001Good evening. >> Good evening. Welcome. And I know there are a good portion of our room this evening are volunteers. So, thanks in advance. Do I need to do waterfall? Maybe I need to put this. >> There we go. Thank you. Apologies that we're starting just a few minutes late, especially um to some early childhood kids who are here, I know, for the pledge of allegiance. Um but welcome to everyone who's in the room and those of you who are watching. um from streaming at home to our September 2025 board meeting. Oh my gosh, is this precious. We are um going to start with the pledge of allegiance. And as you can see, we have some early childhood students who are going to lead us in that tonight. So, if you'd please rise and join
002us. Yeah. >> 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. [Applause] [Laughter] [Music] Thank you for being here this evening. >> Yeah. >> Yes. Thank you. >> Miss Beam, would you do roll, please? >> Mr. Rabbit >> here. >> Mr. Boyd, >> Mrs. Johan >> here, >> Mr. Cune >> here, >> Mrs. Reagan >> here, >> Mrs. Steel >> here, >> Dr. Jükovich >> here. Thank you. Board item 2.01, agenda to adopt for tonight's meeting. I'd welcome a motion. I move to adopt the agenda as presented. >> Second >> motion by Miss Steel, second by Mr. Babbot. >> Mrs. Reagan, >> yes. >> Dr. Jükovich, >> yes. >> Mrs. Steel, >> yes. >> Mr. Babbot,
003>> yes. >> Mr. Keun, >> yes. >> Mrs. Johan, >> yes. >> Motion passes 6. And we have a room filled. >> We have a room full. Please get us started. Thank you. >> Excited. Yes. Well, welcome to all of our guests and honores tonight. Uh tonight we are proud to recognize the 2425 volunteer service awards. And so to start off, I would like to invite our volunteers up to the front along with our director of community development, Heather Skunover, and our volunteer coordinator, Pam Wolf, and Susie Zimmerman and Tammy Richards, who also help coordinate our volunteers. And then if we have any building principles here to support your volunteers, feel free to come up as well. [Music] [Laughter] You're welcome. [Music] Well, as our final volunteers make their way up, >> as our final
004volunteers make their way up, I just want going to share a few details about this outstanding group. For 33 years, our district volunteers have served in a variety of support roles. And during the 2425 school year, we had 640 community patrons dedicate more than 22,000 hours of service to our schools. We are so pleased to recognize them tonight. And we have different tiers we'll be recognizing. To start off with, we're going to recognize our bronze service award winners. And those folks have donated 100 to 249 hours of service. and they include Glenda Aguilar, Linda Albi, Wendy Andrew, Kathy Benny, Nancy Brooks, Cynthia Burker, Vicky Clark, Debbie Culie, Leah Debner, Claire Enie, Nancy Guyger, Karen Griselle, Melissa Hanlin, Kay Hansen, Greg Hartman, Stephanie Hashigan, Gloria Henda, Mary Anne Hinkle, Vicky Holdman, Mikey Mike Johnson, Peggy Kaiser.
005It's a long list of bronze winners. Susie Kaminsky, Denny Knop, Jean Mafy, Kathy Mener, Scott Mills, Eli Nitz, Sue O' Conor, Jan Pit, Karen, Barbara Platner, Barbara Plowman, Natalie Rainey, Leslie Schmidz, Judy Schwans, Keith Schwans, Barry Sevit, Beth Sykes, Alice Smotherman, Amy Strereer, John Debido, Jan Wessles, Jane Wilson, Linda Winter, Patty Witty, and David Young. Thank you to our bronze award winners. We're also pleased to honor our silver silver service award winners who donated 250 to 499 hours of service and they are Kbeck, Jeannie Bond, Michael Christensen, Jerry Sap, Debbie Wallace, and Sue Zawiki. Our gold service award winners dedicated more than 500 hours of service. And we have two rock stars that include Ken Johnson and Jan Wise. [Applause] And finally, we are pleased to share the Lifetime Service Award, which is a special
006award that recognizes individuals who have completed more than 4,000 hours of volunteer service over the course of their lifetime, is going tonight to Mike Christensen for his achievement. Mike, can you wave your hand there? [Applause] Well, we know it takes a village when it comes to educating our kids, and we're so pleased to have you guys here to celebrate you tonight. Thank you for all you do. And I'm guessing we're going to have to squeeze in to get everybody in a picture. >> You guys squeeze real tight. Real tight. I think we're going to do two pictures. >> And then we'll do this. >> Okay. One big one first. >> Okay. >> So, find your windows. [Music] [Laughter] and then have you guys turn [Music] You could be on this side. >> Okay. Ready? One,
007two, three. [Music] [Applause] Okay. >> Yep. >> Thank you. Thank you so much. Yep. >> Okay, we will continue our awards and recognitions. So, next I would like to invite our Westview Elementary principal, Cindy Capellar, to the front along with any staff who are here with her. How are you? >> We are pleased to share that Westview Elementary was named as a 2024 challenge award recipient by the Confidence in Kansas Public Education Task Force. 100 schools were named across the state for outstanding achievement and uncommon accomplishments based on Kansas assessment program results in math and reading. The awards recognize Kansas schools that are making a notable difference in student achievement despite facing significant challenges in their school population. This year marks Westview's fourth consecutive year to be recognized with this honor. Congratulations to Westview. And
008I will say we were thrilled this year that we had not just one school but two schools recognized as challenge award winners. So I'm going to invite Ridge View up to the front now. Oh, have you taken your picture? Okay. [Laughter] [Applause] So, Mrs. Brooke Brudo makes her way up to the front along with her outstanding staff. [Music] >> We were so proud that Ridge View got to join the ranks with Westview this year and receive this prestigious honor. And we know that it is a testament for both schools of the incredible staff that they have, the work that they're doing. And so we're just so proud to recognize both of you guys tonight. >> Well, Ridge View, if you want to stay up here, I think we'll do a joint photo. Is that what
009I'm getting? Okay, we're going to do a joint photo. So, West View, before you sneak out, come on back. We get the yellow and orange together. [Music] >> Come right on over, honey. [Music] >> Ready? Perfect. [Applause] >> All right, this has got to be one of the liveliest awards we've had of late. Next, I would like to invite the North Spanish as a heritage language teacher, Dr. Marta Silva, to the front. Dr. Silva has been named the recipient of the prestigious Dr. George I. Sanchez Award by the National Education Association. This national recognition honors her decades of transformative work in education, advocacy, and leadership on behalf of Latino students and immigrant families. The award is presented to a nominee whose activities significantly impact education and the achievement of equal opportunity for Hispanics. Dr. Silva's
010steadfast commitment to heritage language instruction and her efforts to empower future Latina leaders through the Latina leadership club reflect the mission of the Latinex Education Collaborative, a nonprofit organization dedicated to increasing Latino representation in the K12 education uh landscape and fostering environments where Latino students can thrive. As one of fewer than 300 Latino educators serving across the greater Kansas City metro area, Dr. Silva's voice and leadership are both rare and deeply impactful. Her work continues to inspire students, support families, and shape a more inclusive future in education. Please join me in congratulating Dr. Marta Silva. [Applause] [Laughter] >> Thank you. And finally, I would like to invite Woodland Elementary PE teacher Caitlyn Marorrow to the front along with her principal Stacy Shipley. Caitlyn has been named the 2025 Kansas Association for Health, Physical Education, Recreation,
011and Dance Young Professional of the Year. The award honors PE teachers who create highquality standardsbased activities, demonstrate outstanding leadership, and promote healthy and active lives. When asked about Caitlyn, her principal, Stacy Shipley, shared that Caitlyn masterfully integrates positive sportsmanship into every lesson, encouraging students to practice relationship building skills and collaborate effectively, even with peers of differing skill sets. It is a fundamental expectation that students encourage and support one another regardless of the activity. The remarkable success of this approach is a direct result of the positive and safe relationships Caitlyn meticulously cultivates with each student. A visit to her classroom immediately reveals an inclusive, emotionally secure, and highly engaging learning culture that is a testament to her efforts. She goes on to share that one of the favorite parts of the school day at Woodland is
012undoubtedly PE class. Caitlyn will be honored with other award recipients later this fall at their convention. Please join me in congratulating Caitlyn. [Applause] Thank you, Miss Gruba, and congratulations to all of the residents this evening. At this time, we will move to our um presentations. And the first one um more from our early childhood group, Doc, uh Miss Hawkins. And um I would thank you Dr. Hawkins for being here this evening. September came pretty soon after school started. So um appreciate you being the first one. Yeah, >> we're happy. Thank you so much for having us. We were so excited to tell you just a little bit about our early childhood programs in the public schools. We serve students prenatal to 5 years old right before they go to kindergarten. So um and I have
013to click myself, right? No one's just gonna automatically perfect because it's a DIY night. No, I'm kidding. Uh you all know how important those early childhood years are, right? that birth to five, the amount of brain development that happens and all of the interactions that our students and experiences that they have with their caregivers at home and in our school really impacts their brain development, their overall development, and leads to better outcomes when they get to uh kindergarten and beyond. I'm very excited tonight to uh bring to speak to you um three of our members of our leadership team that make all that happen. So tonight you'll get to hear from Angie Mendes who's the coordinator of our parents as teachers program. Uh Sarah Spurlock who is our early childhood special education coordinator and Kim
014Sil who is the director of our head start program. So I will start with Angie. >> All right. Again Angie Menddees with parents as teachers. Um Kim said I only had about three to five minutes to speak and I said I could stay up here for three hours. So I will get through as fast as possible. So um for those of you who aren't familiar with parents as teachers, we are an early childhood home visiting program. So we go to the homes of the families prenatal to age three. We can also go into age four and five kind of depending on the needs of the family. So parents as teachers has been around for 40 years. It started in Missouri with Kit Bond saw um he saw that uh kids were coming to kindergarten weren't
015quite prepared. Parents didn't know what to do with their kids when they were at home. So that's kind of what led to parents as teachers being created and came to Kansas about over 35 years ago after that and tha being one of the the very first programs in Kansas. So we're kind of a leader in that. Um the whole premise of parents as teachers is that parents are a child's first and best teacher and then our job is to guide that parent um along that journey especially those first three years um to teach them about that development, getting ready for learning, all of those kinds of things. So um the good thing about parents as teachers is that they also have developed it's all evidence-based research model. So it's I always tell parents it's not
016stuff I find off Google. It's we have curriculum and what we do in THA is the same as what they do in Hayes is what they do in Texas and what they do in Alaska. Um so that's what's really good about parents as teachers and they also look at how things evolve over time. Parenting changes um development changes all of that education changes brain all of that. So that is what their basis is. So um kind of four tenants of our program that we uh go off of with parents as teachers is the first one being our home visits. That's the big one. Um here Miss Jenny is on a home visit with some of her family or one of her families with a couple of kiddos. We visit our families one to two times
017a month depending on the needs of the family. Um we visit for about an hour hour and 15. it will typically in their home but if a family is maybe new to tha or new to the country we might say hey let's go to the library so you can see all the resources that are there and we can do our visit there and we can talk about things um that the family may need so we're really making those connections. So on our visits we cover also three areas with the first one being what we call parent child interaction and so the big piece with this age range is that play is how children learn and we really focus on that. It's not flashcards, whatever it may be, play. And so, mom and dad, grandparents, whoever
018the caregivers are, your interactions are so important. So, as an example, um a kiddo who's like a nine-month-old, you know, has a ball and throws the ball, the parent grabs it, yay, throws it back. We talk about like it seems simple, a ball game, but what we look at as parent educators is that you're doing so many developmental things. you're you're working on eye hand coordination, which is important when you're learning how to write and copy off the board, when you're doing math and you're having to eyes to follow a line, when you're doing welding at OATC. So, even though it's a nine-month-old working on IHand, it's important when they're 10, when they're 15, and when they're 17 or 18. So, we talk about those kinds of things. And again, if a child throws the
019ball and no parent throws it back or says good job, if they're not interacting, the child will eventually stop. And so then development and the skills that they're creating or developing don't develop as much as they should. So we really talk about play is learning and how important that is for parents to connect with their kids with that way. So that's one part. We also talk about development. Again, what a nine-month-old does or a 2-year-old does. If you have children and you remember kind of that terrible twos, we talk about like that's a really hard time of life. But we also know, hey, this is why it's happening. And sometimes that puts that parent at ease of like because you think your child's the only one doing it oftentimes. He's the only one falling on
020the ground at Target, but they're all doing that and that's a good thing. So we always say that's a good thing. We're all very um strengthbased too. So that's what really our focus is. It's not to tell you what to do or not to do, but like you did it this way, way to go. What might you try differently next time when you go to Target? And he's crying on the floor. So um and then we also so we talk about development and then we also talk about what we call family well-being. And this is where parents as teachers has kind of developed over the years recently last 15 years has seen that if me as a parent and I'm struggling with a job, finding a job, lost a job, um mental health, all those
021sorts of things, it's hard for me to take care of my child if I'm struggling with some of those kinds of things as well. So, we are there to ask the questions for one, I'll get to that. We do screenings and then also connecting with families in the community with resources for them. I will hurry. Um Nexus screenings kind of self-explanatory. We do the ASQ which is also done in kindergarten so we have that connection and parents have seen that so when they go into kindergarten they are familiar with it again um I've done that in PAT this is easy we also look at hearing and vision and we've caught lots of kids with vision uh vision issues and hearing making those referrals as needed we also give screenings to the parents um where we
022look at depression again uh they're real minimal screenings but they're also to get ask those questions that maybe they haven't been asked or felt comfortable to talk to anybody about it when we're in their home and we're sitting there playing and they're having a snack or whatever, parents will really open up and we've gotten a lot of information and helped a lot of parents with that. So, um and then last is making those referrals to community resources as needed. The third part is that resource network. Again, because we're tied in with the community so much, we know um what families are needing and we can connect with district people, community partners. Um we are part of impact tha with Heather Skunover and her group which has been a wonderful partnership for us to connect with
023um families to connect to that next level that of help that they're needing. And then the fourth one is the really fun one um is what we call group connections and these are our social activities. We have a play group twice a week um which I would encourage anybody Dr. Jagger loves it a couple years ago got to come. Um it's a really fun time and it sounds like oh play whatever but it's also getting those parents together because a lot of them are stay-at-home moms or dads or grandparents um who like I don't get out of the house but you can come here in a safe environment safe with other adults who said I didn't sleep last night me neither. And then so you they really build community that way. So we do weekend
024activities, we do evening activities. So we getting we're getting our um parents who work because it's not just the stay-at- home families but also the working families. Um, and so we have those evenings and weekends, too. And they usually have a theme. It looks fun. Like one that's up there now is like we had art. Um, and that was a toddler graffiti wall that we have hanging up now that was just recycled stuff. And it's also for parents to be able to use it at home. So it's not like stuff you have to go buy. It's just paint on some cardboard. Um, and then the other one is like blockfest and talking about the importance of blocks. So um, and then a few just numbers data kind of pieces. Um, last year we served over
0252990 families and over 360 children. So, we're kind of like a small elementary school, I think. Um, we did over 2400 home visits and a thousand of those visits were with dads. So, having both parents connected is a really important part um of the program for sure. And then our social activities, we did well over a hundred, but um it's going to be a question coming up in the news, so I wasn't able to say exactly. Um, and then three, Marlene here. I'm going to get in trouble. Um, and then 320 developmental screenings that we did and we had over 50 that were referred for further evaluation so kids could get the speech therapy or the vision therapy or whatever that they needed. So, uh, we we have 11 parent educators right now work both
026full-time and part-time um, and they all have different backgrounds, cheer, uh, teachers, um, daycare home providers, our u managers, um, occupational therapists, social workers. Um, so that's kind of the background of what it our um staff looks like and they work both daytime, evenings, weekends um because we have to be available when the families are available. So I'd encourage you if you guys ever interested to come to one of our play groups or our weekend activities or go on a visit with us because we would love to show you what we do. So because it's the best job in the world, so I think I was over time. So thank you. Thank you for your time. >> Uh Angie led us into some uh further evaluation of early childhood special education. our early childhood programs.
027Um we have early childhood classrooms, 14 in our two early childhood buildings, H Heartland and Harmony early childhood centers, 23 classrooms in 18 of our elementary schools. And then uh all of our elementary schools have the opportunity for early childhood students to receive related services there, whether it's uh speech therapy, occupational therapy. Most of our classrooms meet on a half day schedule. So, two threes and four-year-olds in the morning class, fours and fives off to kindergarten the next year, meeting in the afternoon. Classroom makeup may be students receiving special services, students who meet a risk factor uh from the state, or uh students that are paying a fee to come to preschool, but all students receiving their education alongside of each other. Uh if you are a referral from for special education, you're coming up
028to us primarily from two avenues. We host a preschool screening clinic at both of our early childhood centers monthly. Uh those are held on Friday mornings. Our early childhood special education staff help participate in those. Uh last year we held screening appointments for 226 students from our community. And then uh the second source of referral comes from our infant toddler partners. So, our birth to three partners that are serving students in their homes that need services and then referred to the school district before their third birthday. We got 340 referrals from infant toddler to tha last school year. Um the Kansas state performance plan for special education involves three indicators that are related to early childhood. Um those are relevant to least restrictive environment. So, how students in early childhood are educated alongside their general
029education peers. Um, early childhood outcomes, how much progress students in special education and early childhood make from entry to exit. And then that transition from infant toddler to uh to their to it's a 100% compliance indicator. So, we that students are transitioned and have an IEP in place by their third birthday. So, we are in compliance for all of those fortunately here in Altha. I'll turn you over here to Kim. All right. Hello everyone. Well, I get to bring up the rear end here of of all of our programs that we have. So, Head Start is a federally funded grant and I am super excited to stand here and tell you all that Head Start has been in the school district for 60 years. We are celebrating 60 years this this year. And so it
030started as a summer program as part of the war on poverty. And tha I just think about 60 years. What did look like? It was probably not a whole lot here, but it decided to take this grant and took it for the summer program. And I have some old pictures of of it in my office and it looks like it was in somebody's home, you know, like it was very small. PE the kids were out gardening. You can it was they're just wonderful. And then I think gosh tha had the the forethought of thinking about early childhood and how important that is. And it it kept the the grant and so it then that fall after that summer program it became part of the tha school district and tha has supported it throughout all of
031those years. And I am just super proud to say that because we are one of the few um programs in the country um that were one of the originals. So um I like to brag about that and I think that our district really supports this program so well. So that's what I want to open with. So we have right now we serve 180 students and the other neat thing about our program is yes the school district holds our grant um but we serve all of the school districts in Johnson County except Shauny Mission because they have their own Head Start program. Um, so we not only are looking out for district children that live in tha, but at that time, you know, there probably wasn't a whole lot else supporting in Johnson County in a
032rural area. And so, um, this district has kept that model the entire time we've had it. And so, I think that's a really another special thing about our Head Start program. Um, again, we're at 180 students now. We've kind of built up. We didn't start with that. Um throughout the years we've added students. Um we serve tha Dodto Spring Hill uh Blue Valley Gardener Edertton school districts. Um the other really fun thing about Head Start is that we uh serve the entire family, not just kiddos in the classroom, similar to parents as teachers. And so um some of the data I guess I need to flip my screen here. some of our data. We take data every year um looking at collecting data on families, on children um and so I wanted to share some
033of our really fun um things that we were able to collect from last year. This is last year's data. So we had 49% of our families uh spoke English as their uh primary lang language last year. 29% of our families spoke Spanish as their primary language. And then we've really seen a a large increase in African languages, particularly Berber. So we've got 20% of our families that are coming from Algeria speaking Berber in our program. And then we had 69% of our total students that were dual language learners. So really proud to say that we have family advocates that support our families that speak um Spanish and other languages as well as our teachers. We've got some teachers that speak Spanish in the classroom and some teacher assistants that speak Spanish. And we've got very
034proud to say three now that speak Berber, Arabic, and French. So that's we we love to tout that as well. Last year, you know, we when we lose lose a child because they move or something happens and they have to drop, we have to stay at our funded enrollment 180. So throughout the school year last year, we we served 185 families, which means we didn't have very many children move out of our program last year. Um 80% of our families had one or more parents employed or in training or school. 83% of our families received some emergency crisis intervention. That might look like food, clothing, shelter. Um 19 of those families experienced homelessness. And we we also participate in the impact um and tap into Heather Skunover's department to help us with families that need
035that services. So the other piece of Head Start is health. We work with our families on getting their children up to date on health issues. And so some of our health data showed by the end of the school year, so we're collecting this data all year. And by the end of the school year, we were able to report that 95% of our children were up to date on immunizations. So, we work really hard um to make sure all of our kiddos get up to date on the immunizations that they need for school. Um 88% of our children were up to date on that wellchild schedule um and really working with them on educating their their um parents about how important it is to take their children to the doctor for those wellchild visits. Um 19%
036of children were diagnosed with a chronic health condition. 70% of children were of healthy weight and we had 30% of our children that were overweight or obese. And that was one of the things that we put on our um radar for looking at a goal in our strategic plan is looking at health and looking at how we can really reduce those obesity rates um with children and really looking at physical fitness and good nutrition. working closely with the district in meal meal service because we do provide a breakfast, a lunch, and a snack for children and making sure that those are healthy choices as well. Um 96% of our children received oral health exams during the program year. So, we're really getting kiddos to the dentist and fixing uh having dental work. And so, 65%
037of those children that we did get oral health exams for did need oral treatment um during the school year. So helping with resources, uh connecting them with those resources is important. And then on the student progress side, because of course we do this wonderful thing at school um in the classrooms uh called preschool. And so by the end of end of the school year, our uh children really made lots of gains. And so we do an assessment on children informally. You know, teachers do observations on kiddos in the fall, in the winter, and in the spring. and we have a tool that we use to measure um all of the indicators here that are listed and uh we see children grow. And so in those categories we we've we've we're in the green by the
038end of the year. Almost all of our children are proficient. The green bar is the proficient level. The red bar is in process. And again, we serve ages three, fours, and fives. So, you know, some of those kiddos that might have ended the year, they might have still been in process, but they're going to have another year with us. And so, um, it really shows the growth. And so, you as the board will get to see our our first data checkpoint here this fall as we collect that. And, and that's another neat thing is this program is also committed to reporting data and how we're doing in our progress to our stakeholders and to our governing body, which is you all. >> All right. Thank you. Um before we wrap up and entertain questions for
039Kim and Angie and Sarah, um I wanted to take just a minute to um recognize the fact that all the work that happens here, right? Like the ladies talked about screenings that happen early so we're able to get um necessary resources to kids, support and resources for our families and our kids enter kindergarten ready to learn. We would not be able to do that work without all of the parent educators, family advocates, classroom teachers, paraprofessionals, teacher assistants, and many more. Hundreds of people that pour their lives into little people every day. Some of them are here. So, if you would stand up if you're an early Well, they're already standing, lots of them, but there are more. Stand up if you're an early childhood educator. Early childhood educators rarely sit down, so they're gonna some
040some of them got a seat tonight. So, um, and while we could stand up here and tell you lots and lots of things, um, instead I have a a parent who was so kind as to come this evening with her family, um, who's been part of all of our programs, has been had students and parents as teachers in our early childhood special education program and in Head Start. So, um, Stephania, would you come? Oh, she's entertaining all the children. I'll let Stephanie come tell you just a little bit about how our programs have impacted her family. [Music] >> Oh, mama left. Oh, Stephania, you want to tell the the crowd just real briefly how um parents' teachers and Head Start and our early childhood program how that's helped you as a mom? >> Yeah. Um
041it has helped me a lot. like they help me a lot like for like whenever I need something or something, they help me. They help me develop the kids and stuff and I'm thankful for that. >> She has some pretty great kids. >> We're all here. >> They're all here. >> Any questions? >> I couldn't tell. I think it was on Miss I picked Mr. Rob. >> Rob, you want to go first? >> No. Go ahead. >> Oh, are you sure? >> Yeah. >> Okay. Um, well, I you all know me. Um, I don't so much have a question as just um so much gratitude for early childhood education. Um, I did want to point out that one of our educators was helping to distract and entertain with some postits over there during the meeting,
042which is just amazing. Thinking on her feet, that's just great. Um, but in in all seriousness, um, I heard about parents as teachers from a co-orker at my previous job and I didn't know much about it. And so I will say to everyone in this room, if you know someone with a small child, they need to know about parents as teachers. Um we know that early childhood education is the most important part of starting strong in our lives. And um our parent educator became a dear friend. I ended up tutoring her kids. And um but I I do want to say, you know, the journey my my oldest son has been on in special education began in tha and he was evaluated and given an IEP before a local health institution even called me back.
043And so that is the power of publicly supported, publicly funded entities that work for the public good. and getting to see Head Start close up on policy council this last year. I loved that. Um, but I will just say that, you know, not every child's journey is the same. And the way kids develop is always changing and I am so grateful to have your programs in our community. My family is better for it. Thank you, [Applause] >> Mr. K. >> No, I I think our names are messed up. >> Oh. Oh, good to know. Good to know. All right. >> You have to look. >> Miss Steel. [Laughter] >> Change your names. >> Okay. So, Becky, he'll go on. >> Okay. Um so interestingly today during the education task force committee meeting in Topeka they
044had a really healthy conversation about and and it was very organic but about the importance of early childhood and of course director Melissa Rooker from the children's cabinet is on that committee and it was really interesting to see um a lot of times in those committee meetings there's a lot of learning happening from the very people who are going to make very big decisions for our state. And sometimes there's some resistance in that learning process. But today, what I saw was a lot of embracing the importance of early childhood. And like you said, Kim, the data points speak for themselves. But what amazes me with all the programs is all the scaffolding in place that supports families way beyond pure development. The conversation in that room was about development, about secondary um issues not becoming
045issues once kids get to kindergarten and all the things we do in a developmental way to help kids. But I think the thing we've got to remember is all of those resource connections that we do for families are so important, not just for child development, but it you know, you a child may be what qualifies for the service, but you end up kind of raising up a whole family and it it's just really crucial. So, thank you for all your hard work. And I would also like to say that Post-it note queen on the floor there that just slid right in is one of my very best friends from college. And when our fourth daughter was born, our older kids were 7, 9, and 11. And I called parents' teachers and I was like, I
046think I've forgotten how to do this. So, I too uh got the benefits of parents as teachers. Um and it was wonderful. And I actually got um Jenny was my my parents' teacher educator and taught me things I never knew that I wish I had before. And that's coming from someone with a masters in early childhood special ed. And I was still learning. So anyway, it's really it's work with gold. I will say too, as I started my career in this district in an early childhood special ed classroom, my paras I always said were 14 karat gold. Nothing works without the paras. So, um, I just want to do a shout out in that regard. So, thank you for your time and for taking a September slat when things are still really crazy, but really
047appreciate learning more about all the programs. >> Any other comments, board? Dr. Hawkins, thank you. And thanks to your staff and those in the back of the room and disperse throughout too for being here this night. Yeah. Thank you. Our [Applause] next presentation is related to professional learning and I think Dr. Reeves and Jenna Cter. Good evening and thank you so much for the opportunity to come and um share something um some highlights with you of things that are very near and dear to my heart and that is professional learning. And so um we just had the opportunity to hear about our early childhood um educators and um also our early childhood students. Um and that starts very young, but we know that learning has to continue um throughout our careers. And so it's really
048important that we embrace professional learning. And I think we're very lucky in tha that we do embrace professional learning um here within our district. Um we have a a vision of professional learning which really does encompass um the fact that we believe professional learning should be ongoing. We want to make sure that um learning doesn't stop just because we have um become educators in our district. We know that there's always new research, there's always new things to learn and and that's important for us to stay a breast of all of that um important information. So, we can do our jobs very well um to benefit our students in THA. Um we also know that professional learning needs to be purposeful. Um we don't want to um have anyone um engage in work that's not going
049to be meaningful for their um roles in in tha. So, um we know that that's um something that we need to make sure that we do and job embedded. Um we have to really think about how we are um continuing to have our educators implement what they're learning in professional learning into their roles um so that we can um see the fruits of the labor of of the learning. So, um very important that um we have all of those things in place. Um, professional learning is part of our appraisal process in THAA as well. Um, it's really embedded into our school improvement process and also it's part of our strategic plan. We know that in order to achieve those goals um on our strategic plan, we have to have that professional learning in place. So,
050we're very fortunate in THA that um we do see professional learning as important and we know that the ultimate goal of professional learning is to improve student learning because we know that when our staff grows, our students grow. So, um I want to take you back just um a little bit and um let you reflect um a moment on our summer conference um back on May 28th through 30th. um we don't just have professional learning during the school year. We also really encourage that learning to go on throughout um the summer as well. And so is committed to providing those professional learning opportunities. And um the summer conference is really our biggest opportunity for that. And in the summer of 2025, um, we had an opportunity, um, to really think about how we wanted to,
051um, revitalize summer conference, and that really sparked our theme. Um, we had a group of educators, um, that came together last year over the course of the year, a a committee that um, really worked all year to help um, update the format to our summer conference um, and also um, added some new features. So, we were very excited about that. Um, our committee consisted of um um educators in our system, but also administrators and members of learning services. So, we had lots of um opportunities to hear from lots of different people and um very proud of the work that we were able to do. Um but we also had an amazing sponsorship with Main Street Credit Union. They were so good to us and um really allowed us to revitalize summer conference. Um we had
052the opportunity to bring forward um I know it's a small gesture but um t-shirts for all of our participants, all of our presenters and all of the supporters of professional conference. And sometimes a t-shirt is a really good thing. And every time I see somebody wearing one, I'm like, "Oh my gosh," you know, I'm so excited about that. Um they were also able to provide some really fantastic prizes. Um everything from Starbucks gift cards to gift cards to Top Golf and also Visa gift cards. So our educators were um you know just standing around the prize wheel and um very excited with that. Um and finally, our um teacher presenters um we were able to provide an opportunity for them to do some Amazon shopping um to buy some materials for their classrooms. So, Main
053Street Credit Union just um really we are so grateful to their support. Um and the updates were very wellreceived and we hope to have even more updates next summer. So, looking forward to that. I I don't want to uh interrupt Jenna, but I am. Um, one of the things that I think we take for granted in in tha is summer conference that Jenna just spoke about is truly larger than most educational conferences anywhere you go in the United States. So, the ability to have, you know, her her guidance and vision and the ability to pull that off for a system is really pretty remarkable. So I I think unless you've been in that world, you may not realize that, but it really is our own national conference right here in Altha. >> I think that
054is um you know, really amazing for us to think about. It's three days of learning. Um we don't charge our educators to go. Um and you know, we're able to bring in national speakers and um but I don't do it by myself. there are so many people that um really are instrumental in bringing that forward and um so I would never claim to do that by myself. Um lots of people do great things with that. Um so I do want to speak just a little bit about how professional learning supports growth in our system. And as I previously shared, our goal of professional learning really is student learning and student achievement. And um our school improvement plans have those goals for growth for our students and professional learning really is a significant part of the
055learning that has to occur um with our staff in order to make those goals on the school improvement plans um come to life. Um but we also really have to think about how we utilize our resources um our financial resources. when we think about our professional learning budgets, we have to be very cautious about how we utilize that money. So, we we really do um get the best um outcomes from the utilization of those funds. Um time is also a very important resource and we have to make sure that we're um allocating that time appropriately. But our people really are our most important um asset and our best resource. We have lots of people who plan, develop, deliver professional learning in our system and we couldn't make that happen. Um we they are the best
056use of our resources um here in our system. So we're very very fortunate to have that um within THA. Um, as you know, THA participated in the Kansas educator engagement and retention study. Um, and that really helped us to gain some information about educator satisfaction and the drivers of engagement um, within our system. And last year, um, you all had the opportunity to work with others in our system, um, to gain additional, um, feedback. And those district dialogue sessions really did help us to gain some further information about professional learning. And so, as we reviewed that feedback, there were a few things that came to light. And one of those is um we knew that we needed to have some education um related to how professional learning counts towards student contact time. I think a
057lot of people don't really realize that when we're engaged in professional learning that counts towards those um state audited student contact minutes and hours. Um so we knew we needed to have some opportunities um to share that information. You know some feedback that we received was related to the fact that um you know maybe educators needed more classroom preparation time but we have to provide some education about the bigger picture. We're not able to just trade professional learning time for educator preparation time because educator preparation time does not count toward that student contact time. Um we know that it's really important um to think about how um we balance that time and um again we have a group of educators that come together um on the calendar committee to um really look at the need
058for staff learning but also the need for preparation. We know that that is important as well. So we have to find that balance and um really important that the calendar committee puts that together. Um and so to be able to have that um our calendar committee did utilize the feedback and um proposed some changes to the calendar um that were really supported by our staff and um gives us the opportunity to have the calendar that we have this year. And I'd like to um share a few other updates of how we were able to respond to the feedback from those district dialogues and um so share with you the information that was received and then how we were able to respond to that. So um for example um our district shared that it was important
059to balance new learning with classroom preparation particularly at the beginning of the year. Um, we know that pre-ervice is extremely busy. You even talked to Dr. Hawkins about how busy the beginning of the year is and um, we know that that is very true. Um, our educators really do work to create environments that are welcoming to students that um, you know, have the opportunity for them to come um and and feel good in their classrooms and setting up classrooms, preparing materials really very important. Um but we also understand that pre-ervice is a time when we need to learn about new curriculum, new resources, new strategies, new programs that are in place. So we have to have that balance. Um and due to the uniqueness of our 2526 calendar this year, um we were able to
060provide an additional educator preparation day. Um and so we had 2 and 1/2 days of educator preparation and 2 and 1/2 days focused on new learning in um pre-ervice. So having that balance was was really very beneficial. Um an additional way that we were able to um to respond to that feedback is um our educators shared that it was necessary to have both district professional learning and building professional learning. And um the calendar committee really, you know, responded to that and said, "Yes, we need to continue to have opportunities for educators to learn about their content areas in district professional learning, but also to learn about how they're going to support their school improvement plans at building professional learning. So really we're able to have that balance um and um you know just making sure
061that that we have the correct placement of where that new learning is going to occur and um and where we're going to um really focus on building professional learning and district professional learning. And we also really heard back from our staff that they need more opportunity to implement new learning. We are so lucky in THAA that we get lots of new learning, but we have to have time to focus on implementing that learning. And the calendar committee proposed um some reallocation of new learning time and have it focused on application and implementation. And so on the afternoon of August 8th and the afternoon of September 2nd so far this year, um we were able to reallocate that time as application and implementation, which really um we believe gives us that opportunity um for valuable time
062for our staff. So really being able to respond to that data has been very helpful. And so because we were able to um respond to that data, we had some um some impact that we'd like to share with you. And so um based on that feedback um we always we always ask for feedback for um our district focused professional learning on August 8th of 2024. Um that was our district professional learning and August 8th of 2025 was our district professional learning. So same date just two years one year difference. And so um the number of responses that we received um on the survey that we pro that we ask our um teachers to give feedback on um in 2024 we had a 109 give feedback and we had 1,399 um so an increase even in
063the number of people who participated in the survey. So we were excited about that. We also asked our staff did did the content of the um professional learning session increase the depth of your knowledge um based on um the content of the um professional learning session. And in August of 2024 um those who responded they strongly agreed or agreed was 81% and this year it was 94%. We also asked if um the oper the professional learning gave our educators opportunities to think, process, share with others. Um and last year we had 87% who strongly agreed or agreed. This year it was 97%. So excited about that. And finally the um piece that I want to share with you is the level of engagement. um those who said that they were highly engaged or engaged last
064year was 86%. This year 98%. So as you can see um I really do you know as we were being able to to look at this data um suggest that we have some positive growth in the area of professional learning. Um and really based on the feedback we were able to put some different things in place. Um, so excited about this opportunity, but know that there's still continued growth and we're going to continue to work on that. Are there any questions that I might be able to answer for you? >> I don't know who is clicking in, so just click in and go. Just click. No. Is there are there any comments or questions? >> It's Becky. >> All right. >> Yeah. Uh I just want to say thank you for the presentation information tonight.
065Um after going through the district dialogues last fall already almost a year ago now. Doesn't that feel weird? Um it was a it was a lift but it was really good to hear the feedback directly and then to see the fruits of that play out and with your summer conference and the data. So I think it's really neat to just kind of see that full circle moment um where we're responding to the feedback. And so I just want to say thank you. Lots of good work and really appreciate what you've done. >> Thank you. >> Um Claire, not Rob. Um I did want to say like when you ask for feedback sometimes you have to brace yourself, right? And the fact that almost 400 more of our educators responded to the survey and the results
066went up so dramatically speaks volumes. And so I know that you have a team, but also having clear leadership is so important to that team. So thank you for your hard work and I am so glad when we can present concrete ways that the team of people who came together to hear our staff um is making concrete changes and I know change isn't easy and you are so appreciated. >> Thank you. very grateful to everyone who has put so much effort into um making the changes so that we can have a positive impact on our educators. I I I would agree. And as you were talking, I was thinking um Becky of a year ago um how many morning early mornings that we were in schools and but the time that we spent in the
067schools with staff was so invaluable. Um and and I I too would um just express appreciation for learning services and professional learning staff hearing those responses. I also just want to make sure that um people who are not educators in the audience or watching at home heard you talk you talked about the value and what our staff asked for not only professional learning but an opportunity to apply that and prepare for implementation. Um I I know we're coming off a long weekend with a holiday and then a half day before and a full day afterwards and um people sometimes ask why teachers need so much professional development or professional learning. But that that time to plan for implementation is so critical because once school the school bell rings and your classroom's full of students, there's
068no time to prep and plan. you have to be ready to go. So, um would just reinforce that and thank you. And I see at least one person of your team sitting in the audience. I didn't know if you wanted to introduce or mention others who are here. Ashley Martin is who I can see. Um but if if there are others that you'd like to just give a shout out to, >> absolutely. So Ashley Martin is our um professional learning support specialist and she is invaluable to the professional learning team and answers a million questions and um you know helps to support in so many ways. So we we really appreciate that she is part of our learning services team and part of our professional learning team. But we also have members of the NEA
069who um serve on our calendar committees. um you know the feedback that we get from our educators, we have to respond to it and um you know having that committee of people is so helpful to be able to know different perspectives and be open to those and how we can problem solve together. Um I don't have all the answers and so we need a team of people to be able to to bring ideas together. Yeah. >> Thank you. Thank you. Our next presentation I think Mr. How you are going to introduce Miss Morris um with some updates on classified staff. >> Well, good evening. I'm Justin, executive director of human resources. I get the easiest part of this presentation. I just get to introduce Michelle, but I'd take uh I'd be remiss if I didn't
070take this opportunity. I have worked with Michelle both as a building principal and as a peer in human resources and the advocacy, care, and just collaboration that she does with our classified staff and her team does with our classified staff. From policies to leave to pay, she is constantly ensuring that they are taken care of. And so, I just want to thank her and her team. And with that, I'm going to introduce Michelle Morris. Thank you, Justin. >> I don't feel worthy of that introduction. So, thank you, Justin. I think I owe him lunch or maybe a little bit more, but um and thank you all for the opportunity to speak with you tonight and present some information about our classified professionals, specifically what we've done and where we're going. So, I want to start
071off Oops, there we go. Sorry. Um with some stats for you with regard to our current classified staff. So, if you'll take a look there at the table, that first group um that would encompass our support staff for those respective departments listed there. And most of those folks are housed either here at Ed Center or down the street down the parking lot um at IRC. Um and that headcount for those groups that would total 108. Then our custodial and maintenance services. Um that staffing group um consists of 287 employees and they are actually our second largest classified group in the district. Then we move to food services uh with 227. Then the front office staff support that includes all of the secretaries, the administrative assistants, the bookkeepers, the SIS's, everyone that keeps our buildings running
072smoothly. um that would be 195. Then you'll see the biggest part of the pie um in the graph on the right that would be for our instructional resource support folks and that encompasses all of our instructional aids, our ELLL aids and of course our Paris. Um and again that's 948 staff members. Then uh last but certainly not least, Josh, we have our technology supports. um they may be small but they are very mighty at 57. So that brings us to a total of 1822. So let's get started with some things that we have done recently uh for our classified staff. And as you're well aware last school year we implemented PTO, so paid time off. We implemented this for our classified staff who are nonvocation eligible. This allows our classified staff to have more flexibility
073in being able to take time off for reasons other than medical. Prior to PTO being implemented, um, our non-vation eligible classified folks, I like to think leave in terms of buckets. So, they had a sick leave bucket and they had a personal leave bucket. So, the sick leave bucket, that would be anytime you obviously had a medical reason, be it a doctor's appointment, a child was sick, that's when you would use that leave. Then you had personal leave and we were pretty limited with personal leave. Um upon hiring you would receive one personal day. Then years 2 through nine you would receive another personal day. So you'd have a total of two. Then years 10 through 15 you would have a total of three personal days. And then upon uh year 15 you would have
074a total of four personal days. And so they those days you could use at your discretion for whatever you needed. if you were going to take a vacation, if you had other things going on, you would use those days for those reasons. Now, with PTO, they have the ability to use that time for whatever reason they choose to. You know, if they want to take a trip, if they just need to take a day off, if they're sick, they've got that PTO there to use at their discretion. At the end of the school year, if they have not exhausted all of their PTO, then it does roll into an accumulated sick leave bucket or illness leave bucket. So then at the beginning of the next school year, they are awarded their PTO aotment for that
075school year. So now they have two buckets. They have the PTO and they have the sick leave. So they use the PTO first, then they'll dip into the sick leave. So that may be more information than you wanted to know about PTO, but I I think it's helpful to know how we work with that. Um, now for our vacation eligible classified staff members, we did not change our practices with them since they are a year- round employee. They have the three different buckets. They've got the sick leave, the personal leave, and the vacation. And I think it's important to note that all classified employees, be it whether you're year round or not, they receive bereavement leave. And bereavement leave is not taken out of any of your buckets. It's completely separate. So classified staff are
076able to take 5 days for immediate family members and three days for extended family members. In addition, classified employees have the option to join the sick leave bank. So upon completing one year of service with the district, they are sent information regarding the sick leave bank. If they choose uh to participate, they would donate one sick day. Then this provides them some additional coverage. If they had an extraordinary medical event, be it for themselves or a family member, and they exhausted all of their leave. as we know that can be financially devastating. So at that point if they are a member of the sick leave bank they can apply to use some of those days. Um as far as the amount of days that they can receive. So there is a maximum during the life
077of the time that you're in as a member of the sick leave bank. The maximum you could be awarded would be 90 days through the course of that time. Um any days that you are awarded are repaid at the rate of three days per year until that payment is in full. Okay. So classified workday calendars. You're probably wondering why this is even up here, but we have a plethora of classified calendars out there and we have worked over the past several years to reduce that number. Quite frankly, it can be very confusing when we have so many different classified calendars out there. Um and so we have worked um over the past several years to kind of reduce that number or condense them down. So an example of what what we did for this school
078year, we did put all the paras and aids on the same 171day calendar. Prior to this school year, we had ELLL aids on one calendar, instructional aids on one calendar, and paras on another calendar. So, as you can imagine, that can be so confusing for a classified staff member as well as an administrator who's trying to run a building and schedule meetings. Um, so we hope that provides um some continuity with that. Um, another change we made um and a good example would be with our secretary assistance. So, prior to this school year, elementary were on one calendar, middle, high school, and early childhood were on a different one. So, we created a calendar that they all will follow this year. And again, you know, we hope that that will provide some continuity and frankly
079less confusion. Um, as you can see see, we still have a number of classified calendars. So, we still have some work to do. Uh, we do have 12 classified. We have 10 just for food service and we have five for Head Start. So, we still have some work to do. So, we'll review that each year and see if we can make any improvements on that. So, let's talk about what we've done with classified compensation since 2021. I think it's important that we take note that every classified staffing group has received a pay enhancement since 2021. And this is in addition to the annual board approved increases. So I want to go through some of these because they are very impactful. Um if you will notice in 2122 we did make changes to our parah one
080para 2 the health room aids and our food service staff. Uh we did increase the starting wage as you can see with pair of ones from 1160 to 15 and again this would be the starting wage for folks coming to the district. Par 2s went from 1359 to625 health room aid 1124 to 1550 and then the food service staff those folks um received increases um there was a range there because we had several different positions. We also made an additional pay enhancement for the food service staff in 2324. Then you'll see the ELLL aids, instructional aids, and library clerks. They received enhancements as well. We move on to our secretarial assistance. Um, we actually did two pay enhancements for them. The first one being increasing the starting hourly rate from $160 to $14. Then later
081that year, we did also provide a longevity enhancement, you know, to reward those that have been with the district. Uh we did the same thing with therapeutic paras or TPPs as many of you know them. Uh we did two hourly increases as well as a longevity enhancement for them. Um and then you'll see custodial staff and our AAS, BAS, and AEAS all received increases as well. um kotas were included um as well as building office staff. With our building office staff, we did not increase the starting hourly rate. However, we did provide them with a longevity enhancement that was a little bit more robust than the longevity enhancement that we provided the other groups who had also received an hourly increase. Then we had discovered that our accompanist had not had a pay rate increase
082in several years. So, we did a comparison with our neighbors on each side of us uh and we um increased the starting hourly rate uh as you can see there. Uh we did the same comparison for our ILIS and our freelance interpreters. Um we were just trying to keep up with the competition, you know, with our other districts and and stay in line with that. And then, as you'll see, we also provided pay enhancements for all of our maintenance and grounds folks. So the longevity enhancements that I mentioned previously that gives you an idea of what those look like. So the longevity enhancement number one that was provided to those groups that received an hourly increase and then the enhancement in addition to that. Then longevity enhancement number two, those were the folks that did
083not have a change in starting hourly rate, but those that had been with us received a more robust hourly increase based on longevity. And again, I want to remind everyone this is in addition to the board approved annual pay increases that we've received over the past five years. As you'll re see, uh we've received 3% 2 and a.5% 4.2 and I feel like I need a drum roll for this one for the 6.3% which was the largest ina history. Um 6.3 that was amazing. Uh and this year again 3.4%. So we are so grateful and thankful for all of that. So, let's talk about benefits. I feel like this does not get the recognition or the respect that it deserves. Uh, but benefits is such a huge part of a compensation package uh for our
084employees and tha public school district has such a robust benefits offering. Um, it's important to um note that health insurance is offered to those employees that work 30 hours a week. Now, that does not have to be a year- round position. So, if you're a food service staff member, a parah and aid, and you work 30 hours through the school year, you get your benefits through the summer as well, even though you aren't working. So, I think that that's huge. Um, then for those folks that work 17 and 12 hours up to 30 hours, they are eligible to participate in all of our other benefits um if they choose to do so. they just wouldn't be able to participate in the health insurance because that does require the 30 hours a week. I think it's
085also um very impactful to note that we have not we as employees have not incurred an increase in premiums for seven years. I mean seven years that's that's amazing and that's not to say that insurance premiums have not increased. It's just tha has absorbed those so that way it did not impact the employee financially. So, uh, then Eric Hansen, our executive director of employee services, provided me with this very impactful information. Um, so he provided us with this chart showing the two most popular health insurance plans that our employees enroll in. So, it's the high deductible and the PO. Then he compared it with our neighbors on either side of us and what the cost is for their similar or same coverage. And as you will see, THAA is far cheaper, for lack of a
086better word, than the other two districts. Uh, one thing to really note is the two employee family coverage that THA offers. If you see how much that costs, it's a big zero. If you look at the other districts, not so much. Um, I also think it's very mind-boggling if you look at the family coverage uh for the other two districts. Um it it's amazing the cost of that. So we are so fortunate and and people really need to take a look at that and absorb um and appreciate what does regard to benefits. Okay. So let's talk about where we're going. So again I want to provide you with some stats. Um first I want to share with you um some of the new hiring that we've done. Um and this would be from June 1st
087through August 26th. The district has hired and onboarded 178 new classified staff members. And I have to give a shout out to my team, specifically Amy Hunt, Lori Gillanwater, Elsa U. Aguular, and Chris Nye. They work their fingers to the bone to get all of these people onboarded. They have the patience like no other. They say the same thing over and over, and they are they're just invaluable. So, I appreciate them so much. And as I mentioned, classified hiring is ongoing. You know, we're never done. We we hire someone every day, literally every day. Um, but as far as a breakdown of what that new staff looks like, uh, 12 new office support, uh, 27 custodial and maintenance, 14 food service support, 35 general instruction support, so instructional aid, ELLL aids, uh, 88 paras, and
088then two for our technology support um, department. And I will say that was as of August 26th, but since then we've hired 12 more. So, as I said, we really do continually hire. So, something new this year, uh, we are going to require that our buildings host classified staff meetings. Some of them already do this, but we want to make sure that it's happening in every building throughout the district. This offers a time for the building administration to meet with classified staff and talk about issues that maybe are just unique to classified staff or maybe the building as a whole. We know sometimes it can be challenging just to schedule a meeting, you know, due to the different hours that our classified folks work. So, if the meeting does fall outside of their normal workday,
089they will be paid for that time because we we think it's so important for them to attend. Something else new that we are starting this school year for our parah and custodial groups. Um, as I mentioned, those are the two biggest classified groups in the district. Uh, we are going to form steering committees. So think of a steering committee as a branch off of the roundts. These will be smaller groups. Um the members will be five to seven. It will be through an application process and these five to seven members uh will meet one- on-one with their department director and this will allow time for them to go more in depth on topics that maybe we touch on during round table but there's never enough time you know to get through all those. Um, so
090this will be just an additional time for them to meet. Um, and again, members will be paid for their time that they are attending these steering committees. Something else new that we're doing for the custodial and par groups this year, um, our staff reporting guides. Sometimes it can be a little confusing to know who to report to for different issues. You know, if I'm a custodian and I have an issue, do I go to my lead? Do I go to my principal? Do I go to my custodial supervisor? Do I go to HR? So Travis and Anga are creating guides to help eliminate some of that confusion. So that way they will know clearly who they need to go to for the different issues that may come up. Continuing this school year will be the
091classified roundts. We started these in the spring of 2024 and this is an opportunity for the different staffing groups to come together. They have PD that's relevant to their particular group. Um it also allows them some time, some collaboration time. Um meetings are completely voluntary and again um staff will be paid if they do attend and this year we'll be hosting those meetings during the first and third quarters of the school year. We will also continue with our classified employee council which that was started in 2023 and that's a little different than the roundts. Um this would include staff members from each of the classified groups in the district. Um when we started this it was by a nomination process. We had asked for feedback from principles and um department leaders on who they thought
092might be um a good person to consider for this council. Then we would send them an application and then we selected 40 to 45 folks from that group. um we tried to equally represent custodial, parah, aids, secretarial, you know, so we had a good combination of classified folks. Then we would meet um and discuss topics that pertain to all classified staff. We are going to make a change this year. Uh we are going to open up the CEC to all classified staff members. It is not going to be by nomination process. Anyone who wants to attend, we encourage them and we hope that they do. Again, this is a time to collaborate um and we will provide PD. So, and the PD um and the agendas actually actually will be based upon feedback from those
093who plan to attend the meeting. So, an invitation will go out to all classified staff inviting them to this meeting. Then we will ask for suggestions on topics they would like to hear or PD that they would like to have provided during the meeting. And then from there, we will um basically create an agenda. So it'll be based upon their feedback and if they don't get any feedback then I'm going to choose. Then lastly, you know, the public school district will continue to evaluate um our policies, our procedures for classified staff and make changes, you know, as we need to. However, the critical piece with this is feedback from our classified staff. We often hear that classified staff don't always feel like they have a voice. Well, you do have a voice and we are
094offering you these opportunities to be heard. We want to hear from you. However, you have to participate. You got to come to the roundts. You have to come to the CEC's. You need to participate with the steering committees. In order for us to make effective changes, be it to policies, procedures, any of those things that impact our classified staff. We must hear from them. So, I encourage everyone to to show up. So, I've done a lot of talking. I appreciate your time. Do you have any questions for me? >> Any questions or comments, board? >> Michelle, thank you. I might just say um so much thought and and planning has gone into the changes that are coming and and so appreciative from the things that we have heard and um you know I think the
095one thing we all recognize is that the whole system doesn't work without our classified staff and we know how valuable they are to the very reason we're here which is to educate kids. All of those things trickle down to that. So, just a thank you for the work that your department does and for the shout out you gave to your your employees that are working with you on this and I do hope there will be participation so we can get really valuable feedback um that kind of enhances um some of the feedback that we already have received. So, thank you. >> You know, when Mr. how introduced you and you kind of said that was a little much which you know that's how Mr. how is but but I I want to draw attention to
096something that you said Miss Morris um that really reinforces what what he said and when you started your presentation you referred to these individuals as our classified professionals and um I think we have a number of them in the in the room or some of them in the room and um to to me that's an indication of respect and recognition of how valuable they are as a part of of the schools. Over the last couple of years, you know, we've had a number of individuals speak in public comments and um we have heard of their desire to move toward organizing as a bargaining unit. Um we've had a couple of um formal meetings which involved representatives from bargaining units as well as board of education, the superintendent and we've taken what we've heard um back
097to our other board members. Uh Dr. Jagger has met with senior leadership team and there's been conversation there and although we haven't moved in the direction of of recognizing a bargaining unit I think your presentation tonight and the components that you shared um indicate a responsiveness to some of the things that we heard in those meetings because I had the opportunity um to be at that table and um I appreciate our our leadership looking at the systems we have in place and what needs to be refined and then putting other things into place. So, I look forward um to hearing, you know, how these next steps go and I would encourage our classified professionals to keep talking with us um because as I said, as Miss Steele said, as you've indicated, um they are a
098critical part of the success of tha schools and of our students. So, thank you for your work and for your presentation tonight. Y more celebrations. Mr. Palangi is going to give us some updates um on our um service the services operation service center. Thank you. >> Good evening. Thank you for the opportunity to discuss and uh present our operation service center update for summer of 2025. Um, we did a lot of work this summer. So, let me uh jump right into it. So, as with some of my other previous presentations, I'm going to be giving you a lot of a lot of numbers and facts. Um, there will not be a quiz at the end of this. So, I just want to let everybody know that. So, just to start off, um, I showed that
099we had 296 employees, but Michelle just mentioned we have 287. So, I'm going to go with her number today. Um, but I do know for a fact 224 of them are in our custodial department. We currently maintain over 1300 acres and over 6.2 million square ft of of interior space. We have 74 occupied buildings. Um, but we have a total of 105 rooftops. So, if it's a um baseball dugout or a locker room at ODAK and Seabback or a press box, if if it has a rooftop, we're we're counting it. And we have 105 of those that we maintain. We provide service to over a 100 fleet vehicles. Uh that is uh throughout the year. And then um at the summer, we bring them the majority of the transit vehicles in and get them formally
100um inspected and approved by the Kansas uh Highway Patrol as well. So, we do that during the summer. We complete um over 30,000 work orders throughout the year. Um the number was a little bit larger than what we originally had thought and then we got some analytics back from our work order system. Um and 25% of those work orders come in the month of August. So, uh we're very busy right now if you if you do the math. And um we have finished up or currently um just tightening up on some projects that we did this summer. And uh we had the opportunity to work on about 200 of those. Um 150 of them were uh more on the construction side, but then we had another 50 of them which were just projects that were
101maybe work orders that just got um the delayed or postponed until we could get in during summer break. So first of all, I'd love to start with our custodial summer cleaning program and our custodial team. It's a time for us to get into the buildings and do a lot of deep cleaning. Whether we're working up high on lifts or if we're working on machines and and cleaning carpets and our flooring, um our staff does an amazing amazing job of maintaining our 6.2 million square feet and getting it ready for our students and staff when they when they come back from uh from summer break. It also gives us an opportunity to celebrate the the group as well. Um we get together in June and and do our uh professional development or professional learning as well.
102Um, so we had that at Santa Fe Trail this summer. Gives us a chance to get together and talk about cleaning procedures and some other um um district initiatives that that we want to make sure that our staff gets as well. I'm going to start on some of our projects, but I would first like to again thank the tha community for their support of bond issue 2022. The majority of these projects could not happen if it wasn't for the support of our community. So I just be remissed if I didn't mention that. And a lot of the projects you're going to see coming up um are on our our bond 2022 um program. So we have H HVAC rooftop replacements. We had the opportunity to replace 40 of these this summer. And it's just not
103as easy as just picking one up and putting a new one in. There's a lot of work that goes um in even before we get to the point where we bring the big cranes up and uh be able to um swap out the these large units. But we we did 40 of them this summer. roofing. We had the opportunity to replace about 80 87,000 square feet of roofing this summer at about eight lo locations. Um it's um the only chance we get to to get on into these buildings and do these types of projects. Um our buildings are used during the summer as well, so it does kind of tighten our window and we have to do a lot of scheduling. But um we were fortunate enough to be able to to continue our roofing
104program that we've done um since I've been in THAA. And so that's some of the work that we did there. We also added 24 rooftop ladders throughout the district. And you're probably asking why that number comes about. Well, a lot of our maintenance staff are on the roofs as well. And we've identified these spots where they they normally can't get to as well. So we took the opportunity to add these rooftop ladders for for for safety of our staff. We also had opportunity to do some exterior metal panel work. The the photo on the left hand side is of Oregon Trail. And then we also had the opportunity to uh work on some installing peers to uh stabilize a portion of a tha north. As our buildings continue to get older in age and the
105extreme weather that we're having, we have some areas that have some settlement issues. So, we're constantly monitoring those throughout the district and when they come to a point we have to do some work. uh our aging facility program can can help uh facilitate those fixes. Our aging facility 2025 projects, we were able to to do carpet replacement. We did about 76,000 ft of carpet replacement throughout the district. We also did about 50,000 square ft of resonous flooring, which is um our seamless flooring that you see in a lot of the corridors in our schools. So, we did about 50,000 square feet of those. working with our partners, uh, Jennifer Walker and the procurement department, we replaced, um, 11,000 student desks and chairs at nine locations, uh, throughout the district this summer as part of our
106furniture replacement program. We were able to get into some bleachers at at some of our middle schools, and I'll show you uh, the bleachers at Altha East that we had an opportunity to work on as well. And then we were doing some in renovation projects throughout the district. This is the uh south uh girls locker room at a tha north that we renovated. We also replaced about 544 interior doors this summer uh as part of our our bond issue program and 45 exterior doors. We did science classroom renovations at ata north and then we were working on some broadcast studio upgrades at um at the south. Not sure why the photos are showing the walls looking green, but trust me, they're they're they're they're white. We were able to work some on some athletic projects
107um with due to some flooring uh damage at East. We got the opportunity to replace the gym floor in the main gym there at le East and and their their bleachers. Their bleachers were originally scheduled for summer 2026. Of course, we pushed that up after we found out we needed to make some emergency repairs on the main gym floor. So, that project is almost complete. Um, what you see on the photo here was from a couple days ago, and hopefully we're getting ready to open that back up to to students here starting on Monday. Um, we also did two tennis court reservicing projects, one at THA West and one at THA uh North. At ODAK, we completely um rebuilt the whole entire track that is uh um there. Uh we had some settlement issues at
108the northeast corner of the track. So, it was part of our agent facility program for maybe a few years down the road. So, we brought that up to this summer. And so, we're finishing up that project coming up here soon. And then again, due some due to some settlement issues at Ela East, we completely rebuilt their tennis courts as well. So this is a a photo of when that was done as well at the high school media centers as part of our bond um bond issue initiative. We are in phase one of that project. This summer we completely renovated the media centers at THA South and THA North. And for the summer 2026 we'll be doing East and THAA Northwest. So, these are the photos of the recently completed renovation projects at both their locations
109with the with the new furniture that was installed as well. And then the middle school auditorium renovations, we were able to complete four of those this summer at um Frontier Trail, Indian Trail, Pioneer Trail, and Oregon Trail. So, the photos you see here is of Frontier Trail and Oregon Trail. And I also want to mention that we were also doing audiovisisual upgrades um at those uh auditoriums as well with our partners uh from um Josh and and Ron from the um um excuse me the technology department. So um they did audio visual upgrades, lighting upgrades and tied that into the commons and then also the gymnasiums as well. Phase two of San Santa Fe Trail Middle School is done. So that is the the track and field and actually tonight was their first home game
110there which was awesome. Um so I'm excited to hear how that went uh in the morning. Um so we finished that project and we're just waiting for some additional uh seating to come in um because of some of the large 8 in rains that we've had this summer. Uh some of it washed out but um we're going to finish that up here soon. And then last but not least is our Letha public schools innovation campus uh that is currently on the old linenwood campus. We are nearing completion of that project. We have moved in two of our pro our support programs from the mental health and our um um trans transition um support programs or our 18 to 21 um special needs program is currently operating out of there right now. And then we're working
111on furniture um coming into the building to help support our new culinary uh suite that will be coming from Altha North. Our animal science program coming from OATC. Our construction trades program coming from our West Dennis facility. And then health sciences that is coming from our West Dennis facility. Um, I'd be remiss if I didn't mention our electronics program will be coming over as well. Our graphics department and then with the building addition for our operations service center uh facility will be there as well. So, we're looking forward to uh moving our operations over to the new facility here um in in around the November December range as well. That's that's all we've been working on. So, I just wanted to thank everybody for allowing me to give a brief update on what we did
112this past summer and welcome any questions that anybody may have. >> Board, any questions or comments? >> Becky, I do. >> Becky, go comment. I guess I just had to do some quick math based on the work order volume. And so, you said 20% 25% of the 30,000 come in one month. It's like 7,500 work orders. approximately 250 a day, right? And that's one per staff member at approximately per day of the month of August. Anyway, I just had to kind of figure that out because I'm like, that's a lot of stuff to do in one month. The rest of the months is only 2,000. So, just just for some reference there, but probably >> our our staff is incredible at the at the service center and we we typically get about 80% of those
113work orders done in about seven days. >> That's amazing. I just really wanted to like hone in on that because I thought that was a really great piece of fact. I don't know. Anyway, um another thing I really appreciated about your presentation tonight was every single progressive movement thing you did, construction project, you said we had the opportunity to get into this and make this better. And I just that frame of reference. I really appreciate that. So, thank you. [Music] >> Um I actually drove past Santa Fe Trail night as their game was starting and their bleachers were packed and they were cheering. They all seemed very excited to be in there. So, it was really cool to see. I didn't expect it at all, but it was really neat. >> They're really visible on
114Bridge View now. So, >> very, very >> Did they play Pioneer Trail? Oh, >> thank you, Travis. And thanks to your staff for the quality work that you all do. Appreciate you. >> Appreciate it. Thank you. [Applause] >> I think Mr. Keune, are you reading the statement for public comments? >> At each regular board meeting, at each regular meeting, the board of education reserves limited time for individuals to address the board. We ask that your comments be derain that is related to the business the board effectiates. Non-compliance may result in the president interrupting to redirect. We request that individual speakers limit their comments to three minutes. The clerk will monitor the time and notify the speaker when the three-minute time limit has expired. Please direct your comments to the board and not the guest or
115staff. If a response is appropriate, the president will respond or refer to another individual. In an effort to respect privacy, we ask that speakers refrain from discussing personal complaints involving individual staff members or students. Audience disruption is also not permitted. Those speaking are advised that public comments are videotaped recorded for broadcast on the district's educational access channel and audio tape recorded as a matter of public record. Individuals dressing the board should come up to the podium at the front of this room. State your name, city, and state and relationship to the district. >> Thank you, Mr. Cune. Miss Lanter, I think you had applied. Did you have further comments? [Music] Hello again. I had one more thing I forgot regarding the budget. Um it was about the overpayments um from KDHE for Medicaid reimbursement and
116tha owes $833,000. Um, that error seems pretty glaring and I'm wondering since it seems so obvious that paid versus build is a a pretty big difference. Um, I'm hoping that has that money sitting in a fund somewhere unspent. Um, I also I want to share that on Tuesday there's a presentation to the Kansas State Board at 5:00 PM. Um, it should be it would broadcast on the YouTube site for KSD regarding student data privacy and third-party access to our children's personal data. It is scheduled for 5:00. Uh, but I'm going to be joining in ahead of time for the whole board meeting just to be sure that they're not ahead of schedule. Um, regarding assessments um, and data, if one opts out of state assessments, which every parent has the right to do in a
117public school, you must also request to opt your child out of the interim, summitative, and mini assessments. The state also has has found a way around the optouts. Um, as the opt out notices were only applied to the sum summitive assessments, why are parent directives not fully and appropriately applied? Teachers have for eons created lesson plans taught the children and tested to see if their efforts are working. Testing is different from assessing and assessing evaluates worth. Um we are assessing our children's worth for the planned global economy. They are assessed as human capital. Assessments were initially introduced as a one-time test and have grown to the current list including summitative interim and mini tests for everyone. Does any school explain the difference of this to the parents and how they differ from end of unit
118or semester tests that teachers create? Many tests are referred to as instructional, but this cannot be true since KSD says they are uh essentially from old and retired assessments. Um since teachers are using these to continuously gauge whether a student is meeting state standards, are we really just teaching to the assessment? Um the article from KU testing group mentions that 540,000 mini tests were completed in Kansas last school year and that they have now been expanded. The state assessments assessments used to be a couple of specific times during the year but now they are basically continual through throughout the year. Are parents even aware that these are psychometric in nature? Um this is a field steeped in subjectivity. According to the KU educational testing department, this is the definition of psychometrics. It applies mathematical mathematical
119models or evaluations to measure psychological or mental processes that can't be directly measured. Psychometricians assess intelligence or cognitive abilities, aptitudes, interests, personality traits, and psychopathologies. They also construct methods and formats for reporting results in meaningful ways. How many of us are led to believe that assessments are just gauges of whether a child is learning 2 plus 2 equals 4? Instead, it appears that someone or someone's receive actionable and immediate feedback on kids aptitudes, interests, and personality traits, psychopathologies, etc. Do parents ever see this or are they even aware? Who has access to the information? Where is it shared and how is it being used? This confl conflation of testing and assessing appears to be resulting in the eradication of academic testing and what it is being replaced with and who it is for is the
120actual mystery. Thank you. >> Thank you Miss Lantern board. We will move um on to consent action items and I would uh welcome a motion for 6.01 01 to 6.06. [Music] >> Claire. >> All right. I move to approve consent agenda items 6.01 to 6.06 as presented. >> Second. >> Motion by Miss Reagan. Second by Mr. Keune. >> Mrs. Steel. >> Yes. >> Mrs. Reagan. >> Yes. >> Mrs. Johan. >> Yes. >> Mr. Cune. Yes, >> Mr. Babbot. >> Yes, >> Dr. Jükovich. >> Yes. >> Motion passes 60. Under action, bids, contracts, agreements 7.01 to 7.12. Is there a motion? Miss Reagan? I move to approve action bids, contracts, and agreement agenda items 7.01 01 to 7.12. Yeah. Um as presented. >> Second. >> Motion by Miss Reagan. Second by Miss Steel. >> Mrs. Johan.
121>> Yes. >> Mr. Babbot. >> Yes. >> Mr. Cune. >> Yes. >> Dr. Jükovich. >> Yes. >> Mrs. Steel. >> Yes. >> Mrs. Reagan. >> Yes. Motion passes 6 [Music] under action other item 8.01 is a resolution to adopt the local option budget. Is there a motion? Um I move to adopt the Wait a minute. Okay. I move to adopt a resolution calling for a local option percentage in the amount of 33% for the 2526 fiscal year. >> Second motion by Miss Reagan. Second by Miss Johan. [Music] >> Mr. Babbett. >> Yes. >> Mr. Q. >> Yes. >> Mrs. Johan. >> Yes. >> Mrs. Reagan. >> Yes. >> Mrs. Steel. >> Yes. >> Dr. Jükovich. >> Yes. Item 8.02, approval of the 2526 annual budget. >> Miss Reagan, >> I move to adopt the 2526
122annual budget developed based upon the needs, assessments, and other budget information made available to the board and the public on the district's website and as presented this evening. >> Second. >> That was discussion, right? >> Yes. Motion by Miss Reagan, second by Miss Johan. >> Dr. Jükovich. >> Yes. >> Mrs. Steel. >> Yes. >> Oh, I'm sorry. >> You're just I just said discussion. >> And Mr. Hutchinson's there waiting. >> Thank you. >> I'm sorry. No, no, no. >> Thank you very much. Uh I'm not sure if it was you, Dr. Jükovich, or you, Dr. Jagger, that said uh school finance is uh very difficult. Uh but it is uh I've been trying to explain it for 30 plus years and I still haven't found a good way to do it. But I wanted to
123try to clarify a few of the points that were raised this evening. Uh the comment was made that more information is needed and we provided a PDF that you can't drill down and see the detail on. really we use the prescribed format that uh the department of education provides to us to put our budget together and actually all the districts across Kansas use it and the structure of it the fund function object is actually used across the whole country. So it it's it's a very prescribed method and there really isn't anything to drill down into in order to see it. It's just it's kind of the language of school finance. Um, and it it takes a while to to learn exactly what that is. I just want to reiterate again about the tax uh levies.
124The 20 mills you have no control over and that's half the increase. There are needs that drive the other bond and interest in order to uh uh pay off bonds, capital outlay, just the needs that we have that I that I could go into more detail if the board would like. the discussion about admin salaries. Why are they up but you have four less administrators? As I had indicated earlier, and I believe it was in um Morris's uh uh uh presentation, all employee groups received a 3.4% increase. If you do the math on the schedule and reference, administration was 2.7. Why is it not 3.4? because there are four less administrators. There were also probably principles that retired and other principles come coming in at a little lower rate. So, um we administrators all received
125the same the same amount 3.4 just as a teacher the schedule goes up 34. Some may have a lower, some may have a higher but that's the average. So, it's very similar. Why are the um why are we budgeting additional students? I think I've mentioned to the board uh several times this concept of buffering that the uh department of ed has us uh recommends that we do. What is buffering? You plan on more students. You plan on more weighted students so that uh if more appear you don't leave any state aid on the table. It doesn't inflate the taxes because you add it to it drives the revenue up, but you add an expenditure to offset it. But it positions you that if there was a sudden pop in one of our areas or a
126waiting uh or an enrollment came in much better than we had anticipated, even though we do it, it is true. We plan on a decline in enrollment. We're prepared and would be able to without that um mechanism, you wouldn't be able to accept additional state aid from the state for those students. The the other thing I may just mention quickly too is John's talking about waiting student count enrollment, but our district at times has been the recipient of state and federal grants. The most recent one we had was $2.4 million for literacy. And had we not had the buffer in our budget, we would not have been able to accept that money. >> That's an excellent point. I I was just going to say it doesn't happen just in the enrollment. It happens in u
127many of the funds, the budgets by fund. There's a there is a buffer of additional revenue. Federal is a perfect one. We may put $6 million of revenue in because we don't know if some new grant or funding would come and we add $6 million down in uh salaries and so it doesn't affect the overall budget or it doesn't affect the I don't want to get into the weeds. It so it doesn't affect other parts of the of um the state's calculation of our legal maximum uh budget. Once again, the really overriding factor is what is our legal maximum budget? And this year, it only went up $2.6 million against a ton of needs. So, there is pressure and priorities that had to be set in order to uh fulfill this year's budget. Though, that's
128about all I could glean until I listen to additional notes, but I'd be happy to, as Dr. Jagger said, meet with anybody and and try to explain some of the components. So, I I want you to reiterate that last point, the $2.6 million because it gets reported because, as you mentioned, it's hard to see in all the documents that that we statutoily have to place. Our new money from last year's budget to this budget is again how much? >> $2.6 million new money. >> Miss Reagan. Okay. So, I have some comments, not really questions, but um I wanted to point out that we are required to report or you know share that we're going to exceed or we could exceed revenue neutral. And what's interesting is, you know, the data that says, you know, what
129revenue neutral is for the general fund, it says it's 18.779, but that is disingenuous that we have to share that number. And this is not something we want to share because the state requires we set that at 20, right? And so they're setting us up to upset taxpayers when in fact we are required and it's our duty to fund the 20 mill. So even publishing that is ridiculous. And that's not always been the case. There was a law in recent years that made it so we had to say that this fake number that's not real and sorry the taxes. Okay. So I also wanted to say that we as a board pay taxes too. You know I mean it comes out of my mortgage and their mortgages and and we on this board have children
130in our schools. We're not some faceless entity that swoops in and isn't also feeling the weight. I don't know that anyone enjoys paying taxes. Um, but they're an investment in public good. And so these aren't for you necessarily, Miss Mr. Hutcherson. These comments, I just, you know, I we we pay them because it's a shared responsibility and it's an investment in our future. And I am not wellversed in real estate. Um, but I know that we have to drive down home values by building more affordable housing and and that is something that communities really struggle to welcome. And so if if we're all, you know, I mean, yay, my home value is huge. I'm not planning on moving anytime soon. So the gentleman who said that during the hearing, that makes some good points because
131it's fake money sitting out somewhere. But the the problem is all the costs for everything are going up and the people who work in our schools whose salaries are paid are also paying taxes here. And so none of this is existing in a vacuum. And the interests of a corporation that operates for profit running a budget is completely different than a school district that has what 17 checkbooks and federal funds and state funds. 31 >> 34 checkbooks. Okay. And so my point is it's a lot more complicated and we all feel that burden. But the affordable housing issue we have, not just in Johnson County, but across the country, we have to find a solution to that to bring the market back in line. And I don't want my children's education to suffer because the
132world is more expensive. And I also want to say this, THAA is a wonderful place because of the neighborhood atmosphere that we have, which also means we have a lower tax base because we have less commercial and industrial property. Residential units only account for 11% of the assessed rate. Commercial and industrial is 25%. So, it's a tradeoff. Do you want office buildings and and things all over or the neighborhood feel? You moved here for a reason. So, I just, you know, schools are so important and this budget was put together intentionally. Um, and it is never easy. And I wish we could find a way as a district to solve these problems that we did not create. But I will say as a community, we can call on people to help us solve the affordable
133housing problem by making more affordable housing. So that's what I have to say and I will be voting for the budget. >> Miss Steel. >> So Mr. Hutchinson, I know nearly every well everything we do as a board is directed by statute. it it dictates how we meet how we can't meet the decisions that we're responsible for and kind of harnesses everything we do as a board. I also know in statute are the requirements for you in where you post budget information, how you post it, um when you post it, why you post it. So, am I right about that? That everything you've done, you've done according to statute. So to suggest that there's something kind of um hidden or inconspicuous, you literally are following state statute when you inform the public and in the
134ways you communicate with us about the budget. >> It's very prescriptive when you advertise in the paper, right, >> about the hearings and and post on websites. And >> and when I say statute, that's our Kansas legislature. So if somebody was upset or thought that you were not um forthcoming with something, there is a place they can take that complaint, but you are literally following what state statute says you should do as are the other 200 some districts in the state. >> Correct. >> Okay. I just wanted to clarify that when I saw um Mr. Palangi's 6.2 million square feet, I was really astounded. I know it's a lot. I've walked a lot of those buildings, but that was really something else. The question I have for you in this year's budget is can you
135talk a little bit about um and it and it may not be relative to the 6.2 million square ft, although I believe property insurance is one of those numbers. We have had to absorb increasing costs in our budget that aren't accounted for in base state aid or in any of the in the um um funding that we get. Can you talk a little bit at some of those bigger numbers that have increased over time that we don't really spend a lot of time discussing? Although, thank you Michelle for um mentioning that about our health insurance. And that is a decision the board has made year-over-year and I'm really glad that we can do that. I I honestly would be very um raw to say I don't know how much longer that can continue. And I'm
136very thankful we've done it to this point. I think it's a huge asset to the people who choose a tha school district. However, that is a big number that we've absorbed. So, can you give us just a little bit of an idea of what what costs have increased that over time we've we've had to swallow? >> That's that's an excellent point. We're 80% labor salaries and benefits. And to retain and attract, you're always trying to keep up with the Joneses. So, taking the health insurance for example, keeping that flat for seven for the last seven years, um that's about a $15 million cost and inflation over that that's about 41% increase is what our plan costs have gone up. Inflation in that same period is 26. So, if our funding is all coming in at
137whatever inflation is, we fall further and further behind. And as you said, eventually it has to be adjusted somewhere uh in the labor costs. >> So John, just to be clear, that's just the increase, not the total spend on health insurance. >> That's just the increase. >> Total spend's 54 million, I believe, estimated for this year. Having been here for a while, the um some other things that uh I I always notice is I remember I arrived here 20 years ago, technology was pretty new in school districts. same from where I came from. Now, um Josh can correct me. I think his kind of operational budget for technology is $8.5 million and he refreshed $30 million worth of devices out of bonds last year. That is not even contemplated in our funding formula. We have
138a statutory 8 mil cap and we're question why are we at eight? Because we have to keep we're feeding something that is now ingrained in education across our state and our country without really a designated source. They there wasn't a source that said you can now levy for technology or we'll increase the the cap from 8 ms to 10 mills or 12 mills to accommodate this new thing. Well then just get rid of it. Leads me to the next one. Textbooks. You can't really in the old days you could say we're going to forgo the English uh uh uh new textbook for another year because things are tight. You do that now, they shut off the license. There is no textbook. So technology and instructional materials are now very integrated and that and that's a
139stressor. And probably the um uh the last one uh that we've talked about it over and over is is just special education. it it the the cost of it is far outpacing the revenue. So all of those things compete for the funding and that's why we usually are recommending um any resource that the board can utilize and quite honestly it's why we become more bond dependent. We are not our neighbors. You uh you mentioned the the our tax base is more on based on residential. So, our buying power for capital items is far less than our our two uh larger neighbors. So, um I think I'm answer I think I maybe maybe I got on a soap box. I'm not sure. >> No, no, no. It's really helpful and I think that we need to
140remember as a community that what you either are or aren't seeing in your own home budgets is happening exponentially for the school district. We don't get a bypass on those costs just because we're providing a service to the community. We're absorbing those. So, thank you. That was explanatory. Um, I will be um voting yes on your budget. And I just want to say thank you to your department and for all the people unseen be behind, you know, closed doors that are working feverishly constantly in your department. So, thank you. I I think it would may be also worth noting just what has happened to our mill levy, what's been recommended to the board of education over the last number of years. The part that the board has authority to adjust actually has been coming down
141every year. >> Yes, the overall levy uh has been decreasing the the rate itself uh and it and then whether or not that's an increase to a taxpayer is totally dependent on their valuation. if their house value went down or their business value went down, they feel that savings. If it if it goes up at a higher rate on their home or business as compared to how much the rate has dropped, they may feel they feel an increase. >> And then the other piece you mentioned just briefly bond dependency. Would you just spend another 30 seconds talking about that? Especially when we think of our district and the competitive nature around us with John with other Johnson County school districts and it's been mentioned, you know, our assessed valuation within tha compared to those other
142communities which really has driven for the history of our time really as a school district our dependency on bonds. Would you just maybe dig into that just a little bit more? >> Certainly. Uh I'll get the numbers wrong because there's too many in my head right now. If we raise $30 million in capital outlay when our neighbors raise around $45 million, that already puts us at a huge disadvantage on things like technology. So, we lean on bonds. We sell a shorter term bound or the initial payments go towards things because we're not going to sell a 20-year bond for a three or fiveyear device. But it does push us to have to use utilize that to offer the same thing that people just five miles on either side of our borders are offering. So, uh,
143that's a dependency. The 6.5 million in square footage. You can stop that for a couple years, but then you really have to play catch-up. So, Travis does a great job of trying to maintain the investment that the public's made, but our buying power and capital outlay doesn't exist compared to others. So, we utilize bonds for the big things like an HVAC unit that's going to last 15 or 20 years or a roof that's going to last that long. We don't buy the small thing that um that's a little more disposable. We do use our capital outlay for that. So, does that answer your question? Okay. I did want to point one other thing out that I had heard. Um I and it's a little dangerous because I haven't updated it in in a in a
144year but uh the comment that we're topheavy at the senior level we are the second lowest per pupil cost in the whole state that drops to I'll say more like the top quartortile if you include principles why we we have a lot of elementary schools built in neighborhoods that neighborhood uh thing that you had referenced. So, we have more principles there. So, that pulls us back down. But, if you look at sort of the that top leadership uh level, it's all about size. We're we're the second largest district in Kansas. So, every number looks like it's huge and easy to cut, but the services wouldn't be there to support 70 rooftops and uh 54 buildings uh where education happens every day. >> Sorry, too many numbers. Yeah. >> Any other >> very sensitive to taxes,
145don't get me wrong, it but it's it's very difficult. You don't control all of them. Bond and interest we said was going to be a certain amount and we're keeping it at that amount and it and we have projected we'd need that even with valuation increases to repay debt. Capital outlay we have to maximize at eight. So we didn't roll it back that slight bit. the uh 20 mills is controlled by the state. All the other ones we set at the revenue neutral rate even though we only have $2.6 million new money coming in. So priorities were made to try to accommodate that. >> Any other questions or comments board? Mr. Hutcherson, thank you for all you do. Okay, now I think we're ready to vote. We have a motion by Miss Reagan and a
146second by Miss Johan. >> Dr. Jükovich. >> Yes. >> Mrs. Steel. >> Yes. >> Mr. Babbot. >> Yes. >> Mrs. Reagan. >> Yes. >> Mr. Cune. >> Yes. >> Mrs. Johan. >> Yes. Motion passes. 6. 8.03 03 are some board policy updates um related to committees and that's in response to some legislation that was passed um records adopting a board policy related to enrollment of military students. Is there a motion? >> I move to update board policies BBC committees and CN records and adopt board policy JBCD enrollment of military students as presented. Second >> motion by Miss Johan. Second by Mr. Keun. >> He speaks. >> Mr. Keune. >> Yes. >> Mrs. Reagan. >> Yes. >> Dr. Jerkovich. >> Yes. >> Mrs. Steel. >> Yes. >> Mr. Babett. >> Yes. >> Mrs. Johan. >> Yes.
147>> Motion passes. 6. >> Um, board. Thank you for your input on uh school site council preferences as well as committee assignments. 8.04. 04 is an approval of board assignments to school site councils for the 2526 school year. I would also um state that the attachment not only has the assignments in the schools but also their meeting dates. So once approved this evening um principles may reach out to you and you certainly can reach out to them because I know some of those meetings are starting in the next week or two. Is there a motion? >> I move to approve action um other 8.04 as presented. >> Motion by Miss Johan, second by Miss Steel. >> Mrs. Reagan, >> yes. >> Mr. Cune, >> yes. >> Mr. Babett, >> yes. >> Dr. Jükovich, >> yes.
148>> Mrs. Steel, >> yes. >> Mrs. Johan, >> yes. Motion passes 6. Um also board of education committee assignments that document is also attached and um I would remind board members that we'll follow the same practice this year as we had um last and that is if you are on a committee and you're unable to attend a meeting that you reach out to Miss Beam and she'll reach out to other members to see if we can have full representation. Um, I also would say that following approval, the facilitators will be reaching out to us with meeting dates. So, is there a motion? >> I move to approve action item 8.05 as presented. >> Second. >> Motion by Mr. Ke, second by Miss Reagan. >> Mrs. Reagan, >> yes. >> Dr. Yurovich, >> yes. >> Mrs.
149Steel, >> yes. >> Mrs. Johan, >> yes. >> Mr. Ke, >> yes. Mr. Babbett. >> Yes. >> Motion passes 6. Future action items. Um, and you can see there are a number of them. Uh, I'll draw attention to a couple. One is, uh, 9.20, which are additional board policy updates. So, please, uh, read through those carefully. And then 9.21, the THA public school on-site clinic. Um, Dr. Sig, do you want to make some comments tonight about that? Thank you. >> Happy to do so. Um, I feel like I've been queued up perfectly for this. Um, Miss Cudter mentioned this, Mr. Hudson has mentioned this, um, in reference to the district dialogues that we conducted throughout last year. And um this work really was the result of the feedback we've gotten from our staff and hearing
150that um the support of mental health needs was a kind of top of mind and a high priority. Um but then also pairing with that we know the everinccreasing costs of our health insurance. And so um in our work with um of course Mr. Hansen in employee services. Um as well as with our partners at Lockchton who are our brokerage firm. Um we really started kind of brainstorming what kinds of things could we look at doing um to kind of help on both of these sides because we know that as soon as we t start talking about benefits as we've heard um we're talking about increases in costs. And so um one of the things we began to explore was the opportunity or the option of offering an on-site health clinic for our staff members.
151And so we have done a great deal of work throughout the past year um in an official bid process and looking at that that option and are now honing in on kind of the final stretch of that and identifying a vendor that would then be able to provide um the management of an on-site health clinic. And so um all of this kind of came together really nicely as we also then looked at the tha public schools innovation campus and having a physical space where we could then also offer that clinic. Um, and so I'll be anxious to kind of share with you um, the culmination of that work and what we're looking at in um, in offering that on-site clinic that would provide not only um, physical kind of health health um, support in terms
152of having a physician um, that our staff members could access and utilize for um, kind of general um, or acute kind of care. But then also the opportunity it would provide for us to offer then mental health services and supports for our staff as well. Um which then also has kind of a plus side of offering us um the chance to then not have those things those expenses hit our health insurance premiums um which we then would hope would would help in kind of u managing some of those costs as well. So that is kind of a highlevel picture of some of the work that we've done and what we would be bringing forward to talk more about uh next month. >> Thank you for the preview. >> Yeah, >> written information. Um again an
153in appreciation and thank you to the learning services um for their September report as well as Mr. Bangi um for the updates related to the bond issue and topics for discussion board. >> You want to go first? >> Okay, Miss Reagan. Okay, so um I already talked about taxes. That was in my notes. Um it is fall and as we discussed, football has started. Um, and as much as I love football and watching football, it always reminds me of marching band. And while I wasn't an instrumentalist in the marching band growing up, I did flags. It was awesome. Um, you know, music and the power it had over my life is what led me to be in a position to sit in this dasis. You know, I um I took a lot of music classes
154in high school. um started my love of music in elementary school. My elementary music teacher um suggested I audition for the Nebraska Children's Chorus and and I just you know school is reading, writing and arithmetic and also social studies and science. But you know those specials, those extra things are not extra. I mean without those opportunities I grew up in a district very similar to ours. um I wouldn't have found my way into being a teacher. I wouldn't live in Kansas City. I wouldn't have met my husband. And so the connections we make beyond adding and writing paragraphs and learning historical events and doing experiments, those things are really important. And so while I do love cheering at a football game, I love the halftime show. And so I just wanted to make sure that
155I gave a shout out to that. And my band director from high school is still a dear friend of mine and we send each other Christmas cards and write Facebook messages back and forth cuz um although my best friend would say she encouraged me to try out for flags and so she's responsible for my life. So who knows? But um and on that note, connection is really important and that's a segue into um for me suicide prevention month. Um, suicide prevention looks like a lot of things. It does look like having a month where we talk about things upfront and be very intentional, but it's also a lot of things that happen all the time. You know, um, creating a space where our students feel welcome, where our students feel seen, where our staff feels
156welcome, where our staff feels seen. Suicide prevention does not start with a poster. It starts with the people who make connections with others. And that happens in our district all the time. And I am so proud of that. But I will also say, you know, much like all the dark things in life, suicide touches all of us in some way. We've all lost someone or we've known someone who's lost someone. And if you feel a nudge that someone in your world is not okay, listen to that nudge. You know, at worst your nudge was wrong and they're fine, but and you'll get embarrassed. Best case scenario, you caught something early because you asked a question that maybe made you uncomfortable, but made them feel seen. And so while you know budget talk and all of
157that is numbers and and those things, the investment we make here in our district in our kids in the staff we have the professionals across the board who are able to be present who are able to be the people who can catch the glimpse of trauma and suffering or whatever it is so that we can have kids who grow up to be great adults. That's why I'm grateful for our district. And so, don't let September just be a month where we recognize the hard things. Um, if we're aware of them all the time, if mental well-being is something we think about, just like our health, our bodies, um, we'll all be better. So, thank you, >> Mr. Babbot. >> All right. Um, first to kind of segue off of what Claire was talking about with
158the band, I got to go to the fifth grade band night, uh, meet the instruments at THA East and that was a lot cooler than I thought it would be. Uh, getting all the honors kids out there to show all of the fifth graders how to what instruments they have and they could try out every single one, which I'm pretty sure my son did. And it was just it was really inspiring to see the kids so passionate about their instruments and the band and orchestra teachers so passionate about their students. So, uh, big shout out to the THA East Honors Band and their all the teachers that were there. Um, we got to get a tour of the Opsic uh last month and wow is really all I can say. Uh, I had high expectations
159and they were completely blown away. um every area set up explicitly for the area it's being used for from the culinary arts to the animal health to uh everything else that's being done there. It was just incredible to see and thanks to Travis for the walkthrough and I really look forward to our community being able to see uh what a great investment they made in our community. Um, I went to the my first ever meeting of the DEAC, the diversity equity committee, and it was really inspiring to see the students that showed up and wanted to take part from their high schools. Um, these were high school juniors and seniors that volunteered to come. Uh, every school, every high school has two. And they actually, uh, took over the leadership of the committee that I
160got assigned to and kept us moving. and it was really cool to see them uh stepping up. And I also wanted to shout out to Ana and Beatatric for doing a presentation about the work they're doing at Lake the South, including a fashion show that they brought together in a very short amount of time. And it was really inspiring again to see these high school students um showing leadership for their entire school and for the district as a whole. That's all I have. >> Anyone else? Becky. >> Okay, >> Miss Johan, >> thank you. Um, I didn't I didn't think I was going to have anything. Um, but I sat here and thought about some of the things you said and some of the things you said. And um, I have the joy of having
161the front row seat to two children in our school district. And while as a board member, you know, I think about all the kids that are in the school district, being a being a parent and experiencing the things that I see you all are working hard on every single day and just knowing the work that goes behind that is is a really cool thing. Um, my daughter just started middle school and so getting to get getting to do all the things with her. Um, I also started a new opportunity job myself and I've been able to drop her off in the morning. It's really valuable 11 minutes every single morning that I get with her. And so she tells me about the things um that she's doing and she told me the other day, I
162have a cross country meet on Friday. I need to email my teachers and let them know I'm leaving early. And I think while we're preparing these little people to be big people one day and responsibility and so um just really proud to see those few things in the first few weeks of school um make a big difference. My little guy is also doing great in second grade, too. But um just really this transition of life is for her and um knowing what each and every teacher is doing there is is really fantastic. Um she's also an orchestra and she's loving that. She came home with a bunch of chocolate bars to sell. Um and what a what a fantastic program that they have there at Prairie Trail. They're $2. Anyway, I have another box. Um
163anyway, I just I I was really really really very happy, very pleased with all the things that they did to make the kids feel comfortable, the parents feel comfortable. We had a walk through ourselves. Um I got lost every time I tried to do her schedule and but she had it. She had it. Mom, I'm good. And I said, "This is this is just really great." So again, I just want to say thank you. I know there's a lot of work that goes into it. Um there's a lot of there's a lot of for thinking. Um, it made me kind of think about our strategic plan and how we're going into that. And I just love that our district takes the time to look forward into the next 5, 10, 15 years. Um, really making
164a plan for our community to have successful people, successful adults that can bring back things to our community and stay here and um, just make a a great place. So that's all I have tonight. >> Steel. Um, I just have a brief statement I want to make. Um, and it has much more meaning than behind the words, but what I want to say is um, tha public schools is a great place and wonderful things are happening in education. But moreover, this district, as I pointed out with Mr. Hutcherson in state statute and how he followed that. This district complies with all state and federal laws and we educate every student that comes through our doors. We hold them dear all day long while we show them the way and we educate them. And it's not
165an eitheror. We do both in this district. So that's all I have tonight. Thank you. >> My comments are brief as as well. And um a word that just kept striking me tonight through the presentations is responsiveness. And I think it um follows with what Miss Steele just said. Um we are as a community um as ana public school community um we attempt to be responsive to the needs of all of our families and all of our students and um we have done that for decades and we will continue to focus on on being responsive. My second comment's a little bit lighter because it's old settlers weekend. >> Oh yeah. And the parade is Saturday and um tying the music and the engagement together. Um oh my goodness, 10 middle schools and five high school
166bands all from THA. It is so impressive. um along with everything else that goes goes with the parade, but um I including administrators, which I don't want to take that if you were going to mention it, but um yeah, Dr. Joerger, >> thank you. Um I don't often find myself emotional sitting here, but that's how I'm feeling right now. So, I'll just like I am with my family. Dad cries sometimes. So, um either a couple things. So, one, I've been watching Megan Brics, who did not speak tonight. Um, and I wondered if somebody paid her not to speak tonight or something. Um, but then I realized it was just going to be a fine arts love fest tonight. So, we we've got that accomplished in other ways. So, um, and I saw Megan doing this
167in the back and agreeing with some of those things tonight. So, it was fun to to make eye contact with her dur during that time. But, you know, I um several comments tonight, I think, kind of alluded to this fact. There's there's a lot of heavy um with what should be an extremely exciting time of year for our school district and and our students and our staff alike. Um but SLT met this morning and I started the meeting by saying let's go around the room and everybody share something good. Um, and I have to tell you that, you know, the the thing that, um, is worth fighting for every day of the week is the goodness that happens in the school district every single day. Um, we have a district full of people who are
168passionate about the kids we serve, about the families we serve, and about the community we all choose to live in. Um, and it's worth having the tough conversations. it's worth asking the hard questions. Um, but at the end of the day, their future is our future. And and that's why we're all here every single day. And you know, I've said this before. I've had the opportunity to work in other places. I say this to groups of people all the time. Um, and it could sound like superintendent speak, but the truth is I believe it with every fiber of my being that this district is really special. And it's special because of the people. It's special because of the way our community wraps its arms around this district. And most importantly, the young people that we
169serve every day and the decisions we make as adults, the actions we express as adults. Our kids are watching that all day long, every day. Um, and that's a responsibility that I know every single educator, classified staff member, administrator in this district goes to work with every single day because it's a choice. People chose to do this. People chose to raise their kids in this district. So, um I have a sheet of awesome accolades to to read tonight, but um there are things that districts all over this nation would be unbelievably proud to share. And we have, you know, six of them to tonight, you know, and and it's somehow those things feel insignificant in some ways tonight, but I do want to share them. Um the the first thing is when we shared the
170good from SLT this morning, everything that happened around the room was about that was shared was about kids and good things happening for kids and the children of our community. And even though we aren't sitting in classrooms anymore working with our our kids directly every single day, the celebrations from the 14 people around that table, we're all about the children. We serve every day, which I think says a lot about the people that that are on this team every day. Um, you've seen this because we promote it like like no other. Uh, once again, we are named the top 10 employer in Kansas by Forbes, which Justin and HR folks are all doing that. So, thank you. I I appreciate that. But more important, I appreciate the way we take care of our staff, the
171way our staff takes care of each other. That's not an accidental thing. And for our district to have year-over-year um being the only district in the top 10 year-over-year um you know, I mean, it's it's a pretty incredible thing for us. All five of our high schools were just named in the top 50 um US News Enrolled Report in the state of Kansas. And there's hundreds of high schools in Kansas. So for all five of ours to be represented that way is just incredible. Uh there was a national study that just came out that came out um from Livability. They chose the best 100 cities to live in in the United States for education. Um was number six. Uh which is awesome. And it's about schools and it's about where you should raise your kids
172and what their success looks like. Number six in the nation. Um I will tell you Overland Park was number three. Um so we >> Some of them are us. That's exactly right. But um primarily also Blue Valley and Shiny Mission were were were listed there which I think you know a celebration for any of us is a celebration for all of us. So if to have THA and Overland Park in our districts represented in the top 10 out of 100 across the nation is is pretty remarkable and and such a a testament for for what happens here and the things that I was tearyeyed about just a minute ago. Everybody in my team's teasing me about that. No, but I do have a text from my mom that says, "Thank you. Love you, Dr. Jagger."
173So that's great. Thanks, Mom. when your team's not going to harass you, your mom's happy to step in. So, I love it. That's awesome. So, um anyway, but I just I want to thank our staff for the incredible work that that happens each and every day. It has been a phenomenal start. Um you know, there's this is my fifth year as as the superintendent and uh remark so many times just through things I've noticed and conversations I've had in school. This year, our system more than ever feels like we're all rowing together and working together. And there's a ton of reasons for that. Um, but really just proud of all that's already been accomplished in the the short start to the school year. So, thank you. >> Thank you. We are um ready for executive
174session and actually an hour and 15 minutes is what we estimate. No groaning. No groaning. >> I move. >> Okay. Do do I dare ask? Is there a motion? Yeah. >> I move to go into executive session for continuation consultation with an attorney or the body or agency pursuant to the exception for matters which would be deemed privileged in the attorney client relationship under coma and return in this room at 9:40. >> Second. >> Motion by Miss Steel. Second by Mr. Keune. Mrs. Steel, >> yes. >> Mrs. Reagan, >> yes. >> Mrs. Johan, >> yes. >> Mr. Ke, >> yes. >> Mr. Babbot, >> I suppose. >> And Dr. >> Yes.