Keystone selects Steven Harsant as new board member

Steven Harsant of Van Buren Township was selected by the Keystone Charter Academy Board of Directors as a new board member.
At the April 23 special Google Meet virtual meeting, the board voted unanimously to send his name to school authorizer Bay Mills Community College as its selection to take the place of Connie Shull, who has indicated she will not be available for another term because of family health considerations. She intends to serve out her present term through May.
The board interviewed Harsant at the virtual meeting. He said he was a retiree and lives in Belleville and is interested in the education of kids.
“I think Belleville needs more choice than what it gets in the Belleville public school,” Harsant said.
He said he has served in the automotive business for General Motors, Nissan and Infinity in field sales, sales, service, parts and was area manager over six states.
When asked if he had ever visited Keystone, he said he hadn’t. “The governor won’t let us take a tour of anything right now,” he said.
He said he didn’t have an educational background, but his wife and daughter have been in education for a number of years. He said he will take a business-based look at how the academy is run.
After Harsant left the virtual meeting, Shull made the motion to select him for the position.
“He will have fresh eyes and he is an upstanding man in the community,” Shull said.
Andrew Roth, representative of National Heritage Academies, said the selection gave Harsant permission to fill out the application. He said it will have to be sent to the school authorizer Bay Mills and the whole procedure will take some months.
In other business at the 56-minute virtual meeting, the board:
• Approved the Keystone Academy Continuity in Learning Plan and Charter Contract Amendment Resolution. In response to COVID-19, the plan is required by the state to continue to receive state aid for operations. NHA representative Roth said the plan has to be approved by April 28 for physical mailed lessons for students and remote lessons. “It’s what we were doing, plus some tweaking,” he said. Principal Jorvanna Drain said the state has identified standards that have to be completed before June. Board president Vesta Losen said the teachers have online classes, with math one day and ELA (English Language Arts) another day. There also are games, she said. Board treasurer Charlene Derrick said her son does better with the actual booklets sent. “He wanders off” from the online lessons. “The books are more disciplined for him,” she said. President Losen asked if there were enough Chromebooks for all the students and Drain said not yet, but there will be next school year. She said another distribution of Chromebooks will be next week in a driveup service, where parents accept responsibility for the Chromebook and then they drop it in the trunk;
• Heard president Losen ask about free meals for students. Principal Drain said they no longer offer the meals, since only two families showed up when they did. She said the families can go to any other NHA school. She said East Arbor is 6.7 miles away. Drain said families can go anywhere to get lunches. She said she did not tell families to go to the Van Buren Public Schools for their lunches;
• Voted unanimously to set aside $1,500 to provide lunches or snacks from a local restaurant for teachers when they are able to come into the school to close up their classrooms. “They will be very grateful,” Drain said. The board also closed out the former allocation for teacher/staff Appreciation Day that would have provided pedicure/manicure services;
• Approved end-of-year appreciation gifts for teachers and staff. Derrick said the PTO purchased oil diffusers through a loan from Losen and Losen will be reimbursed by the board. The diffusers, which are wood grain and shut off by themselves, will be used in the classrooms. The diffusers change colors and have several different aromas, including lavender, which the teachers say is calming to the students; and
• Heard Drain say that parents are being very supportive of efforts by the school to continue the students’ educations. “There is so much positivity, support.” When she was asked about applications for next year, she said with everything that’s going on, there are not so many appplications. “Now the focus is just trying to figure out their new normal,” she said of the families. “Each teacher contacts the kids once a week,” she said. “They just miss their kids.” She said teachers had used virtual meetings where they could have their whole class together online and the teachers loved it. She said they stopped it for two weeks and the teachers were sad.