July 2026 Newsletter
Hello everyone,
On June 23rd, PAACT made its first public appearance before the board. Katherine Brooks and Jennifer Forrest gave their time to join me and speak, and I am grateful to both of them. I am attaching a full recap of that meeting and the short July 7th meeting for anyone who wants the details, these also live on the website. A special thank you to the PAACT members that came to support us.
A big congratulations to Mothers Against Media Addiction on the July 7 board vote. After months of showing up to meetings, sharing research, and making the case for a consistent policy, the board adopted a bell to bell wireless device ban for all grades K-12, including high school lunch, on a 4-1 vote. The earlier version would have left phones available during high school lunch, and MAMA's advocates were clear and persistent that a policy with gaps is harder to enforce than one without them. The board listened. This is what parent advocacy looks like when it is grounded in evidence and patience.
We also continued individual meetings this month, including an informative conversation with board member Amy Hochkammer, and a call with Christine from the League of Women Voters about their plans to host a Board Member candidate forum this fall.
On the FOIA front, we filed a new request for this year's discipline and academic data. We received an extension notice shortly after filing, which is typical for a request of this size and simply means the district needs more time to pull it together.
The safety reporting request is also moving forward. This one asks for records showing how safety incidents are reported and responded to across the district. Thanks to everyone who contributed to the FOIA fund, we paid the deposit on July 1st, and the district should begin working on it.
We have not yet received any MiPHY results. MiPHY, the Michigan Profile for Healthy Youth, is a statewide student health and wellbeing survey that many districts use to understand what students are actually experiencing day to day. The district also receives funding for counselors and support staff from these surveys. We are continuing to follow up and will share what we learn once we have it.
July 1st we also filed a new request for administrator turnover data going back several years, records of departures, retirements, and new hires among district leadership. Turnover at that level shapes continuity and decision making for years, so this is worth understanding clearly.
Please mark your calendar for July 21st, from 7 to 8:45pm, for the next PAACT Conversation at Baldwin Public Library, in the same boardroom as our first meeting. This session is about communication between families and schools, built around a simple framework: some information schools are required by law to share, some they are allowed to share but get to choose whether they do, and some the law does not touch at all, which means it comes down entirely to district practice and preference.
This meeting will also look different from our last one. Rather than a presentation, we are building in more room for actual conversation. We want to hear directly from you: what would you like to see from PAACT, and from BPS, heading into next year.
One additional note. Three seats on the board are open this November, and the filing deadline for candidates is July 21st, the same day as our meeting. Board members set the direction of the district for years at a time, so who sits in those seats matters. You can check the candidate list here, if you are curious who is running or considering it yourself.
I hope to see you there on the 21st,
Betsy McDaniel
PAACT
