Board of Education - Regular Meeting

I would like to remind everyone that some of our presenters may present via zoom. Mr. Oginski, may I have a roll call, please? Trustee. Wescott. Yes. President Feaster here. Trustee Muhammad here. Trustee. Schmidt. Present. Trustee. Wilkerson. Trustee. Wilkins. Here. Vice president. Wilkes. Present. Thank you, Miss Luzinski. I would now like to introduce the non-voting member at the table. James Park, superintendent of schools. Good evening. Thank you. President Houston. All right. That brings us down to the land acknowledgement statement. And we do not have Trustee Wilkerson here today. So I'm asking Vice President Wilkes if she would not mind stepping in and reading that for us, please? Yeah, absolutely. We acknowledge that the Ann Arbor Public School District occupies the ancestral, traditional and contemporary lands of the initial back Three Fires Confederacy, the Ottawa, Ottawa, Ojibwe, Chippewa, and Odawa 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, Sore, Shawnee, Kickapoo, Miami, Muscatine, and Cherokee, many of whom were forcibly removed from their homelands. Acknowledgement by itself is a small gesture and does not exist in the past or so 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. Vice President Wilkes. With that, brings us down to approval. Approval of the agenda. Trustees. You have received the agenda. May I have a motion to approve it? So moved. Moved by Trustee Schmitt. Second. Supported by Vice President Wilkes. Any discussion? Trustees. Any discussion. Seeing. None. Miss. Trustee. Baskette. Yes. President. Feaster. Yes. Trustee. Muhammad. Yes. Trustee. Schmitt. Yes. Trustee. Wilkins. Yes. Vice president. Wilkes. Yes. Motion carries. Thank you, Mr. Luzinski. That brings it down to the public commentary section of our agenda. The board would like to remind everyone, the individuals who have signed up for public commentary will have their name called and will be given opportunity to speak. Comment will receive up to four minutes in 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 the 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 follow up as appropriate. Mr.. How many do we have signed up for this evening? We have eight signed up this evening, and first we have Annabella, me at Lakshmi Ganesh. Thank you. Good evening, board members. My name is Anna Bellamy and I'm a freshman at Huron High School. My name is Lakshya Ganesh and I'm a junior at Huron. We are here today to speak on the expiration of the teacher

contract through student eyes. Every Saturday I pass by this one mural that says teachers want with students need. My math teacher, Mrs. Wolford, wants me to feel comfortable during test taking. So one time I was finishing up a quiz and I needed more paper for the last problem without me even having to leave the table, she came to me and asked if I needed paper and teachers commitments to provide for us goes beyond just the classroom setting. My AP chemistry teacher, Mr. Collins, spends hours and hours of his weekend going through every single lab paper and ensuring that each student receives proper feedback rather than skimming through the papers and having more free time. He makes sure to do everything he can to benefit the students. These are just two examples. Out of countless more of how teachers are more than just teachers. They are also people with their own individual needs. And in the state of our current school district, we are not fulfilling them right now. We are refusing our teachers to be human. Health care costs have gotten significantly higher, and your Res offers are no longer sufficient. Teachers, especially those who have been in the district for several years, are not receiving proper compensation and are underpaid compared to other districts like Plymouth, canton, saline and more. Every Wednesday I see blue shirts, blue earrings and red hoodies, and my own teachers congregating together for solidarity. Although it is empowering to see this, teachers demanding for a fair wage, fair working hours and a fair career should not even be happening in the first place. In fact, this is the forward of the expired contract. It is the purpose of the agreement to strengthen that spirit, to continue good relations among the board, the professional staff and the association, and to aid in achieving their common goal. Embarrassingly so. None of this has been achieved.

First through seventh hour. Each of my teachers has shown contradiction to those words. How you, as the board of APS, have failed to represent them without a fair contract. To quote one of my teachers, we didn't go into education for the money, but we went into education knowing that we were serving a good role in society and that we would get paid a livable wage, and then at least we'd have good health care benefits and things like that. While the wage hasn't kept up with inflation in the past, people have died for the creation of the weekend. Don't allow this to happen again when we already know how it ends. Thank you. Next is Paloma Jackson Rubinstein. Hi. I'm a junior at pioneer. I moved to Ann Arbor in eighth grade, and when I got here, the first thing anyone would talk about is how good the schools are. Um, and I found that to be very true. I've loved my time at APS schools, and it's especially because of how good the teachers are. Um, we have incredible opportunities at APS, whether it's the outstanding music department, club, CTE class trips, all of which are made possible by our teachers. But the way the teachers have been treated since I came to the district has not been representative of Ann Arbor's emphasis on great schools is the schools cannot be great without great teachers. All of my teachers go the extra mile, always working harder than any of us could expect of them to give us the best education possible. The contract issue has just reaffirmed how hard our teachers work. I never realized how necessary after school, lunch and club times are to our education, all of which are outside of contracted hours. Please continue making Ann Arbor Public Schools great by

treating our teachers fairly and giving them what they need and deserve. Thank you. Next is Susan Zink. Good evening. My name is Susan Zink and I'm a PS parent. I'm also going to talk about the teachers. So thank you for opening. Um, I have three children currently enrolled in the district, one at Tappan Middle School and two at Burns Park Elementary. We have been an APS family since fall of 2019, and lived in Ann Arbor since 2014. I volunteer regularly in the schools and have gotten to know many of the teachers and other staff members throughout the district, not just at Tappan and Burns Park. I see firsthand how hard these educators work and how deeply they care about our children. My middle child is on an IEP, and I'm impressed every day with the special education team at Bruns Park and his classroom teacher, the creativity, patience, and skill that these individuals demonstrate is truly awe inspiring. My son is happy and motivated to do his best, even if that looks a little different from his peers sometimes. My background is in human resources, specifically employee relations, performance management, and full life cycle recruiting. I mention this because we all see the world through our own lenses, and my HR background does cause me to see patterns that potentially others would miss. I understand fully that it's impossible to keep every staff member in APS 100% happy all of the time. It will never happen. It's true for any large employer. However, over the past seven years, I've noticed a gradual decline in APS employee morale, not their dedication to the students, certainly, but a feeling that they are

underappreciated, not trusted by the district, micromanaged and compensated far less than their peers in other neighboring districts. My son at Tappan has lost three of his teachers mid-year. In the past 15 months. All three had been there for many years, were well loved and respected by the tap and community. Now, with contract negotiations stalled and morale at an all time low, I fear that many other experienced teachers will also leave the district. I also see how these staff members work as a close team. I often see teachers out in the community together. Outside of school hours, I know from my experience in the corporate world that when you have employees who are close friends and one leaves the organization, it is very likely to cause a domino effect. That would be an enormous loss to APS. As a parent, the most important thing to me is that my children are surrounded by qualified, caring, impactful professionals every day and that my children continue to love school and love learning. A contract will be signed at some point, but it will likely be a bandaid fix and not a long term solution. APS current financial situation will not allow us to compensate our teachers competitively. I know our new CFO started this week, so hopefully that is a step in the right direction. Now is the time to get our district on a strong financial footing so we can continue to attract and retain the staff who made APS a strong, well-respected school district. My husband and I signed the recent letter to the Board of Education requesting greater financial transparency for all spending in the last three years, and a pause on all new spending until that occurs. As of 5 p.m. this evening, the board has not yet acknowledged or responded to the 1500 families who signed the letter, let alone made efforts to meaningfully engage these concerns. I hope this soon

changes. Thank you for your time this evening. Next is Angela Galati, Prince. Good evening. Good evening everyone. My name is Angela Galati. Prince. I'm a third generation Ann Arbor Public school family. My father, Bob Galati, was a 40 year veteran of the schools. I'm a graduate of pioneer class of 2000. And I've a daughter at pioneer and a son who will start in the AAPs in 2027. The future of these schools is incredibly important to me. I started paying closer attention to the financial state of our district when our teachers went into mediation, and I heard that they are amongst the lowest paid in the state. Our teachers are the heart of this district. Ann Arbor should be the place where the best educators in Michigan want to build careers, and most build their careers. The most competitive salary and a career that rewards commitment. But in order to provide these things, we need the money to fund these things. At this point, we are operating at a deficit. Our reserves are perilously low, and we basically have no money. But that's not true. There is money. We are just spending it on other things. As a as a former CFO and financial executive, I decided to analyze publicly available financial data to see what was going on. I even offered the board and Superintendent Parks my help filling the financial management gap temporarily. I'm thrilled that we've hired Auntie Britton, and I look forward to the progress we'll make with a true financial professional in place. Based on my analysis, there is a clear trend. Ann Arbor is one of the best funded districts in the state, receiving 21% more revenue per student than comparable districts. Operating revenue has gone 30, has grown

36% since 2018, well ahead of inflation. Yet we spend more than we take in instead of deficits. We should be thriving, but our high spending isn't going to competitive teacher pay. Comparing the Ann Arbor salary schedule to Plymouth, canton, Rochester, Okemos and Saline shows that we have the lowest maximum teacher salary in the fewest career steps. We are spending more money, but weirdly, it's not going to paying our teachers reasonably. Using publicly available data only, I found a few things that I think deserve a closer look. According to the state's Registry of Education Personnel, we have 35 teachers assigned to Central Office. Our peers have fewer than five. Most have zero. Is this accurate? If so, what are those roles? And do they need to be filled by teachers who could be in the classroom? We spent over $48 million on purchase services, which is 54% above a peer average. And there's no public detail on what that money is buying. A deep dive would surely uncover some areas to save. We operate 33 buildings for a student body that Plymouth Canton serves, with 27 buildings and Rochester 22. Given the 2019 capital bond has ballooned into a $1.85 billion capital project, and taxpayers are going to be asked to renew a sinking fund millage. Again this year, we deserve more details on why our footprint looks this way and where the money is going. If I can find these patterns with publicly available data, imagine what a serious review with actual access to district data could uncover. My ask is that you meaningfully engage the community that you serve. According to Superintendent Parks, there is a strategic planning process. Starting in April. The community should have a seat at that table. Our children are your constituents. Our tax dollars fund the budget and we can help. Please establish a Citizen's Finance Advisory Committee or something similar to that. This would enable community members with

financial expertise to partner with our new CFO. The administration help review plans and help to be the analyst to do the analytical work that is necessary. We can also be an advocate to the community. We want to help this district succeed, but you've got to let us be a part of it. Thank you. Next. Next is Elif Celik. Good evening. My name is. Oh, sorry. Good evening. My name is Alex, and I'm a junior at Pioneer High School. I'm here today as a concerned high school student regarding teacher contracts and their renewal. As a club leader, I have seen firsthand the effect, um, of the lack of contracts, the lack of contract renewal that has it has had on teachers and how that has trickled down to students with the temporary cancellation of clubs. Student morale has decreased and students have lost the opportunity they have had for academic enrichment outside of classes, clubs give students the opportunities for leadership, advocacy and bonding with like minded peers. Um. Furthermore, I can see firsthand firsthand how hard teachers work and how much time and dedication they put into their jobs. Hosting students after school past their hours for office hours to ask questions or to make up or retake tests. As a student, I could not be more appreciative of the dedication of my teachers. Being able to stay after school and ask my AP bio teacher questions. Being able to attend seventh hour club meetings for Ethics Bowl, and more. These are all things that happen because of our hard working, dedicated teachers. I ask kindly that we that we renew teacher contracts and reward teachers for their hard work, for their dedication and their passion. Um, no one in this room would be here today if it wasn't for a kindhearted teacher who instilled in us the passion for learning and education that brought us here today. Um, I can attest to my own experience. Up until fourth grade, I was bullied and going to school was, you know, felt lonely. I felt, you know,

unwelcome. And it wasn't until my fourth grade teacher who sort of who made me feel smart, who made me feel welcome, and who, um, gave me the voice that brought me here today. And I know that everyone else can probably attest to a teacher that they can think of in their minds who, um, instilled in them the passion for education, who brought them here today. Um, and I ask that we reward these teachers for their kindness, for their hard work and their dedication. Thank you. Beatrix, you'll. Good evening. I'm Beatrix Yulee. I'm a junior at Pioneer High School, and I want to talk to you today about teachers working without contracts and how it affects not only the teachers. Thank you so much. Sorry. Um, but also the students from the start of my education, teachers have always done extra. My fourth grade teacher at Burns Park gave out fun erasers. Um, that she would reward you for by cleaning up the classroom. Um, my third grade teacher gave us candy as a treat on special occasions. And my sixth grade advisory teacher bought art supplies for me and my friend. The only two people on optional Wednesday advisory where we would create all sorts of different crafts. These teachers paid out of pocket to give kids experiences that enrich their time in school. Now that teachers are working without contracts, things are different. I haven't been able to attend aerospace, math or fashion club. I haven't been able to eat lunch in the AP bio room with my friends. Miss tests become impossible to make up because we can't take them at lunch. Teachers care so much about their students enough to spend their own money on things for the classroom, and allow

students to use their rooms during lunch. I understand there is a budget problem, but that doesn't mean teachers should take the blow after the. After all the sacrifices they make. Paying teachers well and giving them a contract should be obvious. Schools that pay their teachers well allow the students to learn in an environment that supports them. I hope you consider their importance once again, so that students and teachers alike have a better school experience. Thank you for your time. Wendy Welch. I I'm Wendy Welch, a parent of a. Kindergartner in Ann Arbor Public Schools. Meaning I'm in it for the long haul, folks. And I'm concerned about dialogue or lack thereof. Like many, I've been baffled over how a great community like ours keeps losing great teachers over money. So I've been watching these meetings to understand how things work. I've researched the funding structures and the history of what's brought us here. As all of you know already, years ago, before most of you were here, contracted teacher raises weren't included in the budget. That omission is widely cited as a major reason we are in this financial mess. Raises were agreed to then somehow never made it into the budget, and no one on the board at the time questioned it. They trusted the staff. After last week's meeting, I found myself wondering whether questions are being asked somewhere I can't see. Because what I observe here in these meetings is little to no pushback on proposals or follow up

questions to staff. I also wonder whether staff are making concessions alongside our teachers to ensure financial responsibility. But I'll save that for another time. Tonight I want to focus on the apparent lack of questioning of staff by the board. I get that you're all volunteers, that these meetings are long and that collegiality with staff matters. I appreciate you're putting in time for public service. Thank you. But I'm here to request that you publicly question staff presentations and proposals and actively seek feedback from parents and teachers and students. I was troubled last week when a large chunk of money was approved for Chromebooks for our littlest kids, and it was said that we wanted to spend this money now to save taxpayers later. I didn't hear what the teachers thought of the new Chromebooks. Our parents, the opt out policy was lightly discussed. Staff was trusted and money approved. Again, I understand that there are different buckets of money. No need to repeat that, but I'm concerned that it seems there's a pattern of little to no questioning of staff's proposals in public anyway. When something like AI comes up, like it will tonight where no one is an expert beyond doubt and we're all in unchartered territory. There is an inordinate need for questions. Hard questions. How much do we want our children exposed to this technology? That's a question for stakeholders. For parents, tech

and AI in our schools is a real opportunity for dialogue. I hope it won't be rubber stamped. We expect our students to ask and answer tough questions. We all should. Too. Thank you. Jennifer Oldham. Jennifer Oldham. Hello. As many of you know, I have been concerned about edtech for quite a while. I have a second grader, a fifth grader, and an eighth grader. I went to the California Institute of Technology and I was around in 2001 when Doctor John Hobson published Behavioral Game Design. I listened to the people building edtech for physics games talk about how to build the games so that they would hold the kids attention longer so that they would be addictive. I made a decision in my family that we would never have video games, that my children would decide as adults whether or not to engage in addictive software. My children would decide as adults in the same way that they would decide if they would use tobacco or ethanol or coffee. Now, our culture up until this point seems to have made a decision that addictive things should be the purview of adults, and adults should protect kids from them. I am very concerned that we are not protecting kids from addictive software in this district. If I, I can refer to a bunch of press. If you look at 2018 screen schooled, two veteran teachers expose how technology overuse is making kids dumber. They talk about

this article from Doctor Hobson. They say that it outlined for the gaming industry how to keep their players playing longer. Hopson applied the same methodology for the video game industry that was used by behavioral scientists to create addiction in lab rats. Today, these elements of addictive gaming can be found in virtually every gaming app on the market. They include tricks such as incentivizing playing through some type of reward, unlocking new levels, receiving tokens, obtaining a coveted object variable ratio rewards, randomized incentives spread throughout the game, such as an extra life or a hidden sack of treasure. Decreasing this rate of reward over time. Getting the player hooked by frequent rewards at first, but extending the intervals of reward to longer periods as the player continues, and punishment for avoidance for avoidance. Taking away rewards for not playing every day or breaking streaks. My kids would tell you this is prodigy. This is Dream box. You do not give me the option to opt my kids out of this software. I think you should reconsider that. If you look at the press, this article is from 2018. An opinion piece in the Guardian. Children are tech addicts and schools are the pushers. When Silicon Valley bosses send their children to screen free schools, why do we believe the claims of the edtech industry? Last year, a guest essay, an opinion in the New York Times, The screen that ate your child's education. Just this past month, March 10th, New York Times iPads in kindergarten YouTube on breaks the school screen time battle. Mounting evidence shows that excessive computer use can harm children. So parents are cutting back at home. Now the debate has shifted to the

classroom. March 17th. Is there too much screen time in school? A times survey of 350 teachers shows that technology has become ingrained in classrooms since the pandemic. Bridge, Michigan. Northern Michigan school band screened to boost literacy. Will it work? That's Messick School's know you'll be discussing AI tonight. Just March 22nd in Psychology Today. Artificial intelligence. Adults lose skills to AI. Children never build them. AI driven cognitive atrophy is recoverable. Cognitive foreclosure may not be. This is an article from the Indian Defence Review on Sweden in 2009, Sweden replaced textbooks with screens. 15 years later, it spending 120 million to bring them back. Sweden erased screens in classrooms and pushed books aside. Years later, the country is making a costly reversal that says everything about what went wrong. This appears to be true for the entire Nordics. We lived in Finland for a year. This is true in Finland, in Norway, in Denmark, and obviously in Sweden. New York Times, March 29th. Chromebook remorse, tech backlash at schools extends beyond phones. No more YouTube or video games on school laptops, textbooks and pencils are back. Some seventh graders say they prefer learning offline. April 2nd Education Week. Addicted to screens. Teachers sound the alarm on their youngest students. And just two days ago in the Atlantic, what happened after a teacher ditched screens? Why? One early adopter of computers in classrooms has decided to toss them. There's a lot of research on learning, and the some of it is that

analog learning works best. Thank you. That concludes public commentary. Thank you, Mr. Pinsky. We appreciate hearing from our community. The board would like to thank everyone who spoke and shared their comments tonight. Miss parks, are there any points of clarification? I. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. She's later. I don't know. No. Don't worry. Don't worry about it. Miss parks. Uh, only that, uh, to follow up on a comment about the strategic planning and engaging with our community through that process, that is absolutely our intention through the strategic strategic planning process, not just about financials and budget, but all aspects of the community's priorities for our district. So we look forward to that getting started. Thank you very much, Miss Parks. Uh, trustees, I'd like to call your attention to the community feedback for tonight's meeting. There's a link for it at 4.1. I believe that brings us down to number five. Reports of associations. And I believe I see Mr. Klein from present. Thank you. Good evening. Trustees. Superintendent. Parks, public commentators. Thank you. We feel the love and it sustains us. And we really appreciate your voices. Tonight and every night. Ann Arbor Public Schools community and any, uh, dedicated and fierce AA members tuning in tonight. My name is Fred Klein, and I am proud to serve as the president of the Ann Arbor Education Association, which is the union that represents the roughly 1300 professional educators in the Ann Arbor Public Schools. Um, since we're returning from a well-deserved and much needed spring break. My report tonight

is pretty brief, so let me jump right in. Um, I would like to begin tonight by recognizing excellence within our ranks. AA educator Sarah Van Loo of A2 steam has been selected as one of just 15 educators worldwide for the 2026 First Inspire the Future Educator cohort. This prestigious recognition highlights her leadership in fostering inclusive, relationship driven Stem education through the school's first tech Challenge Robotics program. Students are not only building technical expertise, but are also developing critical skills and collaboration, leadership and problem solving. What makes this program especially noteworthy is its intentional focus on equity and access. Underrepresented students are actively engaged, and every participant is giving a meaningful role. This commitment has driven remarkable growth, with participation doubling in just one year to reach approximately 15% of the student body. Miss Van Liu's dedication extends beyond her classroom through outreach to younger students and the creation of strong mentorship structures that expand opportunity and cultivate belonging. Congratulations to Sarah on this extraordinary achievement. I also. Thank you. Thank you Sarah. I also want to take a moment to recognize that April 4th was National School Librarian Day. Our school librarians play an essential role in educating and inspiring students across this district. They foster curiosity, support literacy, and instill a lifelong love of reading in our students. Their impact is profound, and I extend my sincere gratitude for the work they do every day. However, recognition alone is not enough. As we reach the

98th day working without a contract, our educators continue to show up for students while facing ongoing uncertainty and financial strain. We return to mediation on April 14th and again on April 28th. Our bargaining team remains committed to bargaining in good faith, with the goal of reaching a fair settlement, one that reflects the needs of our educators through competitive salaries and health care benefits aligned with comparable districts across the state. At our last board meeting, I provided a 20 year historical review of concessions, pay and steep freezes and modest increases that have failed to produce meaningful compensation, growth or financial stability. Despite receiving the highest per pupil state aid among our comparable districts and within Washtenaw County. This district has fallen dramatically in educator compensation rankings from 91st in 2021 to 140 fourth in 2024. At the same time, the Ann Arbor Public Schools maintains one of the weakest fund balances in the state, currently, between 5 and 6%. Equally troubling is the district's continued failure to provide the state standard 8020 split for health care premiums. Instead, Ann Arbor Public Schools educators are burdened with a roughly 6535 cost share, placing significant financial strain on the very professionals that this district relies on. These patterns make one thing clear concessions have not led to stability. They have not strengthened the district, and they have not been rewarded with responsible financial outcomes. This raises a fundamental and unavoidable question how are neighboring and comparable districts able to manage their finances more

effectively while offering higher salaries, better benefits, and maintaining significantly stronger fund balances? Consider the following. Northville Public Schools they have a 33.46% fund balance. Their salaries are much higher than Ann Arbor Public Schools, and they have an 8020 health care sharing premium formula. Saline Area Schools, a 30.26% fund balance, higher salaries 8020 health care Farmington Public Schools 24.52% fund balance higher salaries than Ann Arbor Public Schools, and a 8020 health care premium sharing right next door. Dexter Community Schools, 23.12%. Fund balance, higher salaries and an 8020 health care sharing premium. Wayne Westland Community Schools, a 19.88% fund balance. Higher salaries 8020 health care. Walled Lake Consolidated Schools 19.87% fund balance higher salaries in Ann Arbor 8020. Health care. Each of these districts operates with fewer per pupil dollars than the Ann Arbor Public Schools. Yet they have found a way to invest in their educators while maintaining fiscal health. So again, the question must be asked Why is Ann Arbor Public Schools unable to control its expenditures without placing the burden on its educators? Why does this district continue to balance its budget on the backs of the very people who make this district great, and student success possible? Your educators and this community are waiting for a clear, honest answer. And more importantly,

we are waiting for action. Thank you. If there is no other reports from associations that will bring us down to community group reports, and I should say, miss. Do we have any group signed up? I know we do though. Yes we do. We have a Jennifer Van Beek. I believe it is from parents of Jewish students affinity group. Thank you, miss Oginski. Hi. My name is Jennifer van Beek and I'm speaking on behalf of the new parents of students, of Jewish students. Affinity group, with support from the Jewish Federation of Ann Arbor and many involved parents, and with new energy and efforts, we are working on presentations for Jewish American History Month at every Ann Arbor school, which we're very excited about. Um, we have also been working on getting some other changes done to Ann Arbor materials, and we are very thankful to Don Linden for being a great liaison and support person in accomplishing that. Um, we're really feeling like the AAPs administration is having a great spirit of collaboration with us, and we really hope this continues. So I just wanted to give, um, administration a lot of credit here. And I know you guys hear a lot of negative things, but this is something really positive for the community. Thank you. Thank you so much. Are there any other group reports? No other group reports tonight. Thank you very much. I believe that brings us down to number seven. Our board committee reports. Uh, the only committee

we had this this, uh, over the last couple of weeks was the governance committee. Uh, we met briefly yesterday to make some changes to this week's agenda. Uh, and to next week's agenda. Um, I believe trustees are aware next week's agenda is supposed to be a study session, a regular meeting. And so we did make that adjustment. So we can do a deep dive into, uh, some different issues that are going to come up in the next few months. Any questions? All right. Seeing none, that brings us down to number eight, the information section. And I'll turn it over to Superintendent Parks. Thank you, President Feser. Just have a few items this evening for the superintendent's update. Uh, as we look to hire key members of the APS team and a district team of recruiters will be conducting an in-person job fair at Huron High School on Monday, April 13th, from 3:00 to 6:00 pm. Our team of recruiters will be conducting screening interviews on a first come, first served basis for the following positions. Teachers, paraprofessionals, special education staff none. Our supervisors. Title one tutors. Bilingual liaisons English, English Language Co teachers and instructional assistants. Substitute teachers and bus drivers and bus aides. We invite all to attend who are interested in any of these opportunities. Next. Um, a pretty exciting announcement that Aisha Bowe, a Slawson alum and former NASA rocket scientist, will be visiting Slawson tomorrow. She'll be meeting with eighth grade class with the eighth grade class for an assembly, and she will be going around and going to other classes and meeting students and having some speaking engagement in our classrooms there. Uh, her journey began in our very own district, and she has gone on to some stellar accomplishments. The including

the US State Department global speaker, advocating for Stem space and entrepreneurship in several countries. She's also a member of the National Society of Black Engineers and the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, and she is the founder of lingo and a tech company that already serves 10,000 students and is on a mission to equip 1 million learners with Stem skills over the next decade. So our Slawson eighth graders are pretty lucky to have this assembly tomorrow with one of our very own alum. This week is Assistant Principals Appreciation Week. And it is a time to recognize these dedicated professionals who work tirelessly for tirelessly to post their teachers, motivate students, support their principal, and create a positive learning community and face the many unpredictable challenges that land on their desks each day. Our Ann Arbor Public Schools assistant principals play a crucial role in. This week is dedicated time to recognize them for their hard work and commitment to our schools, students, and profession. So please join me in celebrating these incredible school leaders. Our Assistant principals. All right. Every April, the Autism Society celebrates and honors the experiences and identities of autistic individuals. It emphasizes understanding, inclusion and support, moving beyond awareness and moving towards meaningful acceptance of those in the autism community. This month long recognition aims to recognize that autism is more than a diagnosis. It is identity, community, and a lived experience that encompasses both challenges and triumphs. As many individuals and families affected by autism understand lack of acceptance

and inclusion are often barriers to developing a strong support system. Acceptance and inclusion are vital to ensuring that all in the autism community can access the resources and support they need to live their lives to the fullest. So we recognize Autism Acceptance Month here in the Ann Arbor Public Schools. Next April is also a time to acknowledge National Arab American Heritage Month, an opportunity to celebrate the rich history, heritage, culture and diversity of Arab Americans and honor their many significant contributions to society. National Arab American Heritage Month was recognized in April of 2021 by President Joe Biden, and while official national recognition may be recent efforts on the state and local levels to recognize Arab American Heritage Month have been ongoing for decades. We celebrate the many accomplishments of educators, artists, writers, poets, musicians, etc. who promote the Arab American heritage and culture, a testament to the contributions they have made in our American society. With their rich diversity. April is also a time to recognize National Occupational Therapy Month. We have the opportunity here in the APS to recognize recognize our own outstanding occupational therapists. The theme for the 2026 a year is Enriching lives through Meaningful Engagement. We appreciate the significant health and wellness worker our APS occupational therapists provide as integral members of our special education and our school teams. We are grateful for their significant role in inspiring our students daily to achieve personal, school and life success. And lastly, as Mr. Klein mentioned, April is a time to recognize National School Library Month. The American Association of School Librarians recognize the School Library Month every April to

celebrate the school librarians and libraries. This month, our APS school libraries host activities to help students and school communities celebrate the essential role that strong school libraries play in transforming learning. We are proud to honor our APS, professional librarians in the critical work that they provide in serving our students. And with that, we conclude the superintendent's report. Thank you so much. In the parks. I believe that brings us down. It's an agenda or a point to. This brings us down to 8.2, the Environmental Education Update. Uh, back over to you, Superintendent Parks. Thank you. President Feaster. At this time, I am very excited and proud to bring forward Mr. Corte Ambrosio. And some students and other staff who are going to provide an update this evening on our APS environmental education program, which we typically do around this time of year, with April being the month in which we celebrate Earth Day and other things. And so we have them here for our yearly update on our programming. I'll turn it over to court. Thank you so much. Do we have our presentation available? Hey, thank you so much. Uh, yes. And then do you want us to tell you to advance slide or give a thumbs up or what would be best? Okay. Thank you so much. Um, trustees, superintendent Parks and our public school community. We are so pleased to be here this evening to give you an update on the APS environmental education program. I'm caught, and I'm the lead teacher for the program. And I'm here with my awesome colleague Sarah Hill. And we're really excited to share. So we are a small but mighty department of two, and we're going to be providing you with some history and purpose of our program, describing our

current programming that APS students are getting through the program, give you some updates on the Freeman Environmental Education Center, and then give some time to representatives of our Freeman Environmental Youth Council, some high school students who are Youth Council members. That will give you some updates on their work tonight. So we thought we'd start with what does the EE program do? Well, we're teachers. We facilitate learning experiences, experiential learning for APS students that help develop understandings, attitudes and skills that young people need to become environmental stewards. We also help carry on a proud legacy for our school district and community. The APS program was one of the first in the world. We helped the school district implement the goals that's laid out by the Board of Education Policy 8000 on Environmental Sustainability and the APS Environmental Sustainability Framework. We help recruit, train and coordinate a talented corps of volunteer naturalists that help us enrich our programming for our kids. We help steward the facility and grounds at the Freeman E center, and we help shepherd the APS Science and Environmental Education Endowment Fund. We often refer to this shorthand as a2 c because it's a long name. Um, we thought we'd also provide a little bit of background on environmental education. And this is again part of the legacy that we have as a school district, because the founder of the E program for Ann Arbor Schools, doctor Bill Stapp, was actually foundational internationally in developing the field of environmental ed. So he was one of the coordinators for an international conference in Tbilisi, Georgia, in 1977 that defined environmental education as an interdisciplinary field that focuses on the nexus of natural and human systems, helping to increase awareness and knowledge about environmental issues or problems, and providing the public with the necessary

skills to make informed decisions and take responsible action. Um, in that conference, they defined five categories within environmental ed, and these are awareness and sensitivity to the environment and environmental challenges. We've got a little highlighting, Andrew, if you want to advance for me. Awesome. Thanks. Knowledge and understanding of the environment and environmental challenges. Attitudes of concern for the environment and motivation to improve or maintain environmental quality. Skills to identify and help resolve environmental challenges and participation in activities that lead to the resolution of environmental challenges. And we think about these five categories of E that our own founder helped define as we plan a progression of learning experiences that students get during their time in our school district. History. Doctor Stapp, Eunice Hendrix and some other local environmental advocates work to integrate E into our schools. In the late 1950s, the program was launched in 1959 after Doctor Stafford completed his doctoral thesis at U of M, came over to the school district and helped implement that curriculum for AAPs. He also utilized part time staff and volunteer naturalists to help expand instructional capacity. Um Bill Browning took over the program in 1968, became the E consultant, and held the role for 30 years. I remember going on field trips myself with Mr. Browning as a kid in Ann Arbor schools. Dave Siegel took the role in 1997. He is legendary in our school district, and I linked here for you a APS news story. Dave was honored with a Lifetime Achievement Award at the state E conference this past fall. After his retirement in 2018, board policy 8000 on Environmental Sustainability was passed. The Freeman

Environmental Education Center was dedicated and I was hired in 2022. The APS Environmental Sustainability Framework was developed by a task force that and the framework was adopted by the Board of Ed. And then in the 2425 school year. So last year, Sarah Hill came on board after Dave Siegel's retirement. And we also developed strategic planning for the Freeman E center. Good evening everyone. My name is Sarah. Hill, and I'm the other. environmental ed teacher. On this slide. I want to talk a little. Bit about. Some of. The numbers. That provide a little. snapshot of what we do. We serve about 500 classes a year, seeing about. 10,000 students with two certified teachers. Last year we had more. than 2000. Hours that our volunteers contributed to supporting our programs. We have four environmental specialists. We steward the 40 acre Freeman Environmental Center site. This year we have 26 students serving on the Freeman Environmental Youth Council, and we're really excited for you to hear from some of them in a little bit. And last year we grew over 1800 native plants, um, that were propagated in the Freeman Nursery and planted on the site to increase the educational value of the plant communities there and improve biodiversity. So there's the two of us. We're both former classroom teachers. Cort took the helm when Dave retired last year, and there couldn't be a more dedicated, Intentional leader. This program and mentor to me as I took on my role. We're also supported by four environmental specialists who play a very part time but important role. They are El Bogle, Sally Breedlove, Kathy Coppens and Aisha Biswas. Um, some of these names might be familiar because they're retired Ann Arbor teachers, others because they're really active in some of our other local environmental organizations. Um, we lead the overwhelming bulk of the programs, but we draw on them when we need to read to lead three consecutive

programs in a day, to get all the classes into the calendar. So, um, occasionally, yeah, they're occasionally able to step into and provide some substitute support. We obviously can't draw on the regular sub pool for the work that we do, and these incredible folks have the background in science and education and training in our program to be able to step in and fill that very part time, but essential niche for us. So we're so grateful to their involvement with the program. They allow us to serve 500 classes in a year. We want to thank El Bogle because she's been the primary person to fill our environmental specialist needs this year, and then we are supported by an incredible group of volunteers. We have 40 registered volunteers this year, and it's an extraordinary group of people who are so generous in the way that they share their time and expertise, um, with the students of Ann Arbor. Many of them are retired teachers, but others come to us with a wide range of backgrounds and science and education. Um, our volunteer naturalist work with students in our first through fifth grade programs, and their support allows us to break individual classes into small groups to have a richer experience in a small group, um, you know, 7 to 10 kids have a different experience at a pond than a whole class does when they're all together. So we're so grateful to them. Some of our volunteers also provide a lot of physical work at Freeman on ecological restoration projects. Um, it is really hard to express how, um, heartening and inspiring it is to work with our volunteers because these folks are, um, so dedicated to supporting meaningful learning experiences in the outdoors for the kids of our community. And we're so grateful. So if you we're always recruiting new volunteers. So if you know anyone who you think would be a good fit, we usually do the bulk of our volunteer training at the beginning of the school year. But, um, but people should always look at our website and reach out to us at

any time if they're interested. Um, next slide. The next couple of slides. I'm going to talk just briefly about our individual programs. All of the programs are designed to support and extend classroom curriculum, most aligning with grade level standards from the life sciences. Um, and we start with our young five students learn about elements of animal habitat and go on an adventure on their school grounds looking for examples of habitat. Our kindergarteners study how plants and animals in Michigan change in response to seasonal changes. They interact with puppets, and they study furs and skulls and other artifacts. Our first graders learn about adaptations of different species. Um, a lot of focus on birds in this unit or in this program, and it aligns so beautifully. This year we have discovered and worked, um, with the Arts and Letters curriculum. The module, um, that they're doing at the time that we're running this program is like a beautiful merging. It's really great. Um, and then the second graders is sort of a two for one experience. The students come to the to the Freeman and they spend half a day with us learning about plant communities with all, which also, um, jives really lovely with an Arts and Letters unit, uh, module. But then half the day they're working with instructors from the Ecology Center who are talking to them about waste management systems in our community, recycling and compost. And that's funded by the city. Next slide. Um, third grade teachers choose between an aquatic pond study or a terrestrial habitat walk. Fourth graders study geology, fifth graders do winter survival, where students learn the essential Michigan skills of being able to be outside all day long and have a wonderful time and keep your body warm and work collaboratively with your friends. It's an

incredible program. Next slide. And then in the secondary, our sixth graders learn about watersheds, water pollution, stormwater. We work on the campus and look at and, um, different options for green infrastructure to slow water down and get it to soak into the ground to try to protect our watershed. Seventh graders do a bus tour of the resource recovery center and learn about the systems in our city for managing solid waste, recycling and compost. This is also a partnership with the Ecology Center, so they double our instructional capacity for that program. So we're running one program Ecology Center. Instructors are running another program simultaneously. Each time that we're running one of those, also funded by the city. Um, and then in high school, we do a program where students learn about basic tree identification and ecological restoration, land management, invasive species. This is usually done with an AP environmental science classes, but sometimes other classes are involved with that one. To pass it back to court. I wanted to talk a little bit about, uh, the part of the great web that we are within the school district. So we collaborate with so many different stakeholders within the district. Students, of course, parent chaperones, classroom teachers, teaching and learning leaders, our awesome curriculum coordinators, Durham transportation chart Wells. We might be the best connected people in the whole school district. And we really like that because we can provide some connectivity and sharing of ideas. And that is a testament also to our field. Environmental ed is an interdisciplinary field. And so we have a lot of touch points with so many different entities within the school district. I don't I think I failed to mention physical properties in the capital bond program as well. Um, we also have community partnerships that bring a lot to the school district. So up on the screen, we listed a number of our active community partners.

Currently, these partnerships help us provide site access for students to go and see different natural resources in our community, providing supplemental learning opportunities. Like Sarah explained, our current partnership with the Ecology Center does. Funded by the City of Ann Arbor, help us with special projects and also provide professional development opportunities. So really grateful for all these entities that bring a lot of value to our program in service of students. Freeman. Updates. Okay, so the Freeman Center 40 acre site in Duxbury, just up the road, it was rededicated as the Freeman Center in 2018. I've linked here the recommendations that were developed by an advisory committee at that time for the center and the programming that was to be developed there. We have implemented many of these goals, and it really felt like it was time for a 2.0 version of the recommendations. So we worked on strategic planning in 20 starting, I think in 24, um, finished in 2025. This was part of an 18 month project that was in collaboration with the U of M, C school, the school for Environment and Sustainability, and they helped us develop next step planning for the Freeman Center. So we've linked them both here. The link I provided tonight is an overview of the strategic planning. If you'd like the full details, we'd be happy to share. Uh, the full strategic plan with you. I also linked a Our Story map, which is an excellent digital tool to teach about the history of the Freeman Center site. The different habitats we have there, the ecological restoration work that's going on, and it's just really neat. So check out that tool. Uh, please, if you haven't seen it, it's a great way for you and for our community to learn about this awesome APS facility

and site. Um, so some updates we have currently about 75 of our classes that are coming to Freeman for their annual field trip with us. There are right now five weeks of summer camp that is running at the Freeman Center. I'm leading two weeks with two other APS educators, Nate Hat and Steven Tomsic. Then there's three weeks of or. Excuse me. Yeah, three weeks of programming. I believe it might be two and two. I need to check on that. Um, but another entity, Nutty Science, is leading some of the summer camps again through Rec and Ed. So it's being used in the summer, which is awesome. Uh, there are some community events that are happening for the first time. We have a community organization through Rec and Ed that's offering some weekend workshops that seeds the community. We have our Spring Festival coming up on May 9th. You are invited. Board members have attended in past years, and we'd love to see you there. That is sponsored by our Youth Council. And then we have outdoor service events happening as well, where families can come out, get their hands in the soil and do some good on the landscape. We have expanded our prairie plots and our rain gardens. We now have three rain gardens on site that we've developed with students, and we're continuing to try to manage invasive species on the property, which is quite a task. We have a native plant nursery program where we develop or grow seedlings, and we also have, um, a solar canopy that's being installed. So this is really exciting. It's currently in in the process of installation, this is going to offset 100% of the annual electricity use for the site, which of course has great environmental benefit and cost savings for the school district and will also double as a sheltered outdoor space. Because it's a canopy, it's going to be a taller installation, so it will provide shade and some precipitation cover. And then finally, we're happy to share that in a CTE environmental science classes in development, the hope is that it will be

launched next year and housed at Skyline High School. And then after a renovation of an additional classroom at the Freeman Center, move over to Freeman in the 2728 school year. Um, this is also a really exciting thing. So we have a signage package that's getting installed at Freeman. Uh, this was initially developed in partnership with the Graham Institute at the University of Michigan. We had some students that helped us with research, design and some initial content development. Sarah and I have finished this project in. The materials are now published. These are wayfinding signs to help visitors find their way around this apse. Natural area site use guidelines so that visitors use the site appropriately, and interpretive signage to teach about the habitats and the ecological restoration work that's going on. Um, in the middle photo is a kiosk that a student actually built. She's here tonight, Margaret. She's on our youth council, and she built the kiosk as part of her goals. Uh, goals. Girl Scouts gold award project. And so that's where the welcome sign is going to be installed. And then there'll be other signage that are installed throughout the campus. We also don't want to acknowledge a local artist and AAPs parent, Ashley Ambrosio, who happens to also be my sister in law. Uh, Ashley developed a beautiful new logo for the Freeman Center. We love the initial logo that was developed and launched with the Freeman Center in 2018. We felt that a Blue bird would be a more appropriate logo for the Freeman Center, given the habitat types that we have there, and an animal that students are much more likely to experience during their time on site. So you can see the logo there, and that's going to be integrated into all of the new signage, which I think will provide a really polished and professional look as students and other visitors come to our site youth Council, you're going to hear from them shortly. We have some representatives here tonight. This is an extracurricular club made up of high school students

from across Ann Arbor. We have 26 students in this year's cohort. It's our biggest year because we have a lot of seniors. And so we knew we knew we needed to have a big year because we're going to have a lot of turnover next year. Um, it is guided by its mission to promote environmental literacy and sustainability. And it is a youth adult partnership. So I'm currently serving as the adult liaison, which I have since 2019. And this extracurricular club is funded by the A to C fund. So it has been able to continue throughout this year because of that funding source, which we're grateful for. Um, the A to C fund is now 25 years old. It was started in 2001. It is managed by the Ann Arbor Area Community Foundation, and it is designed to extend the school district's ability to offer hands on, inquiry based science experiences. It is something that anyone can donate to, and it is an awesome way that we extend the district's capacity to give kids these great science learning experiences. And with that, we just want to share kind of a looking ahead. So our goals are to maintain high quality programming that models best practices for outdoor learning and motivate students to engage in real world science. We want to continue to develop and improve the grounds of the Freeman Center through restoration based education projects, and we do hope to expand environmental learning offerings to additional grade levels and courses when resources allow us to do so. So thank you. Um, our website is a pretty big one. It's public facing. It has a lot of different information about our programming, volunteering opportunities. People can sign up for the Friends of Freeman newsletter on that site, or even support the A to C fund. So we've linked it here for you or and the public to be able to access more information about the program. With that, I'm going to say thank you. Um, if there are questions or comments, we could either take

those now or we could open up our short time for our Youth Council students to present and take questions at the end. What do you suggest? Let's hear from the students. Okay, great. Let's come on up. Here you are. And, um, yes, here's our youth council representatives tonight. And I don't need to say more. Take it away. The Freeman. Environmental Youth Council is a district wide leadership group that brings students together from APS high schools to collaborate around critical environmental issues. The mission of the Freeman Environmental Youth Council is to promote environmental literacy and sustainability through youth advocacy and decisive action. We recognize the power of a passionate student collective to inspire, coordinate and champion local initiatives to spark global change for future generations. The Youth Council aims to support existing green clubs and district initiatives, as well as to organize its own annual service projects and educational events. Students gain leadership, communication and environmental advocacy skills as they carry out this important work. The Council functions with a youth Adult partnership framework, with students taking on legitimate leadership responsibilities and an adult liaison providing supervision, training, guidance and resources. AARP's Environmental Education e lead teacher, Corte Ambrosio serves as the adult liaison. The Freeman E center is the council site for meetings, events and projects. The A2 C fund has provided financial support for the Youth Council through its first six years. We meet every other Monday for an hour and 45 minutes, but additional virtual check ins, off week activities and other events are added on to the calendar so that we can ensure projects get completed and implemented while helping our council bond, we use a rotating facilitation model with two Youth Council members who volunteer to facilitate each meeting. With help from Mr. Massino, they meet on zoom once during the two week break between meetings, and come up with an opening, closing and then a meeting agenda for our meeting. This lets all of our Youth Council members get a chance to lead. We also have an organizing team, which is a group of five students who were selected by their peers to help

guide the council throughout the year. They assist in the recruitment process, um and planning for the year and serve as a smaller group of students to take point on projects early in the year and lead within their subcommittees. Um, we conduct our application process at the beginning of each school year, which is open to ninth through 11th grade. Students at all APS. High schools. There are first written response questions which focus on motivation to join Youth Council. Past leadership experiences and ideas the applicant would bring to the group. After that, there are interviews run by current Youth Council members. It is a selective process with only about 5 to 10 applicants admitted each year. Based on the number of open seats from members who have graduated, and with the goal of creating a council that is representative of the Ann Arbor Public School. High school body. High school. Student body. This council is a good fit for students who want to meet like minded students from other high schools and take part in hands on volunteering or environmental education and advocacy projects. We organize our work into three subcommittees service, Education and Advocacy and Action. The Service Subcommittee aims to get ourselves and our community involved in the environment through engaging events and hands on service to establish a greener future. Examples of past projects are. Subcommittee has worked on include hose holding, cafeteria waste audits at various high schools across Ann Arbor and helping restore native habitats around the Freeman Environmental Education Center campus. This year, our subcommittee has been working on a promotional film and poster boards to inform the younger AAPs community about what Youth council is, what we do, and how to join. We will soon be helping to spread native flower and grass seed in areas where spring prescribed burn will be conducted. We have also been planning our annual Spring Festival, which will take place on May 9th at Freeman. All AAPs community members are invited to attend. We hope the service subcommittee's work encourages fellow members of our community

to get involved in bringing about a positive attitude regarding environmental action. The Education. Subcommittee's goal is to educate students on environmental issues. foster enthusiasm for environmental stewardship, and empower students to. Create change. Examples of our past projects include visiting elementary school classrooms to educate about topics like recycling, and hosting a game night where high school students played a climate change game called solutions. Each year, we also lead Youth Council's booth at the Ann Arbor Earth Day Festival. This year, our subcommittee's biggest project has been creating a document that educates about the harmful environmental impacts of AI, which we shared with members of AAPs. IT department. As a result of that, two of our members have joined AAPs AI Student Council before the end of the school year. We also are planning to work on a series of videos that educate about the AAPs recycling framework to be used in classrooms across AAPs. These videos will cover topics like where the recycling goes after it leaves the classroom, and what materials can be recycled. We hope that our work encourages APS to keep environmental impacts in mind when designing curriculum and adopting new technology within the district. The Advocacy and Action Subcommittee aims to raise awareness about environmental issues. We advocate for what we believe in through sharing resources, political action and holding people in power accountable. Examples of past projects include leading a waste reduction workshop, presenting the closing speech at last year's A2 Climate Teaching and Organizing a lending system for teachers to check out the educational board game solutions to use in their classes. For over a year, our subcommittee has been working on an idling reduction initiative with the hope of reducing emissions and improving air quality for students on AAPs campuses. We've shared an idling

reduction campaign overview with district leadership, garnered PTO support, and advocated for environmental changes to the new district busing contract. Looking forward, we plan to encourage other forms of transportation work with administrators to spread information to students and parents, and to post idling reduction signage around school campuses. We wish to ask for your support with the Idling Reduction Campaign. Thank you for. the opportunity. To share our Council's work. We look forward to bringing a recommendation. To the board about the. Idling reduction. Campaign. So we can extend the benefits of the campaign. To all. AAPs students. Staff, and families. Additionally, we ask that AAPs continues to provide opportunities for. students to engage in environmental advocacy. Our experiences participating in Freeman Environmental Youth Council have been incredibly meaningful for all of us, and we hope more students throughout the district have similar opportunities. Thank you for your time. Thank you all so very much. Trustees, are there any questions or comments? Um, first of all, I just wanted to say thank you so much. Um, students you make in our public schools proud. You make us proud. Just being here tonight and presenting. Um, I just wanted to say congratulations to Dave Segal. Um, as a former second grade teacher at Burns Park, I had the pleasure of going out on many environmental field trips with Mr. Siegel. That's what we called him. And I would have to say, I think I was more excited about going on these field trips than my students were, because he just made it such a great experience. So, um, if he's watching tonight and I hope he is, um, I just wanted him to know that Mrs. Wilkes really appreciated all that he did for

our for our classes. And I also wanted to say that this brings back memories about winter survival. When my kids went through winter survival and, um, the environmental learning, uh, coincides with arts and letters. Um, that was really an eye opener for me, and I'm really excited to hear how literacy, the literacy curriculum is actually embedded into the environmental learning that's going on. So, um, and I'm sure, Miss Linden, you probably got excited when you heard that as well. So, um, just thank you for this presentation. It's just been really, um, exciting to hear that so much is going on at the Freeman Center. I've never actually been over to the Freeman Center. Um, and I do hope to make my way over there very soon, so thank you. Oh, and one other thing. Um, I actually worked with your mom at Burns Park. Uh, Nancy and so, um, please tell her I said hello. All right. Thank you. Trustee Schmidt. Well, we're counting on you to be the future leaders. Oh, good start. Just the mascot. Again. I echo my colleagues. Congratulations on your great work. I did not see a list of their names in your presentation. And I don't know if you all introduced yourself. Um, could you quickly give us your names? I mean, I know your parents are probably watching. Oh, no. I'm sorry. Yeah. Yeah, that would be wonderful. Your year. Any. It's your time. So whatever you want to share with us. I'm Paloma Jackson Rubinstein. I'm a junior at pioneer. Thank you. I'm Payton Peters and I'm a senior at pioneer. All right. Go, pioneers. I'm Josie Simpson, and I'm a senior at community. I'm Luke bonnell, I'm a senior at Huron. Margaret Sands and I'm a senior at Skyline.

High. I'm Elisa Glick. I'm a junior at pioneer. I'm Henry Remington, I'm a junior. Skyline. Wonderful. Thank you so much, guys. You know, I just. Wanted to recognize that. And, you know, being the old person on the board, I remember when we were envisioning this for you all. I remember taking a walk with other board members and looking at this field, going like, what are we going to do? And worried about the neighbors if they would welcome our students once we really fully occupied the building? And I have not been there in a pre-COVID. Um, so yeah, I think we all need to do a field trip as a board thing to see the wonderful work you've done. Um, there's so much opportunity here. So thank you for making it all happen. I appreciate you. All right, well, make sure we get that invitation. What time? May 9th. One. Two. Three. Okay. Thank you. Wonderful. Plug that. Well, thank you all so very much. We really appreciate it. Have a great night. Thank you. Thank you all. All right I believe that brings us down to 8.3. And that is the artificial intelligence update. Now I'll turn it over to Superintendent Parks. Thank you, president Feaster. We have another group coming forward to provide the AI update. If you remember, uh, Doctor Kallstrom and team earlier in the fall came and presented information on their initial work. And now, um, this is, uh, the the spring update to that work. So I will let Doctor Kallstrom get us started and do some introductions of the team here. Thank you for having us. This evening. Um, we do. Love. Our environment, you know, even

though we're in technology, we love our environmental friends. And we do have two that sit. On our AI council. So it's really nice to to, you know, cross create together. Right. Um, there is a slide deck that should get pulled up. Uh, but while we're waiting, I'll get us started. So we've been working methodically and intentionally. Those words mean those are important words. Um, over the past several years on what AI looks and feels like in K-12 education. We've worked with many different stakeholders groups to understand the utility. First, of AI. It's purpose, it's place, it's processes. With more than 50% of teens saying they have used AI for finding info and doing schoolwork, according to Pew, in October of 2025, we question, do students really know why? When, when not, and how to use AI properly? The question before us this evening is probably less about should we or should we not use AI? Um, but it really needs to be when AI, which AI and how AI what we are proposing tonight through a multi-year study practice collaboration some more practice series of presentations, more collaboration, some piloting, some in some secondary classrooms, some research, some lessons learned. Uh, we're proposing a PD pathway for both staff and students to become AI literate. We're proposing spaces for staff to practice using AI for workplace efficiencies and designing some. The word is some AI enabled lessons. Uh, spaces for secondary students to practice their AI skills in an environment that is built with

oversight, strong learning, design principles, and grounded in our district curriculum. Uh, we're using existing district and federal policies to start while our state of Michigan launches their AI framework shortly. Uh, we'd like to share AI principles. The why, the how, the what with our staff, our families, and the students. And we'd like to embrace our AI pledge and our AI Bill of rights resources that you're going to learn something really interesting at the end of the night about. And finally, we'll be launching a series of AI web pages so that we can be transparent about the work that we do tonight. We're excited to be here and share our AI design process steps with you all. So I'm going to pass the mic around. You can go to slide three. Uh, pass the mic around to all of our friends. Uh. You guys can. Start off with us first. Yeah. My name is Isaac, and I'm a senior here on high. School. My name is. Oops. Sorry. My name is Max, and I'm also a senior here on high school. My name is Roman. I'm a junior at Skyline High School. My name is Makiya Alexander. I am assistive technology coordinator. I work out of the Office of Special Education, and I'm a member of the Instructional Technology Consulting. Team. Uh, Jennifer Colby, instructional technology consultant for the district and also, um, district department chair for secondary library services and a member of ITC. Melissa Gordon, here on high school business. And career and technology education instructor. Uh, I'm. Katie Bellows. I'm also an instructional. Technology consultant. Chris Thomas. I'm a teacher at Scarlet and Instructional Technology. When I can.. So before you on the screen is

how we're growing. Um, this is just a small representation of a very large student and staff and a larger population. Um, if you look up on the how we're growing, you'll notice all of the items that are bolded up there. Those were done in partnership with our students. So this initiative was led from the students at the beginning, very different for the school district, but well received by everybody. So far we've taken we said this at the cabinet one day, planes, trains and automobiles. We bring our story presentation tonight with a lot of vetting across a lot of different stakeholder groups. And that's kind of where we want. To start. The story today is the students. They are the center of what we do. as educators in the district. But we also started tapping our students very early on to lead this transition forward. They are the ones that are impacted. They are going to be that native population that grow up with AI. And so why not start with that brilliant group of workers and work with our students? So I want to lead that into having our kids start the story for us. We're sorry. It's. Yeah. Sorry. You're just. A teacher. Hi. Yeah. There old. Ann Arbor Public Schools recognizes the importance of educating students in artificial intelligence and new technologies. These technologies are out of the box there. The cat is out of the bag, so to speak. And it is really important that students are prepared to make ethical and smart decisions with these new technologies. Um, they're already being used, and it is our goal to push students in the right direction. So we're approaching AI through

various best practices and working with people in the district, from students to staff to families, making sure AI is used as a supplement and not as a replacement. And really, this focuses on what we do in our classrooms, in our schools, every day we focus on lifting all of our students up. So we're going to do the same thing with our AI policies, procedures, and best practices. We're thinking about all of our students and how this is a this is a an opportunity to lift our students up. So with any tool that we provide to students and staff in the district, we have an evaluation system, and it's the Swat evaluation system stands for strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. So when we talk about strengths with um AI tools, we want to make sure our students are future ready. We want to make sure that we have feedback for how our tools are being used or could be used. We want to make sure that we are enhancing accessibility for all of our students, and that through our partners, um, across the district, with our teachers and our instructional staff in general, that we have more human centered in class learning interactions. And then the weaknesses include environmental issues. We do not deny that at all. And so we want to make make sure that our students are in our staff are making smart choices about their AI use and all their technology use in general. And so opportunities as a special educator, I'm really excited about the opportunities that this offers for our students with disabilities. Um, we have a long list of opportunities that we've already listed. Um, the Bill of rights and connecting to existing frameworks. Our district framework for equitable education. But so many opportunities for students with disabilities to access the curriculum. Um, accommodations,

pathways to learning that they wouldn't necessarily have on ramps to help them access and engage with the curriculum. And we are very mindful of the threats. Um, they're always changing. Um, this group, the Instructional technology team, always looks at what what is technological dependence? When is cognitive overload versus cognitive misuse versus a variety of other things? Uh, our, student council talked about the ethical decision making. It's really near and dear to their heart when when we use a powerful tool like an AI tool, and then we have something neat to show you for intentional issues, I think what's most important is looking at some of the positional statements. You'll notice across the bottom, we we march together with the MBA, with the NEA, uh, you know, our our union bodies, we march in partnership with every association that's out there. Our math associations, our literacy associations, our IB associations, our curriculum associations. So we don't come to you tonight with our own ideas. We come with borrowed, vetted, re crafted for for what would work in Ann Arbor public schools. And so we want you to know we we sit closely with all of our partners.. And as we're thinking about liberating good ideas, this is, uh, this this is a good idea. We liberated it, spoke uh, it spoke to the core of what we believe in, in our public schools. And Isaac's going to come up and share here in a second. Just full disclosure. This is my kid. I'm so proud of him. Okay. But, Um. Yeah, one of one of my kids, he's not the only. Anyway. So,

look, we we have a belief system that we we are doing this for our students. We have a core curriculum. That's that is that is important, that reflects the values of our community and is high quality. So we are going to build that up and use our AI tools to, to support that. Um, we want to use those AI tools to return any additional time to the most important thing that we do as educators in the district, which is building relationships with our students and our community. Um, we do that with something we like to call the AI sandwich. So we talk about humans. Humans start with quality outputs. If you can put those quality outputs into AI, uh, the AI is going to help you kind of refine it, work it. Uh, and then the humans are going to finish it off by completing that iteration. But Isaac, do you want to talk about this for core and where it came from and how this all worked? Yeah, absolutely. So at our. Conference at the ASA, at the National Superintendent conference surrounding AI. Usage. There's a presentation that discussed. Four pillars. Of AI usage. And what's what's. Really important. And we we thought it was really a. Great framework and decided to modify it and adapt it for our our core purposes. Uh, and what we settled on was time reinvested in learning quality and integrity of learning, staff confidence and well-being. And the. The. show me your. Workflow moments and. Together we we think that these. core pillars. Are what really focuses us on the human first AI help human finish. Because at the end of the day, what we want is AI to be a tool to enhance learning, not inhibit it. Um, so. We have come up with new questions. These are our new four driving questions. As we've gone through this process, all informed by data that we're gathering throughout the process. So the first question is thinking about what it means

for students to be AI literate and what that means at different grade ranges, and then also. What does it mean. For staff to be AI literate. For our instructional staff members? And what does that look like? Um, with. The tools that we're using, making sure. that that generative AI tools that. We're using. Have been scaffolded, properly researched, properly sharing with everybody and then modeling that for our students when we do demonstrate things for them or teach them how to use it. And I should just point out the definition of AI literacy up there to make sure that we all understand that. This slide is really special to me. Um, Street data. Um. Informs what we. Do in the classroom. All. Of the. Time, and it especially informs our decisions and special education and how we support students and what the street data tells us already about AI is that students are already using this like they're already using it. They're already using it. They're already using it. We don't have the option of saying, oh, should we let students use AI like they're already using it? So it's our responsibility to teach them how to use it as, as Isaac pointed out, a tool to enhance, not inhibit for access, for opportunity. And the street data is telling us it's already being used by the students. Let's teach them how to use it and effective and meaningful ways. And then our fourth question, um, we're still working on answering this, and it's a process. And we'll come back to you in the fall as we get more information. We want to make sure that the process of growing AI, literacy and students is a is building process. Um, we wanted to start in elementary grades three through five, and we want it to grow throughout their time in

APS until they graduate high school, in accordance with federal law, students will not be using AI tools until sixth grade, but it is our goal to make sure that they are exiting elementary school with a basic KSA. That's knowledge, skills and attitudes. We want students to understand what AI is, what AI is meant to do, and we want them to be able to understand the difference between AI generated content and non AI generated content. We also want students graduating from fifth grade to be curious about AI. We want them to have questions, and we want them to understand that it is an actively growing, um, that is a growing tool and that they will be exposed to it in the later grades. A lot of this process will be driven by our librarians, who are doing a fantastic job getting, uh, service sessions to elementary school students in grades four and five. Yeah. So once students are aware of AI, we want to kind of get them AI literate. So in grades 6 to 8, students will actually engage with AI during digital wellness, during advisory class. And they will learn when or when not to use AI in class. They will also learn. They will also practice using and evaluating AI. And through that understanding that, uh, AI shapes bias and there is bias around it. Uh, this all ensures that students understand the how behind AI responsible use AI, and the responsible use of AI. And the goal is students are somewhat AI literate or mostly AI literate. Just to. Tag on to what to Roman. Said this in the middle. Schools that. This would. Be happening during our. Literacy and digital. Wellness sessions. I'd be. Built into that curriculum. And then once we hit high. School, so ninth through. 12th grade, this is this is

when students will will start working with AI. Tools, uh, more independently. We've we've scaffolded. Out it. Out so that these tools build with students as they themselves grow. And once they hit high school, they'll have their first taste of using these tools in in the classroom. Um, this will be student or students will use these, but it will be teacher led. And slowly more and more hands off as as students learn how to use these tools. Um, in high school, our goal is to have AI literate graduates as as we defined AI literate literacy earlier, but the whole point here is that we're growing from grades 3 to 12. We're growing along with the tools and not just how to use them, but why, when, when to? Why not? So you're going into the real world with experience and knowledge on how to use these tools. So what this. Looks like for our staff. Is making sure. that they are aware of tools that are available. And last year we went through a cycle with multiple different trials of tools and did um, staff training on them through, uh, Schoology course. Self-driven Schoology course, and then um, we chose tools and then this fall, our beginning teacher, PD, we gave sessions on the different tools. Uh, sessions for teachers that were ready to go and then sessions who were more apprehensive about talking about how this could fit into their workflow. And that's the biggest keys. It follows along that curriculum. So we're starting to really try to engage our teachers where they are, whether they're beginning this journey or whether they're already seasoned pros at it, and making sure we're supporting everyone along the pathway. So if you're just starting to learn about it, we're right there to help build those digital wellness

skills. Also, with those adults in the room, as well as the students. And then working through with our different vendors and our different partners, obviously, to engage with AI and different opportunities for professional learning through either means with us or through the vendor as well, and then giving them that support and making sure that we've got the guidelines in place so that they can run alongside with AI. So again, to echo what Isaac had said, so that we are able to learn, you know, the why, the how, the how not and making sure that everyone is using these particular tools responsibly and modeling those appropriate responses. So we just want to make sure that you understand the AI literacy is part of our whole digital ecosystem. When we talk about the instructions that our students get, this is not something new that we've just decided we're going to. Oh, open up your computers. We're going to talk about AI literacy. This has been happening for years in our school libraries, at our, um, all levels. Our school librarians work with our students to help them understand what is now currently called our acceptable use policy, that we're in the process of revising, and we will call it our responsible use policy. And so in our school libraries, we're already teaching media literacy. Digital literacy. Now in, um, wrapping in AI literacy, our research skills and our literacy skills, both print and digital. And this is just increasing our students digital readiness. And since this is the library slide, I want to read my favorite quote. Since I've been working with this team, um, literacy today means developing digital literacy or technology handling skills, much as it meant concepts about print and book handling skills in the past. And so as our world continues to change, this is important work like that, we teach our students how to operate in the world in which they live, and for students with disabilities, they often have to learn to use these things earlier than what the

district has slated for elementary students to use it in order to access and have an on ramp to the curriculum. And so this would give them the opportunity to continue to work alongside their peers. And look forward to more information about the school library program. On April 22nd. She snuck. That in. I always like how you. On ramp. That's really nice. Um, so we're going to bring you to our current reality. What are our AI activities and what we're up to? So these were original questions the last time we came to the board, we had four essential questions. And we were really trying to find out the utility, the utility of AI and what it meant. We ask just gobs. I don't even know the numbers, so we'll call it gods tonight of stakeholders all around and up in the right hand corner is a word cloud. And the biggest ones came to the top. So they said we can get behind AI or we use AI, but we must always keep it human. So remember when we talked earlier humans first AI helps humans finish. That's purposeful. That's that's how we mean to encourage this throughout. Uh, another big thing fits right along with with making accessibility. Accessibility was the next largest one on when we put all those words together, support, instruction, learning, use. So we learned that literacy has to be the next natural step. And a unified literacy plan, a track both for students and a track, both for Stax staff. Uh, along the way, we also know, um, having access also along the way leads to equity. And we've got to be getting we talked a

lot last time together about digital equity. This is a piece about having the access. So having an infrastructure that supports this kind of learning. Now going into the literacy of the learning, teaming with our instructional partners on the instructional portion, because we're not creating things, we're going to be using our curriculum to do this work, building the trust and the protections for student, uh, data privacy and security, and then the opportunities that will exist as our students rise up. This is to show you our growth over time. This will probably be the last time you see this. Planning guidance. This is how we've done our work over four years. This is a snapshot from last year to this winter. It's kind of like the stoplight. The colors are. So you can see when we first started we were learning. We did a lot of learning. We did a lot of outreach. Uh, did a lot of learning, a lot of collaborating. And we're starting to really fill in a lot of the green. We probably will move to another AI maturity model the next time you see us, but our goal is to finish it, put it all in green. So our route today, we started thinking about our base camp. This is where interested educators and students started kind of learning about AI. But at the same time, we also started kind of reaching out and looking for our people. Um, so as we moved and started learning and collaborating and co-creating in our in Ann Arbor, we were very intentional. As Heather mentioned earlier, about making sure that there were voices at the table that represented, um, our own stakeholder group, our own students and staff, but also that we were pulling in experts locally and nationally. The Michigan Virtual AI lab,

uh, we we worked with University of Michigan. We continued to work with our our digital wellness curriculum, uh, and experiences for our students. You know, so there's it's been a long and winding trail, but boy, has it been a good time. Um, it's also been super frustrating, but, uh, you know, I think this is this is this is where we are. Uh, as things change and evolve and as we come up with good ideas, and then we see students implements, uh, maybe other ideas that that are not on our word, on our trail that we, we, we realize that there's not just one summit, there's just multiple. So, like, every time we, uh, we reach the top, we realize there's there's more in front of us. And that is that is what learning is. So here we are today, kind of leading our expedition, um, you know, taking our own expertise, our own experiences, uh, and story, sharing it with other with others. And we we're, we're proud of the work that we've done. We're proud of our student council. We we have our leaders here today. But there's, you know, there's two dozen behind them, uh, that have been contributing to this work, not to mention all of our students, uh, that have that have shared their good ideas in the data that we've used. And, um, we're we're proud to say that the work that we've done here is being represented and held up. Uh, not locally at the state level and nationally. We're super proud. So if we're moving to the next slide, I think we want to kind of share some of these stories real quick. So, uh, we'll we'll turn it right back over to our students. In November of 2022. Open first released ChatGPT to the public. Um, AI it both generative and predictive AI models already existed at that point, but November of 2022 was the first time generative AI became relevant in the classroom. Um, Isaac, Roman and myself as early adopters, immediately recognized three core

inequalities in the system those being, uh, in access and inequality in perceptions of AI. So we had some students that wouldn't understand anything about AI, and some students that felt confident in describing what it was. We saw inequity in usage and access to AI. So some students were able to start using these tools right away, and some students were not. Whether that be through lack of internet, lack of computer, lack of home access to those tools. And our third was in lack of general openness. And that's not really an inequality. That was something that everybody struggled with what people necessarily wanted to commit themselves to in terms of these tools, some students were very open to using them right away, and some students wanted to pace themselves. They weren't sure if they felt comfortable using them, whether it be through privacy, whether it be through general unwillingness to trust generated answers. And our goal was to bridge those immediately. Max talked a lot about all the the inequities, and I like to call what he described a gray area. Uh, we had this giant gray area that existed in disparities between students and other students, between students and staff, between staff and other staff there, there was a lot of confusion and uh, uh, people who weren't on the same page. And our goal was we recognized that, um, Pandora's box has been open and it's not going away. So what we needed to do was level the playing field. So our goal was to create something that could level the playing field and minimize those gray areas. Along with what these guys just said, we were very interested in privacy, equitable accessibility and more. And

these really shaped our ideas going into this. I think. One go back. One go back. There you go. We also believe students and staff have both rights and responsibilities when it comes to AI. So we surveyed students and stakeholders around the district and using that data, we drafted the AI Bill of rights. Again, it was focused on privacy, equitable safety, but also responsible use and AI literacy. And this has been revised over and over again and is currently on the eighth draft. Right alongside those rights and responsibilities, we developed an AI misuse flowchart because like I said earlier, we had a lot of these gray areas, which meant there's a lot of room for mistakes. And our goal here is at obviously as a school district is to learn from those mistakes and to not punish people for them. Our goal was to create a flow chart where, uh, where conversations could happen that that aren't accusative, but rather, um, work towards finding and understanding and doing better in the future. This this flowchart, um, was modified from heavily modified from a Michigan virtual, uh, similar Michigan virtual flowchart. Um, and we found great success in it. Uh, we, as I mentioned, um, the goal was not to accuse but to fix. Um, any issues that that arise by, uh, you know, eliminating that gray area. Add on to what Isaac just said we wanted. We felt it was very important to make sure our misuse flow chart, uh, held student teacher conversation at the forefront. Um, again, as

Isaac said, these are meant to restore. And we'll talk more about that on the next slide. But these are meant to restore any mistakes. And we will obviously want to build student teacher relationships as it pertains to these new technologies. So it was very important to us to make sure that those conversations were clearly mapped out and that there was a way to go forward. From there. And that was such an important key thing. As we said, it's those relationships that we really want to maintain, and it's about understanding. It's not about punitive reactions. It's about positivity leading with positive intent and understanding. And the same thing goes for if there was a mistake made on behalf of teachers, we make them where we're adults as well. But yes, we make mistakes. And how can we remedy that? Once you have damaged that relationship with the student? Good luck trying to get them back. If you won't admit to it. If you won't have that conversation, and if you've broken down that relationship, they're not going to learn with you. So one way we are trying to prepare and support our staff in moving forward is building this, uh, Restorative Conversations flow chart to try to empower educators to get into that conversation with students again, about understanding and mending those relationships, because those are the most important thing. And I know there's going to be talking about it, too. A lot of these tools. That we are putting out there, we aren't writing necessarily AI in the conversation or in the title, because this can be extrapolated in many different things. It's not just about AI misuse. And so we want to make sure that we are across the board supporting all of our stakeholders, students, staff and community alike. Um, so just as the restorative Conversations flowchart. was developed based on feedback that we got from our TLC membership, we also just recently created this piece based on feedback questions

like, well, where does AAPs stand on AI? We were missing that piece. So this is something that's. really in our very second or third iteration, and it's ready to be workshopped. But we just want to make sure that our community understands our belief. This human first AI helps human finishes, guidance, our commitments to all of these, um, uh, ways that we are considering AI use in our district. And then at each level, what those, um, what that means for our students. And. As we mentioned again, is we want to make sure that we are fully supporting everyone with their decisions on what they are using within the district. And so we have a ton of resources that are available to you. And we'll be talking about that again in just a moment. Uh, so much of this too, has been student driven. And again, I want to make sure that I'm reiterating that at every step is so often the students are always the second thought. The adults in the room make it and say, okay, this is coming to you when you're doing this. And so the decisions we've made with the construction of all these different resources was very intentional to make sure that those on the ground floor were key in constructing and building these particular things. And so we are incredibly lucky here that we have been able to have students from across, uh, seven of our secondary schools involved in the direct creation of so many of our resources, so much so that we have had these local, state and national conversations because people are really happy that, yes, we say student centered and we actually mean it. And so we want to make sure that we're highlighting everything that you're seeing on this. Has had student involvement in it. And in many cases they are the forefront. So we're here today asking for your support in moving these

resources that we've presented from draft to expected district guidelines. We've mentioned how this framework helps eliminate those gray areas and develop AI literate students. And we think this work is very important and only going to get more important in the future. When these tools have been put into practice in classrooms, we've seen great success. Um, Isaac and I both participated in a Spanish class that, uh, used our AI, um, rights and responsibilities guidelines to effectively use AI in a lesson. And these tools have already been put into practice in some A2 virtual classes and seen success in those. And we. Are talking. About this. Concept of reaching the summits. And we've put that pluralization at the end of summits very intentionally, because this is something that we are going to continue or continue to keep scaling, that we are never done. It is a constant reiteration of everything that we are doing, and we're always circling back. And so we want to kind of move forward on this because again, everything we are doing is very, very intentional. Which brings us to some common governance. So this is, I would say in the United States, I think, Eastern Europe, Europe and the Eastern Union do a much better job than us. But in the United States, there really is not a true governance model. So we we are using one that we've kind of co-created off of cosign, which is a networking site, and in partnership with Michigan Virtual and a few others. Um, this will eventually be a wheel. But for today, it's a table. So there's five points to it. The first one is governance and policy. So we'll follow clear rules. And uh, for student

protections, we currently have an active AUP that can handle what's going on with some some technology use. We also have some federal rules and acts that we must follow. So they hold precedence. The district has a student handbook, a code of conduct, just like our acceptable use is going to move to excess acceptable responsibility, responsible use. Moving forward. The handbook is also under review and will work in partnership and workshop against those two. And then the state of Michigan hasn't created the framework yet. Um, on Tuesday I'm going to let the cat out of the bag as as you young people say, Tom, superintendent Parks received a letter from the Michigan Department of Education, the Office of Educational Technology, asking for permission to use our AI rights and responsibilities documentation. They are research. They've researched it. They are vetting it now with their school board, and they believe our intentional, methodical and practiced approach to safe, ethical practices need to be set as an exemplar for the state of Michigan. Since they aren't ready, they have reached out to us to be a partner with them. I don't know if we've received. It was really exciting. The work is the the the the lift is heavy, the work is continued. It's filled with, you know, Swot, strengths, opportunities, weaknesses and threats. Well worth it when we get that that nod from the state of Michigan. Um, moving on. We have technical and security pieces and how oops. Go back to that last slide. Sorry. Moving on on on the little table. Sorry. I will be clear from now on. Uh, there is a technical and

security governance. Uh, we follow the NIST, which is the national uh, technology standards, uh, for, you know, which schools should follow. Um, it's, uh, it's an AI risk management framework that we use, and we use this cosine AI maturity tool. Um, we do ongoing privacy and security monitoring. We always have in this district. And our tools that we offer are three, not not five, not ten, not 20, but three that have been carefully vetted. And they only get enacted when teachers drive it. So there's a lot of intention to that. Um, in implementation, we've been doing this multiple years. Our stakeholder group is pretty large. We still want to grow it even bigger, and we keep our eye always on the prize of, uh, safe technology, uh, interactions. Uh, we work closely in partnership. The instructional practice comes from, uh, Don Linden's team. And so we work closely in partnership with them to ensure that our work, we're not creating things for students to do. We're using the district adopted curriculum, the guaranteed curriculum for all students. And then there is a monitoring and human oversight piece to this. And I'm sorry I took that whole table. I just did it. I just did it. Sorry. Um, so. We oh, this had you. But like I said, okay. Um, so we are going back to getting the feedback. Our teacher said, I need a syllabus statement. I need something to put into my syllabi that I can make sure my students understand exactly how AI might be used or may not be used in my class. And then that also moved to, um, assignment specific guidance to there are a lot of these stoplights out there. We created this one to fit what we thought would best

fit apps, and it's a Google doc, really, that teachers can adapt, um, specifically for each assignment. And Isaac's going. To say. Yeah, our stoplight system is something that every student can easily recognize. Um, it might be adapted in the future. It can be adapted by teachers, but the goal is to have something that you can easily identify, uh, as the extent of your AI usage on an assignment. Uh, if you see red, you know, that's none. If you see yellow, you know, there's caveats. And if you see green, that's that's a go ahead. To the extent that we've approved it. Um, it's it's not maybe the most elaborate system, but as we said, it's, it's really to make sure everybody's on the same page in a classroom. Um, and then for students, uh, we provide choice making tools. So this first flowchart would be for thinking about before I do my assignment has my has my teacher given me approval for it? Okay. Then I'm going to go through these questions and decide, is this a tool that I should be using for this assignment. And then post generation, they need to think about if they did use it, did it enhance their learning? Did it replace their learning? Um, could they have done something differently that would have been better? Would have um, garnered better output from the AI tool? So it's it's thinking about using it beforehand and then thinking about how you used it after the fact and then having conversations with your teacher and making sure that your teacher is understanding how you're using it and what you're doing with it. That's our environmental first portion, right? Not everything has to be AI. So this is a place to do a quick check in to make sure.

Yeah. Okay. So, um, we were super lucky to be in a sixth grade Ela classroom. Um, last semester, um, for I think about the second day that students were engaging with one of our tools, Magic School, which will highlight here for the next couple of slides. Um, the teacher created a safe space. There are these magic school student rooms where the teacher creates, decides what tools the students will have access to, and then how exactly how the students will use those tools to benefit their learning. Depending on what the assignment goals are. And so we from that work and from other teachers like Melissa, we started to think about what would the teacher lesson design workflow be if they wanted to incorporate AI into a lesson. And so we came up with these questions. And then as part of that, going along with the the student pre assessment or pre assignment flowchart, they need to think about these questions. Um if they are engaging with AI for an assignment. And so Melissa has actually done quite a few assignments in her uh classes at Huron. And she's just going to highlight a couple things. Hello again. Um, it's been a long time. Um, one of the. Things that we did was, uh, just an entire project in website design where students, we have a gentleman coming in from a Milan area website design firm who's going to come in and present to my website design to students. But in website Design one, we started saying, well, we're using everybody who's using AI out in the in the world to test things. So we took some, uh, websites that we were creating at the very beginning, and we put them. Into a magic school room and asked them to find the errors. If there were any errors, how could we make things more accessible? How could we better understand and create a better website for different individuals? And it was shocking to see what the AI would come up with. And then we as a class would wonder, would

ask one another, um, do we agree with this? Do we disagree with and we'd evaluate what the AI would have to say and make changes if we wanted to, or if we didn't, and if we didn't want to make the change, we'd explain why. If we did want to make a change, then we would explain why we were choosing to make that change. So, um, again, it was being used as a thought partner, as a tool. It was not replacing their learning, but it did give them a different perspective, which I thought was really exciting for them. And a lot of kids who had been a little bit more quiet throughout the semester. All of a sudden were coming up and asking me questions. Jennifer was there to see this, and I go, that kid doesn't talk very often. Um, and can can you can you teach us how to build a bot? And it was amazing how it opened so many doors, um, for our students. And it was incredibly rewarding to see as an educator and just gets you that much more excited to come back the next day and do it again. And it's just been really a lot of fun. So I don't know if anybody saw my t shirt. It says inclusion matters and I wore this on purpose because there are so many students with disabilities included in our general education classrooms. And so this AI makes it easier for teachers in their designing for accommodations and support in real time. And that could be support from the teacher or from a paraprofessional, or from a peer. Um, designing lessons, uh, creating pathways for students, creating a differentiated differentiation techniques, universal design principles, all of these things that might take a long time for a teacher to plan, or for someone who doesn't have training in special education, an AI can help support in that in real time or in a very short amount of time. And on the student side, independence, like AI, can help students become more independent in their learning. Um, and because you had an example, I have a beautiful one right here about

a student who needed some support. And there physics homework and could not remember how to do it, fed it into AI. Got the answer, didn't understand it. Well, tell me why I didn't use this formula instead. And why did you use this formula and didn't explained it? Well, I really don't understand that. Can you explain it like I'm a fifth grader and it gave a different explanation and well, I don't know about I don't understand this portion and just was a thought partner and helping them learn how to do this problem, and that supports independence. I don't remember what happened in class or I didn't carry this in my mind with me to home, but I have this here to help support my learning, so it really is powerful. Um, so then going back to what this magic school journey looks like for a student when they're using the student room? This is an example of, again, that sixth grade classroom where the teacher introduces the unit of folk tale writing. Uh, in November 17th. And then throughout this four week journey, they don't even though the plan is to engage with the AI student room, uh, to help them write their folktale. They don't. They do all this pre-work, right? Like they normally would to learn about the process of writing a folktale. And the AI room is just a tool to help them take their rough drafts, um, to help them with sentence starters, to help them with different types of tools that the teacher decide should be in that space for the students to use. And so it's just a part of the learning. It's it doesn't encapsulate the learning. It's just a tool that is used in the learning. And so, um, the student then before they engage in the room needs to acknowledge all of these

responsibility statements. Um, and then I think, Melissa, do you want to talk about, um, like how your students feel about using the student rooms? Like, as far as responsibility. As far as I think, how so? Say so. I was just thinking about, like, some students weren't necessarily wanting to use it. So it's always been optional. Yeah. It's never fun. It's part of learning is being intentional about being about learning. So, um, when we do have these opportunities, they're not a required opportunity for everybody. If you choose not to use it, that's totally okay. You just have to explain why. Um, but when it comes to the Magic School tool room, some kids are really excited about it. Some kids are a little bit apprehensive, and they'll cite different reasons as to why they are, and we still have conversations and they still work together with their peers and, and continue to communicate with one another regardless if they are actively using it or not. So we're still discussing what's going on. So I think student choice is incredibly important. And again, being very intentional, it's not a part of every single assignment. It's something that we use as a tool when it is a good idea to be using it as a tool or something that can help enhance an assignment. It's not something that is done every with every moment of every day. I should have saved that example for this slide because that happened inside of a magic school room. So I'm going to leave it there. Um, so what this looks like for a teacher, uh, is there's a lot of data. Anytime a teacher creates a room, they can go back. They they can continually monitor each student interaction in the room. And that's what's great about this tool, um, versus something like ChatGPT. We know what our students are doing in the tool. And so we can continue to monitor student activity, see, exactly on the right hand side, the output history, that is, for a specific student, how they were engaging with the

different tools. And sometimes they were using it. Well, sometimes they weren't using it well. And the teacher can read that feedback and then have a conversation with the student about, is this the is this the right tool for you to use in this moment? Should we make a new choice? Um, and then I think Melissa can talk about the flagged output and how things like that happen. So I, I love the way students talk, and I love the fact that when they talk exactly the way that they speak. So I had a student who was asking, again, in website design to why is this not working? Why is this not working? And magic School will not tell you the answer. The beautiful thing about it is that it's not meant to give the answer. It's meant to prompt the student and to push them towards an idea, but to help them get there on their own. Um, so it's inherently like that. It's not, um, we don't have to tell it to do that. It's automatically that way. But I had a student who was having a conversation where I don't understand why this isn't working, and the prompt ask him to look at a specific piece and he goes, oh, shoot, I completely forgot about that. And all of a sudden I get a flag that says, you need to take a look at this person's, uh, presentation or this person's commentary. There's a word in there that's a problem. And I think he was just literally saying, oh, shoot, I can't believe I forgot about it. So I took a screenshot and I sent it to the team. And I said, when I think it went like hashtag, when a kid talks the exact way they type, um, and we all had a good giggle about it. But it's also good to then, you know, have that conversation with them afterwards, you know. Are you aware of the way you're speaking, etc., etc. but, um, it's really valuable information for me. It's also really valuable information for me to then go have those those talks and those interactions with my students based off of the information that this dashboard is giving me and the information that the students are giving me based off of the work that they're creating. So, um, having the the teacher student conversation, um, is still one of those things that is incredibly important and valuable. So one thing that we all know in education is that, uh, skilled teachers provide

learning opportunities that weren't otherwise available. And these these stories really share that. So we we want to build AI literacy in our staff so they can kind of come up with ideas and creative learning opportunities that we haven't even dreamed up yet. So here we are leading the expedition. Um, and we, we want to kind of like take a nod to the past. So educational technology in the back and in, in the, in the before times was really about like engaging our students to, to work on specific skills. But now we're really kind of thinking about, um, educational technology, specifically the inclusion of AI tools thoughtfully, like, how do we design learning environments that deliver equitable instruction that allows our students to engage in opportunities that weren't otherwise possible, that's personalized to them, that's rigorous, that's that's keeping our students and our guaranteed curriculum at the center. Um, so it's it is a it is a shift and it's a shift that's happening quickly, but it's a shift that we we believe in wholeheartedly. This is going to be good for good for our students and learning. And, Andrew, if you here we go. We wanted to like end where we started. Right. Like uh with our AI sandwich and our and our, our priorities. Right. Like we want to return, uh, use AI to return time back to the relationships that are most important in building learning and learning communities in our schools that we start with high quality inputs, that AI helps with those inputs, and that humans finish it, uh, to meet the needs of, of of the assignment of the moments of the project. In every resource we've shared, uh, every, every process we've done and every anecdote that's come up from, like, the classroom, uh, the human centric approach is, is what's important. We're reinvesting time to our learning. Uh, the

it's higher quality learning confidence to eliminate those gray areas. Um, and the show me your workflow moments where, where students aren't just asking for the answers, they're figuring it out. Um, I think really emphasizes our mission, which is, again, the human first AI help human finish. And just. As we always teach in school, right, we tell you what we're going to teach you. We teach you, and then we tell you what we taught you. And that's exactly kind of what we're talking about here. Right? So the what we're really, again, hoping to continue to do is to be that leader within the state, within the nation, and to have your stamp, essentially of support for the guidance that we're giving out there to making sure that our teachers feel empowered and our students feel empowered moving forward with or their decisions to or to not use these particular things. So we have a lot of things that are linked for you to kind of take a peek at. Our AI web page is going to be live next month. And again, as, uh, Heather had already spoiler alert for now, that's fine. Uh, about our AI guidance with the state of Michigan, those things are going to be available as well. We're open for any questions. Thank you all very much. Uh, Trustee Schmidt. This is hard. This is hard stuff. As a teacher, it's very hard to listen to this for me. And. And I'm glad you're bringing up the human component. I mean, I heard someone speak at public comment about, you know, not having our kids staring at screens. And I just think this is a really hard topic. And I know you're tackling this, but, um, so I had a I had a parent tell me something and I'm thinking, okay, where would this parent go with this complaint? You

know, a middle schooler who's teachers using AI to comment on their writing. And the comments didn't even make sense. And they're like, what is going on? So what? What do we have in place for that? So we'd go back to the resources that we had. Um, you know what we love about having students here with us is we want to empower them and have that independence. That would be the student using the flow chart to go back and have that interaction. You know, we love our families, but as our students rise up, they have to be able to interface with their teachers. And so wouldn't you, wouldn't you guys agree? We would send you back. We would send the student back into school the next day, ask to have a private conversation with the teacher, and use that resource to work through it. And as Katie talked about, sometimes faculty have to say, wow, that that was not great, right? Let's let's do this again and let's find a way to do it better. So that's the push that we're looking for to build. You know, if we center our work around students, we want to build that independence and build those relationships to carry them through. And as Isaac mentioned over and over again, just about the gray space, like we are currently kind of living in that gray space. So our asked today to move from draft to adopted helps kind of eliminate some of that gray space. So that way we can help our students and our staff build their AI literacy so that, um, you know, AI is used in a thoughtful and constructive and helpful manner as opposed to to a replacement. Okay, both of. These two. Have real. World. And also it's part of in our draft document for the rights and responsibilities. Part of that, uh, the rights that the student have is clear and open communication. And to hear what those expectations are on both sides. And same

thing for the teachers is that teachers need to be explicit about when they are using AI. If they haven't communicated that with with their students, then that needs to be a conversation that the teacher has as well. We all have responsibilities when using these particular tools, and I think that is a very valid concern from that parent. And yeah, just as Heather said, I think the student hopefully will feel empowered to have that conversation. And if not, then hopefully the the parent can at least follow that train and talk to the teacher and say, can you talk to me a little bit about this? And again, the goal with our flowcharts is again to lead with positivity not being punitive and hoping for positive intent. And out of those conversations. As we talk about developing AI literacy and as we talk about modeling this for our students, one of the things that I've been doing is I'll take an activity and within brisk, which is another tool that we have that's inside of our ecosystem, um, work with the students and say for your first draft of whatever it is that we're working on, let's see what the feedback is from the AI. I'm not grading it this way, but how about we evaluate it together? Um, what feedback are you receiving and do you agree with it or disagree with it? And let's have that conversation together. So again you're having the teacher having that conversation with the student, um, about this information that they're seeing. And I found that to be really helpful too, because then they're actively participating in the conversation, and they're actively thinking about what the AI is telling them. And again, you don't have to make any of the recommendations that are there. But let's think about it. Let's use this as a thought partner. And then you and I have a conversation together. Um, again, it's never used for grading. And that's type of a way. Um, but it's a really great conversation starter for me. Or it has been as I helped teach them AI literacy and whether or not, hey, is this a good idea to do this to get feedback on a draft before you give it to your, uh, to your college professor or to any of your teachers at school? Um, let's see, do we even agree with what's there? So, um, it's been very enlightening.

If I may just make one other point. This has been a long presentation, and I know my board member friends here on don't ask too many questions, but, um. No. Ask away. This is the time. So, um, I always think there's this balance. Um, and I think if we had neuroscientists sitting here with us about the work it takes to learn, especially in our early grades, and I'd go down that literacy road right away here. But and writing, writing is the hardest thing, as old as I am, and as much writing as I do, it's still a lot of work to write that. Um, it's one thing to give an assist, but there's some processing that happens when we write, when we don't have something right it for us. And I brought this up at our last meeting when I talked about Chromebooks and how we should never be reading into something to let it write it for us. And I mean, there is real processing going on in the brain. And so that is just a concern. You don't have to have an answer for that. But I just, you know, I mean, I just saw a talk and I wish I could give you the guy's name saying, this is the first generation of children, it's being suggested are not smarter than their parents. That's troubling. And I'm worried that this is the kind of thing that just makes them more. I'll take care of it here. And I don't have to do that hard work.. As President Wilkes. Okay. Can I just make a really quick comment about that? I just want to remind everybody that our learners are variable, right? And some students need access to this in order to get their ideas on paper. Um, that's one of the things we have to think of are they may need it to help them to formulate something like, we might not get anything from a learner unless we have. So we set some guidelines alongside students and teachers. And also I shared with Concetta the other day, like we try to

inform our parents part of the reason that students are the passive use of technology is what it's really, um, inhibiting our students, like sitting in front of a screen, watching YouTube, watching something. We're talking about, using technology as a tool and not passive use of technology. And so I just really wanted to say that because it's a tool and it's out there and it's not going away, and it's going to be there and and it's going to continue to progress as they learn. And they have to learn how to use it in meaningful ways. Like if we don't do that for them, they get out in the world and they're not able to work. They're not able to perform, they're not able to compete. And so we have to teach them how to use it as a tool. Vice president Wilks, then trustee Muhammad. Yeah, well, first of all, I just wanted to thank Max Isaac and. Roman Roman for your presentation as students. Um, yeah. The whole presentation was was very. Impressive. Um, but but I. Too have some some. I'm a skeptic. Um, as I think Isaac said, or. I'm not sure who said it, but, you know, the, you know, the Pandora's box has been open. We are you know, AI is here and it's here to stay. Um, but again, we we have questions and, um, I think one of one really great question was on slide number eight, and I know we sort of skipped over it. And I'm not necessarily expecting an answer to this question tonight, but how can AI literacy deepen the teaching and learning experience and build lifelong transferable skills without doing all the thinking for both staff and students? I think that's a huge question, and I think that that's probably one of the biggest questions that I have. When I saw that I wanted to

stop, and I know we kind of skipped over it and kept going, but to me, that was the that's the main question right there. And I think it sort of touches on what Trustee Schmidt just, um, talked about. So if you want to, you know, touch on it a little bit, but I think that that's a big concern. Um, that is a great question. This is the question we're studying next. So, um, literacy these are. our current driving questions. We can't answer that one. Today. We have examples of it, but we don't have enough examples of it. This is what we hope to bring back a year from now, from our practice at the end of the 2627 school year. We want to be able to answer this, but why don't you guys step up and share your thoughts on it? And they did note that in. The presentation the first time around, right? I think that's a really important question. And honestly, it's you know, there's a reason it's in the slides. It's because it's important to us to, um, in my personal experience as a student, uh, I, I found that, um, if, if you want to if, if you're going to use it to slack off, it's there to do that. But that's why we're building these frameworks and these specific tools so that you can't offload the work. Um, Miss Gordon was just talking about the the magic school. You can't say, what's the answer? You you're prompted. Um, and in in my personal experience, I use it for things like, uh, I'm, I'm stuck on a chemistry problem at home. Uh, what's what's the next step? I don't really know. Can you can you give me an example? Problem? Uh, how might I work this out in the future? Oh, I understand that. Can you give me an alternative test so that I can practice through that? All all of these steps are helping my learning rather

than inhibiting it where we can't give you a good answer as to what the to that question yet. But we can show you examples where it really has helped rather than hindered. Well, I appreciate that. I just know that this is definitely a question that I'm sure even a lot of folks who may be watching have, and I look forward to to seeing the results of, you know, your studying, your further study to see what becomes of this. Because I this is a big question. I think, again, for me and for a lot of folks. So um, so I look forward to that. Thank you. So Trustee Mohamed and Trustee Basket. Um. So first of all, I'm not we've had these discussions. I'm an educator of graduate students. You know, at the university. We've been discussing the use of AI. When when is it appropriate when it's not. Um, also as a medical professional, even I mean, this is a very highly debated, um, area. Um, and especially when we're trying to teach medical professionals, um, but there has been during these discussions, even like in the College of Pharmacy where I work at, we still have not set a policy for AI because there's so much research that needs to be done. There's still pushback, and also because there's that concern that, um, we may no longer be able to maintain AI. What's going to happen because all the data centers that are happening, the environment. So we may be in a world where that, you know, we're no longer able to maintain AI. How it is today. Um, so I do appreciate the work I truly do. I do appreciate the thought around this. I know it's a very rapidly changing, complex area, new research is coming every day. New guidelines are coming up every day. Um, and I do really appreciate the focus on AI

literacy. I think that's very important. So that, um, and I try to integrate that when I'm teaching is you you want, um, learners to understand what the output is and what it means. So I think having that is very, very important. Um, I am I appreciate you addressing AI equity. Um, the problem is, is we can support it up to K-12. What happens beyond that? That we're going to see inequities. Um, so I, I worry about, um, you know, it's there needs to be a better balance of teaching students the tools, but not having as much exposure because there is going to be an equities in, in K through 12, you're going to have people who have resources to pay for these sophisticated AI tools outside. Um, but then beyond that, it's it it all depends. Um, so I personally we already know the risks. I'm not going to go through that. Um, and I am seeing the impact of AI even in graduate students. There are critical thinking decision making. I mean, it is significantly impacted in AI wasn't available to them. I think it was more available in the past few years. And we're seeing that impact when they come to graduate school. So I am I am worried, um, I would prefer to have more restrictions when it comes to, um, AI use not just not teaching literacy or not teaching how to use the tool, but the use in like assignments and things like that, especially in elementary and middle school. Um, because I think that's like the core area where they're developing those core functions and academic abilities. And actually, I would love to propose. I mean, I would love I know, I don't know if this has been brought up before, but I would love the board to have a formal discussion, not just I mean

that we're hearing this information, um, for the first time, but also look at looking at a board approved AI policy to help drive some of this work as well. I know this is and use some of the work and expertise and that you've done to develop these policies. Um, so I just wanted to bring that up to the board. Um, you know, there's it's a very complex topic. So I appreciate all the work you've done. Um, but I do still have concerns. I think the idea is that, um, that they're proposing that we do that in an active policy. And I think what would happen next is the governance committee would, uh, begin to vet and look into this and then bring it forward to the board. Okay. Thank you for that. I just want to remind everybody about 2 or 3 years ago, the trustee sitting next to me was pushing this was saying, we need presentations on this. We need to get ahead of this. You had seen a presentation at maybe MSB. So this has been on the, you know, the the top of the stove or, you know, whatever that is too late. My brain is is cooked right now, but, um, I did hear, though, that you were saying that really third through fifth grade was basically just to be aware of what's coming. And then sixth grade, you might start to do some teacher led stuff. So did I hear that? Okay. All right. May I thank you. Um, first. Of all, thank you. Thank you for this and especially for your students. Because I can't. You sound like. Hard. Well driven. Students. So you must have. Other courses that you got to take besides this. And this in itself. I could easily. see be a one year graduate course. I mean, this is this is deep. And I really appreciate this. I

know a lot of folks out there are very fearful of this, and I have to admit, I don't understand half of what you said. And I was trying to catch up, but I knew somewhere one of you smart brains will do a tutorial with me. But you know, I also admit there are young people who are much smarter than me. And as you have already stated, it's already out there. The cat is out of the bag. We're especially those of my age. We're just trying to catch up. Okay, um, so I really appreciate that. I'm not afraid of it. And I would encourage other people not to be afraid of it because this is what I see. You know, you mentioned having the tool to go home and, you know, to to ask the questions that you may have missed. We know in this district we have some very privileged children who have well-educated parents who what they can't answer the question. They can buy a tutor, you know, or a service, you know, to get there. I didn't have that, but I was well, I mean, I was a hard driven student who knew I had to learn more. And I knew being one of the few in my class who was a poor kid, who was a kid of color. I may not have been in that safe environment to ask that second or third question, especially when the teacher is on slide five and I'm still on slide one. But if I have that tool, I can go home, you know, and keep asking the same dumb question over and no one will judge me. I can't see AI judging me. In fact, I think one of you students said, you ask again, you know, you ask for it in a different way and that's driven. I mean, that's contingent upon the students. And one of the things we, I don't think do enough of is empower our students to take charge of their own learning. We have to acknowledge some of our students don't have that parent at home who may be well-intended, but don't know how to help, right? And this is an option right now, it sounds

like we have this tool that's already paid for by our taxpayers that any student can take advantage of or not. Right? Of any learning ability. And so that's why I'm really excited about it. I'm really excited that you brought us something to look at. You know, we often get people yelling at us that we got to do some we got to do some. I'm not that smart to do all the things you want me to do, but you guys brought us something to react to, you know, and we can show them the fact that you've been recognized by an outside entity. Outside entity, that awesome. Especially in this world of very smart people, in this world of stuff that half of us don't really understand. So I really commend you for doing that and bringing that. And I just love the camaraderie amongst you each other. You know, you're almost fighting over the microphone, you know, to respond and especially your students. And again, I can't say enough. I know you're you three are representing other students behind the scenes. Um, and I you know, I saw a few pictures. So I'm thinking there's probably some students working on this project with you who look more like me, you know, um, and who can understand where I'm coming from? Again, I'm excited about this. Again, it's another option for our students to be empowered to take control of their learning. Yeah, we'll have some slackers. You always do. Okay. I mean, that's real life. We always know that after, you know, the wonderful Ann Arbor Public Schools, you may not have the ideal environment. What do we teach our kids? And Arbor is at 2.2 bubble of life. But it's our bubble, you know, and we're going to provide our kids with, um, all that we can. And so again, thank you for, you know, bringing this I know it was a long presentation. Like I said, I don't understand half of it, but I understood enough that it looks like it's going to help all of our students. And and Makiya, thank you so much for for your antidotes and and for you, you know, to encourage us to keep thinking of all students. And I know you all

do, don't get me wrong. But, you know, she seems to be in charge of the team of that, um, you know, so. For loaning her. Well, that's what I was going to say also. So you guys have other jobs besides this, too? I mean, again, I miss Lewis is going to make sure you don't go away. So anyway, I'm sorry for rambling. I just wanted to say, you know, you've got my vote and whatever you need to make this forward. You want to come to my classroom and hang out? I'd love to. Yeah. Let you know when. Yeah. You know, thank you I appreciate that. Yes. Rob a good point. About these.. Microphone, please. I'm sorry. It's the. the choice is Makiya made a comment before about like these bots have infinite patience whereas you know if you've got 150 students a day and you're Miss Bellows, Miss bellows? Bellows spells. Yes. Like you can get a little short at times. Um, but these bots don't. And I actually have taken a scenario out of Melissa's class with a student on an IEP to a regional conference about the fact that some of these bots are really empowering our students who don't typically come forward with the most competent voice for presentations. And he went from just sitting in the back, hiding like in his hoodie, to presenting on something he built. And she's like, I hadn't even heard him speak before. And now he's feeling empowered to lead the class on this. And it's things like that that get me excited about it. And so we and as we say, like Pandora's box is open. We're not saying, do we take it out or do we put it back in? No, we want to make sure we're making sure that people know the guidelines and the workflows around responsible and ethical use to keep our kids safe, and to also make sure that they're prepared for the future. Not okay, now you've graduated boot. Go figure out what you need to do. And so that's kind of what we're hoping for me, is to really look at that and see the intentionality behind it, and put your professional spin on it.

Can I ask one more question? And again, I do not mean to give you guys another job, but but I would say I would love to see a component for parents. I mean, like right now I couldn't tell you how to identify what's real and what's not. Um, and, and you know, I know again, I we're here to educate the children, but children are attached to parents. Um, and I know, Mr. Thomas, you must be so proud, by the way. You know, um, I. Put all these kids, the ones that aren't here with. I mean, we we listen to them speak and understand the depth of their understanding, the depth of their understanding and how they've been able to connect it to their own learning and to their community. Just like so proud of them. Yes. Um, but we, uh. Sorry, I. the parent parents parent. Yeah. Sorry. I was like, oh, I'm so proud of my kid. You should be. I'm gonna say something I don't know. Okay. Yeah. No part of our workflow for this year was to reach out to our parent community, but, um, because we all do have other jobs, too. It has kind of. It's on our to do list, but we haven't gotten there yet. Um, one of the documents that I, we might have shared with you a year ago, um, Kent ISD has done an amazing job reaching out to their community, um, through social media. And we, uh, we're we're friends with, uh, Kent ISD, uh, and are going to liberate some of those great ideas as soon as we have that capacity. But reaching out to our community and involving our stakeholders in this conversation is critical to success, because, as we mentioned earlier, like it is not it is not just our students that we're building up AI literacy with. It is like our staff. It is our community. It is. Everybody has to understand, um, how how this is going to work within their own, you know, life experiences. And so our website pages are our first edition to get out that transparency and make it available to families to see.

But it is on the roadmap. So thank you for bringing it up. Oh no, thank you. Wow. Trustee Wilkerson. Yeah, thanks. Thanks, everyone. For the presentation tonight. Um, it's really great to see you. And I will say yes. A's here. Uh, we need to teach our students or I think we're doing a disservice when they leave our K-12 education here. But. But I do have a few questions, and I'll try to keep it as brief as possible. Just given the timing. I know we talked on or touched on three different tools that are currently being used. Can you just speak to those quickly? I know Magic Schools one. So the first one so we kind of tear them up a little bit. The first one is inside Schoology. Schoology is our LMS. So um, that that gets attached to an assignment, not just open and available for every use. The teacher builds out a traditional assignment like they would, and then they have the opportunity in either the assignment or pieces of the assignment to attach an AI component to it. The second one is Magic School. Magic school. Um, it comes with, I don't know, 100 tools in our district. We already cut them down. So when you when you purchase the platform, you get the opportunity to say, we'll do ten. And so we help drive what we're willing to do and what we're not. The first tool we took off. And it did make somebody some people mad is we took off an IEP generator. We would never use AI to generate a whole IEP, says Makiya and Khanzada and everybody else. Uh, an IEP is a human driven process, and there might be pieces with the goals. And so we actually built a IEP goal generator ourselves. This team.

And we also built a coordinating lesson design bot that matched the equitable instruction process that comes out of, um, TLC. So we try to really limit what we offer and make it available. Those are for teachers first. And we had some pilot classrooms that use the student portion. But again, if they only get turned on when the teacher turns them on, the third tool is called brisk teaching. And that is a feedback based tool. And again, that is at the teacher level. And that is that when we go to conferences, we hear from other districts, we offer 20 tools and we're just like, are you kidding? And so we we could see early on if we want to make some offerings, we wanted to have make sure we had a series of guardrails and, you know, own the data, manage what is available and keep it all tight in a walled garden. Um, our tools don't go two ways. The tool brings information in that is educational based and so it doesn't train on anything. It doesn't go out to the public. It is a very, um, tight educational, uh, approach to AI to start. Yeah. Okay. And kind of an extension of that question. So, you know, those are platforms that we're actually engaging in loading on our, on our, you know, devices. Um, how do we couple that with a web based application like a ChatGPT or even Gemini Copilot, things where you can just go to the website and we don't. we don't. So those are all restricted platforms and web addresses in our in our environment. For all our web in our web filter, there's nothing that, uh, student in K-8 can do. Um,

like ChatGPT or any of that in high school, we put in, um, securely, has an AI chat that acts as the go between. So you can't get access out to the real one. So they might think they're chatting to the real world, but they're really chatting to the walled garden in a high school level. Okay. That's helpful. Um, and then I guess on these tools, these different tools, um, are they, they're they're not training on our data, but what is the basis of the data set that they're leveraging to come up with our resources and answers? Yep. So, uh, it's two it's an educational data set. Um, that is like a nationally and worldwide one. And the second data set is our curriculum. So when teachers are getting ready to do an assignment, they can load in the standards, the rubric, uh, the supporting documents. So they're not training off what's out in the world. The training off educational vetted material, our material from Ann Arbor Public Schools. Okay. That's very helpful. Um, let's see here. What else? Okay. Um, you know, at this point, we've kind of stressed the fact that this is optional, right? Um, it's very helpful when you look at a stakeholder or citizen driven initiative to get early adoption. For those that want to engage in these tools. Um, but how do we drive consistency across all of our students and those that, you know, might be apprehensive? Um, we still want them to have those skill sets. You know, if this is something that we determined to embed in our curriculum and our base of knowledge, how do we help drive that? So the first thing is our students talk to you about the

framework, the framework, the framework and the PD pathways that we've posted up there. We've already been talking with Don Linden and their team about what start a school practices look and feel like, you know, how far we get into the digital equity piece to start. Um, we find some of our best ways. Once a district message is out is to hit it at the building level at the department level, um, at the willingness of the train, the trainer level. So there's not a one size fits all. There's a starting point. And on an on ramp, as you always say, for everybody. And then multiple again on ramps over and over again so we can get the equity piece addressed. Okay. Even on the teacher side, I would find that to be a concern too, right? If you had a building that was full of, um, younger teachers that want to engage with this type of platform versus building that is, you know, full of experienced educators that have been teaching the same way. Right? I mean, that's probably a similar challenge for any type of application or platform we try to roll out. But I think with AI, it's a specific consideration. So when we talk a lot about this, we talk about workflows. You know, how we took time to go through here's the teacher workflow. Here's the student workflow. Um, it's workflows in use cases that are also going to be that final push in because a good use case, uh, really enlightens, uh, you know, faculty when they look at it, we have it was a wonderful experience being in the sixth grade classroom. And, um, it was scalable. So she was an expert in technology and an expert in Ela. She happens to be have a partner in the building, and she brought the partner on who might not have been, you know, quite as

technology savvy. Well, this is recorded. We should be nice. But watching the educational equity piece of the lesson unfold, it looked the same in both those classrooms and the same outcome you saw. It was a four week lesson. It was not just a one and done. Uh, at the they were at the end when we when we went back, students were all students, not just the writers were can we do this again, you mean. Right. Another folklore. I mean, it's sixth grade. So, uh, we did see what Melissa talks about and engagement in exciting and wanting to come back. That thirst for knowledge. In another attempt. Because what we always say the power of. Yet we're not there yet. Let's go again. There's a really great article in the Wall Street Journal yesterday called the workers opting to retire instead of taking on AI. And one of the quotes that I sent to our team, um, was we as employers aren't doing a good enough job saying to older workers, we value the skills that you already have, so much so that we want to invest in you to help you do your job better. And I really took that to heart because I feel like over the last few years, this has completely changed my teaching. This is my 16th year teaching. Um, and I feel like I am better able to give more support to my students, more personalized learning, and a lot more conversation and and building up their overall identity. And that's something that I don't necessarily feel like I had ten years ago, or I even had five years ago. So I've seen that transformation in my classroom, and I want to see other teachers have that as well. Yeah, that makes sense. I mean, we see some organizations are actually requiring AI to be a component of, you know, compensation and growth at a large organization. So, um, makes sense. Uh, a couple other quick things. One, we talked

about the three through five grade level about how to spot AI. And, you know, obviously that's becoming a very complex, um, process. It's very hard to distinguish what's generated by AI unless you have expertise in the subject or can look for certain cues. So what are we just at a high level? What are we trying to train in that area. So the elementary curriculum, the focus is fifth grade. But as we've gone through this school year, we've found that, um, librarians will notice, um, kids talking about AI at younger grade levels or teacher will say, hey, we had this conversation. Can you teach my grade level some AI literacy lessons? So we had five core lessons, and one of them does talk about AI is not always right. How do you just like media literacy in general, how do you validate a source? Like how do you validate information? How do you evaluate? Is this accurate? Is it by someone who knows what they're talking about? You know, is it believable? Can you find that same information someplace else? So this just kind of evaluating a source is the basic, um, process that we teach students at all grade levels through the library classes that we offer. Okay, great. Um, and then the, the last thing here and this maybe this is more of a comment than a question. Um, but in the IT space, a lot of times we talk about, you know, like privacy by design or control by design, because we want to enforce a certain standard or guardrails around what we're doing. And I think we need to have that mindset here because we are asking students and teachers and stakeholders to do the right thing. But we know that that's not always going to be enacted. So the more we can put that into the process by design, I think is extremely important. Um, you know, and it kind of goes back to that, you know, adoption, making sure

equity and, and things like that are consistent across the district as well. All right. That's all I have. Thank you. Trustee Wilkerson. Any other questions? Trustees. Mr. president Wilks. Yeah. Thank you. I just had real quick, um, for Isaac, uh, Max and Roman. Um, so did you actually, was this a competition where you created the, um, the student centered AI policy? I saw you standing at a in one of the slides. You were actually. It looks like you were at an event where you were presenting. So were you presenting at a conference or something? So we've been lucky enough to have the opportunity to speak at a bunch of different events. Um, the one you're referencing took place in Lansing. Um, it was a competition, but we felt, um, instead of emphasizing the competition aspect, it was important for us to share with other school districts around Michigan. Our work in creating student centered AI policy. Um, that took place in Lansing in December. We've also had the chance to speak at a Michigan virtual summit in Novi. I think that was in October. Is that correct? Um, and myself and Isaac just traveled to Chicago as well. Um. To hometown. My hometown. Yeah. Um, to speak at the National Education Association as well. So those photos were us, um, sharing our progress with other districts, other educators, other administrators as well. And the, uh, National Superintendents Association had an AI conference that I was unable to get to. So they attended on my behalf. Oh, wow. That is great. Got, um. Yeah. And we. Superintendent Parks, we were also on main stage. Just. Yeah, I know, yeah, I heard all about it. So I do want you to. I do want you to be assured that colleagues across this country let me know how fantastic. It was. I just want to thank you. Three young men, for representing our district. Every place you go.

Representing Ann Arbor Public School, that it's. It's amazing. And I look forward to seeing what happens on Tuesday. Um, and I guess what, Lansing, I guess, is that where it's going to something big is going to happen. So state Board of Ed. Meeting. We shall see. Yeah. Okay. Great. Thank you. Thank you, thank you for the time tonight. I know we spent a lot of time. Um, we just need to start demystifying some of the items that are out there around technology. We make a promise. We want to come together. And, you know, we want to offer our students, um, the best, well-rounded, whole approach. We still, like we said, humans first. That's always going to be our mantra learning driven. We promise never to make anything up. So we appreciate all the questions you ask. Um, and, you know, we look forward to getting out into our parent groups. All right. Well, thank you all for being here tonight. Appreciate it. Good day at school tomorrow. Thank you. Yeah. Oh, good luck. Untested. Oh. All right, well, I believe that brings us down to number nine. Our consent agenda. Uh, this. Oh, would you please read the consent agenda? Approve. Minutes from the. March 25th, 2026. regular meeting. Approve minutes from. The March 25th, 2026 closed session. And approve a closed. Session following the. Regular meeting on April. 22nd, 2026. , for the purpose. Of attorney client privilege. And negotiations. Would anyone like to remove an item from the consent agenda? Do I have a motion? So move.. And second. Moved by Vice President Wilk, supported by Trustee Schmidt. Any discussion? Trustees. Any discussion trustees seeing none. Miss, please. Trustee. Baskette. Yes. President. Feaster. Yes. Trustee.

Muhammad. Yes. Trustee. Schmidt. Yes. Trustee. Wilkerson. Yes. Trustee. Wilkins. Yes. Trustee. Wilks. Yes. Motion carries. There appears to be nothing under number ten. Board action. So that brings us down to number 11. Item four. Agenda planning trustees. And item four agenda planning. I already have on the list. Uh, a few things. Top of my head cell phones. Um, um, we'll start time. Um, literacy. You don't have letters on there? Yeah. Or what? We talked about about funding. Oh, maybe. Yeah. Yes. Trustee Schmidt. So it came up at our last meeting, um, when we voted on the purchase for the Chromebooks. I would. Just like. To have a continued more of a conversation about. And maybe this is happening, and I I'm we're not aware, but, um, what we're really how are we quantifying how much time it's being used in classrooms, actually? Is it really making a difference in learning? Um, and just really in the same way that they're trying to put up the guardrails for not overusing AI and things, you know, how tight is that? And like I said, maybe that's all information that's could be known. That I have a down. And the trustees, I guess, saying nothing, please. That brings us down to item from the board. The trustees have anything they'd like to share. With. Yes. So, um, I've had as many of you, I'm sure, have had many phone calls and 1 to 1 meetings with community members discussing how budgets work, how our budget works, how we get state money. I had one group, I think they were a

group of Burns Park parents. Maybe, um, and I connected them with some. Oh, I think they came and spoke at one of our meetings to say, how can we make a difference down at the Capitol to get more money? So it became clear to me that, um, this knowledge, this foundational knowledge of of how schools are funded statewide is something that not only us as a board, but the community knows, so that we have a common language. And, um, and the the community can understand the context of when we make decisions with the budget. So over the past few weeks, um, I've been joined by, uh, trustees Wilks and Baskette, and we have worked together to plan a school finance teaching event where learning about school funding can take place. And this is a kind of a more large view. It's not just about like Ann Arbor we're talking about, but how the state does this. And of course, its impacts on us. This event is going to take place on May 13th here at Earhart. Um, and along with all of you, um, board members, um, I know we're excited. I'm looking forward to, um, welcome an economist. Uh, Doctor David Aasen. He's an MSU professor emeritus of educational policy and K-12 administration. Um, whose expertise and research includes the area of school finance and education, governance. And he lives in Ann Arbor. He was a professor at MSU. He had kids and went through Ann Arbor schools. And he's been gracious enough to meet with us as we plan this. Uh, his presentation, which will be followed by a Q&A, will help participants understand the history and trends of school funding and its impacts on schools across the state, including us. The specifics of this May 13th date are forthcoming, so I would ask people to mark it on their calendar, and I hope they take

part so they can learn more. And, uh, that's all I have to say about that. Thank you. Thank you. Trustee Schmidt. Anything else? Trustees? Uh, trustee Wilkins. Wanted to remind our community about the ongoing fundraiser put on by the tock. The 30 for 30 campaign, where all money that's donated goes directly to the toes of our title one schools. Um, and there's been, um, posts from Ann Arbor schools and the TOC, so it's easy to find that way. Like the trustee Wilkins. Anything else? Item from the board of Trustees. Anything else? I may have a motion to adjourn by vote. By voice vote. So moved. By Trustee Schmidt, support. Support by Trustee Baskett. And discussion. All in favor, say

aye. I any opposed? Nay. We are

adjourned.