001[Music] the time is now 5:30 we'll go ahead and call to order the uh special meeting for the Liberty governing board on March 10th um here at the Jerry rovery District facility board members president present are Chris Kenyan Sheriff Sarah Schmidt Brian ceron and Kelly Zimmerman we'll go ahead and move on to 1.2 um the Pledge of alance Allegiance Mr cerron will you please lead us Al to the blackag of the United States of America and to the repic for it stands one nation under God indivisible with liy andice okay we'll go ahead and move on to 1.3 discussion consideration to approve the revised teacher contract language for syy 2526 Dr Mahorn uh good evening vice president Zimmerman and board members um if you look at uh the contracts that were attached the liquidated damages
002language has been updated as you all have requested and it is on it's different in the different um the different contracts so right now I'm looking at the continuing teacher teacher contract is just in different places but it's the same language so on the continuing teacher contract it's paragraph 20 if you look um and in the returning non-continuing teacher it's paragraph 22 um and I'm open if anyone has any feedback I worked with uh Clyde Dangerfield our legal to update as requested for tonight's meeting sorry Mr Kenyan thank you um yeah I read through them and and they pretty much align with what we have decided and and uh look like you cut all the wording updated and the years updated so that was good so thank you mmid I don't have anything Mr cenon
003nothing uh I have a couple things um first just like a housekeeping thing in the continuing teachers it says um March 4th for the date the contract was issued so we'll we changed it before we issue okay um the second thing is that it says that um it is the the district's you know sole discretion now um but I really think that it should say um something about um in accordance with governing board policy because since we are changing you know to have the district um you know make the decision it is the governing board's job to set the policy in which this is you know then falls under so I think that the wording should say um uh you know the district will um yeah so you're saying like um the district's decision in
004accordance with the the governing board two wve yeah I think um that way you know uh the governing board is doing its job to set the policy and then it's the district's job to implement that policy are we okay I yeah I'm I'm okay with that basically the language we have and then just see say you know buy and then you just list the policy right I mean that's kind of what you're getting at is just we have to have you want like the policy somewhere in the language of the contract so they know where to refer it to um yeah because you know I didn't realize you know when talking with Administration that we didn't have a policy right because it it we were making the decision so now I feel like that we're
005allowing the district to make the decision so we can't put the policy um letters in here basically yet because there isn't one you'll see later on so if we just say in accordance with governing board policy then that protects us I think um my question is uh Mr dille if you're listening are we going to have to send this back again if we change it or can we approve it with what we're saying the changes need to be no we can we can run it with the changes you agree to today can you hear me yes okay so if we say we can just say the district pursuant to governing board policy May wave payment of liquidated damages so we'll just add pursuant to or uh yeah pursuant to governing board policy right after District
006okay um the only other thing that you know I just I guess kind of want to say is that you know we don't um we don't apply liquidated damages to administrators and you know they're allowed to leave their contract in the middle of the year um and in fact we're paying District administrators thousands of dollars for vacation time that they didn't even work a full contract for and we're penalizing teachers who don't make nearly that amount of money and so you know I'm going to vote to support it so that we can issue teacher contracts because it's needed and I want to be able to employ the best teachers but realistically it doesn't feel very good that our administrators aren't held to the same standard as our teachers and they make significantly more money um
007and so it's just a little bit hard to do that but I will um so that we can issue teacher contracts today is there any other discussion before we move on maybe I could just add something the is teacher contracts won't be issued till after March 15 statute doesn't allow them to actually be issued until after March 15 so they won't be issu today you're just approving the offer yes sir okay M yeah sorry I was just looking um scanning through all of the contracts again and I noticed that in the non-continuing certified contract it still says liquidated damages is $2,500 in paragraph 22 and it should be 15 at least in the copy that I have from the agenda that's not what Stephanie can you make that correction it's that's it's crossed out on
008my copy but we can make sure it's okay I think that she's looking at the clean version not the striketh through version oh okay I printed off the strike through so I'll say for yeah it is the clean version yep any other discussion okay uh if we're ready we'll take a motion all I'll attempted motion to approve teacher contract language for school year 2025 2026 uh amended with uh how you put this the language where it needs to be the governing board's policy in accordance with pursuant to governing board policy pursuant to governing board policy correct so the motion will read motion to approve teacher contract language for school year 2025 2026 pursuant to governing board policy uh do I have a second I second so we have a motion in a second I'll call
009for the vote Mr Kenyan I Miss Schmidt I Mr suon I I'm also an i and I'd like to explain my vote um but we'll show that past 4 um again I just wanted to be known that I did vote to include liquidated damages in the contracts but this past year it did not show that it was effective and it's not my goal to punish teachers I don't think they're purposely leaving their contracts and I think that if we're going to hold teachers to this standard then we should be holding our administrators to the same standard I also want to say that although we are not issuing all the contracts tonight and I know that their employees frustrated um I understand your frustration and right now until the district can bring a balanced budget to
010the governing board um we are only issuing classroom teachers and principes okay we'll go ahead and move on to item 1.4 discussion consideration to approve Assurance of principal and teacher contracts for syy 2526 Dr Mahorn um again uh Madame vice president and governing board uh these are just the list of names that we present every year of who will be issued uh a contract when it is time to issue again March 15th or later by legislation now but these are the names for principales and teachers okay um we'll take questions Mr Kenyon mmitt Mr Stone no I don't have any either at this time um so I'll take a motion if we're ready I'll make a motion to approve issuance of principal and teacher contracts for school year 25 26 second okay we have a
011motion in a second I'll call for the vote Mr Kenyan I mmid hi Mr cenon hi I'm also and I will show that pass 4 z um 1 point5 discussion consideration to approve Assurance of related contracts related Services contracts for Sy 2526 Dr Mahorn um again this is a list of names and you all as a board last time did bring up that it is really tough to get these people and so um you asked that we bring these names uh this time so these are the names of people again who will be issued um contracts when it's time and um before I let everybody uh you know ask any questions I just want to say that you know I asked to have this added only for us to at least be able to have
012a discussion up here um because I know we didn't talk about this before so you know it'll be the will of the board but these these are very these are positions um services that we have to provide children legally um and they are very expensive to fill if we have to contract out and so I'm just going to give an example from this year um right now we're paying a contracted SLP $150,000 um and so that's a difference of $67,000 which is more than the average teacher salary so although I personally don't feel about offering these specific contracts and not being able to offer other ones because these are Services we legally have to provide students and the fact that it is so expensive to contract them um and it's hard to find I just
013wanted to put it before the board before we don't meet again for a week you know almost two weeks so with that we can start to have the discussion Mr Kenyan no I I understand that these are legally required and and uh something that we need to get going so I'm okay with this Miss Schmidt yeah I agree with Mr Kenyan um you know required Services need to be provided and we need to make sure that we can have um high quality individuals in those roles so providing those contracts sooner rather than later is the best option Mr serenon I echo echo the same sentiments so and I do as well and again you know I'm sad that we're not offering everybody but I just feel like with the budget situation if we have to
014spend 67,000 more dollars on several of these positions is really going to hurt us uh long term so if there's no other discussion we'll go ahead and take a motion I motion to approve issuance of related Services contract for school year 2025 2026 second we have a motion in a second second I'll go ahead and call for the vote Mr Kenyan I Miss Schmidt I Mr cion I I'm also an i we'll show that pass for to zero we'll go ahead and move on to item 1.6 um policy first read for policy language liquidated damages Dr Mahorn yes you will uh see again just like you mentioned we did currently do not have a policy so this is being brought to you just for a first read um again we worked with legal on this
015and there are districts who do have this in policy so we brought pieces from the other districts that do have it in policy as well okay we'll go ahead and start the discussion about the policy Mr Kenyan yeah I'm I'm a little bit torn because I don't think we need a policy on it but um but because we're here and and there are other districts that do have policies um I'm okay with it because it's something that we've been implementing and we will continue imp Implement as far as the board uh agrees on that and I'm okay with it as it's written okay Miss Schmid um I would like to make the point that I'm not in favor of liquidated damages overall um I made that pretty clear last time too I don't think that
016they do what we're hoping that they will but um this was our way of coming to you know an agreement all four of us to be able to move everything forward and it does reflect what we agree to the prated portion for by work day um and the reduced amount of, 1500 instead of 2500 so um yeah thank you Mr senion uh I just ask is there any way we can put in there uh it says the teacher May request a waiver like instructions of for them how to request the river that's a first grade so we can yeah I think uh that's a great idea so that it's very clear who they're supposed to contact um some of my questions were see um advancement in position with a documented increase in pay and benefits
017um sometimes when you you know move it's it is an advancement but it's not always necessarily pay and benefits and is that um you know does it need to be both um these are are just things for the governing board to consider I'm just you know for us to have a discussion and then this the D part the circumstances beyond the control of the employee as determined by the district I do think it's good to have some sort of caveat because we can't predict every situation that's going to come up but my concern kind of overall with the liquidated damages and these kind of uh parameters that we're putting in place is should it be some type of committee and I don't know what it's going to look like I just wanted to have a
018discussion um because before it became it was the five of us right and so it wasn't just one person making a unilateral decision and could there be a conflict of interest that could potentially arise with one person having like all of the I don't want to use the word control but all of the determination and so especially for that D part where we're not outlining it is there some sort of you know threers committee you know the director of um HR or assistant superintendent to HR the superintendent and I'm just not sure who else could form that you know I don't think it's appropriate for a principal because if that principal's employee you know that I just wanted us to kind of talk through it if anybody you know had those same concerns so those
019were my thoughts initially about this particular policy that that's what I was going to say say I would always bring this to cabinet for a discussion um so it wouldn't just be just myself and so this would always come to to Cabinet if any situation would come to cabinet and I don't know if we want to put that in here or want to denote that but we definitely that's the plan is to always bring every situation to Cabinet okay if everybody's okay with it then i' I'd like us to add that because then the employee feels like you know it's not just a unilateral decision um and that it will you know have a discussion so that would be my preference yeah I'm I'm okay with that um however it's stated in there you know
020we can look at it in the second read how you can word that um I do think it is the job of HR um you know your position to ultimately make that decision where as the board we've I think all pretty much stated you know that needs to be a district decision um not necessarily a board decision but then we outline how you know you come to that decision um and then bouncing things off you know maybe you don't understand situation you talk to somebody on the in in your guys's cabinet and you find out oh they see something a little bit different than you saw it you know and you guys can have that conversation I think that's good and then obviously always the superintendent should be brought in on these these uh situations
021so thank you okay any further discussion okay so this is not an action item this is just this discussion because it's the first read so with that I'll go ahead and adjourn the special meeting at uh 5:48 [Music]