she thought it was too big of an agenda, and she told us that if it got to this point, then she would make a motion to table things, just for fairness. And you guys outvoted her, so here we are. Trustee Wilkins.

On the other side of things, there's a reason we've got first briefing and second briefing. So if we don't get time or take time to ask deep questions at the first briefing, We can ask those at the second briefing or in between the first and second briefing so that there's more clarification for that. And I don't want to spend more time debating whether we're going to add time to the meeting. I agree. Then we have to spend time doing this. So there's both sides of it.

All right, then I think we can do a vote and see where we stand. Mrs. Osansky, please.

Could you repeat the motion, just so yes or no? So to table, you're saying table.

The motion is to table the first briefing items except for the first budget reading. Other than that, she wants to take everything else off of the agenda for tonight.

Table the first briefing items, not everything. So does that not include the consent agenda, it doesn't include the first briefing of the budget, and it doesn't include the second briefing of the WISD budget and the superintendent's evaluation.

I think she means 15.1 through 15.11. There we go. Yeah. Correct me if I'm wrong, Trustee.

Yeah, that's it. Okay. So are we ready to vote?

Yes.

Trustee Baskett?

No.

President Feaster?

Yes.

trustee Muhammad yes trustee Schmidt no trustee Wilkins yes and trustee Wilkes no tie motion fails that's why we do our new we need a new member you could make the motion after we got somebody

All right, let's keep rolling. So now we're at the point where we're voting on the appointment process before we vote. Is there an opportunity for a discussion?

Trustee Baskett? No discussion, but I just wanted to publicly thank the candidates for applying. I know it was a lot of work. I also want to encourage those who are not selected to, if you're serious about joining the board, do run, do run a good campaign. I can name a few trustees who had applied for an appointment, did not get selected, and then got elected, myself included. So, again, thank you so much. I didn't want to speak for other trustees. I'll let them speak for themselves. But, again, to encourage you, and thank you, again, we know it was a process to apply and to get all of the recommendations, and they were very solid recommendations. But thank you.

if I may trustee Schmidt and I too thank you and I know a couple of you had reached out to us once the applications were in to meet with you and I refrain from that to be neutral for this but if you have any interest in running for the board and you want to meet with any of us you should reach out and to know more about what the job is what a campaign looks like that sort of thing please do so because we need good people up here

All right. And I have been in your shoes, actually. So I know how it is. You all did very good work putting together your applications and in your interview. I thank you all for doing that. I thought we had very strong candidates here. And we'll see where we fall and welcome one of you to the board in the near future here. So thank you all. All right.

Can I just say real quick, I want to thank everyone who interviewed tonight. And if you're not selected, everyone who interviewed tonight sounds very passionate about making sure that our district is moving in a positive direction. And I would encourage you, even if you don't consider running, to stay engaged. and to get involved in any kind of way. Many of you still have children in the district. Many of you do not, but you live in this community, and you know how important this school district is to our community. So again, stay engaged and be involved. Thanks. Thank you.

All right. I think we're ready for our first round of voting. Ready to read anything? Trustees, we will select candidates through a paper ballot. Mr. Cooley will distribute the paper ballots with each trustee's last name on it. Each trustee writes the last name of their choice of candidate. On the ballot, Mr. Cooley will then collect the ballots and bring them to Ms. Kozinski. Ms. Kozinski will read each ballot aloud, including the trustee's name and the candidate they selected, summarizing the number of votes garnered for each candidate. Any one candidate receiving four votes will be selected. At no time are trustees allowed to abstain from voting, or they must be removed from the entire candidate selection process. tie votes. In the event of a tie vote, a second ballot will be distributed, the vote taken and counted. If four votes have not been reached after a second round of voting, the board will take a short recess. After recess, a third ballot will be distributed, the vote taken and counted. If a tie remains after the third round of voting, the presiding officer will cast the tie-breaking vote. With that said, please write down your choice of candidate on your first ballot, and Mr. Cooley will pick them up. Thank you.

Okay. Trustee Wilkins votes for Norton. Trustee Feaster votes for Norton. Wilks, I'm sorry, Trustee Wilks votes for Norton. President Feaster votes for Norton. Trustee Schmidt votes for Norton. And Trustee Baskett votes for Norton. That's four votes. Are we Trustee appointed? Will be Steve Norton. Do you want to call the others? And the others were Trustee Muhammad votes for Benson and Trustee Wilkins votes for Benson.

Thank you all for your applications and for applying. We thank you all very much. Congratulations to our newest trustee.

We'll have to have him stand or come sit, and I need to swear him in, and then he can have a seat.

Do we have a computer yet, guys? We've got to keep our people moving here.

Please. She'll come over and have you stand up and take a picture.

Oh, sorry. Okay. You have to stand, though. Actually, why don't we put you in front, Steve, for the swearing in and the pictures and all that jazz?

Okay.

I'll move out of the way. Right here somewhere. Andrew will tell you where to stand. Okay.

Okay.

Congratulations.

Trustee Martin, if you raise your right hand and repeat after me, I do solemnly swear or affirm...

I do solemnly swear or affirm.

That I will support the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of this state.

That I will support the Constitution of the United States and of this state.

And that I will faithfully discharge the duties.

And that I will faithfully discharge the duties.

Of the Office of Member of the Board of Education of the Ann Arbor Public Schools.

Of the Office of Member of the Board of Education of the Ann Arbor Public Schools.

According to the best of my ability.

According to the best of my ability.

Congratulations.

I understand

All right, we'll try to keep it moving since we're going to be here for a while. We are at board committee reports. I believe we will start with the finance and planning committee and our acting chair, I believe it's Trustee Baskett. And when she gets settled, we'll ask her what happened in the finance and planning committee meeting over the last couple of weeks.

I'm sorry, we wanted to get the new trustees settled. We're under reports for finance and planning? Yes, ma'am. Is that correct? Okay. So, thank you, Mr. President. The finance and planning committee met on the first, and we're scheduled for another meeting in two weeks. But you will see first briefing items that we discussed, so I kind of, I guess I don't want to steal their thunder. Trustee Wilkins, do you want anything to share regarding? No.

Thank you. All right, that brings us to the Governance Committee meeting, which I chaired. Obviously, we created this massive agenda. Our apologies. And that's essentially all we did at the last meeting. Any questions or comments? All right, seeing none, that brings us down to the information section, and Superintendent Parks will ask you for her update.

Thank you, President Feaster. It's a lengthy update today because we have the items carrying over from the meeting that we didn't have a couple of weeks ago. So I'll jump right in. June is Pride Month and is recognized annually. And it's a vibrant and inclusive celebration to honor the LGBTQ plus community, their history, achievements, and continued advocacy for equality. during june and throughout the year our students teachers staff families and community welcome the opportunity to learn support and celebrate individuals for exactly who they are and the many talents and gifts they bring in the ann arbor public schools we are committed to nurturing educational learning environments where each child the staff member parent and family member is respected and valued for who they are regardless of race or ethnicity, skin color, gender, sexual identity or orientation, ability or disability, or any other status. We are a stronger school community as we honor, embrace, and celebrate our diversity. Juneteenth marks the anniversary of the day in 1865 when the last group of enslaved black Americans was freed by Union troops in Texas. The day commemorates the end of slavery in the United States. The Juneteenth federal holiday became official on June 17, 2021. The Ann Arbor 2026 Juneteenth celebration will be held on Saturday, June 13th, from 9.30 a.m. to 12 o'clock p.m., and it begins with a walk at Fuller Park, followed by food, fellowship, and festivities at Wheeler Park. And the Ann Arbor Public Schools we formally honor Juneteenth observed this year on Friday, June 19th, as an official holiday for all AAPS employees. I'm pleased to recognize Melissa Gordon from Huron High School for her outstanding participation in the April 2026 Jump Start Teen Teach-In. Jump Start is a national nonprofit network of state coalitions and partner organizations dedicated to advancing financial education for lifelong well-being and empowerment. Melissa's leadership in empowering students to learn about financial literacy reflects the dedication, collaboration, and enthusiasm that makes this initiative so meaningful and impactful. Our efforts have made a lasting difference in preparing the next generation to navigate an increasingly complex financial world. Thank you, Melissa, for all that you do to help our students build a brighter, more financially secure futures. It is my pleasure to also recognize several of our students at Community High School for their outstanding achievements. Erin Kawata was selected as one of three student panelists at the upcoming Smithsonian National Education Summit for the video she made focusing on the closure of Ann Arbor Downtown Home and Garden as part of the Democracy in Dialogue virtual exchange program. Erin will participate in a virtual session, Youth Voices, Stories from the Exchange, together with peers from North Carolina and Massachusetts. This is the first time the Smithsonian has included students on their National Education Summit, which brings together leading education experts to explore instructional strategies and resources that empower educators and their learners. This is a proud moment for Erin, and without a doubt, we know she will represent the best of the Ann Arbor Public Schools. Senator Kier Harrow has the honor of being nominated and accepted to the 2026-27 Michigan Department of Education Student Advisory Council. This year's council will continue to build upon the work of the student group that first convened in the summer of 2020. Members will have input in determining the council's focus for the year and join a work group to address one of the council's focus areas, which is mental health and school safety. special education, and comprehensive curriculum. We thank Senen for her dedication as a council member on behalf of the Ann Arbor Public Schools and for her voice to inform what the Michigan Department of Education does in support of students, staff, and schools. We also congratulate Community High School and its jazz combo O Negative, who won 49th Annual Student Music Award from Downbeat Magazine. The group tied for second place in what is regarded as the world's biggest contest for high school jazz combos. Junior saxophonist Sam Davidson also won an Outstanding Soloist Award. So please join me in recognizing O Negative members Sam Davidson on alto sax, Miles Green on drums, Oliver Jacobson on vibraphone, Will Miltzer on piano, Stav Shani on bass, and Nick Villamore on tenor sax. And we'd also like to acknowledge the commitment of their program director, Jack Wagner. So congratulations, O Negative. We begin the process of launching many in-person summer learning programs the week after next, with programs running through July. Programming is designed to close learning gaps and accelerate growth to support fall readiness and success, recover credit, reinforce skills, and increase confidence and love of learning. We are especially grateful to our administrators and teachers who work to make these programs effective and engaging for our students. Also, for more summer programming, the Rec and Ed team is excited to launch summer camps starting on Monday, June 15th and running through the summer. We have 4,000 registrations currently for early childhood and school-age camps. Some summer camps still have spaces available. So you can visit the Rec and Ed site on the webpage and click on the At a Glance buttons and join us for a summer filled with arts and crafts, interactive activities, sports, and outdoor fun. We would like to offer our congratulations to the Class of 2026 and want to acknowledge the extraordinary journey of about 1,300 graduates. They have everything it takes to move forward and make their mark in the world in profound and positive ways. They represent a unique and special generation and have shown us what it looks like to do unprecedented and hard things. We also want to recognize the teachers, support staff, and building leaders who guided the graduates through their educational experience. We also would like to thank parents and caregivers of the Class of 26 for sharing these amazing young people with us and for entrusting the Ann Arbor Public Schools with their education. So we're proud of you, Class of 2026, and wish you the very best. And you can find details about the remaining 2026 commencement ceremonies including the livestream links on our website. Lastly, we want to congratulate the rest of our students for their hard work and dedication that they put into their studies during the 25-26 school year and the growth that they have achieved. To our AAPS teachers and staff, we would like to express our gratitude for their work this past year in providing our students with a quality education. Thank you for all that you have done to support and guide our students. Parents and guardians in the AAPS community, thank you for sharing your children with us. We do not take that lightly. And we want to wish everyone in the AAPS community a happy and safe summer break, and we hope that you have some time to enjoy summer, and we look forward to welcoming our students and staff back for the 26th and 27th school year. And that concludes the superintendent's report.

Thank you, Superintendent Parks. That brings it down to our budget first briefing, and I will turn it over to looks like Mr. Britton and Mr. Zasky and ask them to go through the budget first briefing.

All right.

All right. Again, good night. I mean, good evening. Good morning. We'll go over the budget here briefly. If you can pull up the slides, please. Okay, so we'll take a look at the budget this year. Tonight's agenda, what we'll first go through is our 2026 and we'll answer questions on that. We'll talk primarily about our general fund budget. uh revenue and expenditures will go into great detail when we talk about our general fund spending for 2026 but then we'll also cover our special funds just to do a check-in on where they are for 2026 going into 2027. then following that we'll go through our fy 27 proposed budget for review by the board. So let's get started. So first, we normally take a pretty traditional view of the budget. So this is the view that we have to submit to the state and it puts it in certain buckets and certain categories. By now you probably realize I'm gonna go through a little bit more detail when it comes to the budget and a lot more about our spending and some of our trends and where we can see some opportunities going into 2027. So overall, taking a look at our budget, our revenues went up slightly from where we thought you can go to the next slide. I'm sorry. Our revenues went up slightly from where we thought. So we're taking a look here at our first amended budget, our first amendment to what our final budget ended up being. Due to local sources for the most part, and I'll go through that in greater detail in a minute, our revenues actually went up. They were actually higher than expected. Our expenditures remained about the same, but then our over-under actually was about $2.5 million better than we expected. A large majority of that is due to our local funds performing really, really well. We had interest investment, interest earned on our investments that performed really well, as well as we had two large parking events that really drove the increase in our local sources. So it actually was over our projections for revenue. Our expenditures, I do want to mention that in that expenditure number, when we look at kind of our higher than what we expected expenditures, teacher increases are included in that number. So those are yet to take place, but they're still included in our expenditure number. All right, and so overall, where that ends us at, at a fund balance, we originally projected about 5.79. Due to those local sources and those additional revenues, we're going to end up at about 6.52. So a little bit higher than expected and a little bit stronger position in our reserves than expected. But still, if we take a look at the next slide, still below the board requirement of 8%. So we are above the 5%. but we're trending in the wrong direction. At the end of last year, we were at 7.17%, and now we're at 6.5, and 2027 doesn't look much better. So we're actually trending in the wrong direction if we're trying to get to the board minimum of 8%. So next slide, taking a look overall at our revenues, our revenues are starting to decline overall. So when we saw the change in variance was from our amended budget, but this is from our overall, what we're seeing in the spending trend and what we're getting to, and I'll go in greater detail in a little bit, but our student loss is really starting to affect our foundation allowance. So even though, and it's been talked about that our foundation allowance is high. our student loss is now starting to offset that, where we're starting to now have lower revenues for the district. Go to the next slide. When we take a look at our overall spend for our revenues, I mean, not our overall spend, but our revenues, we're really similar to the same composition we were in 2025, if you remember from our study session. So about 48% are in state sources. They make up the largest part. Then we had about 37% in local sources and then inner district. And federal sources make up the rest of that portion of our revenues. So when we take a look, go to the next slide. So when we take a look at kind of what change and what trends we're seeing, let's take a look at this. So we saw about a $3.5 million decrease in our state funding. This was primarily, and I'll show in a few minutes how we get to that number, but this was almost primarily due to student loss. We had about a million dollars in categorical losses from some things that we expected to come in that didn't. But this is almost all attributed to student loss, which is driving down our revenues for our state sources. Our local sources actually went up. Like I said, that increase is largely due to those two large parking events, as well as the interest that we earned on our investments, which we're doing really, really well. our federal sources went down slightly but that was really due to one um spending uh lesser spending on one of our grants and also there was the ecf funds our emergency funds that we actually had a much lesser allocation in 2026 than we had for 2025. We had zero for an allocation where we were somewhere around 300,000 for 2025. So that was where we saw the biggest reduction in federal sources as well. Our inter-district sources, the reduction you see there is almost completely due to our Act 18, which you guys are familiar with, where we actually, WISD, got a lesser portion to actually allocate out to all the districts, but then we had districts that we're actually competing with funds with that had higher special education spans, so they got a larger portion of that money. And so that was unexpected, but that caused a reduction to our inter-district sources. So as a reminder about how our foundation allowance works, I want to talk a little bit about our reduction in state revenue. So how our foundation allowance works, remember the state actually gives the foundation per pupil and then we have our number of pupils and that's how our foundation, we kind of get to our foundation allowance. Next slide. So when you look at the trend, and it's been talked about or been discussed before, our foundation allowance is increasing. It increased by about $313 per student this year. But what also happened is we lost about 196 students over that same time period. If you look at the impact in the chart on the right-hand side, If you look at the impact, that overall caused about a $2.5 million loss for us from last year's estimates. Last year, we were about 177 million. This year, we were about a little under, well, we're at 175. So about a $2.5 million difference, and that's just due to our foundation allowance. Next slide. So when you take a look at our overall state funding, remember, we lost about 3.5 million from what we originally thought. 2.5 of that was due to our foundation allowance. So that's the loss of students. Then we had about a little over a million dollars in categorical losses, categorical losses like the mental health, 31AA mental health, which we decided not to be a part of because of some of the the stipulations that were around that fund. So what I wanted to show here is that even though our foundation allowance is going up, the loss of students is now starting to cause a decline in our state revenue. All right, next. So now I'll talk about expenditures for 2026. So when we look at the trend, um, next, next slide. So when we look at the trend, the cost of, uh, public education is rising. Um, and it has for the district, I'm going to break down where we saw some of the, most of those cost increases, actually all of those costs and increases, and hopefully make it pretty transparent to why we're seeing an overall cost increase in public education and how we're doing education. So overall, we had about a $10.3 million increase, which is about 3.4% of our overall expenditure budget. We had about a $10.3 million increase. Next slide. So when you look at overall how our expenditures, before I go into kind of where that increase came from, let's take a look at kind of how our expenditures are made up. So 78% of our expenditures are in wages and benefits, the majority is there. That's followed by purchase services, then followed by supplies, and then miscellaneous and the rest of the categories make up much smaller percents. But the biggest buying share of our cost in our expenditures are in wages and benefits, purchase services and supplies. So we're gonna really focus on that for the next couple minutes. We're gonna talk about that. But before we go there, I wanna remind you of something that I said last time at the study session. and how it applies to this year's budget. So remember, I talked about our contracted services. So our contracted services are transportation, custodial, grounds and maintenance, for example. There are a number, and those are very labor intensive services that we have. There's a number of different, It's a lot of labor in those categories to the tune of about $34 million. So if you really take a look at it, go to the next slide. If you really take a look at it, when you take our purchase services that are people related, so our purchase services, that are contracted staff and transportation, custodial, grounds. And then you also look at EDGE staff, which is our substitute teachers. There is some administrative costs, but those are all people-related industries and people-related services. When you take a look at it, combined with wages and benefits, people make up about 91% of our overall expenditure spend. So when we talk about investing in people, most of our expenditures, 91% of those expenditures go to people in one way, in one shape or form. So when we look at the three categories that we talked about, let's go back a little bit and look at where we saw those three categories. No, you're on the right slide, no. When we look at those three categories, this is really where we saw the increases. So we saw increases in wages and benefits. I will go through it in detail, but that was primarily largely due to some vacancies being filled, but also steps for educators that were still funded for 2026. Also, we had purchase services that saw a $3.3 million increase, but that's a lot of grant activity, and I will show you a little bit about what I mean by that. So just because you see that expenditure line go up, it doesn't necessarily mean that we're just spending a lot more on those services. There are justifications for why we have a higher spend in some of these areas, like purchase services and supplies. We did see, making up that $10.3 million increase, the capital outlay, and you will see this later in transportation, and I want to mention this, I think earlier it was mentioned the cost increase on transportation. The cost increase on transportation is almost largely due to our bus grant. So what happens, as a reminder, you get in revenues for the grant, but you also have those expenditures and they have to hit somewhere on your budget. For us, when you look at the data this way, it hits our capital outlay budget. But when you look at it another way that I'll show later, it hits our transportation budget. So with us purchasing buses both in 2026 and then some that are arriving in 2027, you're going to see a spike in transportation costs, okay? But that's not a systematic spike. That's not something you're going to see year over year. You're going to see it for 2026. You're going to see it for 2027, and then it should go back down to essentially kind of what it was before. But we did have some rises in our transportation costs, but the $2.2 million in capital outlay was due to our clean bus grants and the buses that we'll be receiving. So let's take a look at each of the major categories and kind of where we're seeing the increases and why we're seeing those increases. So when we take a look at our wages and benefits, teachers and our educators still make up about 78% of those, like I said before. That's followed by parapros and then followed by principals. teachers make up the lion's share of that but when you take a look at last year's budget in comparison it still was an increase in cost like I said before a large increase of most of that increase in cost is due to vacancies being filled but also steps for educators next slide please So when you look at the difference between kind of last year and this year, you'll see some increases. So you see, as I said before, you see about a 1.4%, a 1.3% increase overall to our spend, but then a 1.4% increase for teachers. And then you can see some of the decreases that we had before. The largest decreases were really due to vacancies that we had throughout the year. So we saw large decreases in principals, I believe, and directors, I believe, and that was really due to vacancies being throughout the year and vacancies that we, some that were intentionally held vacant for cost savings, but most, that's the wages and benefits of the vacancies that you have in those two categories. FTE, I want to remind folks of something with FTE. It's a snapshot. So sometimes you'll hear us talk about FTE or you'll hear us talk about teacher count and you'll get a different number. And really that's because of when it's taken. It's when it's taken, at what time of year it's taken. If you take it at the beginning of the year, we have so much flux in our staff and in our FTE. It really depends on when you take it. So when we took a look at it at the end of last year versus where we are as of April, which was about a month ago, We've had about a 15-person FTE change, although we know we've had more of a shift since the beginning of 2025. If you look at the difference between the beginning of 2025 and 2026, it was probably a larger shift. But between June and April, this is really what we've seen in terms of a shift in our FTE, which is about a 15-person count. So when you take a look at the next slide is purchase services. So this is really where we want to talk a little bit. And I want to make a point here. These services are vitally important to student success. I think I said that at our study session, but I want to reiterate that. As important as all our in-classroom things are, and they are vitally important and probably the primary concern, transportation and how we get our kids to schools and access to all of our different schools for kids that are underserved especially are vitally important so we do have to invest in transportation uh custodial the the the custodial and grounds the condition and the exterior and how these buildings feel look and are conducive to our learning environment are also important investments for the districts That is where we spend the lion's share of our purchase services. It's in transportation, it's in custodial, and then it's in edges staff, which is substitute teaching. And I said that before, that's people when we take a look at our edges staff costs. So when we look at our total makeup, like I said, our biggest portions are in transportation. it's in custodial, and it's in substitute teaching. Going to the next slide. So when we take a look at the differences and the shift, this is where I'm going to talk a little bit about the grant, but I am going to talk about some things we're seeing in some of our purchase services as cost drivers. So the first one, Durham, did go up, but Durham went up because of the increased number of monitors. We went from 40 monitors to 55 monitors. Those monitors on those bus are requested by the schools, and we facilitate those. And we did that to make sure that students were safe on those bus where they were behavioral and safety concerns that we had additional monitors on that bus. But it did come at an increased cost. We also had to provide two additional routes to Green Hills, which is a private school, which is state mandated. A private school in our district and we have students that live in that district. We are responsible to actually bust them to that school. So we had to add two additional routes for that. We also had to add three special education routes because when routes are tied to an IEP or transportation is tied to an IEP, we have to make sure that there's special education routes. So that's really why we saw the increase in Durham. We saw the increase in DJ's lawn and snow primarily because of snow occurrences. We budgeted and planned normally for about 25 to 26 snow removal occurrences. We had 42 this year, so we had quite a rough winter. That means the supplies go up for that, but that also means our purchase services go up for that. Now we did see a large increase, about $2 million, in our other category, but I want to show really primarily where that comes from. Next slide, please. So in a lot of our categories, and you'll see this in supplies, especially with the increase that we had to supplies, a lot of it is that grant activity that I talked about. So I thought it was important in this discussion to kind of show that activity and show where that lands. So for our other category, for example, we had the Grow Your Own grant, and we also had the FAFSA Completion Challenge grant that totaled up to about $1.4 million. So when you look at that $200 million increase, The biggest variation in that is a grant that we normally don't have there that's hitting there for about $1.4 million. So that's where you see the increase in those services. So when we take a look at our supplies, which is next, that's our third largest category. I mean, a lot of what you're seeing increases are the same things you're seeing increases at home with is fuel supply, gas supply. The cost of doing these things are going up. Now, in teaching and textbooks, they make up a large percent. But I do want to mention, because I think something was mentioned earlier about textbooks and teaching and investing in that, there is a lot more grant activity that's happening in that category. But I want to remind people our expenditures still hit that category, but the revenue is also coming from those same categories. So for example, um, and, and I'll, I'll actually show that in a little bit, but most of the, most of the stuff, most of the increases that we're seeing in teaching and textbooks is grant activity. If the grants weren't there, they probably wouldn't be spending it on the same things or to the same degree. You can see, like I said, overall our electrical supplies or our electric supplies make us up. the biggest portion of our total supplies. Next slide. But when we look at the changes over the year, like I said, most of our increases have been due to just the cost of resources going up. The only one that went down was custodial. We did see a rise in teaching and textbooks, but like I said, that's really attributed to the additional grant work that they're now doing. Take the next slide. And this is just a way to show that. So I also wanted to show that that 696 Teaching and Learning has been doing a lot of grant work, and they have almost $2 million in grants this year. So when you look at that $1.4 million increase over supplies, a lot of that is grant funded things that we normally didn't have. But this is the active work that our Teaching and Learning group have been doing. So overall, when we look at our report card, this is kind of the report card. And just for people that have been tracking the data and tracking the information, this can be found in each district's transparency report. So this is not data that's not readily available to everybody. This can be found in each of the districts that we're comparing our transparency report. But when we take a look at how we did to 2025 versus how we did to 2026, and kind of how we're doing in terms of our peers, we're still spending where we need to spend. So let me say it in another way. If I was looking at this data and we were very off in one category, that would let me know or diagnose a little bit about where our problems might be lying. But when I take a look across the board, our spending is pretty relative. Now, we are going up, and that's a trend that has to decrease. Our revenues are going down, and our expenditures are going up. That's not a good trend for us to be on. But we'll talk a little bit later about some recommendations to maybe how to get out of that spiral. If you take a look at it, our personnel expenditures went up. Our instructional, that means our in-classroom stuff. Our pupil support services, our spend on those things also went up. Our general administration stayed about the same. Our school administration stayed about the same. Business services actually declined a little bit. And then our operations went up. That's the purchase services increases we just talked about. So I talked about where those increases came from. And that transportation, that's where you see the spike. So this is where I was talking about in one cut of that data, it's in capital outlay. the other cutter data it's actually in transportation so when you see that huge jump in transportation this year a lot of that is attributed to grants now we do have about a million or so that's attributed to durham and how i talked about those the additional routes and additional monitors as well but we do not expect our transportation costs to be at about 4.5 percent going forward it should be a little bit lower but even at 4.5 percent It's still relative to our comparative districts and we're still kind of in line with those districts. Little overspend, but those are one time purchases that are showing up for us this year and next year. So you'll see that you'll see another increase next year when I talk about those budgets. So real quick, I just wanted to remind folks of the different funding that we're dealing with and that we have three funds that are on the right side of this slide. Food service fund, student and school activity fund, and community service fund. As a reminder of what those funds are, food service is just that. It's anything related to our food service program and the meals that we provide our children. Student and school activities are clubs, organization. It's really more of a pastor for the district. The only time we really have to worry about these funds is if they go in the negative, then it might have an impact on the general fund. Other than that, we really look for these funds to be self-sustaining. And then the last fund is our community service funds, which is predominantly our rec and ed program. And so that's a little bit about those three. And I want to go over those real briefly. These funds are all doing really well. They've had they had really good years in some senses for our food service fund. We were over our expenditures from last year by about one hundred and thirty five thousand. But that was because we served more meals. So that was actually a good thing. Our revenues were down a little bit. But overall, we still have a very healthy fund balance for that and kind of no concern. We monitor food service monthly to make sure that we're on track. So this is not something that's going to pop up and surprise us a couple months down the road. Next slide. So looking at our student and school activities, like I said, this is more of a pass through fund for most part and most years. And this year was kind of an easy year. They spent what they got. So they had they did get less revenues, but they spent less revenues. So they kind of they ended out flat. They have a fund balance that could pretty much fund their whole operation for a year. Um, that's a wish list. That's where you want to be. So they have more than enough fund balance to, uh, support their activities. So this, this is, this fund is of no concern and is doing really well. And then lastly, our community service funds, I want to know here, they've just done a tremendous job. They've done a tremendous job in scaling back on some expenditures. Some of those expenditures didn't occur because some of the raises didn't occur, but they still were lower than their expenditures, but they increased their revenue, actually. So their actuals, when we took a look at their actuals and their audited numbers from 2025, their revenue actually went up. So declining expenditures, climbing revenue, that's exactly where you want to be as an organization. So they have a 20% fund balance, nothing to worry about when it comes to that. So I'll pause there. That's the FY26 portion of the budget briefing. Are there any questions on FY26? Mr. Schmidt?

More of a comment than a question. Would you go back to slide 26, please?

26.

So, forgive Steve. I just wanted to point something out. There were comments made at different times during different meetings that we've had that, you know, we're not spending as much on personnel. And when you look across that and you see the comparables, you see, wow, you know, Dexter's at 86%, Wayne-Westland, and our contracted services were higher than those districts. I did a little research, and it's pretty clear the schools that keeping not contracting out but are keeping people in-house will show higher costs in this column exactly so for instance when we talk about personnel okay so when you look at Northville you know they keep their food services in-house but you go to Celine they have their bus and custodial And then if you look at Dexter and Livonia who are way up there, they have their bus custodial and food. They keep them all in house. So people have to understand. And so I'm sure if I could go into their financials and look at their contracted services, they're a lot lower because those people aren't in that column. Just wanted to point that out.

That's a good, that's a very good point. Can you go back to slide 16 for me please? And this is kind of what we were showing here. That same point. If you take a look at our purchase services, If you took our contracted services, that means if everything was still in-house, you would be at about 89% alone by itself. You add Edgestaff in there, and now you're at 91%. So that's a more realistic amount that we're spending on our people. It's closer to 91% than 78%.

I mean, everybody that I was able to find out, everybody's doing edu-staff, but it's these other things that they're... And, you know, doing custodial and your buses, that's two big chunks of people.

Huge. Thank you. I'm sorry, I should have said this. Regarding the finance committee, I should have explained to everyone. Trustees have had the option of viewing this with the superintendent and our CFO individually to again do some homework as trustee Schmidt did thank you so much and to ask the questions and to get a better familiarity so this is not our this is our first time seeing this presentation after you've gathered input from each of us but this is not a first pass if you will it's seeing those numbers and again this is kind of summarizing what we've already had before with some again embellishments if you will Gathering our questions and concerns and to hopefully make it clear to for the community.

So thank you. Thank you. That's a good point I didn't bring it up to address it, but I do want to Kind of say that's why I didn't go to Finance Committee because we had actually gone above and beyond what the normal process of evaluating and we met with each of the board members, so I It had actually gone through the board members that were in finance committee as well as the rest of the board as well. So just wanted to let you guys know everybody did get a chance to review, get feedback, and offer any concerns on this too.

So that addresses the point we heard earlier where someone said it didn't go to finance. In lieu of that, you all met with us individually to go through it and give us the opportunity to ask questions.

Yes sir, and add unsolicited feedback. Right. Yeah, exactly.

Yeah, because I'm sure you made some adjustments.

I did. Trustee Schmidt again?

Follow up. Go to slide 10, if you would. One thing that we don't see on this graph, and I know you had a graph at the work session that showed us back farther, maybe 2016 till the present, is when you look at that line, you're thinking, well, look, you're getting more money each year for students. If you go back, and I've mentioned this at other meetings because this really sticks in my head, if you go back to 2008, I believe, we were at $9,000 a student. I mean, that's just shocking that at 2025 we're at $10,000 and change. And we're not looking at cost of living here. But if people adjust for that, I think I saw when I got on the board a graph that showed we should have been closer to $14,000 a student. So this might look like, oh, look, you're getting increases, but when our teachers say, and they have a valid point, we haven't been given cost of living increases, the revenues haven't reflected that either, what they're doing to schools.

Exactly.

And so I just wanted to point that out.

Thank you.

All right.

Any other questions about 2026? Trustee Wilkins?

I just had a comment to say thank you again for these, and mapping it out in ways that it's actually makes sense and also we can look then at certain line items and like, pulling out the grant amounts. That's just, it hasn't been that, maybe it's been done before, but it hasn't been this clear.

Not in my time here.

We didn't have a CFO. It takes time.

So thank you very much for that.

It's a lot of work that goes into these. I appreciate it.

Vice President Wilkes? Thank you, Mr. Britton, for this presentation. I just wanted to sort of emphasize what you were saying about why our transportation costs have increased somewhat. And I learned something new in one of these sessions that you had with the trustees is that we're actually providing bus service for a private school for Green Hills. I was not aware of that. And I don't know if that's something new that just happened recently or has it happened? No, that's not new. It's not new? Okay. And the monitors, you mentioned that we have more monitors on our buses. Is that for special ed reasons?

It's not, actually. Those were behavioral issues on general ed buses. So those aren't considered in the special ed. These are behavioral issues that were requested from the school. We need additional monitors, and we're seeing an uptick in that, to be honest with you.

And the reason I ask is if a monitor, for example, is designated in a child's IEP, the district could actually get reimbursed for something, for that cost, correct? That's right, yeah. So in this case, that's not the case.

No, it's not, because these were general ed routes that were behavioral problems. This is not reimbursable.

Okay, thank you.

Great question.

Thank you. Yeah, question in the audience. You have to ask later. Ask one of the trustees after the meeting.

Quick question about transportation, because I know in years past, years past, there was a lot of conversation about continuing to provide transportation. I'm not saying that that's you know gonna happen this year But could and I should have asked this earlier superintendent parks Is there an increase in the number of ridership do we have a higher need because of the distance of the students or anything?

So we have had an increase in routes Which may not necessarily be equivalent to an increase in ridership, but just an increase in the need for additional routes. I

And that's because?

It can be a host of reasons. Some routes require more than one bus because they're crowded routes. And so that ebbs and flows based on year-to-year changes in students. So it could be a host of reasons why there are an increase in routes.

Can you go to slide 31, please?

I have a quick question.

Trustee Muhammad?

I just have about transportation, because I know not, we have routes, but then we also have where we, I don't know what the partnership is with like the AATA buses. Where is that in the whole picture? And is it, because I've got that comment before from people who are,

That's in our transportation costs as well. So you're talking about when we work with them for bus passes and giving the students. That's also in our transportation costs as well.

Did you have something before I called her?

I didn't. Okay. I didn't.

So in my, well, no, I was on the board then. I have sat on the board of the AATA. And just so people understand, we cannot legally, we cannot use our AATA system to become our transportation for education. So I know some people have thought, just give them a little more money and they'll handle our transportation. That's just not allowed.

All right, if there's nothing else, thank you so much for the great presentation.

I still have 2027 to go through.

All right, well before you do that, Trustee Muhammad, did you want to redo your motion? Or are you satisfied now that we have a full- I mean, we only, I mean, Because we've got to do a motion, either that one or the extend motion. But if we're doing the extend, we'll do that. So your choice.

I mean, I'll motion it. We're in the middle of a presentation.

We've got to make a decision.

We've got to allow the man time to present.

We're almost at midnight is what he's saying.

Right.

And I appreciate that.

I'm sorry.

Can you give us some parliamentarian?

So you're not going to bring it up?

I can't. You can't. Only somebody who voted against the motion can bring it up.

All right. Then we need a motion from someone. To extend time. Or not.

I move that we extend the meeting for another hour if necessary.

Okay.

Second.

Moved by Trustee Wilkins, supported by Trustee Schmidt. Any discussion? All right, seeing none. Ms. Ozenski, please.

Trustee Baskett? Yes. President Feaster?

No.

Trustee Muhammad? No. Trustee Schmidt? No. Yes. Trustee Wilkins? Yes. Trustee Wilks? Yes. Motion carries.

Trustee Norton is now here. Oh my gosh.

Trustee Norton, you're not on my list. But we'll put you there. Your first important vote. I forgot you. How do you vote, Trustee Norton?

To extend that meeting for an hour. I don't know if it matters, but he still needs to vote. I think it already passed. All right.

Okay, we'll teach you.

All right, I think that was 5-2, if I'm not mistaken. All right, now, Mr. Britton, please continue.

So we'll close with the 2027 budget, but it is some things I want to point out going into next year. So like I said, the next slide is the traditional view of our budget. This is what you have in your budget books. This is what we have to submit, the next one, next slide. You're falling asleep. The next slide. You have to submit for your budget budget. I mean, for our budget book. So you have this in here. But I want to take a different look at it, like I said. So there are several assumptions we made when we have to figure out our budget. Our revenue assumptions is that we will receive an increase in our foundation allowance. The next slide, please. By about $250,000. I mean, $250, I wish it was thousand. I was just gonna say. $250, but we're also anticipating 175 student loss as well. We're also unfortunately predicting approximate $2.4 million categorical state funding loss, and I'll walk you through a little bit about how we get to that number or how we try to estimate whatever that state funding number is. We also have payroll assumptions that is included in our budget. One is an increase for all our educators and staff that they are playing for and that is included in our budget. Also trying to manage some of those changes with staff attrition, but also right-sizing to enrollment. We have to do that this year, and we have to continue to do that. health care costs increases, we will have a significant amount of the portion that we provide health care on that will also increase, that hits our budget as well. And then, of course, we talked about steps for educators, which was included in our 2026 budget, but it also has to be included in our 2027. Our non-payroll, we do need to work with our contractors. So one of the things that we made a big push for is to work with all of our vendors and contractors to try to reduce down our cost increases as much as we possibly can. ABM, for example, Mr. Rice worked with ABM. And one of the proposals that you've either seen or coming through for first briefing or second briefing is a cost freeze for two years. So we're working with all of our vendors to try to figure out how can we cut costs. We talked about it before. Our large main expenditures are in that purchase service categories when you don't think about wages and benefits. So anything that we can do to kind of curtail those costs until we rebid them and make sure we get the best cost, the best pricing, we evaluate. what it would cost to bring them in-house, all of those different things. Until we can do that, we have to work with our vendors to try to get the best price negotiated that is within our contract boundaries. For the rest of our vendors, look, the price of doing business for everybody is going up. Gas costs are going up, fuel, electric supplies, just like for us. So we're actually trying to work with our vendors to meet us halfway so that we don't, most of the cost increases normally are around 3% to 4% for our vendors, we're trying to get them more to 1.5%. So we've calculated in our assumptions about a 1.5% increase across the vendors because we're working with each one of them to keep those costs down.

Before you move on, Mr. Britton, if you could please explain for our community at large the categorical funding as well as the reason health care costs have gone up.

Do you mind me going through categorical in just a minute? Thank you. I knew you had it somewhere. Yeah, I do. I do. I do. Actually, I'll go through it now. When we talk about how we look at our state categorical funding, go two slides forward for me. There you go. So when we talk about how we talk about our state categorical funding, how do we determine that? So one of the things that we do is we look at all three of the bills. We are one of those unique... organizations that actually do not have a budget when we're trying to figure out what we're going to do for the next year. We don't have a budget until Michigan determines what those budget amounts are. So what we do is we take a look at all three bills. We look at bills from the governor, from the House, from the Senate, and we try to guesstimate, estimate at what is likely to occur. So we look at where there's consensus. For example, There's consensus across all three bills for a $250 increase. So we think that that is very likely to happen. But there's also a lot of decreases that are happening across those categories as well. So when we take a look at it like this, what we get to for 2027, next slide, what we get to for 2027 is actual overall categorical loss. of about $2.4 million. So there's some funding that we are anticipating that we're going to get, 31 at risk and some of those kind of things, our foundation allowance. But then it's a number of different categorical losses, especially, for example, the MSPRS offset and the healthcare offset for MSPRS that we can take a considerable reduction on. So overall, we'll have a reduction of about we're anticipating about $2.4 million. We don't know for sure yet until the state budget comes out, but based on that kind of process that I went through of how we determine what we think our state funding is, that's how we get to the $2.4 million in categorical losses. Does that make sense for folks?

So if I could kind of summarize, I mean, the challenge is people hear about the per-pupil funding allowance. They don't understand a significant part of our budget is based on these Categorical monies that we may or may not be eligible for year to year right and by frustration And trustee Norton you can speak probably more to this for your experience my frustration with the legislators It's a thing to give money based on they put are willing to put money into the categoricals but we as a district may not be eligible for that and to resolve the issue so There's also the complication of it takes administrators to process just the application for some of these grant fundings. And again, that's another cost. But I appreciate how you have laid out here, because talking about community values, we are not going to give up music. But if you look at the categorical, we're losing money for music.

Music from the state, yeah. Thank you. That's exactly right, thank you. If you could go back two slides, go ahead, I'm sorry, trust me.

the other thing I think about is when I say so title one funding you know we don't have year to year I mean you might have a school that's a title one school and then the next year it's not right I mean our numbers change for who qualifies and so it's not a consistent amount you know depending on just numbers of kids it depends what they're those children's needs are right yeah

Thank you. You're on the perfect side. So when we look at our 2027, let's talk a little bit about what we expect. So we expect about $312 million in revenue coming in, which was a slight increase. But like I said, some of the categorical losses and then our foundation losses, what we're estimating for student loss, we don't see an increase in our revenue from the state sources. where we're really seeing increases from local sources. And that's really a lot of that is due to, uh, our CTE funding that we expect to receive as well. So that's where we're seeing some of the revenue to offset those losses that we're having. Um, I think somebody mentioned earlier, yes, we are over, expenditures because I talked about those cost drivers and those assumptions. Those assumptions are all baked in those things. All the increases to purchase services as well as the increase for healthcare costs, the increase for educators is also in that cost. But all of that is in the cost that it's taken to run the district. And our revenues are not matching those costs. So, yes, we're looking at decreasing our fund balance by about $4 million, which takes us down to about 5.12%, which is dangerously low. And you'll hear me talk, and some of you have seen it already. You'll hear me talk. That means we have a sense of urgency around some of the things that we need to do. We have to do some things or we're going to be again dangerously close to that state intervention threshold and we do not want to be there. So there's some things I have recommended at the end of this that I'd like the board to strongly consider.

I'm struggling with the term revenue over under expenditures. Could you just help me through that?

So all that is, is that how much your expenditures are over your revenue or under. So if you're spending, what you want to really do.

Oh, okay, so here it's over.

It's over. The expenditures are over revenue.

Okay, I'm not that guy that does finances.

No, that's okay. That's okay.

Thank you. Trustee Muhammad?

I don't know if you're gonna go into this more in detail but for the you said that some of the hold on let me go to the slide there's payroll assumptions is that in addition to what we have currently I know that we have we're still going through contract negotiations and bargaining but this payroll assumptions like the increased to for all educators and staff increase in health care is this a over what we have for this year.

What do you mean?

The assumptions, are they greater?

So, yes, the assumptions are increases for those. So, I think we're in the middle of collective bargaining. Yes, I know. But, yes, those are increases where we evaluate a lot of different scenarios. So, both for healthcare, we know there's a lot of different things that can happen with healthcare, both from the legislature and through our collective bargaining process. Same thing for raises. We also know there's a number of different scenarios, so we take a look at those scenarios and we plan for those within our budget. So yes, that number is inclusive in that 317 of those increases. But it's a placeholder at this point.

It's a placeholder, we don't know.

And we also don't know, I want to mention too, we also don't know what's going to happen on the revenue side, right? We could get some of those categorical losses might not happen, some might. We also don't know what's gonna happen on the revenue side, which will really enable us to do one scenario or another. Does that make sense?

Yeah.

Okay. Trustee Schmidt.

Okay, slide 33, when we looked at just the basic three categories of key assumptions, And I want to make sure I'm right about this. The payroll assumptions in the middle that talk about health care costs. And those, I mean, we're all feeling this, right, health care costs. But the way it works with our staff, they're looking at claims history. And whoever our carriers are, our staff gets a certain increase. It's not necessarily the increase I get where I'm in a group. Or I'm insured, right? Right. So that kind of drives that.

Right. And this is our portion of that cost, too. So we have a portion. We're paying significant portions of health care as well for our staff. And so when they increase overall for everybody, they increase for us, too. So the cost of that health care also increases for us, which is why we have to calculate that in there.

Yeah, yeah. Sure. That's based on the number of claims, partially, of the people in our healthcare contract group.

Very much, and we're seeing those costs increase. We're seeing those go up quite a bit. We just actually met with our healthcare provider a few weeks ago, and we're seeing those costs increase. They're on a rising trend, so that's why they're included in the assumptions. So if there were fewer claims, it might have stayed the same or went down? I mean, it's rising at such a level that it would have to be a lot fewer claims, but yeah, technically.

But if I remember correctly from our previous sessions, it's not only the number, but the costs of those claims. We've had some significant health issues with some of our staff and just drove up the cost.

Well, thank goodness we have insurance.

Absolutely.

But still, yeah, it's tough.

Can you go to slide 37? Skipping around a little bit. So when we look at our total revenues from last year, like I said, we expect to see a slight increase, $1.8 million, which is only a 0.58% part of our budget. On the expenditure side, I mean on the local side, We actually expect to see an increase. And like I said before, a lot of that is due to we still have those parking events. So we know we're going to kind of be at that level because we have two more parking events. And we think our interest on our investments are still going to come through. But the $4 million increase is really due to CTE funding. So that's where you see an increase. A decrease in state sources, you can see the 2.8. We talked about the categorical losses. Some of the rest of that is our foundational losses. It's our losses from our student count. Us looking at 175 for student loss actually is going to offset most of that 250 increase. Just like last year, most of 313 was offset by the 196 student loss, if that makes any sense. Like I said, in state sources, we think that that's going to go down a little bit based off of the conversation I just had. Federal and inter-district, we're going to keep a close eye on our special ed spending We keep in kind of constant contact with WISD to understand what their allocation might be. So we think that we'll remain flat across federal and inter-district, that we won't see kind of that $500,000 loss that we did before. We think we'll remain pretty constant, or at least that's what we're planning for. When we take a look at our overall expenditures, and I know this is hard to see, but you do have it in front of you, we see an increase across all categories. Now I want to make a point. When we look at categories in this way, salaries and payroll and benefits are all throughout these categories. So they're all in different sections of these categories. But when you look at our instructional, we actually are, I think there was a comment earlier that we were declining our support in classrooms. That's actually not true. We're actually, for 2027, we're increasing our instructional services and our instructional support services, which are in classroom. When we look at our non-instructional, we have a big increase in non-instructional, and I know that raises an eyebrow, but remember, transportation, part of that transportation cost, that $2 million increase, is our buses. That's primarily all of the increase there that we're calculating for 2027. We're actually working with Durham to decrease some of those monitors and decrease some of the costs on their end. So the transportation increase that we're projecting is really due to those buses that we're receiving. So the expenditure overall in that category is going up if you take a look at that.

Ms. Muhammad? MS.

So you bring a good point about transportation. And so for the FY

2027 budget are we including some of those contract negotiations that we're hoping to do or is this without those this is with those because we know some we know most of them right so we're working with each one of our vendors we know ABM what that cost might be right over the next two years So we're working with Durham in that same way over the summer. We're continually working with them to try to reduce down the extra costs. We're trying to hold them to that contract. It costs a lot more. Same thing with DJs and some of our other contracts as well.

So it's including some of that. It is. So we're seeing that.

Yeah. Yep. You're seeing that in the 2027 projections. All right, moving along at the next proposed budget. So this is just showing some of the changes. The drivers of those changes you can see off to the right. It's health care costs. It is educator and staff increases. We are planning for educator increases. It's the contracted services increase, the stuff we talked about with our vendors. We have to work with our vendors to reduce down our contracted services. Our three biggest categories of spend are in people, purchase services, and supplies. That means our biggest opportunities for cost reduction are in people, purchase services, and supplies. That's also our biggest opportunities as well. So that's where you see a lot of the increases, fuel and transportation costs increasing. as well. We're trying to decrease those, but we are seeing overall those budgets going up, and that's why you see the $4.7 million increase overall in expenditures. Now, the next slide is what I want to talk about a little bit more, where this is getting dangerously close. We are definitely going in the wrong trend direction, and if you look at some of our prior years, we're actually trending to drop below that 5% and that is worrisome. And so there are a couple things I want to talk about here in a few minutes that I hope will help us get us out of this being so close to that state mandated line. And also I want to point out here the board requirement actually raises to 9% in 2027 so it's even a higher target and so we're even further away from where we really want to be instead. Okay, next slide. So going back to our report card, this is kind of how I evaluate how we're doing in terms of spending. You guys have already made the point about personnel expenditures. But if you look across our expenditures, we're remaining relatively the same in the percentage of our expenditures that we're spending. So are we spending more? Yes. But where are we spending at versus our peer universities? Where are we spending and in what categories are we spending in? And you can see for 2027, it's pretty similar to 2026. The only real difference you see, like I said, is in transportation, where you see another increase. And that's because we had, what, 4 million for 2027 for buses? Yeah, so it's two buses in 2026 to four buses in 2027. So it went from 2 million to 4 million. So that's why, remember I said before, when we went through 2026, you're gonna see a spike in 2026 and 2027, but then those costs should go back down after those bus purchases are there. So with that, I wanna talk a little bit about recommendations and where I feel like we need to go from here. This is critical. So you can see, we're not comfortable being that close to that reserve line, nor do I feel relatively comfortable presenting a budget where we have so much of a loss. I understand that that is not ideal, right? So there are things that I'm recommending that we do. One is the land and building sales that we've been talking about. I want to move us forward, but this is also, this slide is in terms of priority and timing. So I want to make sure our first priority, I think, is to address our reserve balance and really get us through the next couple years as well with a healthier reserve balance. I think focusing on the land and building sales First and foremost, it's probably gonna be the best recommendation. The second recommendation, and I've already talked about this and we're continuing to do this, but I wanna recognize that it's gonna call for continual analysis over our vendors and our contracts and our major contracts. I think one candidate today commented on contracts and how influential that is. I actually tend to agree with that, that how our contracts are constructed are so much a part of Ann Arbor public school costs. We have to get a handle on those, and we have to make sure that we're getting the best costs, whether that's in-house or from privatized. We have to make sure we're getting the best costs. But I do want to mention, those services are vitally important. We can't cut busing for our school students. We can't cut It's the custodial all the way. Having a declining quality of service for custodial, for grounds, for transportation is not ideal for students, all right? The third one is right-sizing staffing. We need to work with our union partners and our union counterparts to right-size the district. There are things and hard things that need to be done in order to right-size. We cannot do it simply through attrition. Trying to do it through attrition year after year, we're not getting any closer to getting away from being out of that financial difficulty. We need to do that and in addition to. So really the focus here is working with our union. We want to invest in our teachers, but we need to make some changes in order to have that happen. School and programming consolidation. We've talked about this. I think that's a little bit, maybe a little bit further out. We have maybe a little bit more runway, but not much. This is something that we need to at least start discussing, whether it's with the community or with community groups. This is something that we need to start discussing and discussing right away. especially programming modifications and programming consolidations. But this is the time to act is now, and it says that on here. These are the board recommendations that we've made based off the financials for 2026 and 2027.

And we know that the next phase is to actually get to actualizing what these decisions look like with the Board of Education.

So in the 60s, we had the baby boom, and kids were coming in like crazy, and they were building buildings like crazy, and people were going into college of education at colleges because they needed more teachers. We're in the opposite of that.

Fair enough.

And I mentioned at a prior meeting, and I don't know if my numbers are exactly correct, but I think Pontiac is like closing five elementaries, Detroit, four schools. I mean, we could, and you probably know about some schools, what's happening. This isn't just happening to us. Enrollment is down statewide. And what was that? Nationwide. Yeah, nationwide. Yeah, they're talking about birth rates that are down. So, I mean, when we talk about right sizing, whether it be the number of buildings, the number of staff, I mean, it just, it's a logical development when you have fewer kids every year. You just can't keep going at the same numbers. but we have to be very bold here and I know that you know I don't know if it'll be a school closing but you know people were on board until it's their school that's going to be closed and then they're completely upset which I get but you know if if we want to respond to what we're hearing which is compensate our teachers especially those at the top end to find the money we have to be lean and smart about you know how we're set up as a district trustee wilkins and trustee muhammad i wanted to ask kind of a rhetorical question because i i just wanted to hear you say it out loud so these recommendations

These aren't like you could do number one or you could do number two or you could. Oh no, these are and. So we need to do all of these things. We need to do all of these things. If we want to get to a better spot.

That's exactly right. One alone won't get you there. I think a comment was made earlier, and it was true. Land sales and building sales are one-time things. That's not in your budget forever. It gets you a little bit closer away from those reserves, but if your expenditures start continually being over what those revenues are, you're still going to end up back in the same spot in a couple years. So that's why everything else is also necessary as well.

Mr. Mohamed and Trustee Norton?

So thank you for this. I mean, I really appreciate this detailed summary. And I think with these recommendations, I mean, I agree there are We have to look at all of this. I did want to stress, obviously some of this are immediate, and then some, and I know Trustee Norton, when you were during the interview, you brought up some very important points, and you've been through it. You've been through these tough decisions in the past, but When we get to the right sizing in the school and program consolidation, I think what's more critical is that we have to have community buy-in and community sessions. And so I know that's gonna take a little bit more time compared to maybe some of these like land sales maybe. So I just wanted to stress that and that is the piece that resonated during the interview.

Trustee Norton and Trustee Baskett.

Thank you. Sorry, I also wanted to thank you for the presentation and forgive me because I'm just seeing this. the first time in the last 20 minutes I just want to ask a couple of clarifying questions the first thing these strategic recommendations does the budget proposal that you have above depend on any of these or is this all in addition to this it doesn't know those numbers are without anything being done which is why they're so dangerously close to the level and the other thing which I'm not sure If I'm supposed to ask but I think what trustee Muhammad was getting at earlier about your proposed about the proposed fiscal 27 budget is What especially what kinds of assumptions are you making? With regard to personnel expenditures when major contracts are not yet resolved, right?

So there's a number of different scenarios. I'm not prepared to discuss the specific numbers and that we be talking about in that in because we're in negotiations but there's a number of different scenarios that we're looking at across the board with those cost increases is there any portion of those that are already baked in for some reason that are not subject negotiation sure no no all of them are subjecting negotiation but they're already baked into our budget okay yeah

And he'll go in more detail in a session, I'm sure. In closed session, yes, definitely.

And some of the answer to that will also depend on where ultimately state eight lane, where our resources that we have ultimately end up.

So if I may, when we talk about community, we're also talking about larger entities, i.e. city and county. And just recently, I mean, trustees advocated for not having the county-city capture our sinking fund dollars. Did you, I mean, do we need to keep that in mind as we look, or how do we keep that in mind as we look at the budget? I know the capture is not supposed to happen, supposedly, until 28, if I remember correctly. I think that's correct. And I bring that, when I look at land and building sales, we've had potential offers on buildings or land, property, with a contingency of cooperation from, say, the city. And didn't happen. Therefore, the sale went kaput. There was no option for that. So when we're talking about the community, the community is more than our parents. And so we just have to, again, I was very disappointed with the lack of notice support, if you will, when that went down. And I was not able to support my fellow trustees as they went to advocate for that. But we have to keep that in mind to remind everybody we're in this together because good schools drive up good communities. And so we've got to figure out a way to get that collaboration, if you will. Because again, it's impacting even the low-hanging fruit, which is land and building sales.

President Muhammad?

So you bring up a good point. Is this, okay, because I know that we're, you know, obviously we have the sinking fund, or sinking fund millage that is up for us to vote, for the voters to vote on in August. I'm assuming, is this including that we're

Sinking fund, this is only general fund. We're not talking about sinking fund with this budget.

But if it fails, it will impact our general funds. Oh, very much. That's what I'm saying. There are other assumptions here. I'm assuming no. No, we're assuming that. So this is just assuming that the sinking fund is going to pass in August, but obviously if it doesn't pass, then it would be drastic changes needed. Okay. I just wanted to make that clear. Yes, ma'am.

Not to skip ahead to the millage rate, but just so we're clear, the sinking fund, we have one more year to levy for that. So that will be this current year. So the 27 budget does include the current millage that we have. The vote will be for every year following that. So there would be a lot of different considerations if that does not pass.

Okay. Thank you for clarifying that. Okay.

can somebody because I expect somebody's going to be watching this meeting and go what happened with where you guys at the county could somebody just give a quick summary of what occurred there because I was not in town oh just so that folks understand what went down that was a negative for our students yeah so

I can attempt to explain it. So several trustees and myself attended last week. That's why we weren't at this. We didn't have a meeting last week. We were at the Washtenaw County Commissioners meeting where they voted on a brownfield plan that would basically capture, that's the word they use, capture tax revenue from our sinking fund. which is generally money that would come to the district. Trustees, we were there advocating on behalf of the district to try to get them to vote no on the plan. The plan passed, I think it was unanimous. And so this will definitely impact us, I think by the amount, Was it $13 million or close to $13 million? So maybe you can share more.

It wasn't unanimous, though. There were two no votes. Two no votes, I'm sorry. And one person abstained.

I think over the course of 30 years, all the documentation that they had, I think it was around 9 million. So when we did find out about this, we did do some research. And for operating, Mr. Britton, in his presentation, he showed the one slide where it showed how much is made up by local, how much is made up by state. Our general fund dollars would not be affected by this. Also, our debt fund millage is not affected. It's not allowed to be captured for that. So you are correct. It is all just within the sinking fund. But, yes, this is over 30 years, and it was around. It might have been 13. It was 9 to 13 million. It was one of those over 30 years they calculated how much the capture would be.

Total it would spread out over total.

Yes, correct.

Okay, so just for absolute clarity You were there not advocating against the development absolutely right, but you were advocating against the potential capture of and lost who are seeking for it.

Let me just reiterate that. This development really focused on affordable housing. We are not opposed to affordable housing. We are not opposed to housing coming into the city. But what we do oppose is capturing our tax revenue that should be going toward our students, our teachers, and our staff. That's what we were opposing. So just want to make that clear.

and if i may add a little editorial the term capture to me is stealing okay we were not we were not consulted about this plan early on and yes there was public hearing but you know we've been kind of busy with their own stuff that some of us got distracted um and so that they're stealing money not even distracted like like

It's not our responsibility to monitor their meetings to find out what's happening. If they know something's going to impact us, they should let us know. It should not be our responsibility to monitor their meetings.

And that's very fair, President Feaster, because I know when we were looking at school designs, not to get off the subject, I personally invited every single council person to say, come, see what we're doing, give us any input. We didn't get that respect, and that's what I think it is, respect. It is stealing money, which we fought, not say fought, we worked and advocated for the needs of our district. And our voters supported us, and this money is to go to the schools. Now again, we are not against affordable housing. Heck, I live in the last affordable place to buy in Ann Arbor, so I know it well. But to me, it's just not fair. And again, all these rallies, I wish someone had been there to protect their money. So the money that we use for sinking funds is to repair our buildings and to provide a safe environment for our students. We will continue to do that, but the money will have to come out of the general fund. you know, if we don't get the sinking fund. So just a little editorial there for what it's worth.

Thank you, Trustee Baskett. All right, if there's nothing else. So we concluded that portion. Thank you, Mr. Burton. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks, Casey. All right, I believe that brings us down to board action.

Yeah, Casey, stay right there.

The 2026-2027 millage rate, and I'll ask Mr. Zasky to please run us through it.

Yeah, tonight, so we're looking for approval of our annual L-4029, which goes to our taxing units to tell them how much to tax. So our hold harmless is at 2.0818 mils. Our operating is at 18. Our debt will be at 2.85, and our sinking fund is at 2.3959. So looking for approval for the L-4029 for this year.

So move Okay, move by trustee Schmidt second supported by vice president Wilkes any discussion trustees Say none miss Ozen ski, please trustee basket.

Yes president Feaster. Yes trustee Muhammad. Yes trustee Schmidt Yes, trustee Wilkins. Yes trustee Wilkes. Yes trustee Norton. Yes motion carries Thank you

I'm sorry, give me one second here. What we were trying to do...

I do have the adoption of the superintendent evaluation on there.

What we were trying to do... One second, get back into my computer. During the special meeting portion was conclude the superintendent evaluation. Since our vice president led that evaluation, do you have anything you want to say before I say what I need to say?

No, I have nothing to add. Okay, so. Yeah, thank you.

I'll turn it over to you, President Feaster. Thank you to Vice President Wilkes for leading that evaluation and getting it underway and being thorough and very thorough and making sure that it was done and on time and we really appreciate it thank you to miss May who came and facilitated our event helped us work through the rubric and we greatly appreciate that and now I will read the portion I am supposed to read The Board of Education would like to thank Ms. Jazz Parks for her leadership as superintendent of the Ann Arbor Public Schools. The trustees completed the annual 2025-2026 evaluation of Ms. Parks this evening. The evaluation process uses the Michigan Association of School Boards, MASB, approved superintendent evaluation tool, occurs in sessions throughout the year, and considers Ms. Parks' work in the areas of governance and board relations, community relations, staff relations, BUSINESS AND FINANCE AND INSTRUCTIONAL LEADERSHIP. AS IS TRUE BY A STATUTE FOR APS AND MICHIGAN EDUCATORS, 20% OF THE EVALUATION RATING IS CALCULATED BASED ON STUDENT GROSS MEASURES. WE ARE PLEASED TO SHARE THE RESULTS OF THE COMPLETED 2025-2026 SUPERINTENDENT EVALUATION AS FOLLOWS. MS. PARKS RECEIVED AN OVERALL SCORE OF 2.97 OUT OF 3, RESULTING IN AN EFFECTIVE RATING The board is pleased to announce this result, and we look forward to Ms. Parks' continued leadership of the Ann Arbor Public Schools. Yeah. All right. And I believe that brings us down to number 14, which is-

We have to make a motion. I would like to make a motion. President Feaster, can I have you clarify about Trustee Norton's ability to vote on the evaluation?

My understanding is that he has not yet had the superintendent's evaluation training, so he is not eligible to vote on this at this time.

So I'm wondering if I should call his name?

I think we should just skip him.

Just not call his name. I'm sorry. He should abstain.

Or just abstain.

Yes.

Okay.

Then you'll just say abstain.

Okay.

Call his name. Okay, got it. Thank you so much.

Is there a motion?

I would like to make a motion.

So move. And second. All right. Moved by Vice President Wilkes to adopt the evaluation, supported by Trustee Schmidt. Any discussion? Seeing none, Ms. Sielczynski, please.

Trustee Biscuit? Yes. President Feaster? Yes. Trustee Muhammad?

Yes.

Trustee Schmidt? Yes. Trustee Wilkins? Yes. Trustee Wilks? Yes. Trustee Norton?

Abstain. Motion carries. All right, that brings us down to number 14, second briefing, WISD 2026-2027 budget proposal. And I'm assuming I'm turning it over to...

I'll do this part if that's okay. This is the second briefing for the WISD 26-27 budget proposal. Mr. Marcel and Ms. Norman came a couple of meetings ago and presented through first briefing, and so there have been no changes to this item or additions to this item since they presented to the board for first briefing.

Thank you, Superintendent Parks. Trustees, are there any questions regarding the WISD 26-27 budget proposal? Hearing none, do I have a motion to support the 2026-2027 WISD budget? So moved. Second. Moved by Trustee Schmidt, supported by Vice President Wilks. Any discussion? Seeing none, Ms. Lozinski, please.

Trustee Baskett? Yes. President Feaster? Yes. Trustee Muhammad? Yes. Trustee Schmidt? Yes. Trustee Wilkins? Yes. Trustee Wilks? Yes. Trustee Norton?

Yes. Motion carries. Thank you. And I believe that brings us down to our first briefing items. We are at 15.1, and I'll ask that Dr. Kellstrom will come forward to report on the AN2266 E-rate network equipment purchase.