001have the gavl tonight, but um we're going to go ahead and call the um this uh meeting of the 437 Board of Education to order. Um we'll start with open forum. Is there anyone signed up for public comment tonight? So, we'll move on to opening items. 3.01 is roll call. Um all members are present on their 3.02 approval of the agenda. Move approval of the agenda. >> A motion, a second to approve the agenda. All those in favor? Motion passes seven to zero. Um we'll move on to section four, disposition of business by consent. >> I move the board of education approve business by consent, including payment of bills in the amount of 6,147,858. Second. It's been a motion to second. All those in favor? Motion passes seven to zero. Um we'll move on to
002administrator reports. 5.1 is >> Hey Tucker, hold on one second. So obviously we've got the show on the road tonight [clears throat] at Hills Elementary. Board of Education members got here just a little bit early and had an opportunity to tour the place. Chelsea Schmidline, the principal, is here. She just wanted to say a couple of words in regards to some of the changes and the upgrades that took place as part of collection. So since we're here, I'll turn the floor over to you, Chelsea. Hey, thank you guys. We were really excited when Scott asked a couple months ago or so if if we could be here. Um and I was like, "Yes, I'm putting a Christmas tree up, so please come." So, we're excited to have you guys. Um so, we're standing here in
003our collaboration space, and this space is used constantly. Um there's not a day that goes by that you don't see kids, um big groups of students that are coming and going through this space. So, we really really love it. Um, and then all the the rooms that are right around this area are our specials classes. So, we have our music room, our library, our counselor, and then our art studio right behind us. So, it's just an awesome space. And then along with the prek, and then our special education suite that they all saw, um, it's been a really, really nice nice addition. So, we're very grateful um for the projects and the bond dollars that that went to do all of this work. So, thank you. as a compliment to the board. We will have
004next school year more early childhood students here at Indian Hills than we've ever had before and that's the plan in each of our schools and throughout the program across the district. So I know you've been excited to get >> Thank you for administrative reports. Anybody want to guess how much money they contract? >> So, so it's it's good news. Um, we've got Paul South is coming up. Um, it's out for bid right now. It's on the 23rd. We're going to have the internal review on the 8th. um and then come back to you for approval and that will wrap up all of the bond projects design and preparation to execute it. So huge milestone has been a really good three years as far as making decisions. We still haven't finished yet. Um calling just a
005couple things to note that what the spring semester will look like is that um both Auburn and South the collaboration groups um all the schools they are in two things at the schools and so we're going to take over principles to make sure that we have homes for everybody. We think that's going to help us. That's usually where the most extensive work is going to happen. So, we're going to get access to those. Um, and then we'll still offer building it was appreciated working flexibility. There's more. We were able to figure it out. We're going through this spring. Also, just final touches on furniture and testing. Keep on tackling, make sure everything gets executed. Um, and so there will be work going on in your buildings this spring. So that really update what's coming up
006spring and falling south over that threshold run out of time and money at the same time. Questions? So want to make maker right now. They demoed outside and they have the pad done. Are they doing more work right now or >> waiting on >> Okay. process still tracking. >> I've started to get comments by people out there these days. What's that building? >> Yeah, I figured that one would get the most question. It was over. >> That's going to be a building. It looks like it's not done. It's like it's not done and all of a sudden >> any other questions or comments? >> Thank you. Thanks for everything. >> Right. We move on to section six which is items for discussion. Um first up is 6.01. 1 which is the RHS site council recommendations.
007Ed >> uh well I'm going to briefly introduce the people that are taking >> and rather than being an indication of the adults on our site council not wanting to be a spokesperson um which could be reasonably deferred. Um it was our collective judgment that the students would probably be the best uh to describe the deliberations of the site council and uh the recommendation that we'll make to you this evening related to cell phones this evening. So it is my pleasure or it is my pleasure to introduce Enzo an initial here. He'll be coming up and giving the presentation. I have a handout I'm going to be giving you. Um this is what we reviewed in our last site council meeting. We also have three additional site council members here this evening. Alex Glasshouser who
008teaches uh Washington University School of Law, Shane Kochi um who is a longtime member of our site council and Sam Morani and we're happy to have him here as well this evening. So this is uh the document that we were working off of. It summarizes some parent and student feedback that we received when we flowed the surveys last year. So wanted you to have a copy of that and then Enzo Nisha you guys can launch whenever you're ready. [snorts] Okay. So today we're going to be talking about our cell phone call. Um and this coming directly from our site council and Hi, my name is Anisha Deer. I'm our site's president. >> So, what I'm going to do is really quickly I'm going to get an overview of what we do. are. So mainly our
009purpose for the entire school is to help implement successful program for the entire school. It's also like general entire school programs like the Renaissance arts. Uh so currently we have many different people in there. Uh there's students um we have administrators and parents that are the labs were greatly provided a wider view. So we're not just focusing on what the administrators believe or what the teachers believe is best for the entire student. We actually have a preference that's discussed between everyone. Um we hold meetings um typically once a month or what we aim for is a few hours. [laughter] It'll it'll go over pretty easy. Um so what we do is so far a few examples of things that we've done uh is we've successfully uh implemented a feature to the Renaissance card that if
010you're a student taking rigorous classes uh and for example you're all a student uh your if your GPA sits at 4.5 um really high on all A's and you get one B you get down to the next something that was disheartening. So we came together and we were able to formulate an idea to say hey GTA parts to further that. We also developed our definition of AI in a planner which would help with problems in the school like dealing with how to um use AI how to figure out what we should do we shouldn't do. So the clear definition was established within those meetings and we're also discussing quite a lot to rewrite. >> All right. So our first idea and topic of cell phone use first came up in 2024 and 2025. Along with
011this topic came up with the use of artificial intelligence middle school to high school transition. But our main one which continued on to this year was our use of cell phones in schools. As you know, many states have already began putting on their cell phone within schools. Whether it be using pockets in order to lock cell phones out or keeping a policy which remains cell phones and lockers. We brought the cell phone to topic up because we felt that our cell phone policy was too lax. As many states had been returning to a policy which banned cell phones, ours had not um quite been there as cell phones were becoming a distraction for students rather than an educational tool. This is the blue ribbon passport which is the policy that is recommended by Kansas. It
012states that it recommends a policy of a belt-to-bell schedule and it recommends for students to store personal electronics in a selfsecure device uh where students are inaccessible to them during the school day. It also states that students and parents should have a sort of communication that is not through just their personal electrical devices in case of emergencies or transportation. As we have seen on the presentation, 35 states have enacted laws um ranging from full bands during school dance to instructions during instructional time. As times are changing, we must also change our structures. The bluem task force in July of 2024 focused on the use of proced devices during school. While our policy mostly remains to manage the use of cell phones during instructional time, the Blue Room task force also focused on mental health policies
013and parent oversightes over district owned devices. whether or not cell phones are truly damaging our own kids' brains. Within our cell phone policy last year, Mike Steiner, a member of our council, uh surveyed over about 85 faculty in WRS, Boston High School. He found 81% of parents and sorry of faculty reported that they see students using cell phones daily within their class not for instructional use. Many faculty supported the idea of some level of restriction which is already implemented in our poly current policy. However, our current policy was too ambiguous, stating that it was up to the teacher in order if the cell phone was truly distraction. Our current policy that will be at the end of this presentation states that any use of a cell phone during instructional time is a distraction that could
014be written up. Our legal landscape, which will also be talked about by our dear Mr. glass housing um which will be talked about later in this presentation. >> So even more out of this we decided that we would conduct the second survey. um since the first one not only did they only focus on the faculty side but didn't have specific enough questions there were a lot of uh extras to questions answering they would say well yes but and then answer to what they originally so uh according to this we pulled 382 students and 162 parents um and there's clear discrepancy that comes from this. So, first off, right off the bat is you can see that 84% of parents um thought that the cell phones were a concern and students saw that 47% of students
015saw that they were uh not really concerned with the phones at all during instruction times. Um and moreover, the policy currently does completely allow lunch passing period and it seems that uh many agree with the current uh standard of it, but some still oppose uh the ban. parents uh they've been really supportive of a ban or um some sort of rule to take away cell phones from students during instructional times. They do think that it is a detrimental to their students. Um however, things like accessing their phones during emergency um is highly important for not only the parents but the students. uh students actually overwhelmingly [clears throat] wrote that the main factor of why they wanted their cell phones in class or near them um was because they might have to contact their parents. So
016this is our current electronic signaling device policy and its revisions. You can see this, I'm sure, on the first page of your booklet. And if it's not there, we have copies of it for you. Something's kind of color coded here. So the the red would the red font would represent new language policy and crossed out language is the language that we are recommending that we eliminate from the current policy. Um, you go. And so, um, before I go over, this may be an opportune time to have, um, Alex come up and talk to you a little bit about the legal considerations, um, that we delved into during the exploration of this topic, uh, last year as a side council. So, Uh, Alex, you you have the >> Sure. >> All right. Well, thank you. As
017I guess you heard from Mr. Reigns before, I'm a law professor at Washurn, but I want to stress I'm an academic now, not a practitioner. So, I'm not giving legal advice to the board and I haven't given legal advice to the site council, but offered some perspectives from from the academic world. So I discussed with the site council there was an ABA journal article, American Bar Association journal article titled, "Hold the phone K through 12 school electronic device policies must be carefully considered." Lawyers say and we talked about the reasons that policies need to be carefully considered such as there are disability accommodations that have some students have particular needs for access to their cell phones. And there are also concerns about parents in emergencies wanting to make sure they have contact with their students
018and potentially suing districts for negligence and that sort of thing. So obviously I mean these policies need to be carefully considered. And as you know there are approaches all over the map from statewide legislatively enacted rules. You have to district by district to school by school. But I just looked at a study in the journal of American jama journal of the American medical association that came out in October that said 96% of schools now one way or another are under the effect of some policy. And roughly speaking, according to this nationwide study, about a quarter of the schools are extremely restrictive, meaning no cell phones whatsoever while school is in session. About a quarter on the other end allow teacher discretion whenever they so whenever they see fit to allow students to use cell phones.
019And then the middle half is basically no phones during class time but during non-class times students may access their phones and you know obviously the policies are all slightly different but the proposal here would essentially put us in that middle area. So, just wanted to offer those thoughts, but really it's been the students who have come up with the driving force here in figuring out how we should move forward. Shane, Sam, do you have anything to offer add? [snorts] >> Okay, thanks again for being here. Um, so I will go over what we're recommending to you in terms of policy revisions. If you have questions, please let us know. happy to answer them. Uh I won't read for you or go over the things that are going to stay the same. So largely in terms
020of the handout that I gave you the first paragraph electronic signing signaling devices and the first uh bulleted paragraph that starts with students may possess or use personal electronic signaling devices etc. Uh that's current language. I'm recommending that it stays in. So from there things begin to change and starting with the second bulleted item um the language would read electronic signaling devices including wired and wireless paired audio output accessories clarifying what those are headphones and earbuds etc shall be turned off and kept out of sight during class time or at any other time as directed by a school district employee except when administration has granted a limited written waiver in advance for specific educational purposes or other extraordinary circumstances. Right now, um the the flexibility in the policy allows teachers to decide whether or not
021they should be out for educational purposes uh during class. So, we're eliminating that language. Um continuing on, this prohibition extends to the use of devices and accessories while on any pass during instructional time. Devices and accessories shall be permitted during advisory periods, lunch and advisory. Then continuing with the third bulleted paragraph, violations of this policy shall be s shall be subject to progressive discipline if a student uses if if a student's use uses electronic signaling devices and paired audio output accessories during the instructional period. The student will be referred to their administrator and a discipline point assess. a student's right to carry such devices and accessories may be revoked by administration for subsequent offenses. Other consequences outlined in the school discipline policy may be applied when appropriate for any other misuse of set electronics. Um
022and then we the fourth paragraph would just clarify to include to include the audio accessories policies as well. So uh that is essentially the the recommendation that we are making this evening. Um, we did talk at length about whether or not um they should be kept in the lockers and the consensus seemed to be from the parent surveys from the conversations that we had at site council that that's not what parents or kids wanted. They wanted the cell phones to be in proximity to them although turned off out of sight so that they weren't uh interrupting instruction. So uh questions Um, why did we specifically say audio output accessories? I guess I'm just maybe I'm not fully familiar with electronic signaling devices. Does that include things like your watch? >> So then the audio accessories
023are separate, not considered electronic signaling devices. >> Right. So the earpods, things that connect to what we would consider to be the electronic devices as well for us. >> Okay. I guess I was just round about way of asking. So watches and other things like that are considered part of this policy. >> Yes, they sure are. Um, you know, part of the policy language is also anticipating what objections may be when you have somebody sitting in front of you and you're saying you violated the policy. Well, the policy says electronic signaling devices. These are, you know, earpods. So, we tried to be as forward thinking as we could in development of policy. >> Mr. Ranges a question on advisory. Would this policy still allow a teacher an advisory to not to not be able to
024allow the kids to still keep them off or is it saying they can use them in advisory no matter what the teacher thinks? >> Uh it's saying they can use them in advisory. I I believe is that what >> that's what it's saying. But what I'm saying is what if a teacher and advisory didn't want to be used? I think because in my the way I read the policy, we're taking all the discretion away from a teacher at all time throughout the day. >> Right. Right. >> So the only question I have is on advisory because that's where they would still have contact with a teacher. Can a teacher tell them they can't use it in advisory? >> Um I think the intention, Mr. White, was for kids to be able to use their cell
025phones during advisory. Now there are some clarifications that are needed. There are two days a week where kids could conceivably use their phones. Mondays and Fridays. Thursdays are club days. They could use them there, but generally on those days on Thursdays, kids are in clubs. They're circ circulating around the building anyway. Wednesdays we don't have advisory because we have early release and Tuesdays are our navian um kind of individual plans of study learning activities that we do. And so on those Tuesdays that would be considered instructional time and they would not be able to use them during advisory on those Tuesdays. Mondays, Fridays, they could and Thursdays can see. Am I misrepresenting what we talked about at all? >> Um, >> go ahead. >> So advisory was heavily talked about during our discussion? Um one
026of the policies that we were thinking of is we have advisory kept in the clause as when you can use it during um you can use your cell phone during this time but we were thinking for the next year mainly this would change as time progresses and as you see other states use >> yeah just to piggy back off that a little bit um I think kind of the final consensus was we left advisory in there for now knowing that this policy can be updated if it becomes a problem. Um, and so because there were so many periods of downtime, if you will, where it wasn't strictly instructional time, we felt that that was a good concession to make at this time. >> I don't have an issue with it being included. What I would
027probably take issue is if a teacher for a specific advisory session didn't want them using them. And I I don't know what that circumstance could be, but I would not take the discretion away from an advisory teacher to say to the students they can't use them at this hour. That's the only thing that I'm think because when I read this, there's no discretion of the teacher whatsoever in this policy. >> Even an advisory, right? >> I would give them the discretion of advisory if they wanted to do. Okay? Because there may be a specific instance when a teacher may say, "We're not going to have mom on today for this advisory period." I don't know what that could be, but I'm just thinking that that to me is to me it's very clear. I I
028don't have any disagreement with that, but I wouldn't I don't know if I'd take that discretionary away from a teacher in advisory should they have any reason they wanted to be on. >> Yeah. And that's a simple language tweak, right? That's very very >> that's the only thing I saw. And the the only other thing I'll just take a little bit of humor with is I love the statement at the bottom. The Kansas legislature is expected to pass a bill in January that will require school districts to ban students. I I want to know who who wrote that because I would never expect the Kansas legislature to do anything for sure. [laughter] Uh there there is a bill that's going to come go through the legislature and it has quite a few sponsors particularly on
029the Senate side, but I wouldn't say that it's necessarily going to pass. I'm not convinced yet that it's going to just yet. >> I had a question or a little bit on Mike's thinking is that do we have did we talk about a system of how to communicate to the students? This is, you know, like a stoplight system. Cell phone use red, cell phone use green, so that it's not just verbal, but there's a visual cue because if there's some discretion on it and and so because I looked up some of this stuff, I ran it again and they talked about one of the things about some of these policies to have visual cue stoplight system to signal that the phone expectations per that class or per that situation. And then Do we have any
030did that we have you guys looked at enforcement beyond simply the instructor catching RF detectors anything like that? Uh because you there there's couple areas of argument with the students and they said I didn't know I couldn't use it in this class. if there's different, you know, and then um no, I wasn't using, you know, and and then um should we be looking at or or if it's not that big of a disruption, we don't need, you know, but and maybe give the if we are do have some issues, we know we need to explore um options for the teacher so they have some independent resource for them to say, "Yeah, the kid the kid was on the cell phone." You know, they're like, "No, I wasn't just thoughts. >> Yeah, I mean regardless of
031what the policy is, the experience has been that someone's going to try to game it try to get around it. So you you tweak and you adjust as you go along. Um we thought that perhaps this was a this was a pretty good place to start. >> Yep. And to add to that, I think part of our reasoning with this policy was to not make it overly burdensome to classroom teachers. They're having to police it all day and they're spending a large portion of their time in the classroom having to police cell phones. Then our policy kind of backfired. So being able to visually see if it's out or a distraction and being able to put it away or have disciplinary policy. Um I think we briefly looked at some other options. We looked at
032the pouches that we could, you know, have put in there and um ultimately kind of moved away from that with the policy >> because of what we saw in parent data that we gathered and and what the kids were. So, for example, when my kids were going through high school, the phones still had a keyboard and the kids learned how to text without looking. So, they'd have their hands in their pocket so you wouldn't see it, but they're busy texting each other. Now, they still have to sneak it out and see all this back and forth and and like I said, there's always somebody that can aim it. >> And that's why I feel like teachers have a lot of obligations, you know, that are beyond teaching now. And that's why I was like, well,
033do we need some clear signal so that they're not continually saying this is a no no cell activity or it is whatever. You can do some sort of a visual cue to them. And then not here yet, but we need to at some point think about is there some uh detection of course we should have go yeah that you there were signals to the classroom >> right and we did try to make that as clear as possible in in policy by saying that during instructional time >> y which is the 47 minute class period from the beginning of that till the end of it cell phones should should not be out and if they are out or the teacher notices that the kids using it then it's an automatic recruiter to the office because we
034didn't want the teachers to be in the position of having to remember, oh, I gave a warning to that Nick Williams kid, you know, last week. Probably several more. [laughter] >> So, I think a couple So, a couple of things I guess maybe just to keep in the back of our minds as we're discussing in a question, too. So, in my mind, if we're going to make a policy change like this, it makes sense to do it for the beginning of next school year to give time to put everything in place. in my mind it doesn't make sense to rush this to where we implement it and are trying to do this midstream. So that's that's just a thought I guess for the board and and and I guess to get your feedback on that.
035That would be my my assumption is that we would be looking forward to the start of next school year. >> It's um I agree with that completely. It's always it's always good to give people an opportunity um to hear something that may be pleasant to adjust to it to know it's coming and then to to rant on to it. Yeah. >> Sorry. Go ahead. >> Especially since this is like an addiction for children at this point. >> This is an senior year. >> Yeah. You know, I don't [laughter] I do have a question on the pouches though. Just I'm just more curious from the parents and the students more than anything. >> Uh help me understand why you wouldn't use a pouch because to me if a pouch is issued I assume they would be
036issued to the students and they would put those in there and sit them on the desk or something right there by them. What what's the thought why that would be a better cuz to me then there's no gray area about whether somebody's on it, whether there's a signal coming into a watch. I've only used the pouches one time at a concert and I was blown away when I walked in and I put myself in the pouch. But >> what what's the thought behind not using the pouches? Is it more administrative? Was it cost factors or what what kind of was the thought? So, um I would say let's just imagine there was a fire. These pouches are the ones we're talking about, which is like magnetic and like the school has to like unlock them
037themselves. So, basically, if students wanted to contact their parents in that short amount of time in an emergency, they would be unable to reach it. We just want to give students that safety and parents that safety as well. So, I I appreciate what you brought up as an example because >> the first thing I would say is we shouldn't be worried about contacting our parents in a fire. We should be getting out the building. >> Yeah. >> And outside the building, there should be those big devices to unlock those pouches. So, I appreciate that. I really do want to hear from the parents, too, because to me, this is a a concept of to me, you're taking away a lot of the gray area. They're in a pouch in my opinion, but I just want
038to hear more about. >> So part of the discussion u fell around some legal concerns to some degree of we're taking a piece of personal property away from students. I think there's ways you maybe could use the pouches if like you said on the desk. Uh but that was one of the number one concerns of parents and students was the ability to contact each other in cases of emergencies. And so with that in mind, still being having it in a backpack or something where you can have it on you and be able to access it in a state of emergency um it's kind of where we leaned away from the the pouches. I think even aside from emergencies, it's there's efficiency in not having it in a pouch and coming in and out of the
039pouch all day long if you're in passing period or whenever you're in advisory. Um it's it's certainly simpler for everyone not to have to mess around with pouches. Although sure there's a trade-off between the lack of the black and white certainty as you're pointing out trade-offs and all this to add on to that uh the pouches allow for a lot more evasion. Uh students cannot uh bring like a dummy put in the pouch and then have their actual phone to use in class and the teacher the teacher has no clue about it. It's a lot easier to take that phone out. Um, also the magnets that are used, you can buy a magnet that will unlock them just on Benware and then you can give to other students. And then there's also some just natural
040light. If you hit it hard enough or if you wiggle it out, it might just pop open and then you can grab your There's enough methods of evasion that the pouches aren't truly um secure for the itself. And so it's not only the junior representative on site council, there's also the deviant representative. [laughter] >> So was the same consideration then, you know, with the the blue ribbon report that came out, it talked about leaving cell phones in lockers besides passing periods. Talk, you know, you talked a little bit about that, but why was that decided that was not a good option at the high school? And and granted, I don't have kids in the high school. I haven't had kids in the high school. O would really like to know from both the parent and
041student side what that what that conversation was >> from the parent side it's mostly about communication. I mean I know like the argument is that a lot of parents would just email their kids right or call from Android but the thing is we're so used to texting on our phones are used to communicating using that text. So that's kind of a piece of >> I think another piece of it was just logistics as well. Honestly, Jeremy Rich, how many 100,000 square feet do we have in the building now? It's 30 and what about 300? >> 370,000 ft in the building and kids have 5 minute passing periods. So they're keeping their if they're keeping their phones in their lockers. Some of them on the second floor, they don't have classes on the second floor. it's
042meaning they're going upstairs to try to access them in class. That's going to create issues not just um you know with cell phones but also with them getting to class on time. So >> another point sorry I I actually wasn't at the site meeting with them. So when these decisions were made, so I don't want to be to appear that I'm batting against my team, but um is there a possibility of actually having these cubbies that are RF protected and the students come in and they just place their phone in a cubby and then it's there within a reachable quick kind of if an emergency happens, they can run to it, get it. Um, but then it's still the teacher can see where it is, students can see where it is, and it's within this
043within a reasonable distance, but it's still out of reach with respect to actually using it. So, that might be an option. And it's not locked or anything. It's just there. It's just that you can't get to it. >> So, I'm pretty sure um we do any cell phones that are stored away in cubbies would need to be secured. I'm not sure the actual um uh wording used, but >> yeah, I mean, I'm not again giving legal advice, but so there's that concern. There's that concern about what would happen to students personal property if it's not in their backpacks or somewhere where they they're in control of that. >> Yeah. So, not only would have to be placed on it, but the container is secure. Um, this kind of follows up with the locker point uh
044as well. Uh, lockers um might not be uh totally secure for some students. It's a lot easier for kids to, you know, accidentally get out a locker code or watch others do it. Maybe just ask the lockers open. It can be um a little difficult to say that now lockers are phone storage. storage that will also need to be secured. >> Yeah, my mom, you know, I have a younger sister that's in the high school right now and my mom had a similar argument where she goes, "Well, you know, her locker is nowhere near, she doesn't even go to her locker from the day. So, she hadn't keeping it in there. She'd never be able to text me." And, you know, obviously when I was in high school, my my phone was in my locker
045actually because that was just the norm. Um, I didn't hear that much then, but it's kind of like Aisha said where now it's become such a normal that's just the way things go that I think parents are much more attached to the idea of consistently being able to reach their child throughout the day questions or comments. Thank you guys for all your work on this. I know you've spent a lot of time talking about it. Thank you for taking the time to present it to us tonight and we'll probably be coming back with some more discussion and possibly an action item here in future sessions. >> Round of applause for our presenters. [applause] >> Thank you. >> Thanks. >> Move on to 6.02 which is the January 5th 2025 or 2026 board of education. >>
046Yeah. So just an idea idea to share with the board. So, historically speaking, um we're meeting tonight. We're going to be away for two weeks on winter break and then that's the first week back. There typically has not been a lot of business to do on that very first uh meeting in January. As a board of education, you have a pretty heavy lift in front of you with time and additional board meetings because of the superintendent search that you're meeting and facilitating. So, you're going to have more time away from home. Uh so a thought or maybe even a suggestion is that could be one more night that you have uh with your family and that home as opposed to coming here and having a 10 15 minute meeting and then going back home. Uh
047if you want to have the meeting, not a problem at all. If you're thinking that it's not probably going to be necessary, it's just a way to give some time back. Call that a holiday gift for your choose. I talked to Jeremy about it and uh something said that's weren't on the agenda attorney say whatever you choose but it's complete fine it'll come back as an action item if you choose to take the action item all we'll do is just put it on the website and say we're not even if you choose to keep a status quo no change necessary >> so my only not really hesitation but one to I guess maybe Michael I know that would be your that would be Your last meeting on the board would be January 5th, which would
048make tonight your last your last meeting. So I >> lucky you guys. Tonight's the last. [laughter] >> So just wanted to make sure that everyone knew that that would be going on if we decided to cancel that. So any other discussion or conversation around that? All right. Then we move we'll move on to 7.01 01 which is the January 5th 2026 board of education meeting. So if there is no further discussion would entertain any motion. >> I'll make a motion to cancel the [laughter] 26. >> The date is wrong in the in the agenda. It's January 5th 26. >> Second. >> There's been a motion and second. All those in favor motion passes seven to zero. >> Yeah. Jeremy, before you go to the next item, one thing I do want to mention, Michael last
049meeting, so it's hard to think that it's been eight years ago, but when you came on the board, uh we had some early conversations about some visioning across our school community, some things that we could do to make our school district better, in particular, some of our facilities, uh better than they were the day in which you came. And so, I just want to say thank you for your leadership and guidance over the last eight years. uh you leaned in on things uh with the bond election, you leaned in on making our facilities the best that they possibly can be as well as many other things. Uh but it's kind of interesting tonight we're sitting here uh where your kids used to go to school and there's a brand new room that didn't exist then
050and a lot of that is because of the advocacy that you had and not only in the board but also voters in our school community. So our district will forever be grateful for that. So sincerely thank you. Is this the final time you want me to say a few words? [laughter] No, I just I I just want to say that that was the whole reason I ran for the school board at the time. Uh I knew our district needed to do a bond issue and needed to do things like this. It is full circle for me. You know, my kids came here. I love the school. Love this school district and you know, we worked hard for the kids. I I got the privilege the board elect to be president and we passed the bond
051this year and we put a lot of time and effort into it and it's going to be great for our community, our district and everybody. So, it's been a been a privilege. I've enjoyed it and I will miss it parts of it maybe. [laughter] You know, we I really appreciate the fact I was on the site council before I got on the board and seeing the students here tonight. I think it's great when students bring forth initiatives like cell phone policies. Um I think it's something that we probably should have been thinking about sooner and I I appreciate all the time and effort and parents who put their time into it. Um so yeah, no, it's been great and wish everybody well and I might look you up on the internet occasionally [laughter] uh when
052I'm not busy and been fun. >> Thank you, sir. move on to communications. Just a quick uh superintendent search update. Um so the job has been posted on the various job boards and applications are starting to come in. Um there are going to be focus groups that are happening um that we've worked with um HYA to develop. Those will start uh January 12th, 13th, and 14th. Um if you go to the USD437.net net website and click um the top news item um superintendent search. We have a [clears throat] page there that um documents everything that's following up. So we'll be reaching out to various groups um over the next few weeks to make sure that we have that everyone knows about when those um when those groups are getting together, the focus groups are getting
053together to be able to to sit down and really discuss um the details as we get into kind of the thick of the surge here um after the holiday season. So, um, just that's the quick update. Um, and at this time, the chair would move that we go into executive session at 7:18, uh, p.m. to discuss students pursuant to the exception relating to the actions adversely or favorably affecting a student under coma. Um, to discuss personnel matters pursuant to the exception of non-elected personnel under coma and to discuss budget pursuant to the exception for employer employee negotiations under coma. For 15 minutes, the open meeting will resume in the boardroom. Please help me here >> at 7:33. >> Second. >> A motion, a second. All those in favor? Motion passes 7 to zero. We're in
054executive session. >> Yes, sir. Thank you all. We are back in open session after being in executive session. Any questions? >> I have a I move the board of education releases a certified staff member their contract discussed in executive session. >> There's been a motion and a second. All those in favor? Motion passes seven to zero. Motion to adjurnn. Second. A motion to adjurnn and a second. All those in favor motion passes 7 to zero. We are adjourned.