So we now own all of our own equipment outright. So that was March. It was a busy month. Um we kind of were doing two things at once. So we were going through that process of purchasing equipment, but we were also writing our local application for the federal Perkins grant. Um and we submitted that on March 27th to the state. So, um, we are completely caught up with everything that we can possibly do at this point. Um, and I'd like to share with you a little bit about that Perkins grant so you kind of know what's coming. Um, so we had anticipated this would happen and last fall we conducted a comprehensive local needs assessment. Um, that's done with a variety of feedback from our community, our teachers, our administrators. And as part of that process that which is a formal process from the state, we identified four goals.
Uh so hats off to Mr. Storm and his team for bringing that to our attention and um as of this meeting we'll be able to make that happen and give them an additional classroom space which is desperately needed at the at the junior high school. Don't expect things to always go your way Mr. Storm this time. That's all I have. Thank you.
And so, I guess I have two questions. Are we going to present this as is? Are we going to kind of make our own framework, you know, with this information here? Do we have that ability? And second, are there any unintended consequences or any things to be aware of when we don't put that attendance goal for each one of them? Because I think we really want to hold our students to high expectations and similar expectations. So the slide on the screen as well as the other three slides that Mr. Harsha went through, those are from the diploma that the state approved. So that's been that's done. That's a done deal finalized by the state in terms of the state diploma. our recommendations both on the high school recommendation page and the middle school recommendation page where what we're recommending for Lawrence Township to go above and beyond what the state's requiring.
I and good for you. Um, in in terms of regular communication, I would enjoy like sending you a Friday a Friday weekly email every Friday. These this is the state of things that are going on in the district. I want to keep you well informed. uh and um in terms of collaborating um collaboration I'm a I'm a really frequent collaborator and I look to shape district goals, policies and priorities through retreats or workshops. I'd also love a no surprise on both sides rule and if there's something that I don't know please feel free to share it and likewise if there is a crisis that happens at the school I also would get actively in touch with you right away as soon as as able to do so. Okay. Uh so um let's see and then I in terms of um communicating um basically we look at also um some training and professional development but I always like to talk about uh groups uh with what they think they need because it does no good to provide anybody professional development that they don't want.
So you may wonder where that's coming from um which we'll get into in the next action step, but taking a look at some of our data this school year, we've noticed that um we've had an increase in um speech and language screenings in our school. So typically when we get a speech screen it's involving articulation. So if students are struggling with you know uh making a certain sound but what we've noticed over the last couple of years is a lot of our speech screens are coming in very languagebased. So students are having um some struggle with vocabulary or getting their um thoughts out in a in a complete thought or they're writing in a complete sentence. So, we'd like to have a schoolwide focus on that this year. And we're excited that with the CKLA curriculum, that will help support a lot of this work because there's a a great focus on vocabulary and language development within that curriculum.
Anything that is out of date or that is not in compliance that we'll be dealing what we pay what we paid for. We we don't have an abundance because again we'll get rid of the food for that we have for the school year. But we will have summer programs. We'll be feeding kids some. We will have trucks coming in if if we are in that situation. So like you part of that study is like you have this many kids so we're going to send this much food. Yeah. So you have so we have systems that we use to to order how much food that determines all that. So then the kitchen staff doesn't have to like oh we need this much of this. We will train it to do that. Right. So the kitchen managers that are in the districts right now or in this uh we're going to if they wish to be remain kitchen managers and we will teach them how to do that process and then the director who will be an open employee will oversee all that to make sure that it's correct.
um to allow some of the bathroom facilities there at the tennis courts. We thought that that would need to be something that we we visited about as well. Now, talking about that road back there and how we would make it work, um you know, talking to Jeremy um about what we could do for road back there. Didn't seem like that would be any of a big deal to put a road back there. Depending how far back we went with the tennis court expansion though, not very much further back than that. you know, it gets down in a valley pretty quick down there. Um, we're also talking about putting a parking lot of some sort off that road for the tennis courts possibly if we were able to to that north side, build it up to some point. Um, in both of Michael's um um diagrams, you know, that tree row, if we move forward, is going to be gone from there anyway if we put a tree row at the back.
No, that's okay. Yeah, they're 12-month positions. So they're people that work all school year or all all year. Yeah. Now I'll entertain a motion. Motion to approve the adding of a purchasing coordinator position to the cell phone reimbursement list for the 2425. In a second, please. All in favor? I. Item number 7G, Aspire Educational Services, IGA. Um, consent agenda. Yeah. All right. We're going to continue to move along. have questions. So on the consent agenda, [Music] the the um the IGA with Aspire was on the consent agenda. Okay. How about Oh, so I know what you're doing because Becky tabbed all the consent agenda and that's why like So the cell phone reimbursement was on the consent was on the consent agenda. You did not need to vote on that separately. It's okay. Half an eyeball. It is absolutely voted on. It's a half an eyeball.
Um and then it still gives the board the opportunity to um what basically the presentation on Tuesday would be part of I would assume a first read and then we could bring it back at the first June meeting as consent for second read if there's no requests for changes. Okay. Well, we can just leave that alone and then if something changes, we can change the dates. Yeah. Yeah. Can we um I actually don't know if there are dates, but one of the things we might want to add is like uh important round or first year dates because I know that the lawyer saw them, but I still don't think that we've actually like officially replaced the policy. So, if we know like second read or like when they're approved by the board, we probably want to add those things, too. Doesn't the board determine that?
Anybody have any questions on the March employment recommendations? Can I please have a motion to approve the March employment recommendations? Motion. Second. Ash and Vivian. Bennett. Yes. Keer, yes. Person, yes. Enters, yes. Johnson, yes. Lions, yes. Uh, we accepted a resignation from Josh Kula, middle school band teacher, effective the end of the year. Accepted a resignation from Colleen Sparrow, transportation driver and lunch recess monitor, effective March 28th. We accepted resignation from Andre Casteron, second grade dual language teacher, effective at the end of the school year. We accepted resignation from Brooke Benson, third grade teacher, effective at the end of the school year. We accept a resignation from Dana Ore, second grade teacher, effective the end of the school year. We accepted resignation from Megan Macar MacArthur, transportation driver, effective April 17th. We accepted a resignation from Lee Diaz Moya, middle school ELLL teacher, effective at the end of the school year.
Um, and we should go back and continue to, you know, evolve the plan. Um, but ultimately, it's coming to a point where you have information on how is this going to impact each of our buildings, how is this going to impact any of our specialized programs? Um, and for Keaneland, they also took it a step further and said, "We also need to have a strategy for how will we implement this?" Um, how can we tier our implementation? Because they were going to be going forward and engaging with their community and going out for referendum. And they knew that we kind of had to have a what what is that first step and what would be a second and a third? Just quickly, um, lots of ways to fund projects. We know that you've pursued the bond pathway. Um, but it's really critical to understand parallel with the master planning process, what funding options you have because ultimately one of the criteria that you weigh these options on is going to be cash.
Anybody's got any questions, feel free to ask. I think we got behind originally because this January was three pay month and we have another three pay month coming up in August. Those are killers. Mhm. So, all right. That you kind of already heard from you. You got anything else for us or covered just about everything? Okay. Any board comments on anything? Nope. I will say that we've we've uh published uh the contract for our new superintendent. Uh we published it last Thursday has to be published in a newspaper for 10 days and then we can we'll have a public hearing next Monday in the uh central office for any public comment wanted to be made on that contract. At that point uh 7 days later is when we can officially vote to accept that contract and hire our new uh superintendent. at that time probably what will happen after after next Monday uh after we have our public hearing it'll be it'll be uh posted you'll you'll know who that who that candidate is going to be right right now there's not a name connected to it um but after after next Monday there will be so uh we're excited about that so we will have a a public uh hearing next Monday at 6:30 in the central office and then a another special session meeting the following Monday at 6:30 to adopt that contract and hire our new uh superintendent.
So that was what was outlined in our basic application. Our first goal was to increase enrollment in our high demand skilled trades programs. Um specifically um precision machining, welding, and construction. Um and we look to use some of our local resources, our community partnerships. Um that activity isn't funded solely from the grant. It's something that we were already started the work on um previously. Um some of those activities look like our eighth grade visits and our tours and our marketing materials that we're already putting out. So we identified that as a goal and that's how we'll support it. Our second goal was to increase the number of students participating in work-based learning programs um aligned to their program of study um which we're very proud of that program. It has grown significantly in the last few years. We anticipate it will continue to grow um and from that budget we are hoping to support our career fair which we've been doing for a while.
Any questions, comments for Mr. Correct? Is our plumbing challenge progressing? Yeah, we're working through that. Um the the crew will probably need to expand a little bit. We'll have to maybe add some workers uh to make sure we stay on schedule, but uh give some claims that we'll be good to go and uh move forward. Okay. Anything else? No. Moving on to the technology report. Mr. Fall, the high school access control system is uh coming to a close. We probably have a couple more weeks of work left on that and then the grant the security grant project will be complete. So it's going along well and uh access control is about halfway done. So and then as of today computers are exempt from the tariffs. Don't know about tomorrow but today they are. But for us, that's a big deal because we normally spend about 650,000 a year uh for first, fifth, and 9th grade computers.
So that's the state minimum in terms of those and then we have the other requirements that we're recommending. Right. Thank you. And so to my first question, I think there's an opportunity then to and how we share that, right? Because if I'm a parent looking at those three lists um from the state, it could be a little confusing. If I can see something from Lawrence Township that's more clear and I think that will be very helpful. We've been through this before board. Um I've sat here and this is probably Mr. Not Mr. Gnik the fourth change in graduation requirements over 12 years. So, we've gotten a very high graduation rate because we've done a very good job of communicating the changes and the team will go to work immediately as soon as you approve it. Board, we'll go to work immediately. Thank you for that.
Uh so um I always like to listen and hear what people's needs are. Then um I've been actively invol involved with select boards, town leadership and fincoms. Um and so you know there's a part of getting to know the culture in the town, right? And so as I would extend myself to be open to and invitations to have them come to our meetings and set up virtual meetings on a monthly basis. Um, I would have specific agendas so that they could get to know the school and uh, like specific agendas, you know, could certainly include like a facility director update because that is often essential if you're going to be working on capital planning projects. I've had the pleasure this year of working on several capital planning projects. In fact, I actually uh served as um interim facilities director because we lost our facilities director and we could we didn't have we weren't able through the interviewing process to find the right fit.
Um, the last action step for this um particular slide is we'd like to improve student outcomes by establishing a dedicated data team and a consistent schedule for data analysis. So, we've already done some of this work this year and we do have um established a data team. Uh we've met a couple of times already this year and that's a mix of classroom teachers, interventionists and coaches and we meet and we look at the data um from the beginning of the year to the middle of the year and some of our progress monitoring data and we look for patterns and trends and what are our interventions look like? Are those the best um interventions to get to what we're looking for? because we really want to be targeted and that data team is what sort of found the information related to the previous action step about the oral language skills.
Okay. I'm looking at the Lynen website right here. Do you guys manage that website to with Craig or would how would you manage like the lunch menu? So that's a that's a that's the exact same menu. That that website is on all of our districts. It's it's uh it's the same. So yeah, I saw the Southern Coffee County one. It looks way different than the other ones. I that's what made me think who would manage that. Oh, Southern L County was way off the difference. just trying to do some work. Yeah. Yeah. And the other thing is is that as we have some regional favorites, like for instance, I've had out in western Kansas, they they made this awesome hot sauce that they like to put on their uh line. It's approved. We will put it out there. If there's a a recipe item that you like that's like chicken and noodles in in Iowa, they like that recipe.
I don't know if we want a tree row at the back of that for like a wind block um or actually how much space we would be be needing back there um you know for that road before it got into that valley. So just wanted to to talk about some of the pros and cons about that um to get your guys's feedback on your thoughts on that option or you know where we were at. I just see a lot of pros in this with with not as many cons depending on where that tennis court expansion goes um back in that area. Dalton, is there anything I missed on that from any of those conversations? Answer some, but like talk about cutting a doorway in the end of the hall if we attach it and then making a circle drive still out there in the front for drop off.
Thank you. I appreciate that. All right. Then we'll move on to item 8A. Um SRO SSO evaluation form. [Music] Miss, Madame President, and members of the board, I am here to present with you my dear friend Matt. He's the um security um officer at Del Rio and we are presenting with to you a an annual evaluation for our SRO's and SSOs that we have created. And what thing one thing is Matt and I met and talked about this. We talked about how the police department, you know, was looking at their evaluation tool, but that really doesn't apply to us because our setting is so much different than what they deal with on a daily basis. So, we're asking you to approve it and and um in speaking with other SRO's and SSOs and even one of the state um SRO coordinators, I kept asking people, who has an eval?