Board of Education Meeting - January 2025

001for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liy and justice for all good evening everyone yes additions to the agenda none so we uh have a resolution before you to establish elction of school board officers I motion to approve the resolution to establish the election of school board officers as presented is there a second second motion seconded all those sub your election of the president vice oh perfect very effic okay I'll make a motion to elect James Higgins as president and Lucas Allen as vice president of the Board of Education of Burlington UniFi school district for two District 244 for 2025 I'll second Mo second all those oh is discussion any discussion thank you 6 moving on to 2G to approve the consent agenda as presented second motion second discussion 3A student recognition

002there are a lot of students that did really really well last year in the different state assessments levels three and four and that's you know we're shooting for levels two three and four for kids obviously two three and four terrific but a lot of kids in levels three and four I'm not going to read off all the names because we' be here all night but that's a real good problem to have and again this is a credit to um them as students it's a credit to uh you know our staff everybody that works with the kids uh everybody in the buildings and then also their families their parents and support that they have to do really well and Excel and do great things in the classroom so again congratulations and uh I know we look

003forward to them continuing to do great things second semester here um as we going to the second part of the school year on all parts of school not just State assessments because we're not all about State assessments we're about everything in Berlin so I think that's great so is this published anywhere these kids know this then so well and they will be recognized in their buildings at different uh we we did before where we did recognize them at a basketball game and that was nice but it just it seemed better to like recognizing in their buildings amongst their peers groups of people just that that3 students that's yes I thought I just wonder they going to get recognition somewhere yes they will have assembly recognition in their building so that's something that our building administrators

004and the buildings that felt like it would be best to do that um in each of their individual buildings that their assemblies yes okay more comments about that thank you great job get those V not here and you're supposed to be so I guess we can I moved table board vacancy position as we have no one to interview tonight yeah he would just take no action oh we aree so um we understand we receiv received a letter of interest from you and so the way this goes is tonight we will interview you at Open session so we have you probably know that already we're going ask you some questions at Open Session the board won't take any action necessarily tonight I mean we we'll take some sort of action tonight you could you could or

005you wait till the next meeting or we can wait till the next so anyways you will know which direction we're going John do you know everybody up here yeah yes jamesc James would be the board president Lucas would be the vice president we just elected that you almost got to witness it it was you guys have some questions there in box document and you can feel free to ask as many you go by Johnny yes go by Johnny okay you have any questions for us before we get started no questions okay Selena was um I'll just start with the top there so why are you interested in being on the school board well I'm interested uh you know I've had was it I am an alumni from Burlington High School I got kids in school

006I'm interested in uh making sure that I do my part to be part of their their education and everybody else's education here in C County and those that I would represent in district one just want to be um part of the school boarders what um experiences do you have working with other parents working with community members that you think might benefit you being over here so working with um other parents is I would um that may a just interacting with them in general right um some things that I have done in the past you I've helped with the the BS I think the pause group right helped out with them I've helped out a handful of times with the great artist program I've you know interacted with a couple parents there from that perspective my

007kids are involved in in uh extracurricular activities so I interact with other parents from that perspective there's probably other things that I do not a Hermit you know I stay inside but um you know I interact with a lot of parents and those are just some a couple of examples was there a second part of that no you answered it there was an and but it was you covered it okay have you served on any boards uh prior any boards before this I hav on any boards but I have been on the I I am currently on the new Strong City Council I've been on doing that for about two years now so understand the the meeting how that those all run so okay not necessarily a board but I am on the new city

008what do you see as the primary job or the work of of the Board of Education what do I see uh I see it as the the standard be for our education here in Cofe County right we're going to make sure that we're providing the right curriculum to the student population that we're providing the right uh resources to the teachers making sure that they're prepared to be successful in the jobs that they're doing uh to you know to prepare the students for to be a lifelong learner right to be responsible citizens uh in the community and and the state wherever wherever they may end up at you know thank you uh what do you believe is the greatest challenge of the school board service greatest challenge of the school board uh with any position right

009you have varying opinions from the public and I think you know you have to stand on the decision that you make saying it's the right one and I think it being a public uh entity like this you're going to have a lot of criticism from the public and you know I've seen that just sitting on the coun being able to navigate that and not that I haven't seen it not be professional but you know sometimes that we're human and it's a challenge sometimes just to be professional with in that setting so I would say the biggest challenge would be you know you do have that public scrutiny but I don't I'm not trying I wouldn't say that we're trying to hide anything from anybody but you know it's part of the job is you scrutinize

010saying it the way you said it or whatever it may be how do you feel uh your role as a school board member difference between that Administration superintendent we know how talking like if I was in Craig's position no how how what's what's your role different than what his role is or Administration what's the school board members Ro different than you as a school board M than Craigs or you know Dar is there any other [Laughter] questions I don't think I could answer this question question is how does it differ how does your role differ from what their role is so there so just from um understandings even you know I I checked the agend quite often you know I watch the videos online so you know what it differs is the board is the

011deciding factor you know Craig comes in here he's the implementer or the facilitator of a lot of things so he's not the decision maker he's more of the implementer of the decisions that are made in here or he recommends or you know gives a status update overseeing some of those actions that are done in here um so it's that from what I've seen and just some of the things that um I would go off of this you know he more the impl than he is the decision maker he still got to answer to answer the board so we're still I guess a an upper position I don't know what the right word or terminology is so he he reports to the board overall deciding factor you got it are there any particular um re or

012any particular issues that you're motivated to try to fix when you get on the board um no I don't have like a scripted agenda that I'm coming in here to say this is what we should do or this is what I only want to see done um I want to hear the pretty open to a lot of things so I'd like to hear what people had say and understand maybe try to understand why they feel that way right so I don't have an agenda really to come in here and say that I'm going to try to take over whatever I manipulate I appreciate that you came to the um public forum for the element twice to both only came to one Ronnie you can jump in whenever you have any [Music] questions okay okay so

013I'll keep going unless somebody else wants to ask so I think a lot of people think that we come in here for a couple hours once a month and that's the only part um obviously there is more of a time commitment than that and by that I mean we have we had a meeting before this and we have another one on Wednesday that's not a typical week but it can happen um and then you know there are other times where we get calls in the middle of the day and we've got to call in or come in for an emergency you know type thing um will you be able to manage that uh time constraint will you be able to work around that I mean how do you think that's going to affect you um

014be able to navigate his normal right I understand that some like you said some things jump up do the best that we can and I understand that sometimes decisions not decisions uh I understand that additional meetings may have to be done like a work session right to try to get things done so yeah I understand that sometimes not everything can be done in one meeting that there are additional meetings that have to be done and that's something that I've encountered being on the city council so no big uh challenge there how do how does a school board how do we as a school board know if our goals are being accomplished and our policies are being implemented the goals you know we're setting goals and we have uh you know the people in the different

015schools right you have the high school middle school elementary school they have individual goals that challenge checking to say that we're checking ourselves making sure that our goals are met we're making sure that the maybe if there's somebody in the high school implementing goals to you we're making sure that they're doing it what was the second part um policies or that were the school polic Poli um just reviewing policies I see that we do policy reviews every once in a while right making sure additionally if people are bringing them up to us and saying hey I think this policy needs reviewed you we would obviously need to go that way and I don't know if we don't hear anything if they're the right policy right review policies occasionally I don't know what the schedule is

016here but you know if there's a schedule to review and approve policies usually kind of twice a year usually twice a year they usually every once in a while as needed is something that's up from Kansas Association School boards as recommendations yeah usually what'll happen is Craig we'll bring the changes to us and we'll kind of go over the changes and make sure we agree understand understandable they one work are there any uh areas of need that you know of in the district or things that you'd like to see done or changed the areas of need in the district um I honestly can't think of anything that just sticks out like a sore THB it's probably just like anything else right there problems that arise all the time and navigate through them but nothing that's

017just like a mole sticking out the ground H you know I can't think of anything I see scrolling how many questions did you have I prepare themare them well how do you handle um you talked a little bit about it you know like at the city council but angry parents are teachers complaints I mean and you you know and so I would tell you a common one we get here is coaching complaints so how do you have them all um well I can speak just from experience right in the city council with uh Angry I would say upset you know that passionate people about a certain topic attend the meeting right you got to listen to them and sometimes they might just be complaining to complain but they you still got to listen because they

018might have a little bit a small nugget in there that that you want to listen and say okay maybe that little bit let me focus on that one and I get that there was a issue you know issues that new strong you know you got to listen to them got to go through that and say okay well it's uh it's fact it's fact not you know appreciate that I was the one that you lead to to share your complaint and share it with others you know share with the team and make sure that everybody's aware of it so so how's that differ with you role as a board member here affects lots of people so I mean although that you know the city council does too but how how how do you respond to that

019to that individual that's complaining or the teacher complaints someone complain about either or you know I would answer it the same way then that I would as a city council member said if that's a concern that you really have the board makes that decision there's a meeting that happens once a month at 7 o' at Monday morning you know second Monday come talk to us and see what we can make it right I mean that's that's that's the real thing okay well I'll make a motion to point Johnny hernand as usd244 board member district one effective January 14 2025 you don't have question yeah I've got I've got it so I'm going to make those jump up me are double we try to keep the [Music] new motion by heart second for the discussion I

020want to make sure any zero P question vote so hi Ronnie roll call Mo car 6 you will not be appointed until next month well tomorrow starts starts tomorrow you there's an open of office you take and it's just a very simple you know paperwork and stuff and then there'll be some other we'll get in touch with it we'll be hey but we left for to stay tonight we you may start getting inated with all the emails we're talking about [Music] wedn have to sit up front Johnny there's Pizza in there if you want ite written items so we have very excited today at because we got to get our phone call from commissioner Watson to I was sworn to secrecy guys it's over been over a month Dr Watson swore me a secrecy on

021this and then we were supposed to do it that last Tuesday and then we got snowed out so then we shoved it to Monday here and so go ahead it was really awesome because we were in service and so everybody could being there when she got told which I think you know honestly it's a testament to a lot of people in ouring because she had a great mentor she had great student teaching experience and so she is a phenomenal teacher but I think you know the Kudos feels like it can be shared with lots of people yeah was she really surprised I felt like she was surprised so so knowing the commissioner like I do I texted him and said hey we could do this teams me you could do come on the screen and

022he likes that stuff anyway and so they did not know so Craig and Craig and Darla they were finishing up and I was waiting for Dr Watson to come on I guess stretch it out he's not here yet sure enough he got there and so good to and we had celebration Derek P Cake from the afternoon and it was a it was a really good celebration so and kudos to Darla too because Michaela gray was one of the professional development school people from Emporia State that came on with the different uh block one block two student teaching experience she was a student teacher with us we got her here and now she's a horizon Award winner so kudos to Darla and their staff and Michaela too to everybody so I think I speak for the

023board but congratulations to her congratulations and there will be a big celebration in February in TOA where we will go and attend the reception for all the Horizon a winners her family will be going Darla de Parker was instrumental and helping her out doing the paperwork and all all the forms completed and everything so we can't go that one we're going to have cre tonight yeah and we do have cake and ice cream ice cream cake to for you guys tonight too as well I had already told Darla this but I appreciated the 21st century yes um that you know they that we're beating all our goals and that's because of for sure I mean I believe me I know you have to do all that and jump through their hoop so a lot it's

024a lot I will say if I could add on that one thing that also came out of that visit with her um was that um I had t i just Shar with her like my concern for reapplication in the year and like if there's any wiggle room in that percentage for rfps and she just Emil me back over break and said that Chris the State contact for 21st cury par so that we should be get to apply they must have a little bit of we have had it for a long time and you know that's really a hard percentage for us to hit but like one of part of our conversation was just like we are a program that meets the goals like we have a huge adaa we're way above our average like does

025any of that stuff like count of you know help tip us if we're a little low there so so that will be good but you know as they say which we don't apply for but the grants are very competitive so but I think our longevity of having it also shows like we're committed to how often do we have to reapply every five years okay so this is I liked a little bit about the golden Forks by the way like whenever it's the Friday morning announcement some class KS it you can usually hear the hollering in the school it's amazing how what motivates elementary school kids very cool uh see Matt's not here yeah he is not here he's C you with the middle school basketball activity tonight if you have anything for Matt just let

026me know I'll be happy to share and uh get you some information back just some information hot off the press email me at 653 um our act Works Keys scores came in 63 Juniors took the test so breakdown is 17 earned bronze um certificate 20 silver 14 gold and seven Platinum that is the most we've ever had so they did extremely well and we did have five students that did not score well enough to get a certificate but that is highest since I've been here and have to ask on but I don't think we've ever had seven in the Platinum I mean that is higher them tomorrow they could do better than people that so they're ready um um we had a good day of uh professional development today um um we have a lot

027headed you know for all of our buildings um and so we focused on all the upcoming testing and data and so as we focus on Keith said one of the things is giving the dumping the data so that our teachers can understand it and move the students forward so we do it in increments but collectively so our whole conversation about Collective efficacy and um so a little bit of it AER in the headlights and then a little bit of excitement and then um February 10th we second set of testing um the interims um and I did put a little example down there what the interims are like um for the state assessment um and then this was the first time they saw the the breakdown of the ones twos threes and fours and it was

028aha moment for them and so we had that conversation of it doesn't matter what group is coming through how do we get you know it's like we what the analogy was a manufacturing you're boxing it and shipping it and you're boxing it and shipping it we're we're getting the kids we have just we can't use excuses like oh they're just a lower or they're just this so how do we every kid that comes in that building get them to that level and so breaking down some of the the stuff that's on that sheet I think I put it on maybe not um uh there is uh it kind of it shows us um our weak areas and so um anyway so we had some good conversations and then um kind of moving forward on uh

029that but we for jumping right in with assessments and so the kids are excited I'm sure when they come back we're ready for kids we're ready we're ready for kids so and only one thing has been rescheduled so at this point so we're very lucky basketball got rescheduled from Friday to Monday February 3rd what's that basketball that was the one thing that got rescheduled from that Friday yeah the second snowday yep thought did you have the wrestling tournament this weekend right y wrestling tournament was Saturday it was a success there were 22 team 22 boys teams and 23 girls teams there we were one of the only tournaments to go this weekend most of the others were canceled and so we actually let in like Wellsville let them in because they their tournament got canceled

030and had to turn away a few others yeah then they won the and so but what was cool is we had some Alum you know you have your linkage tonight we had Harley Baker col Baker and Carson bangs who all came back and we're like huge roles in like taking over uh some big spots for they ran the podium and the metal handout and the metal ceremony for the entire tournament and those three kids did it and like got compliments and it was it was awesome so it was really cool I mean and maybe some of the others but col went around so that the table workers could have a break and he would sub for them while they went and got lunch it helped yeah it helped us not we didn't have to have

031like an hour long lunch break and over theit because of col and Carson and a couple other students actually didn't knew how to run tables and they did just go from table to table and relieve the table workers so they could go take a 30 minute break and get lunch and it was I don't know that was just a really cool part of it for me was that those kids came back and super helpful I also really like I know this isn't my section but my kid was one of them um with how we incorporated a lot of our youth in the towel tapping and stuff like that so as you look at building that program the through um it's it's nice to see those kids boys and girls I mean but out there doing

032the tow tapping and that's not this isn't the first year but yeah but shout out to Adam stall and Vu David David Vu who got all that organized were there the whole day with all their little kids making sure that the towel tapping is all taken care of so maybe maybe looking at getting some of the recent alumni to come back is something we should do every year yeah I told I told I told I said every year you need to come back and do this while you're College just come back you're on Christmas break anyway that's a great idea come back and it was just Happ St I was actually on a job and ran past the baker's house and Colt and Harley were outside I stopped and talk to them and then they

033were like is there anything we can do at the school while we're on grer board I was like as a matter and then they exceeded expectations and Stephanie is a big help too Stephanie Baker the naal the national anthem and then helped out with a bunch of stuff too so overall good day was F his first year you know helping run the tournament so I think he was good job at little five the kids rolled everything up cleaned it blew up bleachers we were out 5 p.m. 5 p.m. 5 p.m. it was crazy yeah we didn't take there were no breaks there were noan of course is probably got 50,000 steps in that day I don't know count our our up time on technology there's not not very many glitches a little unplugged for here

034probably but and then yeah soes that's awesome Community effort really good I have one last thing um just to update on some enrollment is that um for our uh online courses we have 47 college courses being taken right now for students um that's through from ACC fhtc and ESU you know ESU is offering them um to our students now as well online and then we have um um uh 44 kids taking uity courses and that's for high school credit so that's anywhere from the cosmetology to the uh cyber security um you name it uh women's studies so those are high school courses but they're done online yes okay and they're that's how that worked yes and that's all all of that is mapped to the state standards so like I have somebody taking women's studies

035right now so it's in the the history department and blah blah blah so um trying to to meet those individual plans study um as they go through um and that's a easy way for them to go heck no I'm not going to take this anywhere I'm not going to go down this path and so on so Diane runs that there's eight80 students that run through that throughout the day um we do have a few Credit Recovery kids um we're not making that habit but it is best for them so we can keep it on track for graduation so that is individual bases and a special circumstance um so unfortunately so they're not enrolled three times in a row in the same class you know if they failed it a couple times we're giving them an

036option and that seems to have been um pretty successful right now the autonomy so just update on that so lot going on thank you very much anybody else anything else okay um be honest I did this report before the break so I don't know but I will tell you that on Tuesday first day with kids and kind of sorry Wednesday first kids um and Road's you know okay was also the day of a job fair in andoria um that Southeast Kansas Works put on especially in light of the Tyson plant shutting down things like that so I took whne me and we went and spent the day over there um I would say I know I got one application filled out right there in hand um somebody else actually from our community that I talked

037to and got a resume from um maybe yielded three potential um also though talked to a couple High School seniors that were like what you know and we just talked about education in general and the field and um so that was kind of a fun conversation so didn't y like a ton of results but I think still kind of worth it at the same time and just like we go to teacher job fairs and you have to kind of head hunt and go find and look them up and whatever especially because of the shortage you know one girl the application I got actually went to the table next to me which was MFG oil and was like oh maybe customer service and I was like let me go find her I might be able to

038get her in I got new customers you know and she's the one that fill out the app so um we're we're trying to fill vacancies um we have two starting at bees on the 27th um one's coming back to us one is moving to the community um so you know we have some things in the works we're not drastically low the high school still could use a few um but really that's that's my biggest hot spot right now High School is It's Not Unusual for that to be hard to fill to be really honest with you a lot of people are scared to go school real and sometimes I have to talk them into it or find someone who's not uh the other thing I just wanted to kind of touch on is we had

039a I had in service today with my 244 Paris um I'm going Friday to the 245 Paris and Monday to the 243 Paris um but really did a lot of data collection today from them as a lot of questions like what does your day actually look like like I tell you these are the things that you should be doing what does that really look like and some we got some raw number data some was just some feedback data but with the main intent to look at we're always short Pairs and we have pairs that come and go so how can we make it better for them upon entry so really we're going to look at our onboarding process and what that looks like but we wanted to get some data from those people that have

040gone through it um or in your past and what have they seen that they've liked or not liked um and then what are they doing and how can we help support that um either from my level or the building level so great conversation they were very involved um I told them it was a safe space you know I'm not going to go say oh so and so said this or whatever wasn't about that um and so I think that really allowed them to share it and we had terrific conversation I hope my other two go go just as well because it's going to be some phenomenal data for us to use moving forward um and then in the afternoon we talked U buil talk that and did a little teaching and really looking at learned

041helplessness and how we can foster Independence and we even practiced how we can scale back doing too much into being making kids more independent and how they can just self evaluate throughout and look at those things so um they actually had two of them tell me this is a top five day and I really think a lot and I got another email since we got back and I think some of that was they got heard it was all about hearing from um and it was great for us it's just what we needed to so Joe took the notes and he's compiling the data I facilitated the meeting and we fed them and not lunch but we had snacks and candy and I mean it was it was a really good day so yeah I think

042that's really important I know Jen filled in as a pair of Subs sometimes and I think that's can be a very thanless job and you kind of feel like you're on the bottom run and nobody really is listening so that's really important that he did that it it was it was wonderful and I appreciate how much they participated today okay thank you l so yeah kind of a short board report here because um when uh we only had about nine days of school we didn't get much of what the students were doing technology wise as they were kind of headed for holidays and that but U we've got a lot of reporting going on uh just in this next month and a half chrisy and I a whole bunch with the Civil Rights data collection

043for the federal level and the educator uh data collection system for the state um it's kind of a good thing we didn't get started too far on our civil rights uh data collection because the state just informed us today that they had to mess up with the uploads that they provide and uh our choice is to either hand change everything they have in there or wipe out everything that is done and so luckily we haven't uploaded any of our stuff otherwise we'd be doing it all over again from scratch so it's a yeah so we uh it's going to be interesting to see what uh additional data we're going to have to provide because they have said that they won't be able to fix their side of the data that they normally provide by the

044March 7th deadline so that's a a new one in there um uh we did get access to our training database uh so a little later this week uh for cumulative we'll be uh getting our principals and secretaries and counselors uh involved in uh some training modules and then they'll be actually able to use a version of cumulative that's been built for us with our data as of December 27th and can go in there and make changes and uh you with it being our actual data as of that point it's maybe becomes a little bit more um relatable to what they're doing you know it's not some random name you you know you can actually see a student's name and their parents and if you make a change you you know you can feel or understand

045what you're really doing in that process of training um you know what effects you've made oh you know I just accidentally deleted that parent you know or or oh you know I've separated them into two families and it would make much more sense knowing it's our own students so um that is happening this week um and we found out about the uh Kansas kids is becoming kids and and uh that data system it's it's uh going to actually instead of us having to basically upload our data will be there and and we um um approve that it's ready so um a little bit more hands off and and they're hoping that um that this will keep the state system like cleaner um then they'll only be gathering basically like for instance when we say fourth

046graders we need to set them up to take the state assessment in reading and math and social study well as long as the state knows hey this kid's a fourth grader they will automatically now with this new system just say they're a fourth grader these are the tests they need you know and so less work of us having to actually go and tag each student and say yes take this test take this test and then upload that data it'll just be there so it'll be interesting to see how that U works um they are implementing it and hope to have everybody into it by March and then kind of do a dual system for the rest of the school year and then go live with it next fall so a lot of different things happening

047uh one other thing uh ksde.org is becoming ks.gov uh at the end of the month and so all those email addresses will be changing the websites will be changing and then we've even found that you know links to documents and that are have to update and all that so yeah I think darling found some trainings and they have checked one to hey this is live will be able to show it they checked it before our meeting and then in our meeting they pulled it and it was so they're having to struggle through it too yeah so but just uh aware that that is coming that and that will be a valid uh valid change thanks for work CRA you got plent to do speaking of days off how many snow days did we end up

048having to we ended up three we were off Monday Tuesday went to school two hour delay Wednesday full day Thursday 2hour delay counts as a full day for us and Friday we were out so we're the well well not necessarily because again we got to have 1116 hours total in the school year and chrisy and I we've been swamped because we yeah we haven't had a chance to do the math yet more information because everybody's been asking are we going to have to make up we're going to do some feary before we start whenever we get a chance to catch our breath we're going to do some math and figure it out but we'll share with everybody but worry fortunately a lot got paid for the snow days this time two days yes remember we

049paid two class we P our classified staff for two snow days so two of those three are paid so that was good that was POS like that was a long stretch right you at the same time exactly and that was one of the reasons the board a number of years back number of years back gave us gave gave gave us the permission gave me the permission you you approved it to be able to pay two snow days and this is a perfect example of why it's a long stretch off over Christmas break whether not so yes okay all right great the other great yeah Board of educa Board of Education appreciation month every month ought to be Board of Education appreciation month again want to thank you all for your service to the student staff

050and Community it's very much appreciated the jobs that you do um the time you put in U people don't U understand and know I think they do a little bit after they saw the article in the paper and then it was October or November the different things that the board members do so again thank you so much uh and we do have some ice cream clean ice cream cake tonight for you guys uh so Lindsay's just set that out I think to let that fall and we'll be ready here in a few minutes when we're wrapping up here um I want to continue we we continue to talk about um some information from our strategic plan and some of this looks familiar from in the years from last year but there are a few other

051additional items down below we just continue to look for ways to bring in the community to have discussions to have open honest communication with our community um just a variety of different ways and we will look for more opportunities in the future um as we are getting ready to have a work session on wesy for a little bit more information regarding the bur and Elementary School uh facility options and thoughts and what we're going to be doing there we continue to look again for you know different thoughts different you know things to discuss and then we'll probably bring that information to the public again so there's so many different ways that we have uh you know just Incorporated the public into public education and uh keeping those excellent lines of communication open and if you

052guys have additional items different ways for me to do a better job um sharing information with the public I am all ears um again public is very important to us they are very very important to us so again just some reminders of how we do work you know to inform the public and then the last item is we've already talked about this but uh great news again in regards to Michaela congratulations go out to her and I mentioned and de for their work on this honor so we'll get some uh social media out some positive stuff out we'll get this article in the paper we want to get this out there for BC and then all the other great things and you've already heard a number of different great things that are happening here as

053we're starting a new calendar year I mean there's a lot to be proud of here in Burlington and it's the people the people that make a difference so again that's all I got okay great thanks board member items anybody have anything me I was going to kind of talk about the meeting we just had before this meeting just a little bit L our admins here so we met with um recent graduates from Burlington High School from last year so we have three um that attended we have two that um went into college and one that went into the military um and uh we got some really good feedback um a lot of it you know was was positive um they gave us some some suggestions and things that maybe we could do a little differently

054with um like career fair and some of the clubs um how we advertise those clubs and things like that at school uh but the grade wise so we always ask them at the end we go through questions and get some feedback good and bad um so we got we one gave us a solid B they said solid the other said a solid B+ um and then one gave us an a um but some of the um feedback as far as like uh the career fair thing maybe just have it set up differently maybe with tables and more um different types of careers and so we kind of talked about you know maybe we could and we can you know that would leave that to to you guys at the high school to figure out really

055um but maybe pulling the kids and seeing what things they're interested and then trying to bring in those types of things um I know that last year the the career fair was set up a little differently um I think then years before maybe last year was the first year we had it first year okay yeah since Crystal's been there and we did pull the students and that's how we that's how you decided so we did yeah so that's we we did a survey and and then try to match with the yeah um but then we talked about like well they don't know what they don't know right so then they don't know what careers are even out there so anyway that was just some of the the feedback um we you be typing this up

056so we'll get you we'll get you sent we'll get you sent this we talked about going to it before there were seniors yeah yeah and for all kids and it was open to all no was it just seniors this year are they talking the one beinged yes yes everybody did yes so we'll do it every other year now but again with Crystal this was that was her fourth year this is her fifth year so that was her first time to run it off yeah so okay yeah good feedback that's it's good information yeah um one thing that really stuck out to me two well two things really um with the question we asked is there did you have a staff member or teacher that was like a trusted middle and each one of them had

057no problems popping off a name of a of a teacher staff member that they that was like a mentor trusted adult that they felt they could always you know go to so that was um and it was all different each one of them had a different um teacher which I thought was really good too it wasn't you know all the same um and then with all the positives um two of them said um that they felt like they were really seen like the staff members and the teachers really saw them um as a student as a person so that like got me because I was like like that you know above all like I really think you know these were students that started their High School careers at other high schools and then came here

058during high school and they both said in comparison to their old high school they they had something to compare to also that was yeah that's good that's a key piece of it I think it is cu they they both said those two that you know their previous schools you know weren't great and we had so much more to offer and the way that they were treated by staff and um I just thought that was really good those two things stuck out to me because I you know I just want kids to have a trusted adult and and to feel like they're being seen so um just wanted to share that with you guys thank you anything else they have the other suggestion about extra curricular so like one of them said you know they really

059weren't involved at first as a freshman because they didn't really they were you know like didn't really know what the options were and so like they just suggested like maybe in the gym have like booths for each club and the kids could go around and see what the clubs were about because they weren't very involved first C years because they didn't really know what the options were you know so some kids are like really involved so they're always involved right and then some kids don't know because they'd see a poster yeah maybe the first week have during Power Hour all the clubs are set up on a table so they can go around and really like oh this is really what this club is about or be happy to know we did that this year

060these are great things so it's good feedback because those are the type of things and then we actually yanked freshman and said you're going to go try this go try W cat's care go try this like what are you going to do well I got I got a wallat pass I'm going do no you're not let's go try this so we really were very um uh intentional about try it if you don't like it you never have to go back but and so but that was I I don't know if that was just random if that was I don't knowt but that was what happened so good yeah well and that was key too one of the we asked them like their favorite memory what was their her experience um being in school and all

061of them it was an extracurricular thing it was a club it was a um trip that they went on and it was a sport like it was all that extra stuff because it was that again was like the connection piece for them feeling part of a team feeling like they belonged and um so I thought that was that was I'm Happ they on Improvement at checking them James I did have one thing I wanted to talk I talked to Craig about this at the last meeting but we didn't have everybody here so I want to make sure when we went down to wiah for our uh oh the School Board conference can't the title so one of the CL actually I went to four sessions one of them was based around social social media usage

062one of them turned into that halfway through the class and there was some information that came out during the class that I didn't ever think about and I'm going to guess other people in here have it I'm talking to school memb but it probably applies to the administrators also they got into a discussion about like Facebook for example usage and they gave an example and it was a city manager not necessarily A Schoolboard member but they said the city manager had his Facebook account set up before he became a city manager it was his personal account and when he became a city manager he as time went on people would send him questions on his personal account and he started answer those questions using his personal account which made his personal account his public account

063so then people were able to go and look at things on his public account and that was part of his professional position at that point well somebody he had got into it with somebody on his on Facebook and he decided to block that individual which is not something you're allowed to do if you are a public servant apparently because people have the right to speak to public servants but he did and he got sued for hundreds of thousands of dollars and lost so their suggestion was and obviously I know that we try not to comment on social media but I know that several of us have been have definitely had a PLL to do that over the past few months one suggestions they made was is if you are going to do that make a

064separate Facebook account or Twitter account or whatever it is that says Bob plumber usd244 School Board member and then on your other account make it very clear that your personal one is your personal account has nothing to do with your position and differentiate between the two I don't think we have a problem with that but I know that there's been a few times I've wanted to post things that might have caused a problem and uh I know there are a few people that have posted things not that they caused a problem but I don't want so I don't want to accidentally post something then somebody go back and see what I was doing in 1995 on Facebook you know and find something that could be held against me in the future so I just wanted

065to put that out to everybody it's not a a view that I had ever thought of and I never would have thought that could have come back on somebody but I thought everybody should probably know that that was out there W good point if I might kind of add to that kind of along with your email uh addresses you know uh if you aren't using a school district email address you may want to because U your correspondences uh the personal email can become part of like a a lawsuit or anything like that and then all of your personal emails would become subject to that so if you're currently using a a personal one and you would like a district one it sounds like we are very very lucky here I heard a lot of stories

066from people in larger districts and uh it there were some horror stories um especially during Co time frame I know a lot of you were on the board and I wasn't um stalking death threats all kinds of things like that during that time period for some people um so I think we're pretty lucky but that doesn't mean we shouldn't be more careful good points good reminders okay so moving on to result uh there's there's a lot of data in here and you know so that as you guys go through the data it's much easier for you to kind of understand it to interpret it because when I take first brush out I go so now I'm asking you to explain like uh says b State Ela 2024 and then the second slide after that says

067Ela 202 so I'm trying to understand that that's on slide 10 it could but then above that is 2024 okay so even if it is 2024 wow there's a lot of netives in there yeah and you know so if you go back to the slide before I found this kind of interesting like you know this basically breaks our kids up by level so kind as Craig talked about earlier we're hoping to see kids at two threes and fours you know which were actually better than the state like we have less kids in four compared to the state um and is there more text on the bottom of that SL christe I can't see so 74% of our kids in third grade were at a two three or four which was an increase from the year

068before in 89% which was an increase of 2% from the year before so you know we're improving I feel like but then when I look at that side I'm like then of those like so these are kind of like the um components if you will like overall topic areas that the kids are assessed on and like all of ours are showing below but like our kids are doing okay and I actually like compared it to a couple years ago and it's kind of the same thing we were actually talking about this with third grade like a main idea we're B at it every year and so we kind of talk to second grade I have no idea how a state generates this I have a question blue and and is below mean is two and

069a below because the state would I think say that in theow I I can't tell you anything that's what I'm saying so you guys see this all the time I'm just looking and then 10th grade is oral so I I just want to cave out that the state will see a two they only want thre and fours well and if you look at both those in all the categories for the most part on third and fourth and all the categories in tent the majority of the students are two or below you can also say the majority of the students are two or above just because two is such a big category right so it really is going to depend on how you want to you know squish the data around which I think is what's

070important and this isn't even my report so I'm sorry guys but I think that's what important when we start looking at the longevity of it is to also see are we moving kids from ones to twos twos to threes or higher in that section which we disaggregate data all the way down to a high two a low two a high three and low three because we want to see if we're truly moving kids then that's what we're wanting to keep pushing and this only shows you that one snapshot well and it's a little bit cons uh confusing to me because it talks about how the third grade went from 69 to 74% well that's a different group of kids in the third grade it really you should be looking at third grade last year compared

071to fourth grade this year right to see if they're moving up but you're also talking about a different assessment that's true that's true it's not perfect I guess yeah there's I mean there's no perfect way I mean if you like the reason I put that like third grade because I think you were talking about the same teachers teaching the same standards they're using similar methods are we looking at how we're teaching it maybe you know like we talk to them like we so we're giving an interim assessment test my building's never done that before the state's really encouraging it it's hoping they're hoping to come it in I can get on this topic for a long time but they're re they're they've redone the ELA standards so now like this year they came out with

072what's priority standards part of that's because the science of reading is becoming a big deal so like now on the assessments more so at my grade levels in the past it's been like um you they're assessing reading to learn and now they're going to try to also assess learning to read and reading to learn at the third grade level then get to fourth grade a little bit less of that and as it goes on up that's going to release it's really important for us to teach kids how to learn to read right like we need to already know that before they get there I'm not sure how they're going to measure that but that text the test the text complex complexity and all that's going to change so this is is actually the last year

073that we're going to have these cut scores because we're giving all new this year and they'll establish the pet scores next year which will'll get in August and we'll start out with new levels for two threes and fours but I'm telling you like I think I said it last time with the math the math this came from lady at the state Department's mouth the lady in charge of Assessments we're not going to update the math standards until the state of Kansas can do better on these because we're not getting enough kids in the threes and fours so they're not going to change them I mean it it sounds to me you it sounds to me as often as you say they change these that there's no way to do any kind of long-term Trend and

074there's no way to get any useful information out of it at all yeah I mean you're going to get about five six seven maybe years worth they're going to change the standard and change assessments and then they're going to start back but it's never truly Apples to Apples it's an apple to another fruit maybe you know no I understand you said earlier the ACT scores for juniors were higher than we've ever seen before some classes are just going to be a little bit higher than the other classes I mean it varies year to year so a few percentage back and forth I don't think is a major indication that's just within the mar you see is like if you're you know you're consistently performing right I mean you're always trying to push those kids as

075far as you can and I think with these interim assessments what they've done now is they've changed those and we're going to have a better chance like they're supposed to be more predictive of how we're going to do and let us see like oh these standards like oh yeah you can break those inter reports down be like okay they got that or they're still not doing very good at that so we can keep working on that or you know whatever they might be um but we tried to get away from teaching to the test I mean way back Child Left Behind we were trying to get everybody proficient then we kind of got away from that state assessment's becoming a big deal again it's as simple as that so so number 13 swing Jody is

076this the same group of kids that you just talked about that score really well on the Keys um yes yes so these were yeah so there these are our current Juniors and um so yeah it's not where we want to be but we broke it down today the same group but then they take exactly and so I guess this is where I was confused I'm like know I put that chart somewhere if you go to 14 this is what Darla saying too this is where we're focusing right now is we broke it down these are the questions and if you look over there are where we need to be and you can go down below there was a one like was there thank you it's Q maybe no that's Kanas anyway so you can see

077below and this is what the teachers were talking about today is so we're not how important this where is this in your scope and sequence have you taught this and then we talked about vertical alignment are they supposed to come in with that from a previous grade and have some knowledge of it and have we hit it yet do we just need a touch B on it do we need to teach it if you know because it is important to us but one thing that Matt and I are doing is the fast bridge and the fast Bridge testing we do three times a year is aligned with and it's the verbage is supposed to be close to the state sens so besides the interim we have two interim we have uh we'll have two fast

078bridge scores prior to our state assessment so for the middle school and high school we're Hing looking at this our teachers are and then just just like Darla said you can go into individual kids and we have this for every kid and so our teachers then look at where we're low at collectively groupwise how we can address that but then individually um so this is the first time that you know it is new for us and so we were trying to break it down like how can we move the needle move a group of kids from because right and I'm trying to what the I don't have it on there there was like I want to say 27% in the high ones 27 kids in high ones and maybe one kid in the in the

079low ones we're like okay let's get the low one to the high one let's get those 27 how do we get those to twos and it made more sense but again In fairness to our teachers this is the first time they've seen this data and so now we're having the conversation and this type of stuff when you break down data this is real okay and this is Ela but when we look at math we're really good at probability and statistics tell me ever when we teach that in a sophomores and we're really good at it I mean we are outstanding about the state so it is what it is but it has good information so it feels right now like it's just bucket fulls of information we haven't quite figured out how to use it

080yet the beauty of these interims are that you're going to be working with the same group of kids it's a smaller test in October November and then another one January February this is and so you know these October November results there tells you you know we are low on this so let's do some extra work with these with these actual kids you're not wait you're not getting you know that one test in April and you're getting the results in late May June when school may even be out and the kids are already gone and they're on to another grade level you know so hopefully this can make things much more actionable well it definitely is a better way to measure kids because like when we gave like the inner windows open for two weeks I

081mean so you could take the first one in like the last two weeks of November or something like that and then the get ready to open up at the end of January I think right and then we have a couple more months then we'll take the summit of Assessments when the fourth grade took their Ela inter in the fall I mean Lisa is like well I know someone we did bet on because I haven't taught that stuff yet so you can expect that some like some of your standards are going to come out low because you can't have taught the whole curriculum between August and November you know but as they come back and take it again in January hopefully cover a few things that you might be spiraling back in you're going to see

082some growth on those things and it's just it's also another opportunity for us to maybe I personally think take some of the pressure off you know the state assessments the teachers do feel like they're a big deal but it's also a test like if we don't have any practices on if the kids have never seen that format before so um you know I think using the inters are good and it will give us some ways to monitor ourselves a little better and just clarify that the slide that is this year's Junior this data right here you're looking at is the current soft are the current sophomores it's not last year so that right there are our current Juniors so that's a spring okay so then right here I wanted to show you an example of

083the interims and so this is our current sophomore so this is what we're and like Darla said we're trying to use these this pieces of information as they go um this year so we we'll see how they do and and to me it is a t we have kids of test anxiety this is shorter um uh I to me a little more less stressful for kids um our kids even said that and then we can see growth that way and they might tot they vomit on state assessment day right so at least for conversations for data wise it's like our kids are there but they might have just had a bad testing day um so anyway so are we actually breaking this down for individual kids and saying hey for this kid we need to

084attack this problem that's where we're at okay well I you said we could I didn't know if we actually act actively started doing that yet because that seems like a large workload it very much so and that's where like Deborah came today and she's she's willing to help teachers as well we're going but again for our for our teachers this was the first time for them to see everything first time to get together and really see everything um and so we're having this conversation fast Bridge we've already been doing that and so now putting we have fast bridge this week we have inters coming at the end of the month and so we'll have all these other items and we we we want to look at the correlation too is you know are the testing

085better on one or the other and then that it's also we're always re evaluating like we evaluate is fast Bridge helping us as well so I mean it's it's a large conversation but under the umbrella that we don't want to te Teach them to test and train them to test it is all about like the standards and the knowledge and the I mean the content right to master yeah you don't want to grade you don't want to teach the test but at the same time this is showing you where there's gaps in Knowledge and Skills right that we can work on closing yeah somebody greater than us decided that these are the standards for this grade level and so that we will we will continue to focus on this we will teach them and focus

086on that well rest assured that those students have test anxiety have data anxiety I trust that you guys are looking at that and kind of figure it out and I think our our charge our in this is to accept a reasonable interpretation we trust you so and at the high school really it is the why for the kids why is this important instead of just clicking through and so we do battle a little bit of that but um uh uh conversations with enrollment and I will tell you that is because we do we have to use data right you have to have something like oh hey you have to you need to go to a reading lab you need to do this no is so I we will I will be asking for support in

087that as we have reading lab and math Labs um for our kids because that's our only way we can address some of these um lower when we start breaking it down individually and so they're going to be losing an elective so we can make sure we are doing our part so it's not going to be pleasant conversations with kids and parents but also we don't just use one test it's going to be that that across the board some triangulated pieces to look at so I just yeah I prefer the I like a report out from as web guess as you can see it's colorcoded and you can see them like they get smaller or bigger like it's easier to follow right see I'm I'm a dork I like all of this so you can have

088it so I'll make a motion to accept the ELA results monitoring report as reasonable interpretation of the Board of Education results policy second motion seconded discussion having done sub start worried I would loged in come it's Jody I wish I had this for the guys that work Tak a little slow down it is takes a while to get down motion carries 60 and again thank you guys for what you're doing they're doing a lot of evaluation as you can tell repete bid we have some very small projects this year uh to do so last year we didn't have a big concrete bid uh uh project to do this year is again just very small you can see the square footage sections uh we reviewed these areas and this is the amount so I plugged in

089about 150,000 each year so this year's going to be a much smaller year great and this year we last year we did not have any um you know any concrete major concrete so we're we're kind of on top of things that we are at some point in time we're going to have to do you know there's going to be some big sections we're going have to do at the high school parking lot um uh trying to think of others I'm hoping that the county is going to look to do something with that road between um the elementary angle parking and where they're doing the construction when they're all said and done with the construction I'm hoping that that will be a you asphal is getting beat up pretty good from all the construction so anyway

090but that's that's a county that's a County Street that we will not have to worry about so you this will be summer sum very small again about $237 18.75 and these have been reviewed by myself margarito and Chris NE motion motion to approve the concrete bid from Burlington Construction Incorporated in the amount of $ 23,7 18.75 second motion seconded discussion it's like taking a long time to got right most car 6 I just no you moved to prayer the background yeah I'm the headed home uh next one is boxy floor bid okay you see some information we did have two vendors uh that Pro that gave us bids for our epoxy floor projects we had uh one main project and two alternates alternates for me were trying to determine it depending on pricing for not

091only for potentially this year if not this year doing them this year I can then plug plug them in for next year have a better idea on the pricing so uniflor is the company that we've worked with in the past day are the ones that have helped Rectify our previous bad situation with epoxy foring ATS was a secondary company that came in they are out of Nebraska uh they submitted bid bid information but they did not have a bid Bond or proof of insurance big red flags big concerns um and that does not meet our bid specs even though they're low bids low biders they are not you know qualified biders based on our bit specs and I did call and express to the gentleman who came said well we can get those things for

092you but at the time of the bid you don't have them that's not fair to everybody and he was on site for a visit I met him talked with him he knew about everything so having said that that's where we stand um and un is the one that we have had help us with we've had nightmares with yes they are the ones we're happy with they have taken care of our needs we they are the number one draft pick right now for us as far as taking care of our not only our our needs but fixing problems that we've had in the past um I it would be my recommendation to do the middle school boys and girls locker rooms they are really bad dingy yellow bad shape they just look horrible um we'll wait

093on the high school restrooms wait on the Middle School concession stands for another another time maybe next year or the year after but I think it's just best to right now to look at that the middle school boys and girls locker rooms and my recommendation would be go to with unior on Project one pro one only to accept the bid for epoxy floor project from un Inc for the project number one in the amount of second discussion no discussion it's headed your way got thank you come my horse back there we go motion car 6 this must just come today yes we have one retir I'm I'm Mo to accept the retirement request of Charlie Woodworth as brington Middle School physical education teacher with regret at the end of the 2024 2025 school year second

094does it many us discuss so discuss 31 years been at somebody said he taught at proac or something couple years might have been student teaching but I think he's been here for all 31 it'd be interesting to know how many of the teachers are younger than the number of years right now we certainly wish you Well's you'll be there did he come in behind Tim Mar I think so when Tim moved up oh yeah motion car 6 no personel no students negotiations for right now no we can maybe look at February or March okay de briefing thank you for coming I really like congratulations yeah that's one of my favorite to get we received more information tonight on this linkage than we have in the long time so I felt like it was three totally

095different perspectives and I appreciated that I think it was his dad was prob along little bit no we did not go over any questions I just said did you look at the questions so you don't look like a fool and then told us problem okay uh yes look like J ice cream uh J yes I just know how I just know how much I thought he would have been into it ahead of time and he would have totally just got the right words