Baldwin City USD 348 School Board Meeting January 17, 2024

001can see if my phone everything's the same the last 30 seconds okay I got 6:30 so we'll um go ahead and call this meeting of the USD 348 School uh Board of Education to order um I think we'll keep continue the tradition of doing the pledge of allegiance again so I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all all right so we'll go ahead and talk about uh the approval of the agenda I move that we approve the agenda as presented second is second okay we have a motion to approve it and seconded is there any any that doesn't want to do that are there b for for our new board members are

002there any items within the agenda that um in terms of consent agenda are there any items that you would like to pull for discussion um otherwise the uh motion that was excuse me the motion that was made would approve the agenda as is including the consent agenda so that that's where this stage as the board as you're making that that motion um for the discussion are there any items there that you would like to see pulled from agenda for discussion I would need uh those in favor say I those oppose say me and then you can make another okay so uh so uh Chris motion and uh Susan seconded so all those in favor of approving the agenda um as presented raise your hand say I I I I'll say I yes four so four

003three you guys not agree is that does that include the consent agenda yeah that's what we're just talking about and if there's confusion maybe we should kind of ret talk about that a little bit yes um just as as a feater um typically you guys will have the agenda hopefully a week ahead of time you'll have it to look over ask any questions of Mr Dodge or I that you have um at the beginning of each meeting we'll start off with the Pledge of Allegiance and then we will approve the agenda or amend approve an amended agenda to add or take things off um that may have come up throughout the week after we made the the agenda live um for instance bids that we don't get back until like the day before the meeting

004we will amend the agenda I make a motion to approve the agenda as amended with the following amendments so I know I had talked with you guys and there was a little confusion earlier if you want to make a change to the agenda at all this is where you would do it okay so I'll make a motion that we rediscussed of the agenda got it so we need a second second okay all those in favor raise your hand say I I I okay so now we'll talk about approving the agenda at this is the point if anybody wants to change the agenda this is your opportunity to change the agenda okay um I make a motion to remove D7 from the consent agenda because I need more information of that process so D7 is in

005the consent agenda the approval of appointment of uh bcrc board member so would that's we have a motion to remove that to discuss separately from the consent agenda so we'll need a second is it is it an option to discuss it tonight yes yeah we're just we're going to just basically separate it out keep it in the consent agenda we'll move it to consent agenda uh sub subheading nine I second so all those in favor raise your right hand say I I I I so 70 all right so we'll move on then organizational items uh parent family community engagement opportunities uh tomorrow morning at 8:15 we will be having the Baldwin Junior High School spelling be and the PAC uh it's open to parents please just have parents check in at the front office thanks

006um any announcements from board members community members announcements just welcome to the board yeah welcome to the board see guys if you have any questions save them till the end I guess I would I would just like to say just kidding welcome and it's only as bad as you guys make it everybody is in a new position so there there is a lot of leeway I mean it's pretty late that we'll get yeah okay moving on to see then annual organizational items um we have to decide who's going to fill the roles um for the first one um I'd say we'd open the floor for nomination for board president I nominate Phil for board president do we second these nominations yes okay I will second that motion great um okay all those in favor say

007I gu I it's be all well I was going to abstain but in Kelly's book she said you're not allowed to abstain okay so uh we'll take a um nomination for election of board vice president like to nominate Chris Parry oh I'll second that fine baby all right we have a motion in a second to nominate Chris Perry for uh vice president all those in favor raise your right hand say I I I 70 I'm assuming I didn't hear any Nays I abstained okay abstain I believe those are the only two that we need motions okay perfect so designation for the board of Representatives to the interlocal um that is to um the interlocal that meets in Wellsville for special education uh I know Chris you've been doing it the load of vice president is

008going to be heavy on your shoulders I don't know if you want to continue to do that yeah I think I think with the timing of uh the new director interview process is going on there I'd like to continue that a membership of representation for the inter local as well that would welcome a second party to Jo think you have to don't we think we should have a um you iate Jamie C Jamie I was goingon to say I think you'd be a really excellent member of that team I'm perfectly Co okay perfect wonderful good okay do we pick an alternate as well I mean I mean do you want two and an alternate I think we have historically that way we haven't had an alternate for the inter local I think we've just had

009two okay um and the second one I think sometimes is just an alternate okay okay um okay so then uh representative for negotiations um for for um like teacher salary for those of you that don't know um we have two members of the board that will not be able to be nominated um because they have spouses with in the district so you don't get to pick Mindy or Jamie pick somebody else so is there anybody that's got a burning desire to be on the negotiations committee still you've been on it and led it I have that's me I feel like somebody else should have a Champs I'm happy to serve wherever but not lead it I I've never been on it I mean I've been on the teacher side of negotiations so I've been in

010the process but not I mean I'm I'm excited and happy to do it but I mean I I would say I would be happy to be on it but I don't want to lead you know I mean I would like at least um I okay fine I I'll be happy to do negotiations but I would like somebody else to also be there so that that that knowledge gets continued that process and understanding of that continues to you know down the road so you want be only here two more years yeah well that's that's what I'm worried happy to find negotiations trainings through KV and sign you up or send it to you whether or not it's a pdia okay perfect have we had an alternate for that before yeah we've always there always been alternate

011for that one so would it be okay to have three of you I think we I think we've had one in an alternate historically I think that's how it's gone correct me if I'm wrong we had three we had yeah last year I was the alternate last year you were the alternate last year I never did anything so but you did it the you did yeah I did I did it for the three years before that or two years before that okay so you get all that Phil and Brad yep and do we want to alternate anybody in else interested Susan I'm happy to Susan all right um how about uh for the wellness board representative for the wellness committee sorry oh I ski one oh sorry the bef yeah that's what you were doing

012that before do you right no I do District site counsil Kelly was BF oh Kelly was right yeah maybe are one of you ladies in BF if you're already in not I would be happy to do it that me I think what quarterly I think it's once a four times a year and then I it's generally there's it's twice a year generally and then U as needed in between if necessary uh there's a meeting tomorrow night 7:00 at the at the M americ Bank Annex if uh and I I did let them know that whoever was in that position may or may not be able to make it based on timing of the role so that's a fun place to be because that's that's where they go and run give the grants and so when

013they do the grants you as the member of the board that's on the bef gets to be there to see that that all happen so so it's give be you l no you can do it okay perfect good okay wonderful um Wellness committee representative what's that Wellness committee we this is a committee that is it's kind of spearheaded with our district nurse basically trying to promote uh healthy and active Lifestyles within the staff um right now we a lot of work that we do goes in towards uh monthly Wellness challenges that take place um it's a lot of brainstorming a lot of um trying to come up with creative and new ways to help Inspire staff to be active take care of themselves there there's such a giving uh in that profession of always focusing

014on others it's an opportunity to turn around reflect on on our own Wellness so that's basically what they what the group does and we meet um about uh two to three times a year again based on need uh we'll generally meet over the summer to plan for the back to school push the be real work uh to um plan our Wellness campaigns takes place I would say since I'm an alternate or backing up Phill for the negotiations i' be happy to do the wellness okay perfect do we need an alternate for the wellness Committee in case the guy's not well no no okay so uh designation Board of Representatives for Bond facilities subcommittee which I think we've historically used three people to avoid any coma violations do we want to continue with three people on

015the subcommittee I think of of everybody I think I was the only one that's still present that was on that so I'm happy to to continue on with that but it would be nice to have anybody who's interested you know we can have up to two more were any of the new people I'm interested in doing it yeah okay very good that's two a third taker I we only meet like every other Tuesday and Wednesday and Thursday okay perfect lazy too all right that was easy all right so on to uh approval of the consent agenda except for uh item seven which will break out secondarily so this would be I need a motion to approve the consent agendas 1 through six and number uh I guess eight is the approval of the consent agenda

016so 1 through six to break out number seven we approve the consent agenda with removing seven for discussion so we need a second second Susan second or Susan motion and Chris seconded all those in favor raise your right hand and say I I I so so on to item seven approval of appointment of the bcrc board member all right I'll kind of give some backstory um we were notified that we've got a the bcrc has two positions that are board appointed um and past practice to that has been the recommendation would uh would be made to the board uh by a selection committee that was operated through the uh bcrc uh themselves and then the board would would approve uh that individual through consent agenda um that is a that is the practice that has

017been in place the practice itself does allow for the board to conduct their to identify a subgroup if you will to to basically go through and and do the interview process as as you um as as allowed um based on the timing of the outgoing board and the new board coming in there was a lot of moving parts we didn't start with the new board until the 8th and we had we we just had a lot going on I went ahead and did some inquiry on past practice and just elected to go with the past practice however with a new board in place I totally understand the idea of if this is a recommendation that's coming from the board and in reflection of the board have having the board be part of that process um

018so this just know that um the idea here if the recommendation is approved or not approved it is is we would be able to put together a a group that could do the interviews and move forward what we want to make sure though is that we give the the record committee an opportunity to be able to uh to get moving with the work that they need to get done so that is my my understanding of it I I asked Matt to be here to be able to answer questions or to be able to clarify the situation because I I want to make sure that everyone here has the right information Matt would you mind coming up and and being able to talk about the process yeah hi guys director of B City ation commission I

019don't know where I should stand right there's fine don't stand in front of the camera CU it'll just get your back um yeah as Mark mentioned um we are a joint uh commission so what that means is we have two Schoolboard appointed positions we have two City appointed positions and one position that's at large that's voted on by our own board um as as Mark mentioned as well in the past since I've been here a little over 5 years the practice has been well there really wasn't a practice when I when I first got here so so I kind of created a a u um kind of a oh a plan basically in order to recruit to score um candidates and then um we discuss at our board meetings and we pass along those candidates

020to either the city or the school board and then they approve uh usually on consent however um Martin's right you do have per state statute you do have the right to conduct your own search interview process recruit and then appoint members to our board um and either way is is is totally fine um and kind of what we've created is there's there's really been no good way to to recruit board members in the past usually you know if you had a pulse boom you were interested you're you're in right um so I developed a uh a application which I think you may have a copy of and then from that application we will score each uh applicant is kind of how this works as as a board I do not our board scores these applicants

021um just like with any other position you know the more information comp on the application um the better you're going to come through and the better you typically score and so um with that in place we pass that information along to the school board and then um they can make a decision based on the information that's presented and uh that's kind of how the process has worked but again you do have that right to conduct a search do interviews and then appoint a position if you so desire if if my understanding would choose would rather conduct their own sech to do that then uh not approve the recommendation that came through with the understanding we put together our team to to do that um my vision if that would be the case we would have

022subcommittees more three members as a part of it myself and then I would visit with Gary to be on that committee as well and possibly to me on that committee to to round out yeah and the the city actually went through this process this past summer when we had an opening and they included one of our board members on that as well just to have some input so we would we request that if you do go that route how many um applicants was there this year we had six or this time around we had six um not all get scored you know if if if the application doesn't if you can't get a good gauge on who they are or the answers are maybe a little bit incomplete we just we don't score those so

023it's it behooves people to fill those out very thoroughly because that's really the only opportunity we have to get to get a feel for who they are um we actually have we are going to amend our process moving forward if if you the process stays the way it is currently um we're going to probably conduct interviews for the top two or three candidates or a meet and greet uh situation where we get face to face with those people because you know paper doesn't sometimes do people Justice versus meeting them face to face we haven't done that before but at our last board meeting we did opt to uh moving forward we're going to amend the process to include a face to face whether it's a meet and greet or an interview I I use the

024term interview um lightly because you know a lot of times in volunteer position which our board is we're not our board members aren't elected and so we don't want to necessarily deter people from applying especially if it's a very uh cumbersome process so we want to try to keep that as as easy as we can for people but still get a good feel for who they are as or who they would be as a board member what's the length of the term it's four years so this particular position that we're we're U discussing right now actually expires summer of 25 so then it would renew again correct correct so then at 25 you're going to have to go through that processing correct and actually we have two positions that will come open in 25 and

025they're both School Board appointed both School Board appointed yeah so do we have the option to like St we approved us then we have the option to change it for the next school Round in 25 okay you can do whatever you like yeah I just want I just want toar information about how it works that's all yeah um and you have six members on the board we have five five members on the board two City two school district and one and then you so you're count the six yeah I don't vote you're you're yeah I'm not so now we have to decide what we want to do so if if if there's somebody that says hey look I think we should have more say as a school board in this and we want to go

026through the the the process and and make sure that we're you know involved then we would say we we don't approve it if everybody's saying okay that's cool sounds good maybe next time we want to be involved you know we don't want to hold up your stuff now then we say we want to approve it so we need a motion for one of the other the second so if you approve the recommendation you're approving it through 25 yeah if you don't approve then we need to plan I I just think trusting the director of recreation department is a big important aspect of this whole I guess I mean I don't have that kind of knowledge so I make a motion to approve the um appointment by the bcrc we have a motion we need a

027second all right all those in in favor approving uh the bcrc appointment uh for the board member uh raise your right hand say I so 7 zero okay very good if you guys do have interest in changing anything you know let me know and we can s have those what um just since we're still kind of here talking about after we approved it what kind of time frame do you normally spend I mean obviously if this was midterm maybe it was a little bit un you know you didn't know and all a sudden now there's a spot that you have to fill so it's kind of a little bit of more of a time crunch um you know if if the board wanted to become involved would would you want them that start that you

028know like two months in advance yeah two to three months in advance would be great yeah um so we'd be looking at Spring of of uh 25 at this point okay put that on my calendar yep that's right all right okay thank you thanks guys okay so recognition then the part where Kelly always stood up it is need sign I got it so I I asked uh danith to be here to to speak about 's uh 's honor and accomplishment sorry sorry it's spelled wrong on here I know I'm just kidding a spelling be thing you know all right so for on behalf of the Baldwin City Board of Education we support and promote excellence in all school activities y I got we got oh we got to go over there okay oh there you

029now you are so uh supporting uh excellence in all school activities including spelling bees right so on this day January 17th 2024 the Board of Education recognizes and congratulates Evie for winning right the spelling be you know how I spell winning i n n i n g do that one right there take good job Mr walth yeah so every every competed in our school spelling be so each classroom elects two Representatives so we had 24 contestants and that's all three grades so she beat out everyone in her class and everyone else in her school to be our school Champion with the word pervading I'm going sit down she gu to move on to the Douglas County Spelling be on February 10th and after that competition there's a state competition and there's a f a national

030competition so we are pulling for her to represent us well on February 10th we're proud of it all right um per pervading that was the word I don't know what that means can you use it yeah yes I can't spell forting all right um School Board recognition uh month so Jan yes January is the annual month of recognition to Schoolboard members for all the work that you do it's it's a volunteer position it's an elected position it's a position that uh is a lot comes with a lot of work and a lot of dedication and time and so on behalf of everyone at USD 348 we want to thank you for all your time and efforts uh that you put in for those of you that have started started putting in um on the great

031work that takes place in the district so and in addition to that um Megan Family Church provided these uh these thank you bags also that you they around thank you you're welcome uh so educational program highlight some techn ology each each month we we ask a department or a building to provide an update or a highlight on what going on within the school district K Harel and and do a and Drew do an amazing job for our district and the technology access that we have and an update for you I am the update tonight kind of because we have a lot of new board members as was very basic should kind of short and sweet um so so in probably next month or the month after I will be back and probably be asking for

032a you to improve a lot of money to buy a lot of devices uh so I thought I'd Ed tonight's educational highlight and and kind inform the new board and board the old board just a little bit to talk about um what sort of devices we have in the district and where they are um so I'm going to start out at the primary Center the primary Center has iPads one: one for K through 12 and then I have some uh cards for preschool um both of our elementary schools uh previous to 2020 previous to the pandemic uh had carts uh some laptop carts some iPad carts um we did a lot of reorganization with a lot of old devices back then to try to get a device into everybody's hand but now we have kind

033of a rotation together it was helped out a little bit by um some grants initially um but now it's kind of worked out uh so at the primary Center the majority of their iPads uh come across from the high school from the the graduating senior iPads so we usually get six to eight years use out of the iPads um and so we will have we are going to this year I think I need to look at the rotation for sure that soon we're going to uh get at least the second grade iPads into the actual rotation where they get get something new on the building um their uh learning management system for the most part of seesaw over there we we are a little different than some districts and each of our schools has a

034little bit of their own flavor of how they deal with devices and parents and and and apps and whatnot uh they probably have the least amount of uh apps used over there there I kind of looked at it's not like every student uses 30 different apps um but just looking at the apps that we've made available for everybody in the district theirs gets bumped up because a lot of them have I don't know if you want know what osmo is but there are probably 15 osmo apps so in rotation I would say regularly maybe the average good you know we we make available around 15 or so um so that kind of covers the primary Center the IC is in a similar situation they um had more a few more carts um and they didn't

035neither of these buildings had uh a lot of uh input when we Transit to one to one because it was kind of during pandemic and we were kind of like we just can't deal with cleaning all the devices how are we going to do this um so um we'll see that differed a little bit with the the other two where we planned a one to one uh and when I say one to one at these buildings they do not take the devices home they're in the in the um classrooms in aart um so but each there's enough there's an iPad there for every student for the most part um the intermediate Center uses Google classroom as their main um learning management system and they have you know more apps they don't have all the osmo

036apps but they we Supply when I say Supply we have a management system where we um they don't have the actual App Store where we can push apps out to them so when I grab a number I just kind of looked at the management system to see how many apps we we had available that again doesn't mean that in any classroom there's anywhere near 40 apps used um at a time uh and those are currently on a four sometimes 5e rotation we're kind of trying to get again we had some um grant money initially to get an iPad and all those and and then we kind of changed our rotation a little bit because we um took the laptop parts out and and I can get about approximately three iPads for a laptop so uh

037it kind of depends on keyboard cases and whatnot but so um I think if we had asked them pre-co they would have been all like we really need the I the laptops um but we've had really really good um reception and feedback from having the iPads in the classroom and not have any move the carts around and stuff so I think it's worked out well um at the junior high they did um they weren't one to one and the board did approve a one to one at the beginning of the 2019 2020 school year um they spent the year before doing some research and and um having some meetings and talking about what they wanted to do um and uh they did put Chromebooks um I found about 50 apps that we had in basically

038the store that Chromebooks use and where we approv them uh for all of these when I say apps there's a lot of websites teachers used to we we keep the kids are going to log into the website and identify themselves we we have a pretty good control of that but if it's something where you don't log in and you just use it um you know I can't tell you individually what's happening in each classroom with that um those Chromebooks are currently planned for a three-year lifespan so they a student gets it in sixth grade um and when they graduate 8th grade um we might use them again for spares or to replace ones that are broken somewhere along the way but we don't plan on handing it back to a sixth grader and getting it

039used for another 3 years um the Chromebooks are uh more delicate in our iPads and and laptops um I did look up uh did I get that in there yeah so I looked up from January of 23 to January 24 note that we there are Chromebooks in three of 13 grade levels we had 160 tickets for Chromebooks and 70 for the iPads so um getting a lot more tickets on them um but I think it's it's a really good thing to have a different experience um I think that's true of all technology I think it's all about you learn a lot about what's possible so that later when you're somewhere in your hand of whatever you figure out how to do it because you know these things are possible and and they're pretty probably possible

040on any device and any kind of you know uh application you the get that's that there something like word is going to do most of the same things um so having that different experience there in in the junior high I think has been good um um they also have one iMac lab in their building uh our elementary schools do not have any laptop labs for the most part there's some there's some iMat scattered around in a library or somewhere but um for the most part they don't have that and finally in our high school um I couldn't remember for sure but I think it was about the 14 15 school year when um they first went one to one with iPads they did um probably a little more it was a while ago but they

041did a little more they did a pilot the year before and the year before that they did visits and they they spent a lot of time considering what they wanted um so they have uh been using iPads for a while and our capabilities of and management of them and handling of them has grown with that program um it's much better now than it was in 1415 um so at both the intermediate Center and the high school we're now buying laptops with keyboard cases uh similar to what a couple of the board members have here the newest ones for the high school actually have a trackpad that the Freshman received this year their learning management system is canvas um so again where as we progress through you get exposed to a a lot of different things

042so that is something they'll see again on a lot of college campuses um I found about a 100 apps or so available to to them um and their iPads as I mentioned before move down to the P PC they also have three about three CTE labs are the the journalism lab isn't quite as big as the other two but there's also some in art so we'll call it three uh those are on a fouryear rotation and the um they have four laptop carts that are on a six-year rotation um so we keep those laptops around a little bit more um and finally in our Virtual Academy um students can request a device um I want to say maybe have to uh we we're get we have had more requests this year than we have had

043in the past um greenfish at this point anyway requires a Chromebook um at the again kind of at the beginning of 2020 we we had purchased some extra Chromebooks and so we have been using those I'm not sure even at this point if we're ever going to need to work those Green Bush things into our rotation or if we're going to be able to supply them from our teachers at the junior high also have um Chromebooks as well as a students and so we may be able to keep that going you know just with the unused or the slightly out of date again we're only using them for three years so there's still some not there's not another three years of use in them but you can pull out a few and find 20 that

044are going to going to do pretty well so um that's kind of where that is and again I just kind of wanted to walk through what was where so in a couple year couple uh next month or the month after when I come in and say you know we usually buy everything well it always has to be second semester because it has to do with when the money comes in um but buy everything here in the early spring so that we have it over the summer to set up and and get ready so do you guys have questions are we still doing where the when they um I think I so you were taking the high school iPads and Tak them to the primary it used to be they could had the option to buy

045them yeah and we have that the board does look at that again every year but um for the past quite a few years they've had the option to buy them I think we didn't do it um the year we were really short on devices we were trying to figure out how to get one to one but they have we've had that option open again the last couple years and I feel like we don't have a lot of takers no we haven't um had a you know there's Maybe four or five some years a little more it kind of depends on um every year we look at purchasing the devices and and so the iPads aren't always maybe they're the same quality but sometimes they're higher storage or apple decided to obsolete an operating system sooner

046or later or something so the the price kind of goes up up and down year to year I kind of look at and sometimes we buy maybe an iPad 7 two or three years in a row so the last year the got them those seem older than not but for the most part um the price goes up and down a little bit so it's varied a little bit from year to year how many get purchased I do kind of I always look at basically what they're selling for them um and adjust it from there well for the used ones but yeah they we actually last year we also opened up the the option for them to buy the Chromebooks because we were at the end of life with the HPS um haven't really reached that

047point yet we might be there again uh so we'll see and every year when we buy I think iPads is single Source right so just fixed cost right so with the with the Apple devices it's single source so and all of this money then will come out of capital outlay because it's their uh computers are included in capital outlay um apple is a single Source um place to P purchase so we won't typically um get um bids from other vendors because they're they Supply the education price um for the Chromebooks those will go out for bids and and we'll have bids to look at for those great questions though president been paying attention always all right I think that's it thank you what that I do want to just point out well K wrapping up

048um K and and her team they do a great job um when you break out uh Jake and K's student to adult ratio they're operating one to close to 700 and the amount of student students that they and staff that they're responsible for is pretty significant and I say this with the idea of when we start talking about our threeyear staff we are getting very close to a pinch Point within their departments so Le ke the top quality services that we provide with technology of the cons for our students and our staff we are getting close to a point where we need to get uh some some additional bodies into that department um and coming up with that so that that will be coming down P just wanted to point that out so thank you

049k for well you're welcome and I I will leave that most of that discussion for a later day but I will say that in addition to the student devices we are responsible for the staff devices and pretty much all those security and anything that looks like technology in the district all right thank you um celebrating 348 348 voices yeah that's right super good at least I can still read it from here all right celebrating uh student voices I've not been present very long so I haven't gotten any letters I don't know if you've gotten any I have not no no so nothing right now but I will say that uh I did receive a phone call a couple weeks ago uh inviting me to take part in the blood drive today that took place I

050had never donated blood before um and this time was the first time that I did it and it was really cool to be a part of that this afternoon watching the kids uh take ownership promoting of it helping out and assisting there and you know some some facts that that glue Me Away Today is when you sit down and you donate a pint you the statistics show that you're you're helping three lives saving three lives so that was pretty cool so in a way that was uh celebrating their voices yeah perfect all right Mr DOD all right so Employee of the Month all right Jam that so each month as for new board member uh we started this last year in the Bal Education Foundation help support this program um and so each month we

051put a survey out to our our staff and seek nomination for employees of the month those that are going above and beyond and reflecting what the baldwi built hashtag uh represents and so with that tonight uh the January Baldin built employee of the month is described as a consistently positive role model for students and staff they go well Above and Beyond in their expectations encouraging a passion for Learning and improving they offer positive feedback to all the adults and students they work with daily so that they always have at least one genuinely positive interaction each day your winner works in the community as well to improve business opportunities for the young women in our community serves much of the baldwi public at her other job and is involved in many other community Improvement programs your

052employee of the month volunteers or at or spectates at many Baldwin Sports and activities and is described as the most concrete definition of Baldwin buil that I have ever seen one nomination provided the following quote in reflection of our winner great leaders are not defined by the absence of weakness but rather by the presence of clear strings John Peters Zer so at this time please join and congratulating your January Baldwin built Employee of the Month Shen name m BR I when I called and told her I kind of drug her along and I I decided to use the the award what are you doing conversation and and uh really catch her while she keeps going just what what is it you want so I was like well I'd like you to show up to the

053board meeting okay would you like to know why yes so I told her and and shared this news with her and I told her that she now had a belt that she would be able to display prominently well I happened to see your daughter later that day and I told her daughter to make sure she gets the the scoop on the belt and make sure it gets displayed in more PR so Jan [Applause] congratulations a special prize that goes with that thank you thank you everybody yes now on you oh sweet I'm delegating that's smart well Kelly was the bef that's why she did oh okay all right so uh do we have anybody sign up for public comment nope skip public comment um oh financial report all right so um we have the uh

054Capital Outlet plan that uh projects about 3 or 4 years worth of projects that we need to do and that's kind of a a uh a task order for for Mike as he goes through and he develops and works on improving our facilities and our programs across the district so one thing that's been on that list for several years has been the volleyball standards and divider curtain here at the high school so uh that was one of our projects and for this year and so Mike has uh an update on the bids and an ask for you well um we we sent out the bids and got three back and we opened them up on January 12th uh the bids came from ASCO U company out of anexa star company out of Dora and Carol's

055seating out of uh Kanas City Kansas um Carol seating um gave us the lowest uh bid offer and they can meet the timeline for the installation of spring break so that's that's what I'm recommending you guys have any questions that's pretty pretty well under what we had budgeted we had 60,000 budgeted right 60,000 budgeted and um 13,000 plus um to put into the floor refinishing cuz we'll have to refinish the floor and get it reped um so that'll help there too bless you I'd like to make a motion that we accept um Mike's recommendation girls the B have a motion and a second second okay did you get that Megan we get our Motion in our second I can't see you oh that's why I can't see you yes I got it all right so

056we got a motion as a second so all those in favor raise your right hand say I I I 70 thank you do you want to uh just use this as a a moment Mark to just kind of talk about the bid process I mean how we do bids because May for the new members that there's like you know so statute requires any project itself that requires an expenditure of $20,000 that it has to go through a state bid process and by that uh the bids have to be publicized sent out received by a certain time there has to be a specific opening that takes place with a witness in the room and they go through and they publicly discuss discuss what the bids that came through and they they meet the different qualifications for

057that process um that is that's one way to approach these projects another way is you have what are called State contracts these are pre-bid contracts that take place annually that are think of it's a list of vendors that the state already says yes they meet all the qualifications and you can go straight to them and get work done as you need even if the work exceeds 20,000 but you still want to come to the board to get approval to do that so Green Bush uh Cooperative purchasing you may hear that from time to time um Mike what are a couple of the lists that you use for use um well one of the state contracts we use is for our flooring uh commercial floor Works they do our carpet rotation every year they did the

058Bay down stairs um we also use z apartners um and I want to say something like Sur but there's there's probably three or four that we use on top of the just the state GRE Bush and vehicles in the same state under the state yes under the same state contract yeah so uh we buses we just this last uh fall we did two um Chevy Blazers so that we had uh some some alternative transportation for staff to use going to and from events or being able to transport kids um what are some other state con talked about carpeting yeah those are the most recent bues the vehicles excuse me the two vehicles were through Green Bush Consortium so they bet those and they bring those on so I think I think that's just important to

059know as a new board member that there's a there's a that's a it's a pretty strict process for like how you can get bids and and and then um submitting bids and who can compete for those bids um and I think we've kind of we've got a little bit of a precedent like if we get only a single bid a lot of times we'll say look let's put this back out there or try to figure out so we get other ones but sometimes too U the Green Bush uh prices aren't always the best um the AFCO is on that list for it came out to be the highest B so generally what you try to do is is seek out the lowest responsible bid um sometimes um there are times where that lowest bid may

060not be the best bid for a variety of purposes sometimes it Mike we talked about timeline being very important being able to accomplish a project within a certain time frame um sometimes it's the ability to stay local uh help so there are a variety of factors that go in to make it that that's come up with us as before too we want to keep them all the same Fleet under the same Fleet MH so we can and that saves US money on on parts and repairs and all that right yeah thank you um any questions about that before we move on all right so on to um administrative reports the KB policy updates all right so what I've uh provided for you is just a a first look at the draft policies ksb generally sends

061the the First Look To Us in December but with the transition of the board being what it was what I wanted to do is move that first look this year to January to give our our new board members an opportunity to be a part of that versus coming in this month and then going ahead and voting on something so what we'll do is we'll get a first look this month um and then next month we'll we will come through with an ask to approve the policies that are there um and so what you've got uh the red line um is the the recommendations from kasb the our Kansas Association of school schol boards who helps us with the different policies that come Place most of them that we get are in reflection to legislation new

062legislation that takes place and so that's what you'll see it's it's not uncommon to see something that'll say is isn't alignment with State Statute and that's one or it may be amending a a previous policy based on statute that's there the other attachment that I have there for you is showing you some the recommendations that we're looking at um as of this uh this time next month what I'll do is I'll come through and we'll have an ask to approve the policies um and so just kind of doing a rund down here uh the evacuations the emergency policy that's there uh we currently have that policy but this one would be an update so at this time we would uh next month when we go through and ask for the the approval there we'd be

063wanting to do so under the idea that it it approves the revision giving our Administration the ability to make decisions based on the safety of staff and students um the next policy that you see listed there is e Food Service management I want to move this uh the description of this to the February meeting um because that particular policy is in response to deficient fund balances for lunch accounts um and it spells out policy for how to respond in the event that a student becomes deficient within a lunch balance um option one provides an opportunity to go go forward with a regular meal but you have those behind the scenes efforts to make sure and you help the family get that balance paid off option number two is is the idea of giving them an

064alternative meal um and trying to do so in a way that does not single the child out so some districts it's a peanut butter sandwich a cheese sandwich sometimes it's a deli sandwich whatever the district or board approves of that um piece there what I want to do is really talk with our food nutrition staff about that I I do know that they feel strongly about making sure every kid gets a solid meal and their dignity is preserved in the whole process so I want to go through and spend some more time with with Charlie on that before I come back with a specific recommendation there um the pregnant and parenting employees that is one you'll see that puts us in compliance with um with law that's there it would be a new policy the

065GID is military leave we we currently do have that policy but this revision would reflect the federal requirements uh that are now there um and inform those that may not be aware and so we would recommend next month that we approve that policy um the IDE the uh jbh releasing of a student during the school day here um we would we would say to recommend that policy as it has a pigtail to the very first policy that we talked about uh the evacuations and emergencies um let's see moving down to JD daa student misuse of medication that that one is also a pigtail policy with JF or jgf GBA Student Self medication medicating uh policy self- administration of medication so the the first one there um the misuse deals with students who um you know

066pass out medication at school um whether it's I it can be anything from ibuprofen and tylenol all the way up to something that is is more substantial uh and nature and it provides some teeth there um and then the second policy that's there is just the ability for families can give their their student permission to be able to carry some ibuprofen with them um that sort of thing um I really want to have a really solid conversation with our our school nurse on that so in February we'll have a recommendation there uh we know what's important but we want to do it in a way that best reflects our students and provides responsibility and accountability so in in February what we'll do is we'll go through uh there'll be a revised uh recommendation there to

067reflect the conversations that I want to have with Charlie and Lisa um to do so all right all right so at this time there's no ask for any approvals and then we'll also have an opportunity to talk about them a little bit on February so make sure that you go through that that red line one will show you what exactly what's changed and spell everything out and then then the second one is Martin Dodgers um is our your recommendations so have a chance to read that between now and then um so fall and winter academic screening update all right so one of the things that uh we have been working on is trying to make sure that we provide the board an update with the uh data that we are collecting the work that we

068are doing for student achievement throughout the course of the year uh one of the the measures that we leverage there that we use throughout this course of the year to make sure we're providing students with the best possible individual instruction that we can as well as help inform our instructional decisions within the classroom is screening data we do screening three times a year fall winter and spring and that information helps guide our instruction to make sure that we're providing students with the supports and services they need uh to excel so I've asked asle what's that that was your presentation so no I'm yeah I'm just going to do a quick update um comparing fall and winter from this past year um in the spring dive deeper into like the whole year of data with State

069assessments and all of that um so we use fast Bridge which is a national Norm screener um from reading and math we um are going to look at a reading a math which are um aligned with our national Common Core curs um students take about 30 questions and we give this three times a year in the fall in the winter and the spring to grades 2 through 11 based off those scores um sorry my voice is shaking really bad um students are um category or in four categories Advan low risk high risk and Su risk um so our data is going to be over those scores as well as high schoolers who um scored 16 and above in Reading in the pre acts and 18 and above in ela on the acts those are your

070um college readiness benchmarks so these are our last three screening periods um last spring at the end of the year the beginning of this year and then this past winter so we want our students in that low or Advanced categories um in that purple and we want to see decreasing in these pinks which are some anti-risk um so this winter we saw scores similar to our spring which is great we had 68% of our students in low risk or Advance compared to 67 in the fall um and we saw a decrease in our high risk um from fall to winter our math looks really rate um we had our high risk percentage the lowest we've ever had since starting fast Bridge 3 years ago um so 7% at that high risk and then we have

07171% of our students um at low risk or advanced in that math so that is our reading and math um just that comprehensive screener but we also are going to go over um our social and emotional data which we also collect from fastbridge we use their social academic and emotional behavior um risk screener which is um or Sabers um it's a 20ish question um rating scale my Sabers is completed by students um grades 3 through 12 this um we need parent permission they have to opt in their students and they answer questions like um I'm worried I'm respect full um I like school and then Sabers is our teacher completed survey um grades pre-k through 12 so last year the state changed some of the requirements for nonacademic survey so we held off and didn't

072give my Sabers last year um so we started this year and in the fall we had um 82% of our students um scoring that low risk 15 In Sum and three in our high risk um our winter screener is open right now so we won't have data until the end of January and then Sabers is completed by teachers um we saw a increase from Spring to Fall of our low risk and decreased our sum risk and then we'll have our winter data um later this month so our B looking at these screeners is we want 80% or more of our students in that lowrisk or Advanced category U 15 or less in some risk and then 5% or less in that high risk um in a perfect world 100% low risk but I um ideally

073these are our goals so some things we have in place to help us um accomplish these are we have a really good um multi-tiered system of support in both of our elementary building buildings so students that have any deficit in reading and math are in a small group um 3 to five times a week working on those missing skills um at the junior high and high school we have our Student Success or core four class for extra support for those kids that might be highrisk using Bast Bridge um attendance could be a highrisk category um ATT did I say attendance attendance um grades and then all students um in all buildings that are considered at risk are being progress monitored frequently just to make sure they're still growing and making um progress um we are

074currently training staff um in the mtss process using tazin um we are concentrating on behavior and we're already making making those goals um in our Behavior screener data um so we're excited to see um that work with reading and math as well um last year we adopted a new curriculum for our elementary and this is year one so it it follows um the science of reading and we are implementing it right now so we are excited to see those results and then we are looking for new materials for junior high Ela as well just to clarify a couple AC that you'll see there um so ntss that's multi-tiered system of support again that speaks back to the utilizing data to make sure that we are making instructional decisions for interventions for students but it's also

075tier one it's tier one strong rigorous instruction it also includes the what we call Core instruction the tier one there tazin um techical assistance support network um I I liken them to uh trainer experts uh that go around helping school districts Implement uh the the ti system our support is is one of our one of the trainers that does this for the supports districts across the state with behavior I'm in wiah you're in witta you're in the witcha region but is sometimes I D so I I yes and and we we do brainstorm quite a bit um and so th those are two uh Edy speak words that you'll probably hear quite a bit um because it is something that we are focused on and making sure that we have that systematic structure across our

076district District so that when students leave Elementary we've talked about you see we've got a strong system going K through five when they get to the junior high and high school we're working to make sure that those uh support system itself is in place in those two buildings so that we can continue to help students as they progress through our system so sorry yeah our elementary does a really great job right now um of doing at the tier one for everybody um we use a lot of fast bridge data and other data Collections and teacher input for that tier two so they're getting an extra hit and then those high-risk kids are going to that tier three where they're getting three hits of specialized instruction to um really make that growth and it doesn't exclude

077just because I have to chime in I have to it does not exclude special education special education part ofed the framew so it's not like you're in tier three and then they special no it's not a special student could be in tier two or tier one just depends on what the needs are yes but I was curious what your um participation right was on the oh that's a good question you can look that later I will um our so in the fall we am included that opt-in opt out survey with enrollment so we had a good response um for the winter we have to send out another um optin opt out and our response right now we have about maybe maybe 50% um but only 15 are opting out of that 50% one of the

078things about my saers piece my saers piece because it is student perspective it is it's very powerful and meaningful uh Sabres itself which is the teacher scoring um it's still beneficial but the mys saer itself is it provides uh a direct student response and that that's why uh we're we find that information so meaningful and the research even finds it more meaningful from the student at the secondary level so it's really good to get that but I know our fall participation will be much higher than our reg participation is there an option to put like when they do the enrollment to put fall and winter and there's like a timeline the state statute only allows for four months so we can put winter and spring together but because of the timeline we can't put fall

079um for the ELA adoption this year for the middle school does the version of things we got for the K5 does it also have a version for the middle school as well the company has an Ela but it's not necessarily aligned with 2.0 or something it's two different names but it's amplifi does do a Elementary which is what we have and a middle school but not necessarily they're not connected yeah okay okay um overall we're really happy with um our progress we know that students and staff work really hard um in all areas not just what we can show you here so that is all I have if there's any more I had a question on the the goals how are those goals set is that a district thing or a state that's that's an

080mtss framework goal itself follows like like like think about the medical model of you you screen everybody to see what else they need you don't go in and give everybody a a penicillin shot because everybody doesn't need that you just you screen everybody with their height and weight and that's how they how they screen and then the coal being 80% is in core instruction if you have more than less than 80% in in core instruction so if you have like 40% who need interventions it's really hard to provide that so that's why it's very important that we consider tier one before even the intervention so when we start seeing information that shows that our you know our low risk is you know 40 to 60% that's where we start questioning all right are our core

081instructional materials meeting our needs so that's part of that discussion so in relation to that it looks like in both math and reading currently we're below that 80% threshold right so I know we just had uh professional development for our staff members where they I mean was it the whole day or half day where they sat with the data to have conversations about that are there any things that the Board needs to know about those conversations because I mean obviously we want to get to 80% and Beyond like you said but so for reading um we are at 68% um where we changed um so knowing that's kind of other the tier one problem our core we changed our elementary um Ela curriculum which we're only 6 months in um we're looking at middle school

082and then in our math we are at 7 1% um having conversations about um where where we need to adjust there so yeah I have two different questions the data points you look at are those strictly off the fast Bridge or are you guys looking at any of the Project based so this is our um what I showed you was our fast our screener so these are atrisk based off of um that a maath or eight reading scores so how do you between kids are terrible testers so for for this data we don't because this is just our our screener um what we use to report to the state um when you're making your groups though that is a team level conversation so at each grade level um there are data meetings and they pull

083in um State assessment grades um attendance is sometimes something you need to look at and then teacher input is all part of that teacher input is where you would get feedback based on progressions with the projects and you know things we talk about is no end all Beall assessment that's out there and so we try to bring in as many different perspectives with with data that we can uh to that there are some kids that just are not good test takers but their their work in the classroom is is is is keeping them up to a point where where we're understanding sometimes it's the the stress of knowing there's a time limit sometimes um it's it's you know just being in a large room setting with with everybody sometimes we need to just pull them

084into smaller groups there are other factors that you can come into play that's where the the mtss side of things when you pull those team based conversations into the mix of brainstorming this is what the T data is telling me I'm not seeing that elsewhere what are some what are some other things we could do for a student so they validate their data by making sure like what you know was if the kid was sick or something they can retake it the screener or if they were you know just going through pushing CC these will let you know like they'll they talk about validating it in their grade levels I'm assuming will maybe you when you get together with them but both yeah if it's not valid they can R take it so yeah this

085you know this is the data we can look at like from a bird side view that it's on paper but then you know there's those team meetings I get to be part of some of them but I don't hear you know every every decision they make but when they go to make their groups that's the things you you bring in it's um you know actually the conversation today we were looking at growth report from this um in third grade and there was conversations about they had a really rough day so next time just those kinds of things are considered okay and then what does the progress monitoring is that just retaking the test it is not um it depends on um the subject and then each um student depending on grade level take different tests

086so the a math and the a reading are comprehensive of what we report kind of your overall but there's also um like a fluency so depending on where they scored um at risk depends on what they take so whatever whatever skill we're trying to recover is we're going to just work we're just going to progress monitor that skill and you start with the lowest and yes so for most kids it's that um it's going to be that fluency for reading and so they would do an oral reading um a timed oral reading or if it's comprehension then you you know you do the comprehension um math you work on math fluent or facts or um a general math tech it just depends on the skill it looks different at every grade level and every skill

087any more questions that's all I have for you all right moving on to Old business uh legislative priorities all right so last month um with the transition of our board we talked about uh coming up with the list of priorities that the board would like to to state claim to in terms of what what we want to focus on what want to focus on and then uh this month with the new board being being seated uh we would review that list and see one is that are those priorties still in alignment what we want to do and then two trying to provide some definition or articulation to it and so what I tried to do and I'll move this Tove this to public com public uh facing um what I did is I I took

088a reflection of the conversation that we had and tried to um put some narrative to Define what those uh those priorities were if if you wouldn't mind taking a moment to look at uh what the legislative PR draft shows there from there we can word Smith it we can talk about it is there anything on it that doesn't fit or did I completely misread what the group was talking about and then does this board still agree and if so I can begin the process of getting this information to our legislators um as they are currently in toeka starting to have discussions on things uh I think it's a great and I think it matches the conversation we had um recently I don't know how to phrase this properly but under the local control piece um

089uh I think one benefit that we have as local board is that we meet monthly we we're not legislature that meets for four months a year type of thing and so we can be much more responsive to the needs of our community that arise when the legisl is not in session so I think that's one big benefit that we have that we if an issue comes up in June we cannot wait for the legisl resolve that conflict the following June basically right so I think that's a benefit that might be worth articulating there of why it's important for us to continue to have jurisdiction over our our decisions here and be responsive to what our community actively needs time all right so by meeting monthly so meeting monthly can move move quickly on issues that

090are important having yeah otherwise I thought you captured our presentation yeah all right so with with the addition of meeting monthly so that we can move quickly on ISS that are important for our community with that being added would the board be willing to approve these priorities I would have one more thing to add and that's under special education funding and just um the encouragement to bring special education funding is a singular topic Bill and pushing that clean bill to remove okay and that might be what you meant by that should be address the clean state school funding for and I can put singular clean bill I think singular is important without any other topics yeah no vouchers attached to nothing else just special education I think it would I think you're I think it

091would pass it'd be more likely to pass it were just a clean 2% okay that's good anybody else so I'll make a motion that we approve the Baldwin Board of Education legislative uh legislative priorities for 2024 and go ahead and distribute them to our locally elected State officials with the two with the two yeah with the addendums as we as we've added a second you got a motion in a second all those in favor say hi Raise Your Right handie Jamie all right so old business Bond study and Facilities update I do do we need to take a recess or we recess if anybody does anybody need a recess for anything all right we'll keep going um basically what I just wanted to do was just in the public forum be able to to basically

092recap what we talked about in the work session which was also in a public setting um so basically uh we reviewed the history that led us to the bond issue last spring that had the eight different Focus items um that also included a 2.9 uh increase to the mill Levy uh that was essentially voted down by our community uh taking some time with the uh Bond subcommittee meeting with with our Architects DLR and construction uh management at risk company Lloyd Builders uh we've gone through and really looked at what the feedback from the community was and moving forward from that particular perspective the conversation then has has really steered towards the importance of focusing focusing our efforts on making sure that we are address CTE facilities uh making opportunities for uh properly uh outfitting those

093programs with what they need to be industry ready as well as expanding uh the opportunities for our kids uh we continue to have that focus on Safety and Security uh the Breezeway um the covering of the Breezeway making sure that we have adequate parking uh at the at the facility itself um and then another uh safety item that came up through our discussions and conversations with the administration over at the the junior high is the ability to create an opportunity to have a fully functioning and operational Bus Loop in which buses can uh pass each other and get the bus bus drop off and and pick up off of Quail Street and into our Bus Loop um and so with that uh the the conversation is steered to an effort in doing so the importance

094listening to the taxpayers listening to our community doing so in a manner that stays M neutral um and and focusing on on that as the projects um that uh that we've got listed there um I'm going to move the uh images up to public view um one second here the idea behind this is expanding our CTE facility maintain maintaining uh the acquisition of or the maintaining use of the Bus Loop would then require um changes made uh by um renovating our current shop space um as well as doing an addition to the high school itself which would connect just to the outside of what's currently the culinary arts room um the ability to uh do that would require us to go across that road that leads to what's now the current uh path to the

095Bus Loop and so in doing so A New Path or New Road would be established between uh the the bus barn itself uh the fencing there and the junior high which does allow for enough space for buses to pass one another and that's what the item that's labeled as the flatten document um indicates there um the parking uh just north of the the high school itself as you can see that is a smaller footprint than what the initial Bond hat so we are reducing parking spaces we somewhere was around 400 spaces we're looking around 200 spaces at this point um as well as uh new entrance opportunities off of Eisenhower and 6 Street to divert traffic to the north of the high school so that we can alleviate traffic flow at the junior high for

096arrival and dismissal that coupled with getting our buses off the street in front of quail I believe will make junior high dismissal a much safer experience for students for drivers our high school drivers our parents and a lot of stress alleviated to our high school administration there and also by having the bus pickup and drop off in the the functioning which would be a fully functioning bus upop at that point allows an opportunity for students to be uh waiting for buses within that Breezeway that would allow so if weather itself were to become uh raining or snowing it would allow them to be able to be in a covered space um it would also allow for for adult supervision to be in a more focused uh sense for the students there um trying to think

097the CTE editions that are that are shown there um allow us to uh increase the square footage beyond what we currently had and far exceeds what the previous Bond put together so um the work with the CTE and and the Bus Loop that's there would allow us to move our freezers closer to the junior high kitchen um I'm trying to think over at the uh CTE side one of the concerns that has been brought up through uh from community members is being able to have exteror access to a restroom for events that take place at the tennis courts or at the JV football field and so work could be done there to make sure that exterior restrooms would be provided there um on the side of the the CT structure so I I I didn't

098get to make it to the work uh meeting was it well attended by anybody from the community is it pretty no no ours no community members okay so one only one question that I wanted to ask about was um currently I know so for um Junior High football players when they walk out they normally are walking out and going straight across to get over to the fields is there I mean are they just going to go out and around I me much for my assumption is they're probably going to need to navigate the hallway they're going go through the H that would be my my assumption but that's a that's a good question for uh for brand and Derek that would be something we' want to want to work on CU yeah cuz currently they

099come out these little the little doors M by they cut through they cut through the the Bus Loop across there those doors will probably still be there I think so but I just mean that now instead of being able to cut through I guess they just would go around the CTE is that what we would Envision yeah cuz normally they cut right down through that through the what is now the Bus Loop I'm assuming what they would wind up doing is just going straight through the building yeah going through the building straight through and across right outside the coronary yards room I I think this is a very elegant solution I mean I think you alluded to the idea that this is pretty dramat dramatically more CTE space than we had cuz I think we

100were with the new addition it was only going to add like 7,000 m i me this is like like closer to you know 30,000 well and and one of the benefits that what allows us to do by keeping the uh the bones to what's currently the the shop that Mr Harmon uses right now keeping those bones and and the renovation per square foot uh fee there uh would be uh wouldn't be as extensive um and we'd be using preab uh structures there and that will help also with some with some cost but they would do so in a way that would bring our instructional facilities to an industry standard for the students um the concept itself for for each program there would be a classroom forever classroom there's a lab so you have culinary arts

101classroom you've got their industrial kitchen you got your a science classroom you've got your a science lab you've got your uh indust your Woods your Metals classroom and you have your your lab spaces there as well and so the focus on this uh the structure itself would be U add the ACT Sciences which will be a fully functioning pathway here in just a couple of months once we get our application into the state um uh the culinary arts focusing on the The Culinary side of of the pathway itself as well as uh Toms uh Metals uh and Manufacturing and woods and then also opportunities uh if we can Flex this in a fourth component which would be the Health Sciences um and part of that discussion is uh sports science uh Sports Medicine which is

102something in the area that other districts aren't doing so it would be something that would be Innovative and new so brand I throwing you under the bus if you if you heard that um that we're looking at the the sports Sciences the sports medicine piece that's still the the direction we're trying to head um yeah I mean I think it would Encompass currently what we're doing now kind of the dire of the certified the CNA but then adding sports medicine but also who has the best p on that is Mr M yeah so he get some feedback there as well these our Swiss army knife CTE teacher so but uh the the next steps here that should the board choose to to proceed here in February um we would be looking to uh take the

103um pass a we looking to have a resolution passed that would allow us to proceed to a community election uh in doing so um and next month we'll make sure that we have our Architects Lloyd will be here uh Piper Sandler will also be here um and all all will be confined in in the ask of maintaining a mill neutral Bond question for the community to consider MH good all right so then on to um new business early release late start FOC group update yes I just wanted to provide you with an update I in December I I had uh or November I asked if the the board would like me to to consider looking into uh once a month late start early release as an option as we build the calendar for the next

104school year I how it coincides and intersects with the work we are attempting to do with mtss um trying to make sure that we are responding to the data that our students are providing in a way that allows each building the opportunity to effectively look at student data and determine the best steps and practices moving forward um in December I provided a community survey and so I provided the results to you there um that were in terms of the the survey Rod data numbers that are listed there and from that I had a Community Focus Group get together um last week and we talked about uh late start early release in in a little more detail um one of the things that I had the group do was look at uh what you know here

105here's the data before you leave here's the data that came from that survey are there any any W marching uh thoughts that you want or or closing thoughts you want me to consider and one of the things that was asked was the data that was uh combined it shows that um in terms of uh positive uh positive comments or positive impact on that final on final page of the data you'd see uh what would the overall impact be one being a significantly negative impact four being a significantly positive impact and three being uh positive and two being just negative when you look and you combine the threes and fours about 73% of the responses indicated that going going to an early release or a late start would provide um a uh a positive impact of

106some sort and one of the one some of the feedback that I received from that from the focus group was okay that information probably needs to be dug into a little bit deeper split it out what what were the what were the teachers what did the teachers who took the survey what did they reflect what did they think and and so what I did is I I took that information and I I dug deeper to it um and so excuse ex me 60 is about 60% of the the responses worth reason fors when I pulled out the teacher data it was 73% of the teachers that took or the staff members I should say the staff members felt that it would provide a positive or significantly positive impact um and so uh the of the

107uh of the the survey results that that came there from the the teachers um you know that they the group there to me the 73 % is that's a pretty solid number but what I want to do is is dig a little bit deeper to that so on the 29th and this this will probably be new information for the principles that are sitting back there uh what I'd like to do on the 29th which is the professional development day is provide another U another uh round of of survey uh to the staff that are there all our teachers that are on duty for that to find out you know what what are their thoughts cuz I will tell you uh of that 73% the number listed there is we're looking at 81 total teachers or

10881 total staff we have 200 200 staff within the district so that's it's almost half but I'd like to see if we can get a little bit more solid uh solid information there some other uh information that was asked of me um from the the focus group was what is the data say what does the research say on it um there's a a book right now that I've got on my desk or it's in my back backpack right now I brought it for the meeting it's about this thick it's uh Dr Hattie Dr John Hattie it's his visible learning uh research that's there it's a second edition and it's it's basically it's a metaanalysis of research data so it's really diving deep into what the research is telling so taking a variety of diff all

109of the different research um inquiries into a specific topic that falls under a a best practice and how does all that combine and meet or work towards um Effectiveness and so the when looking at U the idea of how does getting teachers pulling teachers together for an hour and a half once a month how what's the what would the data say towards having an impact on student learning and through the visible learning research of Dr Hattie what collaboration uh of that what it can do is it can provide an opportunity for teachers to develop estimates of achievement for their students and that has an impacts or an effect size of 1.3 and on his scale it's it's numbers don't he totally understands but a 1.3 means very impactful anything that's a 04 or higher has

110a positive impact on student learning um and it is a is a direct result of the uh impact provided by the staff and the teachers um anything below four is generally merely sitting in the space and and breathing the same air if you will so teacher estimates of achievement um so when teachers are looking at data when they're looking at student goals and their student needs and they're when they're looking at providing interventions for students they're developing goals for those students um that that does play a a positive role there teacher Collective efficacy about their impact it's a lot of big fancy words that basically says by having these conversations and working together we have the ability to become stronger because we are working together and we have that shared belief that what we are

111doing works with kids that has an impact size of 1.34 again that's a very impactful result um planning and prediction is also another um area there that uh his Hattie's research shows has a positive impact on student student learning and growth that has an impact size of 83 which is also in that very impactful range um and so the data there Bas is is supportive of getting teachers together look looking at what data is telling us setting goals for those kids and providing a plan of instruction to move forward um so the data is there for that I decided to to reach out to uh the area superintendent since we were already communicating you know this week regarding the the snow issues and the the frigid temperatures we've dealt with um and looking into districts

112that are already currently doing um an early release or late start of at some point Prairie View has a late start Wednesdays well Wellsville does late start every other Wednesday Idora does early release once a month on a Wednesday um Lewisburg has late start for high school only K through 8 is worked in through the school day with classified staff providing supervision for students or teachers can meet um Lawrence does every Wednesday early release and Ottawa does every Friday early release so those are the districts that responded back early release or late start it's not a New Concept it is something that's been around for a while um but what needs to happen is having the solid foundations for those conversations that take place I've been in districts where early release and late start is

113working highly effectively they've got the shared ideas of what we're going to talk about what are the must do conversations and and there's that accountability that reporting back piece that's necessary that was something that was brought up and identified by the focus group as an accountability measure of if if a late start or early release is implemented what's that accountability look like and it was Advanced agendas sticking to the agendas having a report mechanism in place um and and being present setting Norms or setting uh rules that we will all abide by in these meetings um that's all that was all part of that focus group conversation so um the idea itself of of late start early release it is something that I think is a great opportunity for students stents to be able or

114for students and staff in the sense that we can better provide and support for students by looking at data our current system is set up at the elementary level we've got a plan period once a week where teachers are are looking at at data or once a month looking at data the elementary level there's more of a common plan opportunity at the junior high there there's more opportunity for common plan for the high school there's not that opportunity for common plan to get teachers Within the same content area or the same grade level in the same space to look at how students are doing and learn from one another and set goals for kids um it is something that I think is it's a good conversation I'm glad we're having it um next week I'll

115be going over this data with our ad admin team and getting their perspective of what how the focus group meeting went uh Nicole was was there that night so she's she's got us a perspective I'd love to to hear um as well as the the opportunity to hear from more more teachers um regarding their thoughts on it so at this time uh what I would Invision is in February having a calendar for you um a draft calendar that would show a traditional school year like we've always had and a calendar that would have based on the feedback that I'm seeing right now I I do feel comfortable saying that the early release is the mechanism that would probably be most uh widely implemented mended but there's also some challenges that we would have to address

116should that take place what do we do to help with with uh student supervision for families that they don't have any other option um how does that impact with how does that cross with our um after school program with the Baldin City Rec commission that they run and how can we you know is there a way to partner with Baker University um to do some things I think there's some more questions that came out uh that that popped into my head as a result of the focus group as opposed to answers that I was hoping to to gather if that makes sense so in February um I I will have uh I'll have a couple of calendars to look at and then a recommendation uh for the board to consider moving forward so so yeah

117what do other communities that you talk to do for families who can't get there at 145 I mean it's in in the yodora community it was you need to come make arrangements it's on the calendar it's built in they they made plans uh udora had a district run is funded by uh parent fees after school program but that was non operational on early release days and so families had to to come and pick up their kids or find alternative uh care for their for their kids um I talked to Wellsville superintendent and they utilize their classified staff on their late start days so the kids can still come in and classified staff supervise and monitor the students while the teachers are uh finishing up their assessment meetings or their data meetings and then they start

118their day I'm curious the only one I heard you say that did it once a month is udora is that correct that you talk to let's see everybody else say it more often than that let's see Prairie View said late start Wednesdays they didn't they didn't specify how often that was um Wellsville was every other Wednesday Idora was once a month on Wednesdays Lewis B was a late start for high school um did not indicate what day of the week there um Lawrence is every Wednesday and Ottawa was every Friday okay so from Mindy and and Jamie is there anything from the focus group meeting that that took place that I may have left out or conversation um I think the biggest concerns I heard were what about the families that don't have other options

119there's a lot of families that work down um some of our bus drivers may have day jobs that they work in between um bus routes um how would we manage that getting them to school or from school um and sports practices Sports practices the kids that may leave at 1:45 at an early release where they can doing those in the times and I know that was one of the community concerns we heard as well and I I will tell you that in in my uh prior life uh just north of here uh the the students were responsible for for getting back for practice so they did it once kids or okay um and it was but it was once a month and you know one of the things that this is just me talking off

120the cuff I could see you know for Junior High kids maybe that is the early early morning practice on that Wednesday open the gym for the hour or two yeah so there I think that's part of that is the discussions that would take place to have those those discussions there but uh definitely we do for practices does uh does any of this need to be run through the teacher contract like do these changes like for no because it's still by doing this as an early release um we're we're not extending the school day for the teacher and I've had conversations with Mike Uh current president the teacher Association and he agrees that this this doesn't impact teacher contract because it stays within the confines of the 7h hour 40-minute work day okay well yeah I

121I'll say I appreciate the the the update here and like yeah just scrolling through these comments here it seems like that child care issue is or pickup primary issue here and I think like you mentioned as well is there opportunities for partnership with Baker is there opportunities for some of our high school kids to go down to elementaries to provide you know really interactive uh Project based things that they do once a month for instance for an hour and a half I mean I think we could be pretty creative about making this a really interesting and fun thing for kids not just be a hard ship on to to have to pick up you hour and half early but so yeah just keep exploring those those ideasday okay so my question is so if you're

122going to bring a calendar in Fe for Fe in February would we have answers to some of these child card questions before that will be yes so I will be I will be updating the board U you know between now and then as well as that night on on a lot of that okay um so yeah absolutely perfect and are you pretty set on doing the early release not the late start CU I know one of the big concerns with late start was whether kids are able to get breakfast I I would yes and that so for me stepping away from the late start was was twofold one it was kids missing missing out on breakfast and the tight turn around that we put on our our kitchen staff to be able to do that

123because we already working with two and three individuals within those kitchens to be able to pull what they do daily off um and the other side to me talk about the hardship it's it's it's one thing to pick up a kid after school but it's entirely different when you have to be at work at 8:00 but the school doesn't start until 9 9:30 that can or 9:00 excuse me that to me is a bigger hardship on on the family yeah so it my my inclination my where I'm leaning towards if something were to happen it would be towards that that early release I like the idea of um if they want to utilizing the um nonclassified I mean the class yes and that's the other thing because if they because they're going to lose pay

124well and so here's the thing the I do not want this to be financed on the backs of our classified staff I I fully either I could Envision St those staff being part of professional development opportunities special education pairs being able to be part of professional learning that takes place there or opportunities for staff to do some supervision or or leading you know someone within comments said this might be a great opportunity for clubs at the elementary school to to be to work its way sponsorship yeah I I think that there's some other other opportunities you know do you look at it as a as a challenge or do you look at as an opportunity so I think that definitely um this is not something where classified staff would see six and a half hours

125or six hours of redu reduce pay on their on their work year I don't want that to be the case and along with that one other concern that I remember hearing was um for sped kiddos that might require more specialized supervision um what that would look like for families that may not be able to come pick them up earlyer right absolutely so so more on that later more on that but I just wanted you to have an update in terms of where I was within that at this time all right so on to um course approvals all right so Ashley trough and brand biringham have a list of courses they would like the board to consider uh approving for the coming school year regarding some CTE and physical education classes I'm good okay um we

126sent some courses that we were looking for approval of the high school um I think we've added one more since Friday um so to expand um our CTE Pathways we have um B Bakery 1 and two law enforcement 1 and two and cyber security we have um two new courses for um PE and health and one's just a change and then um an AP European History and then um it technically be a new course for every path way but we put it as one as that workplace experience so every um pathway would have that as an option and then what you have to add um I think what I would add to that is um kind of what she already alluded to like the timeline is um one we have pre-enrollment that will be coming

127up for students um usually we try to couple that with um student L conferences in the spring which is I think February 14th 15th and 16th uh but I could be off one day on that uh then the other thing that I need to do is on some of these um CTE courses um I need to get those entered um at the state level um by February 15th so we'll update course catalog I'll get them um um up entered at the state level and then I have to come up with a local course code um through Power School right so that we can um then start to pre-enroll kids um just a couple other things um that are probably uh important to mention um some of those ones on the CTE I spoke to at

128the last board meeting um you know offering more courses and being a little more strategic with um our um FTE you know basically our units or our sections that we have the ability to devote to courses um the one I thought I might just go a little bit more in depth on is uh the the three new PE courses um So currently right now KSD graduation requirements we have to have a full unit of PE and we have the ability to like kind of embed Health into into that so if you think about right now um we have Bob bler and gentry Wade I'm and John colum um but the ones that are here the majority of the day that would be Mr ler and Mrs Wade they each teach um four sections of PE

129so imagine over the course of a year we have 12 sections that we have the flexibility to work with they teach four sections that are devoted to PE um so basically we have the ability to run around 100 kids through that um what we're then proposing is um and this is we've really dug into like the the how we code this makes all the difference at the state level so we're that health and fitness um it replaces our current yearlong freshman PE e um we'll still embed like the health standards and curriculum into that um right now that's something that Ashley is diving more into like seeing what resources are out there so that we're not just creating it all from scratch and then obviously with the nature of Education that would be something we

130would come to you all with um you know so that you could then see that so then it begins board approved um and so you're all aware of what we're doing um in freshman level PE but the important piece is we would go from like a year long to a semester long um so imagine right now we basically like I said we devote those four sections or units we're able to work 100 kids through a uh um over the course of a year now we can do it um in half as many units or sections um so basically we're devoting like 33% of their FTE to um teaching freshman level PE and health and then that would actually reduce to 16 .7 at the bar over so and because the requirement graduation requirements are changing

131is why we're changing what this looks like so they need only half a semester of PE and half a semester or a half a semester of Health but they cannot be embedded they have to be separate but again um the caveat being if we code it correctly then we still in essence have the ability to do that but the other thing I would just say so what that would allow us to do then um two other courses that we would then propose would be um Lifetime Fitness that's something uh Mrs Wade is passionate about hence the name Lifetime Fitness that would be a plethora of activities could be yoga one day could be like a step arobic type class one day another day might just be uh devoted to uh you know core and functional

132movements um so something that they could take when they leave this place um and then something else that we had to add um is an athletic development course and this one would be um you know they could take weights and then in conjunction with that they could do this athletic development which would be kind of like um agility training plyometric training um speed work um quickness those sorts of things change your direction so there's a scenario where you could take like this a base weights class and then you could come back um or double up um so it's giving someone that really has Ambitions maybe um of the ability they want to go do that postsecondary um they have that ability so it's just kind of advancing our C our PE program a couple of

133things that that I'm proud of as they went through this is the the transition Focus that's taking place within the there the moving ahead and with the uh evolving of the law enforcement pathway that's uh established and is got a pretty healthy interest right now and then the last part is when when we hired uh Mr colum we we did so under that idea we wanted we wanted you know Infuse some some new life an opportunity to add to our physical education opportunities by having another staff member help offset some of that and so between Mr colum Mr way Miss Wade and and Mr lisher they have been able to kind of just dream up some really cool class opportunities that takes our physical education from a a check check box if you will and

134put together a really cool um Advanced PE programming together for our kids um whether it's Lifetime Fitness or is rant talked about someone who wants to go more towards that athletic development side of thing so um I'm I'm really excited for the these courses that they're recommending the only other piece that I would add is currently freshman they have to take PE and heal um doubt they would have to be able to take that health and fitness course um either as eventually as freshman sophomores and juniors so right now it it just create more flexibility um for a kid as a freshman if they wanted to take something else sooner they would have the ability to do that so with this coding can kids not take traditional PE and they could just take athletic development

135and five Time Fitness um or you know some combination that yeah at least um so so they would all have to take the health and fitness class uh and so obviously we're looking at something you know that would address um you know the health aspects of that and then they could um embed into that and then and I don't know completely what that would look like maybe that's every Wednesday um they're uper in the library working through whatever that lesson might be and the other four days um they're doing physical activity um we really kind of wanted to steer clear of just placing students um in a health class room for an entire semester right they're taking a physical education class H the physical part of it they want to they want to do something

136right and and so we're we're really trying to um again address the standards but then also get them doing something physical um so th this is great it feels like this is more courses than we typically add in a year yeah um the primary reason um is addition of um Tech Technical and application Level courses as we kind of revamp we theary pie particular and then we will eventually have more we just don't quite know where we're going on the ELA side of things with the State graduation requirements um but we're just knocking out as much as we can right now so that we can get it in the books and get ready for pre-enrollment and do all the just semantics yeah so so one of my concerns here is that you know each the

137prep I mean additional prep for your staff to do that um is there a minimum threshold for if three kids register for a class do we do we decide to collapse that one and try again in Spring I mean because otherwise we're going to end up with some pattering over yeah so um yeah that's a great question because really um everything is going to be to a degree dictated by pre-roll meaning um and this could be with anything but let's just say for instance um I have 10 kids that uh pre-enroll in cyber security then I'm probably looking at only one section right we're only going to offer one section unfortunately that becomes a Singleton if I get 30 to 40 kids then now we're trying to see okay well those 30 to 40 kids

138they've enrolled in this course which means they haven't enrolled in something is it something in this department um but that's something we do do after we pre-enroll we uh our counselors give departments um all of their pre-enrollment numbers and then they sit down and come up with one two three different scenarios sometimes as to how they're going to it might be you know we want five sections of this uh we could go four of this but then class sizes are bigger so they start to just look at what they think's best they bring it to us yeah okay so I know there was a multiple phas okay so that helps me so we can't offer it at pre-roll until we have approval yeah that makes sense yeah yeah I I just want to be a

139situation where we've got we're asking a teacher to prep five different courses that only have four kids en roll in each of them or something but that sounds like there's a there's a safeguard for that yeah and I can't say that some some years um you know we have some more flexibility for whatever reason and maybe a class or four or five flies for lack of better terms and then some years we say N I really think we need to we need to add a section of Integrated Science versus a physics tube course and might be a requirement for seniors to graduate yeah yeah do we have staff certified yes yes that was going to be my question is the the process like you have to have the staff in place first before you yeah

140I mean certainly um we we wouldn't um create a course or offer something where we didn't have some a certified so you there's it's a huge uh kstd has a lure guide out there where you can go in and look up the five-digit course code and then the list all the certifications that have the ability to teach that class are we need to oh yeah he what what they're looking for is an approval of the courses okay okay um I'll try to phrase this right I move that we approve the courses as presented is that covered enough yeah proposed courses yeah yep I second all right we got a motion in a second so all those in favor right hand say I hi hi thank guys all right thank you overtime in the junior high

141gem up for okay all right on to uh the board handbook so I mean I I I'll just go ahead this is Kelly's handbook that she put together um and it is um a wonderful resource that you guys everybody on the board whether you've been on the board before or not it should be read prob cover to cover and then memorized I read it last night I was like oh yeah I forgot about that yeah I know I mean I I pulled it up it's mine it's sitting on my desktop right here but open to whatever page we're on right now so I can read it um but I mean it's it's um I mean an absolute labor of love on her part to have put that together um you know and I think I

142think pretty definitive and and definitely worth reading and so I'm sure she's not watching right now but I would tell her thank you for putting that together um but yeah it's really great all right Megan can you remind me what were the from the uh what was shared last month to tonight's version what was the the change that we needed to make was it uh the adding of the wellness committee yeah that was the only addition that we made um the initial uh draft that was shared that we updated that is the draft that's uploaded that is the draft the updated one is what's uploaded okay all right so questions about that at all I'm I'm sure sure that there's something in there that that um I mean I'm sure she'd be open to I

143hate to to volunteer but I think I know that she's we'd be happy to talk with somebody about something that's in there so all right um on to live streaming of the Board of Education meetings discussions I asked for this to get put in there just because now we've got uh with new members on the board I think it's just something that we need to just continually think about talk about and be um deliberate in in either continuing ceasing that um to give some history when I started on the board course that was that was six years ago something like that six years ago um we were not doing any um no live streaming we were meeting over at the um the PC when we started with the whole pandemic thing and started shutting down

144we started uh doing Zoom meetings and then when we started meeting in person again we started doing the live streaming to because we were trying to keep people from gathering in big groups that kind of then has taken legs and we've continued on with that I think there are some positives to it um I think there are some downsides to it um you know it's a lot of extra work to to get all of this set up and set to go um and in the scenario you know in the world that we're in now I mean there's nothing that's preventing people from coming to a board meeting that really desire to come to a board meeting um I know it helps make though to have it on video so she can go back and review

145and make sure that she's got something that she missed I use it because it's there yeah um so my personal preference and I'm certainly one of seven but my personal preference would to say I you know I don't think um it's worth continuing um because there's nothing preventing the traditional come to the meeting sign up listen and and be here and be part of of that like there was when we started doing that so different context do we have any indication on how many people actually watch you can see the thing and I think the it's like 3 two one two three three okay right mean it depends on depends on the topic it's it's Mak you know so I mean I just think that it's it's a whole lot of effort that's going in

146and probably not being used in a manner that would that's like we're intending it you know I mean to go back to to when we were have you know every every big kind of thing that we've gone through as a board you know if we go back and look at the old Bond I mean here we are having meetings that are open people can come talk to us you know be at the meeting do public comment be at everything we videotape it it's live streamed and one of the big accusations was we're not being transparent you know so I just I don't I don't see that um uh the juice being worth the squeeze um on on continuing to do um to do that so my my my preference would be to stop for those

147reasons it's just don't think about me on this one yeah yeah you're I think that's one of the kind of the only real upside that I can that I can see is that and if people can't come to the meeting for whatever reason they can go back and look at the minutes when they're posted later righted guess really I've never looked at okay there okay I still think I don't know the video might feel a little more transparent I guess I mean I know I've watched them but apparently I was one of the only just you and Megan megill I think it's kind of um in my opinion it became a like Springer like I can't wait to get on there and see who's got comday you know and then it dies off as like

148we get down to the meat potatoes like financial report administrative reports then all of a sudden it's just lazy and I I feel as long as everything is communicated in the minutes then that's transparency enough and again everybody's welcome to come to the meeting I mean this is not it's well advertised um and I just know it's a lot it's a lot of it's a lot of effort to to do especially utilizing it right and I I mean I don't not even necessarily I mean if everybody's in agreement we somebody wants to make a motion I'm happy to do that but I just it's something to be thinking about if anybody wants to think about it for a month and talk about it and you know decide and and talk about next month that's fine

149we can SLP slip it over into Old business um I just wanted to make make sure that we're deliberate about whether we're just kind of I don't want to just keep doing it because we've been doing it do we have any policies that are attached to this anyway I don't believe we do we probably didn't pass a motion to start off with to to start live motion or anything saying we just started doing we were going to do this it was just a courtesy that we provided because people didn't want to come and ear group M yeah I'm glad about this St because I would have just naturally gone with status quo forever and not really second guess the uh is it still important and is it still worth everybody's time and yeah I mean

150we're having to coordinate technology here and Orient cameras and for is kind of devoting her nights she's probably beaming over there Monday nights back you know I yeah I don't know I mean I may move we just continue live streaming so there's a motion anybody want to second that I'll second that okay all those in favor say I and raise your right hand right I missed the motion see this is why we need get out of here too late we already moing we already Jamie quiet as to tape recorder for you oh I I got an app on my phone it's fine it's okay cut this feed you put the bars up yeah yeah yeah that's right got it okay and and you know anytime we make that we do a mo a motion like

151that you know if we get all of a sudden you know 3,000 USD student voices saying hey this was our homework and now we can't watch you on the meeting for the week and we need to reinstate it we can always put it back in I mean we have we have the ability to add it back if we want so um moving on to K board member input interlocal report do you want to do that oh yeah I'm I'll do the update this month that um so I'll give you guys a bit of orientation around why we're going in local to start off with I think it's helpful context to have um so when special education law went to effect in the mid-70s most districts in Kansas decided to consolidate Services as as a means

152of being more cost effective and more efficient there um so for example I mean our interlocal used to be much bigger had multiple districts then we currently have just three at w door on us U most districts RS SI are part of either a Cooperative or an inter local the difference being that inter local is a self- sustaining entity that it doesn't have a taxable Authority there has its own board that that's comprised of the member districts uh a special education Cooperative is is housed by a district so uh baser lywood and tongoy are part of a Cooperative that's housed in baser I believe they're they're the Fiscal Agent for all that and all those coop all those Co-op employees are technically based limit employees even though they actually work in in in talky for

153instance right our our Focus that we hire through our interlocal are interlocal employees we have our own negotia agreement um and so it's kind of just a slight difference of of of management there I think we're one of the smaller inter locals in the whole state with our three I think there's a couple that have two districts in it um but generally speaking we're a relatively small organization um with that we do have about 85 certified staff members and about 120 depend depending on the day uh classified staff members so we do have quite a bit of a payroll that goes into our organization uh our average budget is somewhere north of about $8 million a year across and it's about 96% of that 97% of that is just devoted to salaries we don't operate

154buses we don't own any property we rent a facility or an office down there in downtown bin there um but we we are a very lean organization that's devoted to uh the employees their benefits and mileage reimbursement basically is what most of our expenses come down to um so we have a six-person board two people from each um member district there um which makes for some quirky voting sometimes if people don't show up for sometimes so um and and some oftentimes we'll get into the situation we have just four four members there voting on things because of other obligations so um the same rules apply that we have here as well like for uh coma um Quorum those types of things that we were all learning about as well here those all still apply to

155the operations that they Loc as well um so that's a bit of background on how the interlocal looks one thing that's going to make Jam's J's life really interesting right now is that we are in in the middle of hiring a new um sped director for uh the next school year um I did talk to um KB is helping us navigate that that application process we do have several applicants already in um we'll have a variety of meetings um and interviews coming up between now and I think the next time we get together as a board here uh we will have start of already be processed by that point as well so I'll share those dates with you um that are on the calendar currently uh and that'll be treated just like a superintendent search

156where we're having um multiple states are getting this information fed to them we're trying to recruit as many folks as we can to apply for that position there it's a very um complicated job to be an interal director there because you have to be sort of a superintendent as well as a special education director at the same time um so we're trying to get cast as wide open a net as possible to make sure we get good candidates for that position there um just like this board we meet monthly uh we have typically met in in at the office here in bulwin here but we've also been rotating between midora and Wellsville for getting more uh uh dispersement of our meetings across our communties that we serve as well so that's been appreciated change this

157year uh and just like here we have a strategic plan that we're Guided by um we which we adopted about a year ago as well so um that's the basic gist of update and Report there and so each each month we'll come together and provide um updates on Staffing for instance and um assessments is kind of how our our district pays for those Services through the inter loal well there if you guys have ever questions about that you now have two Representatives here to F those questions as well but um yeah anything else I'm leaving that Mark in terms of background for no how that thing holding operates so in your six person board how many of them are going to be Ned I mean how many of the existing six are no longer I

158I think wellsville's meeting to if I remember maybe yesterday we met so I'm not sure what their appointments were but uh both members from midora that had been part of part of that board previously both lost their re-election so we have two new board members coming from there uh fortunately one's been a veteran she's been there for four years already so I mean on the udora board so she understands the the game that we all play for boards mhip here um and I'm not sure about well but it could just be myself and one member or maybe two from Wells well if they if they both continue so it'll be a critical voting Mass first to be part of that organization as well and we're putting them all right to work by hiring new director

159Riley gate so and that was by Design we want to make sure that that person was selected by the new board so they could support that person in that new role as well good anything else Mark moving out no I think you did a really good job there all all right so then y uh uh education advocacy and info items I believe that was a space holder that was recommended a couple of months ago if there's anything um ucation advocacy wise if you're Happ to be on an uh connection to an advocacy um spearheaded off and I'm throwing you under the bus on this you're part of a group connected to a network yes yeah so it's an opportunity to kind of share with the board what's kind of being discussed if you have any

160information like that yeah so and and I haven't been to the last me I wasn't at the last meeting in um they do a really nice job on your KB updates too newsletters of really um kind of filling you in on what's happening at the State House all right miscellaneous ises anybody go to any meetings recently I didn't and I'm going to miss next month I thought I was going to be able to zoom in but I we got it changed to the Tuesday night right so it'll be at on a plane oh for next month's meeting yeah that's okay oh was it moved because of the holidays yeah yeah y didn't put that so nothing else miscellaneous board member input so do we need superintend yeah I've got a couple there I was going

161to skip over you I I I know a couple of couple other things I I should have uh put them in there um one thing I wanted to plant a seed with you a conversation that I've been having with uh Derek and bench over at the junior high uh for a better part of last year and and this year is what can we do uh treny wise to help encourage students who are having trouble getting to school for whatever reason to come to school and how can we work with families to build partnership to let them know we're we're here to support them we want to support them but we also have legislative requirements that we have to abide by three consecutive days five in a semester or seven in a school year that are

162unexcused absences what can we do to help change the trajectory of that um through a a a conversation that Derek had at a LivWell Douglas County uh Awards recognition for the work that that the junior high has done within the uh the bikes the the bike grant that they received he was able to partner up with somebody or sit at a table with someone who's who's got this program it's support at and what it does is it develops a partnership uh trying to help support families getting them the resources they need to help get their students to school it's kind of that inner it's kind of that an intermediary before you get to that treny report um when you talk about treny report it automatically red flags go up defensiveness comes up and it it

163becomes a a difficult relationship process with the families and so uh we're learning more about support ad in terms of what opportunities they can do to help support the family to help get their child to school so that we can help them learn um we will have uh at our academic team meeting on the 23rd we'll have a representative there to kind of share with all of our admin the the opportunity that that they can provide to school districts uh with within that uh with that partnership look like um and my understanding as we're as I'm learning more about this if this is something that sounds good for us and something that we would like to to see happen whether it's piloting at one building or in in my preference to have if it's good

164for one building let's see what we can do so that the whole system can benefit from it to get that partnership in place sign anou if necessary to help support our families Within this process so mors to come on that um after visiting with our academic team uh there we've got an opportunity to have that uh have uh support Ed be here at at the board meeting in February to share more about that information with you as the board so just want to give you a heads up that's to come I know Derek shared some of that information with you but it's some really cool opportunities that could provide for our community in that sense the other thing I wanted to to just uh put in front of you is to to do kind of

165a first public look at a graphic that I would like to send out this week regarding special education uh funding and this is an alignment with the priorities that we uh that you you adopted here so I'm going to put put up on the uh the screen here uh for you once it shows up okay am I am I not catching the other one all right on the far one oh yeah it is over there it's on the far one but I'm looking for the big one okay so this is a really great graphic that will soon be on that TV um superintendent and you've got one in your you've got one in your packet um so superintendent uh in the state have been working uh to help with an information push about special education

166funding and the impact that our current situation has when the excess costs aren't funded at 9 2% like statute states that it needs to be and so what has done is this graphic itself has been established and put out for us to be able to update it with Baldwin USD 348 information as it relates to last fiscal year last school year and so what I've done is I've put together some numbers with with the help of Nate with finances to kind of try to tell the story of what special education funding looks like in USD 348 so the 2.8 million that you see there is the the the total dollars that we spent uh on special education costs for last school year in 2022 23 the second item there reflects the special education funds received

167from the state last year those excess costs were funded in the amount of 72% or the 72 multiplier that's in within that statute and so when you think about that when you look at all of the dollars that our district needed to transfer to pay that 2.8 million um our District transferred $1.1 million to cover the diff the difference that was there now special education funding itself is something that is there's a Federal Law requires maintenance of effort meaning you need to spend as much this year as you did last year at a minimum and very few exceptions are made that allows that funding to reduce most specifically it's it's when you have a significant decline in your special education population we don't have that um and so when you look at at what's taken

168place last year to to be able to to to cover the difference roughly $500,000 were were attributed within that 1.1 million to make up the excess cost that the state wasn't paying that would have gotten us to 92% all right then you take the 8% beyond that is is obviously on on the the taxpayers of of our community because the statute requires that at anything above 92% % we cover but we also know special education is an investment in students and so because we are part of an interlocal we also have additional costs that are that are associated with that the interlocal itself provides a great deal of resources that we can provide by being in that network with two other districts that we could not provide if we tried to do it locally on

169our own and I'll get to that here in a second um and so as you're looking at at this that maintenance of effort in addition to the state not meeting their stat statutory requirement of 92% puts a significant burden on local taxpayers and school boards to be able to pay those those costs and so when you attribute 500,000 that's roughly 3.84 Ms out of the L that was associated with trying to make some of these costs happen and so when we start looking at if what would happen if that if 92% in a clean special education only funding bill what that would look like for us there are things we could do with L you could look at enhancing staff salaries whether it's our teachers that we're trying to make sure that they are paid

170uh paid more for the work that they do classified staff we need to we need to Upper classified staff we've talked about that we know that um we also have the ability to reduce some of that tax burden on our local community we could reduce a mill or two and be able to to provide some some relief there if you're a taxpayer you've already in this this is me getting a little bit on the the advocacy Soap Box we've got a surplus of almost $4 billion 3$ 3 to$ billion at the state all right as as a taxpayer you've already sent that money in that could have paid 92% special education costs already this year but they didn't but the legislators didn't allow for that so the local school board to be able to make

171the budget happen had to Levy additional lob uh taxes to be able to cover those sped costs so as a taxpayer you're you're kind of getting it twice on that front does that make sense does that that theory hold a little water there and so this is this is why this is important here when you're looking at what we do with special education and why it's important that we get that full funding 18% of the students in USD 348 uh take part in special education that that's on the high end of the average State average um we have 12 special education categories that we are leveraging to meet the needs of our students within their education their individualized education plans with that we have 70 trained staff within our school district that provide special education

172services from Paris the teachers the therapists Etc additionally and this goes back to that statement we as an interlocal have the ability to put programs together that we could not take part in on our own those programs are webbed which is our Behavior program students whose behavior is is in need of specialized instruction to be able to uh to learn we have Bridges which is a special education programming for some some intensive needs uh some significant intensive needs as they begin to age out as well as cards which focuses on autism um program which is housed in the Idora School District we have Bridges here over at the junior high what was that last one called cards students that have autism that qualify for that spec special Pro specialized program would go to udora for

173that um and then webs is also housed in udora which they have for elementary junior and high school so um this graphic it's intended to be informational for our community um I will be releasing this on our district social media accounts um I wanted you as a board to kind of have some talking points um for that and so I I hope this graphic itself can can speak to that um I will tell you that what the the the clean clean bill specific to special education is important um there's talk at the state level of of uh you know if they fully fund special education are they going to reduce the 20 Ms to the general fund uh to make as as they're making things happen um there's talk of well they think the money

174is already there so let's rework the formula there there's a lot of work in trying to keep the status quo just changing the language of the statutes and that's something that you know that's the conversation they're having what what our community and our legislators need to see and understand is what's really taking place within our school district and so it's my hope that this graphic will be there I will also tell you and just a kind of for for a new board's perspective when it comes to interaction on social media I'm sure this will Garner some some conversation some comments I'll I'll monitor the comments um but I generally won't respond from the USD 348 account if anyone has any questions about special education funding I'm always happy to sit down with anyone to to

175talk about things uh Nate and I have sat down with folks that have had questions regarding budget happy to do that as well on this topic but I won't engage in that Dialogue on social media I know I had received an email um from a Community member who was wanting to know the best way to um I guess try to advocate for this would that be just contacting your your contacting your your legislator um they the legislators prefer to hear from parents they prefer to hear from taxpayers as as a school representative we do our best to communicate with them but where their their Interest really comes from are the parents and that that's where the biggest impact comes is when a parent can can sit down and and share their perspective and their story

176of the impact the special education funding has on your child absolutely when you release this um would it be beneficial to um share the legislative priorities that you're sharing so that we have some accountability with that yep okay and when will this be released what's that I would like to get it out this week okay and Mark you had mentioned that our transfer to special education as a district is somewhere in like the four to five like it would equate to being four to five Mills per year three three to four three to four Mills okay I'm just looking at our M Levy history here which our total M Levy currently is at 52 Mills so we're talking about like 8% of our Mills or something I mean not napkin math there but like that's

177a lot of our Mills and this comes out of our lob um well General it's it's the use general fund is where transfer the dollars to pay for special education but we need those L dollars to be able to make up for the general fund dollars that were transferred out okay okay so in other words it's a pretty healthy chunk that we're actually contribut and it's the right ethical thing to do as well as legal thing to do is to obviously to fund these services for kids right right but if we if they maybe the obligation of the law this would be right it would do a lot for our budget in terms of flexibility what we could pull off like you you mentioned that us exactly just thinking of that that percentage of like

178that really is astounding I hav't thought about it from that that percent or that um Viewpoint before and I know you used the 2223 school year cuz that one's been closed out but for the 23 24 school year to% correct and expected to drop to 67 next year yes that is correct okay so what you have here are the the total the total dollars because we'll know we'll know what that official to to your point Jamie we'll know what that official impact is by May or June when we get our final legal Max letter from the state when they say okay here's how much money you actually got from the state now balance your budget so do we need to Executive session uh yes for that one issue do you need a break yep okay

179uh we're going to go to recess how how long do you need we'll do I'll I'll give you I'll give you 10 how about that 10 but okay maybe I need okay a motion that we go into executive session um to discuss Personnel pursuant to the exception for non-elected personnel inoma uh the open meeting will resume in 10 minutes at 9: 11 and we're going to ask Mr bham and Mr Dodge to join us we get a second second Chris Perry seconded all those in favor raise your right hand say hi s z Ro we go we go around the corner into the SE the interum the holy of [Music] holies sounds like Dr place that's who though yeah you need a second to look at the person no there's nothing to discuss I'll look

180at um it was all retirement for some people that have been here a long time um also when you adjourn please come back and oh sign everything all of the resolutions and appointments that you guys just approved consent agenda I'll tell you what you're sign before thanks um yeah and since we're into now considering um executive session matters I you know there is a good section in the in the board handbook that Kelly put together that's about executive session but executive session is kind of a unique part of the meeting um that there are some pretty strict rules about um so I would say review that um but really when we going into execu a session we're only in there for a specific amount of time and that's what Megan will come knock on the

181door let us know when that time is up if we we want to rediscussed to go back in there and talk about something more we come back out make a new motion says we want to go in there for another 10 minutes with these people for this reason there only a very small limited number of reasons we can go into an executive session and then um the board um can go into executive session you know by themselves um we have to invite anybody else that's not that's not elected we have to ask them to come in um and then what goes on in there has to stay in there kind of thing so don't even tell your spouse yeah yeah you keep a secret from your spouse that's right everybody um so I think that's

182it right y all right so we just need a motion to oh no oh consider we have to approve the Personnel G make a m motion to approve the Personnel report second all those in favor raise your hand and say I I 70 Megan it was me and Susan you guys just completed your first not yet who who's who's who's going to be the one to do the honorary uh ad joury a motion to adjourn that is so me I guess I make a motion to ad second everybody who wants to a Jour I say I I 70 wait is that my job now