The Lowell Area Schools Board of Education met Monday evening for their regularly scheduled monthly meeting in the administration building. Board members Tom Kaywood and Jennifer Dougherty were absent, but all other members were present for the meeting.
New Hires
The board unanimously voted to approve the hiring of 11 new certified staff for the district. Superintendent Nate Fowler said the plan was to bring the new hires to the September school board meeting to introduce them to the board.
Action Items
In order to participate in the Michigan Association of School Boards (MASB) Delegate Assembly for the 2024-25 school year, the board needs to appoint a delegate and alternates to attend. The board agreed that vice president Laurie Kuna should serve as delegate and that Tom Kaywood and Jessica Curtis will serve as alternates. As delegate, Kuna will attend the annual leadership conference in Lansing on October 24-27.
The board also voted to ok bids for some of the work needed for construction of a new bus wash for the district, including mechanical, plumbing and electrical. The board will need to vote on bids for the physical equipment for the wash at next month’s meeting. Fowler said that hopefully the construction could begin this fall so that by winter, drivers will be able to utilize the new bus wash.
During board discussion on the matter, board president Brian Krajewski asked whether anyone knew how many other districts in the area have bus washes. Fowler said that when looking at constructing a bus wash for LAS, they toured several facilities, including one in Byron Center and Zeeland. He added that out of all the districts that do have bus washes, LAS has the most dirt roads. The hope is for the wash to be an investment that will increase the longevity of the district’s buses over time.
The board also re-approved the “Return to Learn and Continuity of Services Plan,” a requirement of the ESSER grant that the district received from the state as part of COVID relief funding. School districts were required to adopt a plan to show how they would operate in various levels of community transmission of COVID. The ESSER funding is set to expire next month so this is the last time the board will need to re-approve the plan.
Human Resources Update
Director of human resources Dustin Cichocki said that the onboarding of new hires was keeping his department very busy this time of year. He said that there were still four openings for paraprofessionals in the district and that the search for a few more bus drivers was still underway, but all other positions have been filled.
Professional development for various staff members has also been ongoing, including a training for administrative assistants last week. These workers completed medical training such as CPR, epi-pen and anaphylaxis or diabetes management training.
Orientation for new staff will occur this week. It is a chance for new hires to learn day-to-day functions at their specific buildings, learn expectations of staff and also take part in some introduction into technology at LAS.
There will be a job fair at Lowell Middle School on Tuesday, September 24, from 4-7:30 pm. LAS will have a table to recruit more bus drivers and any additional paraprofessionals still needed at that time.
Budget Update
District chief financial officer Sonia Hodge said that this week, LAS was able to pay out the first round of student loan reimbursement payments to staff who qualify. A grant through the state allows the district to issue payments to qualified staff to assist them with partial payments for their student loans.
Auditors were in the district at the end of July, and Hodge said that having an accountant on staff to help with the auditing process was invaluable.
Hodge added that the district was moving to a new online payment system for parents of LAS students. While food service payments will stay the same, athletic payments will now be able to be made as part of the registration process so that when a parent signs their child up for sports, they can pay online at the same time, rather than having to navigate to another site to do so.
Curriculum Update
Director of Curriculum Dan VanderMeulen was not present for the meeting, but Fowler said the curriculum department was busy planning for the start of the school year, both with the return of students and with staff professional development on Aug. 19, the day before the start of school.
Public Comment
Retired LAS teacher Kim Lum wanted to encourage the board and the public to continue to support the work of the Lowell Education Foundation (LEF). The LEF is a nonprofit organization that helps LAS teachers and students with learning programs and materials that are not funded by public tax revenues.
Lum urged folks to donate to the organization if they can, or to share information about it. Lum said that another way to give is to commemorate someone with a donation to the LEF.
Former LAS Board of Education member Mark Blanding discussed a recent book that he read entitled The 1619 Project, which he said is an American history book. Referencing his public comments from last month’s meeting and the book he spoke of then, Blanding said that The 1619 Project didn’t include the “f-word.” He said it also didn’t contain, “…the ‘d-word’… though it does talk about a lot of aspects of diversity. It doesn’t have the ‘e-word’ in it, but it does talk about a lot of aspects of equity. It doesn’t have the ‘I-word’ in it, but it talks about a lot of aspects of inclusion.” Blanding said he recommended the book to anyone, saying that it was well-written but also not an easy book to read.
Schools of choice parent Stefanie Boone handed out a sheet to all board members before she began her public comment. Boone read the definition of vandalism and then said that at her son’s orientation at Lowell Middle School earlier that day, she “…found examples of vandalism.” However, she did not provide specific examples in her comments.
She went on to say, “Sadly, I’m pretty sure (vandalism is) placed by staff and administration in the schools…I’m looking at teachers’ desks, they must think that they belong to them, except it’s public property…the signs on the walls in the schools don’t belong to the teachers or the administrators, it belongs to the taxpayers…why are we allowing (‘vandalism’) for teachers and administrators and not saying anything about it, turning a blind eye..?”
Referencing the Facebook group for which she is an admin, Boone asked, “I’m just curious, if you started seeing Lowell Kids First safe space stickers in the same places that we have LGBTQ safe space stickers, would that be ok?” Boone asked for the board’s permission to allow her to put up those stickers throughout district schools and said that if they didn’t allow her to, “…it’s a direct violation of the First Amendment, and you need to be careful where you tread with that.”
Superintendent’s Report
Fowler thanked Cichocki and Hodge for the work they put into applying for the student loan forgiveness program through the state. He also thanked the custodial, grounds and maintenance staff for their work throughout the summer to improve and beautify the district.
Fowler said that the furniture for the new high school CAD lab came in earlier that day, and the new classroom should be ready to go for the start of the school year.
A security grant paid for improvements to the security cameras at the high school, and Fowler said that the new cameras were installed and that they had much improved clarity and visibility. The grant also paid for new entry doors for various buildings throughout the district, which were installed over the summer as well.
The board also approved the purchase of new desktop computers which were installed over the summer and new Chromebook computers, which have begun to be distributed to students at orientation.
Fowler also pointed out that not on the agenda for the meeting was the second reading of the Title IX policies. He said that the district has paused adoption of that policy given recent court rulings in some states. Fowler said that the new Title IX rules took effect Aug. 1 in Michigan and that LAS did not fall under the exceptions to the new rules. He explained that the district still has protections in place, including anti-bullying and anti-harassment policies as well as the Elliott-Larsen Civil Rights Act. Fowler added that he wanted to have some more discussion with the board about the Title IX rules and what the implementation of those rules will look like going forward.
Fowler said that he wanted to end his comments by “…bringing the focus back to why we’re here, to educate students.” He said it was great to see students back in schools, with Smart Start at the middle school and high school sports kicking off this week, band camp happening last week, high school students returning this week for orientation, seniors painting their parking spaces earlier in the day and elementary students preparing for their Meet the Teacher nights this week and next.
Fowler emphasized that he was, “…excited to see everybody back…looking forward to kicking off with staff officially on the 19th and welcoming students back on the 20th.”
Board Comments
Several board members welcomed students and staff back, and Pat Nugent thanked Lum for her comments about the Lowell Education Foundation. Nugent said that he and fellow board member Jessica Curtis serve on the board of directors for the LEF, and said he wanted to let parents in the district know that they could encourage their child’s teacher to apply for LEF grants for their classrooms.
He said that the grants were “…an opportunity to try something new, maybe something that doesn’t quite fit into our limited school budget…”. Nugent said that, oftentimes, a teacher would pilot a new program with funds from the LEF and then decide that it was successful enough to warrant a place in the school budget. Then, other teachers might begin to implement the new program as well.
Nugent explained that the LEF’s “tribute tree” program is a way to commemorate someone by giving a $400 donation to the LEF in their honor, and then that person’s name will be forever memorialized on the tribute tree at the high school.
The next school board meeting will be a work session that the public is welcome to attend on Monday, August 26, at 6 pm in the administration building.
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