001e good evening and welcome to the March 2025 board meeting good welcome to those of you in the room and also to those of us watching online Miss beam would you call roll Mr babit here Mr Boyd here Mrs Johan here Mr cun here Mrs Reagan Mrs steel here Dr yurkovich here thank you this evening we will be led in the Pledge of Allegiance by Tom W who graduated in 2019 from Step Up which is oa's adult diploma program and a little bit later this evening we will hear more from Tom during that presentation thank you Al to 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 thank you board at this time I would take a motion to
002adopt the agenda for tonight's meeting I move to adopt the agenda as presented second agenda by Mr Boyd second by Miss Johan got Mr Boyd yes Mrs Johan thank you yes Mr cun yes Mrs steel yes Dr yurkovich yes Mr babbit yes okay board I missed item 1.03 um I'd welcome a motion to appoint a deputy clerk as you know um the individual who's been serving Ving in that capacity has moved to another position outside of the district so I would accept a motion 1.03 move to appoint Suzanne H Deputy Clerk of the board of education for 2025 second motion by Miss steel second by Mr cun Mrs Mrs Johan yes Mr boydd yes Mr babit yes Mrs steel yes Dr yurovich yes Mr cun yes I'm here now Mrs Reagan yes motion seven passes
00370 thank you this evening Miss grba with our recognitions please yes yes well good evening and welcome to all of our distinguished guests to begin our Awards and recognitions tonight I would like to invite OA South High School principal Dr Shan demory to the front tonight we are proud to recognize Dr demory for receiving the outstanding Real World Learning leadership award at the Kaufman foundation's annual Real World Learning event Dr Dem Fosters a collaborative and engaged School community and this is evident in his efforts to connect OA South with local businesses by actively selling client connected projects Dr demy creates opportunities for students to gain Real World experience and businesses to benefit from their talents this commitment to collaboration extends beyond the school walls further evidenced by his recognition as the 2024 kspa administrator of
004the Year this award highlights his dedication to fostering open communication and building strong relationships with all stakeholders in the OA South community his Open Door philosophy and willingness to think outside the box allow a collaborative space where teachers feel safe to try something new Sean is uh working to bring Junior achievements 3D programming to Ala South an Innovative approach to high school education that prepares students for success in college and careers and by partnering with local businesses 3de brings real world challenges into the classroom engaging students in Hands-On learning experiences uh students get to collaborate with their peers to solve challenges develop critical thinking problem solving and communication skills the immersive learning model helps students build confidence explore their passions and gain a deeper understanding of the workforce we are so proud to honor sha
005tonight for receiving this well-deserved award and for bringing real real world learning opportunities to what he calls his Falcon family congratulations Sean thank you thank you SE well from the high school level now to our elementary friends I'd like to invite up our student math Wings champions from our January competition along with Arbor Creek Elementary principal Melissa Snell and math wi sponsor Dion Hobson as well as Regency Place Elementary principal grego bourney and math wi sponsors Stacy Anderson and Kelly Stewarts so come on up kids come on [Applause] up for those of you who don't know math Wings is a districtwide Elementary School competitive club and the meetings consist of intense mental math skills problemsolving competitions vocabulary review and various math scrimmages there are three events held throughout the year and these students upfront represent
006the winning teams at the fourth and fifth grade levels for our second contest of the Year held in January in the fourth grade category Arbor Creek Elementary's Addison Baker Quinton Smith and bah Brown took first place while in the fifth grade competition Regency plays students Jeremy Chen Liam allander and Arya singer were our Champions please join me in congratulating these outstanding mathematicians on their winning performance [Applause] we'll take a group photo but I know there's some proud parents in the audience so please feel free to come up and get pictures as well and [Applause] congratulations and I can hear the jingle jangling of the medals in the back so finally I would like to invite OA Northwest Raven dance team to the front along with their coach Shannon Summers and principal Chris zook as well
007as athletic director Matt Johnson oh what a good sound that is the O the Northwest dance team recently won the 6A State title in the game day dance showcase this is the second consecutive year the team has won the State title but they also recently returned from Orlando Florida where they were crowned as grand national champions the three-day competition features five individually scored Team dances culminating in the recognition of a grand champion Northwest has won the grand championship title six times since 2012 this year the team took first in the large varsity game day category and large varsity team performance category they earned second place in the large Varsity Palm category and fourth in large Varsity Jazz we are so proud of these students for their continued success at the state and National level please
008join me in giving them a round of [Applause] applause and yes parents please feel free to come up and get photos as well awesome well thank you so much [Music] [Applause] congratulations congratulations ladies at this time I would invite Russ Manion forward um for a presentation School Spotlight on Step Up welcome members of the Board of Education thank you for this opportunity to report to you on stepup this little gy in our school district as you know Step Up is the OA Public Schools adult diploma program despite the Magnificent job that ala schools do in servicing our traditional students there are adults in our community who don't have high school diplomas approximately 9% of American adults do not have diplomas or equivalents which is about 200,000 working age canons and we all know that trying
009to succeed without a diploma is an uphill unforgiving and in many cases impossible task in 2020 2 workers whose highest level of Education was a diploma earned just 25% more than those who didn't finish High School meaning that there's a 25% earning gap between graduates and non-graduates furthermore adults without high school diplomas make up the bottom 30% of earners compared to when compared to other groups of Americans in addition to lower earning potential adults without diplomas are at a greater risk of unemployment also in 2012 22 people without diplomas had the highest unemployment rate among people at all education levels adults without diplomas have greater susceptibility to Lifestyle problems as well such as substance abuse and other health risks it was estimated in 2020 that each High School Dropout cost the US economy $272,000 due
010to lower tax contributions higher Reliance on Medicare Medicaid and Welfare and higher rates of criminal activity so while it's really really important that we keep doing what we do so well in our district which is graduating our kids from high school about one in 11 can and still needs our help Step Up is a diploma completion opportunity for any Kansas resident we currently graduate about 60 students a year our youngest graduates are teenagers who are just a year or so out of high school but other graduates come from every decade of life from their 20s 30s 40s and 50s and we've had had older graduates as well in their 60s and 70s and yes our highest graduate so far was age 74 I'd like to show you several clips of stepup grads speaking at their
011commencement ceremonies the first one was from 2023 where one of our graduates talks about her journey to graduation it lasts just under a minute my name is Terry Mashburn and it took me 38 years to be here today 38 years many ups and Downs in my life I have three beautiful children in that life I traveled doing GPS tracking I had brain surgery I have cancer I've done it you know through all of this thank you for giving me the second chance of coming back here and doing it again my son John beleta was here eight years ago and he graduated from this stepup program so thank you for giving us the opportunity to graduate thank [Applause] you when students enroll and step up I access their academic transcripts from when they were in high
012school I review those and determine how many credits they already have and how many they'll need to graduate students then earn credits by completing pre-recorded online classes through the uity program typically completing their work off campus in between other adult responsibilities the staff recommend that our students work for about an for an average of an hour a day on their classes but for working adults with bosses to please and spouses and life Partners to love and kids to raise that can be a big ask month after month and year after year many stepup students overcome amazing obstacles to walk across a stage in a cap and gown and get their diplomas here's another video from commencement 2023 of one of our students talking about overcoming her obstacles [Applause] hi um I'm Madison I um I
013just joined this program last year um I was supposed to graduate in 2017 but halfway through my senior year I I hung around the wrong crowd and got into things I shouldn't have um and I ended up dropping out and I think I only needed like six three to six credits um so it was really silly on my my part to drop out when I could have finished um I uh in that time frame I ended up getting pregnant when I was 19 and I have my beautiful four-year-old son now um and then when I joined this program I was pregnant with my daughter and um I I thankfully Bobby and Russ they gave me time after I had her and then I was like no I need to finish this so um I I
014kept going um unfortunately in February um she passed away but um they gave me time they gave me Grace um I'm so thankful for that and I I finished I was trying not to cry um but I did it for for her for my family and um I'm really proud of myself [Applause] in order to enroll and step up a student has to be at least age 18 has to be a Kansas resident and the students High School cohort must have already graduated the OA Public Schools receives funding for step up uh receives funding for Step Up students from the Kansas State Department of Education so there's no charge for students to participate in fact the program is not only self-supporting but it also generates Surplus Revenue to help support other important OA schools programs
015students with all kinds of stories enroll and step up some students just didn't have the personal wherewithal or the Family Support needed to succeed in high school others had really hard luck experiences when they were teenagers making it simply impossible to to succeed or even continue in school and we have immigrants who enroll each year who just never had the opportunity for a great education like kids in OA here's a story from a 2024 stepup graduate who's an immigrant she's now a US Citizen and her kids are all enrolled in OA [Applause] schools my name is Evelyn Elon as you can see I am so excited it was not an easy jining as uh English as my second language but I thought I thought I say I'm not going to stay home because my children
016will see like education is nothing so I'm going to challenge my children with a supportive of friends that were encouraging me they say keep going some of them I just graduated from nursing school others graduated for RN and they keep encouraging me they like you are not going to be behind stay behind keep going it wasn't easy I almost gave up because of children work hom work and it was not an easy Journey but I made it I did not only make it here as soon as I sto I move on with the encouragement of my friends went to nursing school continue until I'm going to the air and I'm keep going once a student finishes her last class Step Up graduates her immediately the district registrar's office produces a transcript that shows the graduation
017date as the last day the student worked on a class that way the student can immediately move into whatever it is she's been working toward through step up like the woman in the video who said she'd already started nursing school you can imagine that piece of paper with a graduation date on it is transformative graduates often qualify for better jobs with higher pay and better working conditions graduates can often be better spouses and life Partners as well as better parents being able to drop second or third jobs and be more available to those who love and depend upon them and of course stepup graduates can pursue post-secondary Education and Training not only for better incomes but for bigger dreams step-up graduates have gone on to a full range of post-secondary opportunities including trade school Union
018apprenticeships community colleges four-year universities the military and other Pathways that would not have been available to them if they didn't have their diploma here's another video from step-ups 2024 commencement where a student talks about her goals and dreams good hi everyone uh my name is Britney Clark uh I'm kind of nervous I started this thing about three years ago um I was supposed to graduated in 2012 and life happens I was on a different path but um I am so proud of my journey I just want to thank my husband and my three kids and all of my family that's here to support me and continuing to support me um without them I wouldn't have been able to do it um I always got on my daughter she's my oldest she's be 16 and like
0192 months and I kept getting on her like a few years ago and I was like you got to finish school you know you got to make good grades but I felt like I was being a hypocrite cuz I was like if I didn't do it you know why am I on her so hard about doing it and so I finally was like I'm going to do it we're going to do it together I'm a graduate and she graduates in a few years and after this graduation we'll see where it goes but I'm looking forward to becoming a licensed Nail Tech and she'll be become a hair stylist so we'll open our shop together so thank [Applause] you I would be giving you an incomplete picture if I didn't talk about one other group that
020greatly benefits from Step Up and that's high school counselors It's a despairing moment when a counselor has to look across her desk and report to a student and his distraught parents that he's not going to graduate at the end of his senior year it would be an awful thing for that counselor to have to say well young fell you're not going to make it which sets you up for a life of hardship and your community's primary education provider well they have nothing for you so hope that works out for you but that's not what our counselors have to say our counselors can say instead whether you're ready now or whether you become ready sometime in the future stepup will be available for you each year around this time I call on different high school counselors
021throughout the area so they have a uh so they have a high degree of knowledge and confidence about step up so they can refer it to their non-graduating seniors and their families Step Up Services schools and students stepup Services students from all the school districts and public high schools uh in our area as well as many private and parochial schools part of my job is to make sure that counselors have stepup brochures in their desk drawers and on their computer desktops to give the non graduating seniors and their families at the end of the school year before I close I want to I want you to hear a stepup success story firsthand you see I was all prepared to close my presentation at this point when I received an email last weekend from my former
022student trun J Hinn who goes by Tom and you met Tom earlier Tom wrote to me out of the blue this weekend and he said I'm not sure if you remember me but I'm writing to give you an update on my life since graduating from stepup in 2019 well I did remember Tom and as I read his update I realized that I should invite him to tell you his story as well so yeah hello I'm Tom I'm Dr and I go by Tom so I moved here from Vietnam in 2019 when I was 18 and I never actually graduated high school in back there if I wanted to get a diploma I would have needed to get a uh I would have needed to retake my entire senior year at Ola South but luckily stepup
023was there and I was able to enroll in it and managed to finish my degree uh by June and in four and a quarter credits from there I was able to attend uh jcgc now to get an associates degree transferred to KU for a bachelor in astronomy managed to get my US citizenship and I am now on track to be to go to the University of Iowa for a PhD in physics so yeah uh without step up that I wouldn't have be able to have done all of that uh on time and so I would like to thank the program for us it helped me immensely and I hope that it will be able to help a lot of other people as well [Applause] yeah and so there is our little gem thank you for
024support of this program and I hope each of you will join us at our annual commencement this year which will be on May 14th at the mil Creek [Applause] Campus Mr Mion before you step away board are there any questions the old classroom teacher is disappointed I you saw me with the wait time though yeah yeah yeah thank well thank you so much thank you for all oh I don't have a question okay more of a comment I think push the button there's a buttons push now now everyone can hear me my fans included okay um I just want to say thank you for what you do is amazing program it was one of my first experiences of graduation with the OA school board and and being able to come last year it was really
025amazing and very very very neat to be a part of that so thank you for that and thank you um for everyone that came here tonight I will tell you you don't really understand step up until you go to commencement and when you do it's just powerful it's like that's amazing and not not what I did it's the students doing their thing so thanks for coming and Hope come coming in I just put in my calendar thank you thank you and thank you Mr W for being here to share your story and I think Mr scherman is also in the audience who is the principal at mil Creek um if you want to wave again or stand up thank you thank you to the staff and Dr oh Dr Dandridge yes it just I just
026remembered I saw her as well thank you thank you okay Dr fluke thank you for being here good good evening everybody thank you for for taking the time to be here and thank you all for being here as well um I'm extremely proud to be here representing the work of a lot of folks that are not me um including our teachers our administrators our par professionals um and many other support staff in our building and our PBIS coaches three Rowdy three of whom are in the back they may or may not be ratty we'll find out but I'm here on behalf of them as well uh my name is Scott fluke I'm our assistant director of middle Health Services in BCL um and it is my role tonight to share with you a little bit
027about our positive behavior intervention and supports program as well as our Mental Health Services that we have and I'll end with a little bit of a commercial for our upcoming Taste of the town so I'm excited to share a little bit about that as well um framing our framing our belief system and how we support our students um we believe that behavioral health comes from a really complex interaction um between who the student is what their history is and the environment around them and of those three variables there's only one of those that we have have any power to impact and directly control I I'm a psychologist but I can't reach into somebody's brain and and take away the ADHD or change the autism diagnosis I don't have that power nor can I change anything
028that's happened to them in the past but what I can do and what all of our staff members all of our parents can do is build a safe and supportive environment around our students but with that said it is unfair to go to a teacher or go to a school and say hey hey you need to just do this on your own go make a safe and positive space figure that out take care of that we need to build systems of support to wrap around our staff to guide them and how to do that effectively and that fundamentally is what positive behavior interventions and supports is it's our way of systematically as a school district as a school as a community wrapping around our kids and saying this is somewhere you can be safe somewhere
029you belong somewhere you can be a part of something where you get positive interactions from all the adults all day long as you go about your school day we have been um implementing PBIS formally now for about 5 years we started in 2020 and if you remember 2020 you may recall that that was a somewhat challenging time in education we came in right as right as our first covid year was coming um at the time we started with just 13 schools getting them up and running teaching them how to do this partnering with them developing their systems and getting them integrated into their daily practices over the course of the last several years we've brought on a few schools at a time choosing to invest in the long-term sustainability of the and success of the
030program rather than just getting it up quickly and now I'm proud to say that we have let's see 50 or 45 46 schools up and running now and just 10 more that we're developing with this school year so in August we'll have every school up and running with PB and of those we now have 34 schools that have moved on to implement targeted interventions or Advanced tier 2 supports so now more than half of our schools have even moved on to the more advanced PBIS which is something that's very rare in education to actually move to that level and all of this is really um on uh is really due to the incredibly hard work that several of our staff members do every day um we have five district uh PBIS coaches their role and
031function is to move right alongside school-based teams as they make decisions about their PB system the coach guides them and supports them and much the way that an academic coach would and leads them to success helps them learn what are the right decisions what's the right Next Step for my school and my community um but each of those each of those coaches carries a case load of 11 or 12 schools and they work very very hard to drive the success um and I should also highlight that we have a little bit of support from Angela Cottingham we share her with the uh counseling department she's our she's our secretary she does an incredible amount to support our system taking care of every little detail so that our coaches are spending as much time as possible
032out in schools rather than dealing with other little things and just to share the impact that coaching has um we know coaching Works in education it's incredibly powerful um we're really committed to to measuring Fidelity of our of our interventions and our of our implementation um before we start with a school we measure um how many what percentage of indicators of PBIS are already in place and before coaching about 35% of indicators are in place on average across our schools one year later with coaching support we improve that to 82% the marker for Success has been shown by research to be about 70% that's our Target so with coaching we go from significantly below to significantly above in just one year and of our schools that have met that 70% threshold not a single one
033has ever dropped back below because their coaches are there to sustain and support that success for the Long Haul so what is this PBIS thing um we've talked a little bit about the systems that support it that commitment to taking care of every student um it really starts with a collective commitment by the school staff to a core set of expectations what do we want what do we dream for our students who do we want them to be and we Empower intentionally every school to select their own expectations we don't have OA wide expectations because every school Community just has its own distinct feel its own flavor its own unique environment and we want their system to really fit their kids and their staff so we can see that uh Pioneer Trail for example they
034are accountable respectful and engaged as agent R commonly teaches them and we know that at Pioneer Trail what it means to be accountable in events is to clean up after yourself and keep the exits clear simple clear expectations that are taught to all students and all staff in the school so everybody knows what do we expect from our kids at oatc our Advanced Technical Center um they are safe engaged empowered and respectful Seer and they have expectations for the parking lot Young Drivers learning a thing or two learning what that zipper merge is we teach those expectations and I'm very grateful that we do so we don't teach the zipper merge at our elementary schools but every school has unique context right so they learn they they design their own and this year we partnered
035with Transportation so actually in all of our all of our transportation Vehicles including assisted transportation and DS bus lines we are safe we are kind and we're responsible so all of our students know what to do during transportation to and from school and even during the school day we systematically teach those expectations to all of our students but we don't stop there every school develops a plan for how they're going to let students know that they've been successful in following these expectations every school has their own plan for this but the key is when students are following the expectations a staff member connects with them and lets them know they're doing an amazing job the squeaky wheel traditionally gets the grease but that's not actually a healthy way to run a school we really want
036all kids including those who quietly follow the expectations every day to be seen to be noticed to be acknowledged everybody needs that and that's what this acknowledgement system is for but there's a little secret here that's really important we train our staff that it's not about handing over a token that's not what makes the magic happen what makes the magic happen is every single time one of these tokens is given to a student every single time at OA West that a student's entered into a raffle every time a student at Walnut Grove is given a Starbuck the staff member tells the student what they did well makes that connection hey I see you I noticed that you were respectful in the cafeteria thank you for that that connection is what matters we don't require that
037our that our staff record how often this happens but some schools choose to do so and some of them are reporting to us that they are measuring over 100,000 connections made like this in a school year that's a 100,000 times that staff members are making a positive connection with students it's incredibly incredibly powerful and meaningful for that relationship but even with those things in place kids are human too and they make mistakes just like we do and uh we really really emphasize that kids need both love and they need boundaries we all need to know what we can and what we cannot do and our students are of course no different what those boundaries need to be though is really consistent classroom to classroom staff member to staff member especially in our secondary schools where
038it's really challenging for kids to learn seven or eight different sets of what's allowed and not's allowed so when we when we bring PBIS into a building we work with the school to develop what we call a flowchart that clearly outlines what to do for staff members when there's a challenging behavior in the classroom how do they address that how do they support that and then when it's a more significant behavior that requires office intervention what does that process look like that way the entire building is on the same page this is how we manage this is how we approach this is how we support we also train our staff that many of our students have um more individualized needs and that's okay they are able to have their own plans when that's more appropriate
039for them than the schoolwide plan and as as staff are going through this process as they're interacting with students as as mistakes happen we keep track of those things we keep track of those things in a system called schoolwide um a schoolwide information system called Swiss and we do that because that gives us really actionable data that we can then use to create targeted interventions to support so for example this is data from one of our one of our schools and I'll guide you to the panel in the middle left that talks about referrals by time of day and just take a moment and look at that what time of day does this school need to think a little bit differently about their environment we can see a couple of spikes right we can see
040a spike at 10 o'clock we can see a spike at 1 o00 so then that begs the question what's going on at 10 o'clock what's going on at 1 o' and I don't know I'm not in that school every day but who does know staff you go to the teachers you put this data in front of them you put a coach next to them to guide their conversation they'll tell you oh 10:00 that's that transition between second and third period or 1:00 oh third lunch we've got a little bit of silliness going on in the hallways we got to clean that up they'll tell you and then what we can do is use that data to then create really targeted schoolwide interventions that shifts our thinking from going kid by Kid putting out fire after
041fire to instead thinking how can we prevent in Mass challenging situations how can we prevent these things from happening in the first place an example of a school that did this really well um they noticed that Tuesdays and Wednesdays were they kind of hot days where they're having more challenges so what they did is they decided to retach expectations that always starts right with teaching teaching teaching they retach the expectations go back to square one what are we supposed to do here then they decided to do double Buck day their token they they they had their teachers give out double those on Tuesdays and Wednesdays for following the schoolwide expectations that's it that was their intervention a month later this is what they got a decrease in major challenging behaviors a decrease and how often
042the administrator is having to stop what they're doing and go handle a significant situation in another school they were having challenges on the playground they were measuring 20 plus significant incidents every month so they backed up they put an intervention in place targeted that playground put some supports around around that area and they reduced that to one incident the next month and since then it's sustained with no more than three incidents on the playground each month since they did that intervention they didn't have to go kid by Kid they wrapped around the environment and prevented that that means there's now dozens of times that a principal did not have to leave their office and said they got to focus on the work or they got to be in the classroom providing some instructional leadership dozens
043of times the teacher didn't have to make a phone call to a family and say hey this is what we're working through and most importantly dozens of times the kid didn't have to leave the classroom or leave the playground instead got to be integrated with their peers working on their academic content bit by bit minute by minute that adds up to incredible success for our kids we can also roll this data up at the district level and I won't spend a lot of time here but we can start to look and think what does this mean for us systematically Al why is it that our kindergarten students are engaging actually in more challenging Behavior than any other grade what can we now do about that as a leadership team why is it that our boys
044are getting in trouble more than our girls we can start to ask those questions and think about what can we do to support those target areas to wrap around instead of again going kid by Kid and blaming the student how can we CH change our environment to be more supportive of all of our kids and when a kid does need a little bit more help and by the way that's extremely common we have some really powerful targeted interventions for individual students when needed one I would like to highlight is called check and checkout um we've been doing this for a number of years this really comes back to connection we pair the student with a mentor in the building that's not their classroom teacher build that relationship they meet with the mentor just two minutes
045at the beginning and the end of the day during the day the teacher gives them more feedback on the schoolwide expectations you can see mil Brook's example here give them feedback on what it means to be kind what it means to be responsible what it means to be respectful so they mute that Mentor at the beginning of the day hey how you doing buddy so glad you're here hey remember we're focused really on being kind we've had a little bit of a hard time in the morning this is what we can do to clean that up dude you've been awesome being respectful that's been amazing let's keep that work up check in with your teacher throughout the day end of the day back to the mentor hey man let's check take a look your sheet
046awesome you met your goal today here's a high five here's a token so excited to send an email to your mom and let them know what a great job you've done that's the intervention it cost four minutes a day in staff time and the cost of a piece of paper per day the cheapest thing we can do but on the back end again with coaching support we're using data to Target and make decisions we're using this is real student data and we can see this student over time has shown a lot of success in that check and- checkout intervention and we can even zoom in and say oh the morning's been going great what are we going to do for the afternoon how can we modify and intensify this intervention to better support the afternoon
047for this student and with all of this in place we found with over 380 students that got this intervention last year we had an 88% success rate an 88% success rate is almost unheard of and it's because our coaches and our schools are working together to microt Target just the right support for kids to make sure they get what they need but we're not done we've had some incredible success in the last five years but there's a lot more work to be done um we have a few more schools 10 more schools that were excited to launch into this next year um we have made incredible strides in our database decision- making we need to continue to invest in that practice make that a part of our daily culture ask all of our schools to
048really focus on that we know it works I've shown just a few examples here I could have brought up 10 more um I'd love to continue to see our tier 2 practices grow um especially in high school where we're seeing so much mental health need there's some incredible tier 2 mental health interventions that are ready for us when we're ready for them we also have classroom level interventions that are free and Incredibly easy to implement we've done with many of our pilot schools that teachers have implemented teachers love it students love it it goes really well reduces challenging Behavior increases academic engagement we're ready to scale that now to Any teacher that wants it that's the next next step in our work and then finally um I have the privilege of also overseeing a lot
049of our Mental Health Services and traditionally Behavior stuff kind of lives over here mental health stuff kind of lives over here it's it's really time to bring those things together so that's a real big next step for us is how do we think about using our data similarly for behavior and mental health and how do we communicate similarly for behavior and mental health to bring those things together to support our students and our schools and speaking of mental health I promised a commercial so I'm going to build up to that a little bit um we know that uh about one in every five kids statistically has a diagnosable mental or Behavioral Health disorder and by the way that is pre pandemic I haven't seen updated data since but I promise the number is higher um
050so one in five kids is going to need some help but of those one in five if you zoom in on just those kids only one in five of those are actually getting the help they need in the community there's tons of incredible support in the community but there are serious barriers to accessing them and so that means that the other four there at the bottom they're coming into our our schools every day and they need help and it's not going to happen outside our walls so what can we do how can we break through those barriers and get those supports in place for kids and when I say barriers what I mean is finances that's a major one for so many of our families um a lot of uh Mental Health Services will take
051insurance a lot of families don't have access to that or their insurance only cover a couple of sessions um and a lot a lot of a lot of ment Health Services don't take insurance but it's what the kid needs and families are not always able to do that and even if you can find somebody they often run their appointments during the day that's tough now we're pulling kids out of school trying to get them there that's real hard on families and then Transportation even if you can find the Unicorn provider that's got a 530 appointment for you and it matches your insurance I got to like am I going to miss soccer practice I got to get there I'm working my second job like how am I going to get my kid back and forth
052to that that's really really challenging and so access to mental health is a serious serious challenge I feel so blessed to be in OA this is by the way where I grew up in OA I went to OA public schools and I'm so proud that we have implemented multiple systems to allow our kids access to Services despite these barriers basically we've said if you can't get help out there we'll take care of it here we've got multiple multiple layers of this one is six licensed mental health professionals that are on staff for us um our school counselors our school social workers and our school psychologists work hard every day to support student need very often they're not able to allocate the time to provide more intensive therapeutic services okay we got six people that travel
053from school to school that can do that we also have contract therapists Partnerships with 25 different um Community Mental Health Providers where we actually bring them into the school and we let them just do their appointments right out of our conference rooms right out of the principal's office thank you principes by the way for making that happen right out of the counselor's office um we even are able to provide District funding if families can't pay for those services we are great Partnerships with Johnson County Mental Health and we also offer our completely free help Clinic every Tuesday during the school year and Tuesdays Wednesdays and Thursdays in the summer for students and families that need some Services totally free of charge all that together has supported about 400 students so far this year so it's
054been amazing to to wrap around that many families and provide these levels of services I mentioned that uh District funding um District funding for for kids who are not able to for whatever reason access due to financial barriers 100% of our funding for that and a huge amount of our funding for that free health clinic comes from Taste of the town and that happens to be coming up so you'll forgive a little bit of an advertisement for that um Taste of the town is is an incredible Community event many of you I know have been there and have been a part of that if you have not had the opportunity I encourage you to to get a ticket now because they are selling very very fast and will be sold out and very likely it's
055on March 29th it's at 6:30 p.m. right here in AA um basically what taste of the town is it's a fund fundraising event where community members and local local businesses and organizations come together and they raise money for mental health services just for our kids last year tast of the Town raised over $300,000 all of which goes right back into ala public schools and right back to direct Mental Health Services for our students because of taste of the town when I get a request for support I just get to say yes I don't have to ask a lot of questions I don't have to think too hard about oh can we afford that are we going to have to prioritize uhuh you need help no problem we'll take care of you we'll get it taken
056care of the signal it sends is that OA and and this community cares about our students wraps around our students and wants to guarantee that they have what they need to be successful at school if you are at all interested in and making this part of how you choose to give back to your community I would encourage you to go to La theu schoolsfoundation.org um if you can attend the event you can purchase T tickets either as individual family or for an organization um if those tickets run out or if that date doesn't work for you there's several other ways to donate on that site including just direct donations if you're a non-nonsense kind of person um all of that again goes right back to our kids so we' love to see as many folks
057as possible be a part of that organization and with that I'll end my commercial and would love to take any questions or comments about uh PBI or our Mental Health Services Ste so druke we are so blessed and lucky to have you in OA so thank you um a question we've spent some time on this board recently talking about lines of communication and how to make sure that our patrons but especially our parents know how to reach out if if the concern is not coming internally and it's coming from the parents and they want to reach out what do you recommend that's a great question um I have two major recommendations one for families that would rather go more direct the help Clinic is probably the first stop um and for that you can either
058go to our mental health website or honestly just Google OA help Clinic that'll take you to a site that has information for how to um how to enroll your student in that so just the the health clinic website Google OA health clinic and number two probably honestly the most effective your first stop is your school counselor if you're at all wondering hey is it time hey should I get some services or what kind of service is right for me maybe you don't happen to be a professional Mental Health Service delivery provider and you just don't know a whole lot about this world it's actually pretty common it turns out talk to your counselor they will connect you they will help you triage they will help you think through oh no I think you can do
059it actually in this route or yep it's time for the health clinic or oh let's get a contract therapist involved they're really really skilled at that Miss r hello um I just wanted to say that the pvis U Behavior Matrix and all of that um it was really helpful for me as a substitute um being able to walk into a building see the Matrix see what the expectations were for the students um and being able to refer to those um when I was a sub I I can't sub anymore because I have the privilege of sitting up here but I will also say as a parent um we use those expect a in our home um Sunnyside is responsible respectful and safe um the Reagan kiddos know what that is and Isaac our youngest he
060isn't even in OA public schools yet and he knows um and because we're able to use common language and so when you talk about um having a consistency of boundaries I think that consistency of language is really important too um there is you know Common threads I think across our system in the words that each building chooses the expectations but as a parent um sometimes when you're really me personally I don't know how any how often I you view this way but when you feel really exasperated I'm able to ground myself and like is that is that very responsible you know um are you being safe right now um and it's been helpful for me you can laugh all you want we can talk about being respectful at board meetings at time right that's right
061is I don't know that Mr Boyd's being very respectful right now that's right um but it's been really helpful um and so I appreciate that I also want to say that um you know the way that we've been able to I think within our system normalize the talk around mental health has been powerful you know I personally you know I see a therapist I take medication I'm saying that publicly and this is on the internet now um because the more we talk about it the more it's just a part of Wellness and it's a part of being human and I think when our kids see us as grown-ups talk about it and the fact that we've put so much emphasis on Taste of the town and the huge partnership we have um it really speaks
062volumes to that maintenance of just regular care that we need to be giving so thank you so much Dr fluke and to your department um and to all the coaches and um I know that this is not easy work and it takes time to get it just right for every single building but I don't have a question I am just so grateful thank you for saying so miss Reagan if I can say something about this upcoming generation say what you like about about kids these days um but this generation more than any before it knows mental health they're literate in mental health they talk about it they think about it and they advocate for it and what that means is all of us grown-ups need to be ready when they come to us and ask
063what do I do next to have a good clear answer for them Miss Joan I feel better knowing I have first grade boy now but a kindergarten boy last year and so seeing the statistics of kindergarten boys made me feel better yes yeah with the phone calls but I can I can all the phone calls but I haven't had any this year but I went through the plan and we went through several steps of you know counseling and things like that and he developed a really good relationship with the school counselor and it's it's really rewarding now to see just what that small small interventions did for him so anyway just a normal kindergarten boy I would think but you know looking at that and seeing what what the benefits were so I just am
064very grateful as well um and now recognizing some of the terms that you know you said uh Claire I hear that at night too of my kids talking to each other and it's really nice they're not fighting you know and I I appreciate that so I'm very looking forward to taste of the Town one of my favorite things ever and um so very thankful for your presentation tonight and all that you do thank you for the support Dr fluke thank you for being here um clearly you've made the board comfortable with all the personal sharing that has occurred this evening I have office hours tomorrow awesome awesome and I'm glad that you pointed out you are a product of ala schools as well as is your wife yes yeah so thank you and PB s
065coaches thank you for being here this evening and the work we do thank you uh Dr Stuart Little is here with this this evening for a legislative update thank you good evening uh this may be the most awkward transition of the your meeting tonight um I I have great appreciation wishing I worked in a building that they had people with positive behavioral interventions and supports so I just I just mean for our mental health I don't mean anything anything more than that um I'll go through a brief uh PowerPoint and then I know you've had written reports and this is a very busy time for make sure I can do this right okay no that's the back wrong way okay um I'll go through and kind of talk about where we are some of the
066bills we're following and kind of what lays ahead we are getting near the end of the legislative session we have had a very expedited calendar this year there were um lots of changes this year very different from most other years and so the pace has been very different if you've read reports or reports or if you work in other fields where you get legislative U pay attention to legislative issues the process has been incredibly fast very confusing and been a bit of a challenge for anyone even people that like us that work in the business to stay on top of everything and um now that we're down to kind of the last 3 four weeks of the legislative session we're kind of seeing some of the price of that and some of the the interactions
067we're having in the state house maybe at this point but um it we've slowed a little bit because a lot of bills have begun to die and we're making our way to the end but connected to that of course is the budget process which U I've I've mentioned when I came before that we're doing it very differently this year the house did a bill the Senate is not doing a bill they're meeting there's no opportunity for Real uh input in the budget process in in the Senate there is in the house side so we're kind of getting a budget that's been very limited in terms of How It's been looked at uh on both sides and that is reflected in some ways as well about the legislature beginning with their own budget and I make
068a note on the PowerPoint here but we started out what with the governor's budget recommendation for $74 million for special education and going phasing it in over 3 years that because the way we changed the budget the legislature beginning the session with their own budget that just became another recommendation where historically would have said okay this is the budget we work with so that has led to when the bill was in the house this the the 73 million was cut to 30 million and then eventually in the house it got cut down to 10 million that's new funding for special education to uh to get us through the process the on the Senate side just late this afternoon they the Senate education committee took a quick look at the budget we submitted testimony in support
069of of adding uh funding for special education continuing that to get to 92% uh it was a there was an an attempt yesterday they worked it yesterday and today to add the 84 million for the 10 million plus the 73 to add uh for the next 3 years and this tells you a lot about where we are in the legislature it was a 5to five boat and the chair broke the tie against it so the the there there's there's a lot of support there part of this is process timing those kinds of things but so we end up with we think there's $10 million left in the budget on the Senate side and that's probably what the house has so uh I think expectations of getting anything more for special at at this point are
070probably gone the way things kind of played out this afternoon um so property taxes want to hit on this very briefly you guys there's a lot of information here I won't cover all this but it has an impact on Revenue that the state has to fund schools that's why it's important there it was a pro cutting taxes last year come in this year they want to cut property taxes that was not part of what was done last year there are three different plans at this point cap assess valuation to 3% Constitutional Amendment create a rolling average and then there's this other a bill that reverts back to a floating cap based on inflation and all kinds of things that will keep um property taxes under some level of a lid um we're near the end
071I'm not sure that any one of these ideas has enough votes to pass particularly constitutional amendments to take two-thirds majority and so we're still figuring I think the legislator is figuring out where do we pivot from here uh feed February revenues were 130 million doll over estimates which is kind of re-energizing people we can cut more taxes and Loan behold the bottom thing on this list we all of a sudden this year had the the the flat tax the one tax rate reappear had a hearing Monday Tuesday of this week so in the event that we don't get property tax we may get a flat tax so that will have an impact on Revenue as well but that's kind of where we are uh and we'll see how things play out from there uh I'm
072just going to briefly note the K12 education task force has has had their second meeting it was two weeks ago they are looking they got briefed on all the components of the formula they're going to meet once a month it is their intention to have a school Finance plan recommended written drafted up for the 2026 legislature to u to work on I'll hit a couple of these are a list of some of the main bills that we've been watching that are moving forward some that are kind of in the midst here uh there's the three bills that are kind of advancing that I have there at the top are some of the some of the ones we've paid the most attention to testified on some of those the um changing of board authority uh and
073allowing um individuals to add and take things off the agenda and have a whole different way and structure of organization of how you would meet that past the Senate there it's Senate Bill 47 21 to9 and it's over in the house side the bill regarding the use of pronouns by School District uh employees and school district and parental consent passed out of the Senate 26 to4 it is was in House Education committee this afternoon at the same time the budget was going to senate senate this bill passed out of the house committee as well so it's going to get to the house floor it was modified a bit there's some mitigating components to it that are are helpful if if one wants to help the bill but it is uh so it'll be on the
074floor so we're likely going to get this to come up and then there's an expansion of the the non-public school scholar ship program that exists that's a tax credit for folks that make contributions and it's moving forward and it has a hearing on Monday in this in this house so we're cramming everything into these last 14 days uh the one thing I would note of Interest here every one of those bills that passed the Senate none of them have a veto proof majority which would be 27 votes so that becomes a calculus and how we're thinking about what may happen down the road there's a variety of other bills that are um that raised a lot of attention with they're introduced at some level I think the leadership is deciding we don't really want to
075do some of these some of them they do the the four or five bills listed there listed there I think the one that's the most important is the third bullet under there which is Senate Bill 75 it is essentially an $8,000 per person refundable tax credit that would be available for anyone that um put their child in a nonpublic school you if it was an unaccredited or homeschool you'd get $4,000 it cost about $125 million to implement that going forward and that bill is the most clear obvious U voucher bill that we have in front of the the legislature it got out of it got out of Senate education committee it's sitting on the senate floor I do not expect it to run but it's it's sitting there and that's kind of out there going
076forward um other Stu Caper I'll mention Capers 3 that's kind of been an ongoing issue there was a Capers uh move build move teachers for whatever the technical term is certified teachers up two from three to two it was about 20,000 people and it cost $260 million to do that so the build advance and then you have local government people and administrators and support staff in the public school system that want to be a that pushes the price tag to a half a billion dollars so so we're not going to do that right now um there is a a bill that makes a minor minor adjustment to the to the um the the calculations of dividends in in Capers 3 but there's we don't have a good solution for any of those kind of things
077now um other stuff that's dead mentioned the tax credit here that I talked about um there's also a couple of I would point out 254 and 178 here these are bills related to the engagement of um undocumented uh persons in in the country and they have to do with um the ability of any local uh local or state entities to expend any state or federal funds or local fund funds for U undocumented person's uh services and those kind of things and it uh got a little bit of attention if anybody's paying attention to the hearing that was held earlier this week uh the bill did pass out of committee yesterday so it's on the senate floor the other one in 178 requires local law enforcement to work with um ice and I think that would
078probably include school resource officers at some level as well that bill has been scheduled for hearings twice and been cancelled both times they're still trying to figure out if they can make this work or something but both of those are out there and I just maybe at the when I get to this point in the session it's kind of like we're all also waiting to see what happens at the federal level um apparent there was some conversation about some issues that may have executive orders that may have come today they did not but that's what we're watching so at the end this is where we are there's sevenish days left for committee meetings and then everything that's passed that I've talked about a little bit that's passed one chamber is kind of alive at the
079end of the legislative session and what we get at that point for basically the next three weeks are conference committees where leadership of the two committees get together and decide how do we feel about this one they kind of negotiate and then we'll run those bills so we're kind of limited down to what's alive and you can look through that list uh and the budget obviously is still there but we will be done with the regular session um three weeks from Tomorrow the 28th of March and then they'll come back for a very brief session wrapup session to be done on April the 12th so that's where we are I'm happy to answer any questions that you might have any questions board Mr babit just a quick one when you say that there's seven days
080left for the conference committee and after that pretty much everything's set are there exceptions to that like can they just say well we said seven days but we're going to go back and me well so the calendar that is set says we have on the I believe it's the 17th of of March you're done with committee meetings and then the legislature as the house and the Senate works with everything that's that's been passed from one chamber or the other so we're we're not really going to go back to committee meetings anymore it's going to be more negotiating and Conference committees and folks doing those kind of things until we we get to the end so there can be new bills or a couple of new bills that were just introduced uh this U today as
081a matter of fact because there are some exempt committees but in general there's probably won't be a lot more put on the table than kind of what we know about right now okay thank you the only other question I had was what was the end result of the free and reduced lunch so that was a five and Governor's budget recommendation 5 A5 million doar to cover the cost of of reduced launch co-pays for about 20 some odd thousand students maybe 30 maybe that high uh Governor recommended it the house committee cut it down to 2 and5 million and then and then it got to the full committee they even took that out so there's no resources in there at that point in the Senate didn't have any in their budget today so that's off the
082table at this point okay thank you Miss rean um hi Dr L I just I know you touched on this briefly um I guess I'm curious you know this budget process has been extremely different than those in the past um is there and you've said you know the special ed funding based on what happened in Senate Ed yesterday is probably where it is um would it be if we have constituents in the district you know parents staff um invested taxpayers who care about public schools what would be the best way for them to advocate for um the funding that it our district needs what would be the best way they specific legislator people on the education committees you know what is the best use of their voice well um and I I appreciate the question
083it the the way in general most electeds in TOA respond primarily and and for the most part to folks from their District so doing things outside of to emailing other legislators is is usually not useful and productive so being focused on the folks that you that actually represent you communicating via email uh I know this is a step Way Beyond that but when they have coffees and things in the next month or so if anybody has any of those that's a place to to communicate as well so reaching out and communicating via email is the there still have office assistants who can take phone calls but there's you're you're going to probably have more of a likely of getting some kind of get getting a look through some emails that are sent to your senator
084your representative thank you very much Miss steel um thank you for that Stuart I that's exactly a question that I had is is what venue and who is our voice best heard from when you think about is it 90ish per of Kansas kids are educated in public schools is that kind of fair that's a lot of people that could be contacting their legislator so um we need to be doing that because it's it's going to have a big impact the question I have is a dollars question um so two school years ago we transferred 38 million from our general to cover for sped last year maybe it was 32 is 30 million something like that um this 10 million that's for the state that we may or may not have we're not sure right how
085does that trickle down to AA do is is that a is that a hard question because I don't know how to make sense of it for us there are a lot of people smarter than me is my understanding of the like for example the 702 73 million that was in last year I'm I'm going pure by memory so you know somebody can shout out a number was it 10 12 I'm going to say eight eight was it so of that so you know 12 so if it's 10 million it maybe would be if it's and it is being distributed in the favorable way that they did last year that 10 million will be uh okay which was part of the new formula that was passed that that all that emphasizes districts that made that had
086to make decisions to transfer from operating to cover special agent Special Ed costs that's how the formula works now um but yeah that so it's going to be around a million something like that I would think so I mean a big number a drop in the bucket yeah okay um thank you I am so thankful you are there advocating on our behalf and I'm really glad that we have you on board so thank you for all the work you're doing I don't pretend to know how you um do the good stuff in that building it would be really hard so thank you Dr little for being there appreciate it thank you appreciate that Miss Dr s yes so just to clarify it would be a million doar yes there was some additional Insight shared in
087terms of um from Mr Hutchinson what the um amount would be that would come to us if it were to stay at the 10 million so about a million does he like watching and texting Becky oh okay that's an awesome system yeah any other questions board Dr Lal thank you for being here and for your time thank you before we go to um public comments I was remiss in not recognizing Dr Sig tonight sitting on the dis uh Dr Jager had to be out of town and so she has stepped in and um to fill his seat and help manage the evening so thank you for being here yes Miss Steel [Music] at each regular meeting the Board of Education reserves limited time for individuals to address the board we ask that your comments be
088germine that is related to the business this board effectuates non-compliance may result in the president interrupting to redirect we request that individual speakers limit their comments to 5 minutes the clerk will monitor the time and notify the speaker when the 5minute time limit has expired please direct your comments to the board and not the guests or staff if a response is appropriate the president will respond or will 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 finally those speaking are advised that public comments are video tape recorded for broadcast on our District's educational access Channel and audio tape recorded as a matter of public record individuals addressing the board should come to the
089podium at the front of the room state your name city and state and the relationship you have with the district thank you thank you and our first Speaker this evening is Megan bricks good evening Board of Education I reside in doto and I'm Ana music educator each and every day I feel extremely lucky to be a music educator here in otha tonight I want to share a few reasons why I feel so lucky and how we can continue to move forward together to keep public education strong here in Kansas this week we have been celebrating read Across America week and all throughout our school district we have had library media Specialists and passionate Educators finding creative ways to engage our students in Reading from school spirit dress up days to mystery readers in the classroom
090and Library setting to readin with blankets and stuffed animals our Educators have found exciting ways to celebrate this week with their students to further emphasize the importance of reading I feel lucky to work in a district to where students are encouraged to find books that they are both interested in learning about as well as that I get the opportunity to work alongside passionate Educators who want to help make reading fun and enjoyable this month is one of my favorite times of the year March is music in our school's month as designated by the National Association for music education known as nafme the purpose of Music in our school's month is to raise awareness of the importance of music education for all students and to also remind citizens that school is where all students should have
091access to music a fantastic way that the OA Public Schools is celebrating is our OA Elementary Honor Choir which will occur on Wednesday March 12th at 700 p.m. at OA South High School choir students from various OA elementary schools will be singing in this Honor Choir alongside the Indian Trail Pioneer Trail OA West and OA South choirs I'm so thankful for the importance of including music education in our students educational time here in OA I'm extremely lucky to be a music educator here in OA as I think about how thankful I am to work here in OA and to be able to teach music to my students each and every day I Look To The Future and the work we need to do to ensure every OA student can receive the best possible public education
092experience possible educators students and community members know why we are lucky to be in Kansas Public Schools and we need to share these stories with our legislatures legislators it's been a long day here is the truth every student and every family in this state deserves to attend a high high quality neighborhood Public School a place with well prepared Public School Educators High resource classrooms and all the tools that are necessary to meet their social and emotional needs we know that our Lu will run out if current legislation to siphon money from local public schools for a private school voucher or tax credit becomes law and the next couple of weeks we are coming together to elevate our voices and amplify our stories in many ways through social media posts conversations with friends and family communication
093with our legislators and even a rally and Lobby day let's show up to remind them that Kansas kansans love our Public Schools the event that is being hosted is called lucky to have Kansas Public Schools and it's going to take place on March 17th at the Kansas state capital with a rally beginning at 12:00 p.m. attendees are encouraged to wear green because we truly are lucky to have Kansas Public Schools we hope that our community as well as yourselves will show up to support a the public schools and our investment in public education you'll be receiving an an email with information about this event today and every day I'm extremely thankful to work in public education I feel lucky each and every day to be an educator in a Kansas Public School especially here in
094the Ala Public Schools thank you thank you Miss Bri Grace [Music] Stinson hello my name is Grace sson and I currently live in OA Kansas and I am a senior at lean North High School I am also a senior thespian officer for troop 3310 and I have been involved in our theater program led by director Dustin Pence for the past four years March is theater in our school's month throughout the month of March students from across the world will celebrate raise awareness and advocate for the importance of theater programs in our schools today was advocacy day me and 14 other students from across the district had the opportunity to go to the capital and speak with our legislators about the importance of theater in our schools and today I am here to express my gratitude
095and on behalf of thousands of other students currently participating in theater programs across the OA district and to ask for continued support to keep our communities alive and thriving I've seen myself and seen so many others grow and flourish during their time in the oan north theater Department this program makes it feel like four years is just not enough time but with that being said having that short amount of time is what made my experience so much more valuable when taking a look at other school districts theater programs I realize how privileged I am to be able to be a part of the district I am in there are several districts outside of the Johnson County area that do not receive the proper funding and support they need to keep their theater communities alive theater
096creates a safe space a home it creates a space where you can be yourself theater teaches valuable life lessons and skills if I wasn't in theater I don't think I would even be able to talk in front of a group of people I have learned how to collaborate with my peers while working on shows and how to put in my fair share of effort Performing Arts programs can be a motivator to get students to attend their classes and receive academic achievements I've been taught how to face rejection adapt and how to quickly think on the spot which I've been able to apply throughout my academic career as well and I will use those skills for my future endeavors theater is storytelling through your support we can keep telling these stories especially in divisive times theader
097gives Community it gives everyone a chance to come together and create no matter who you are we closed our winter musical Hairspray a month ago this week hairspray gave oan North the ability to Showcase and celebrate the diversity in our school hairspray gave so many a community and I truly have never gotten that close with a cast and crew in such little time hairspray gave me and many others a home away from home during hairspray we laughed together cried together and told our story this would not have happened happened without the support our program has received from the Board of Education I had the opportunity of student directing for our production and through that experience I solidified my desire to become a theater educator I want to help tell those stories for the future classes
098that come through these halls and to help create and Lead that Community none of this would have happened without the support we had been given this past year we also had our production of your good man Charlie Brown the show ends with the line for happiness is anyone and anything at all that's loved by you and for me and hundreds of other students currently participating in theater across our district happiness is theater so thank you for giving me and so many others the opportunity to experience that we implore you to continue that support as it positively impacts so many students thank you thank you before you step away thank you for going to the capital as well to speak and for all of the work that you've done during your career in theater you indicated
099that you were interested in being a theater educator do you have a plan as to where you'll continue your education um I am currently looking um at in the fall I'm going to attend the University of Kansas and have a double major in theater and education awesome awesome I see some cheers in the back of the room too best best of luck to you thank you guys so much Bahan did I say that correctly Bahan Bahan yeah like Baja Blaster Baja California oh people remember it that way right that's awesome thank you foram alayum I greet you with a greeting of Peace the Arabic language of peace I am a product of the OA School District I started my journey 35 years ago I was a first grader back then don't do the math but
100I started during that time my sister was the first graduating class of OA East in 1995 so we have been with the district for so many years I'm here tonight to advocate for an Arabic language program in our schools an initiative that would profoundly benefit our students and Community Arabic represents a strategic Educational Opportunity there are 400 million speakers worldwide and an official status in more than 20 countries Arabic is designated as a critical Language by the United States government by offering Arabic instruction we equip our students with a valuable skill that significantly expands their acad mic Pathways and career Horizons the cognitive benefits are equally compelling research consistently demonstrates that learning a second language enhances cognitive abilities problem solving skills and academic performance across all subjects arabic's distinctive script and linguistic structure provide unique
101cognitive challenges that develop analytical thinking and mental flexibility in ways few other educational experiences can do Beyond academics an Arabic program would strengthen our community's cultural fabric it would Foster Global awareness Pro promote inclusivity and provide vital recognition for students from arabic speaking backgrounds in our increasingly diverse District this program would serve as a bridge between cultures economically Arabic proficiency creates exceptional opportunities in diplomacy international business translation service and humanitarian work our graduates would enter higher education and the workforce with a significant competitive Advantage the groundwork for Success already exists our community has expressed strong interest in this initiative and we can implement it effectively by following successful models of other school districts Partnerships with cultural organizations and universities along with available grants and government funding provide viable pathways for sustainable program development by introducing
102Arabic language education we aren't simply adding a course offering we're opening doors to new worlds of opportunity for our students en enriching our community's cultural landscape and preparing the Next Generation for Meaningful participation in the global Society I respectfully urge the board to consider this proposal and take concrete steps towards making Arabic language education a reality in OA Public School schools thank you so much for your time thank you for being here what questions do you have cuz we'd like to implement this program my mom implemented it over 30 years ago in the shaie Mission School District they started with the center for international studies and brought aric language Japanese Russian um and those unique languages and Chinese into the district and those students have been able to travel travel globally they are now parents
103as I am uh of of their respective districts and bringing their children and it has created so many opportunities for us in our lives I've been able to tr travel internationally and work internationally as a School director in Dubai and but home is where the heart is and OA is now where I'm back and raising my children so I hope to um be able to establish that kind of a program here in the secondary levels and be able to open those doors and really Bridge the the world and and show the interconnectedness that we have thank you so much for your time appreciate it Carrie [Music] vanbuskirk good evening before I start I would like to piggyback on something um that Mr Baja mentioned um that might be relevant as I speak more um this
104evening my son um best friend that was with him the night that he passed away speaks Arabic and that was one of the languages that I heard they brought me quite comfort and peace um during his memorial service so I thought it was important to share that as he spoke I was thinking of that it was a lovely memory good evening my name is Carrie van buerk I'm an ad advocate for many and I am the mother of Tai and Benjamin van buerk who attended South as Dr sh Shan de Marie would say forever Falcons in honor and memory of Benjamin whose 18th birthday would be next week I wanted to come forward and speak of something very important to him and important to the character that shaped who he was on the night that
105Benjamin lost his life in a completely selfless Act of Bravery he had absolutely no idea of the race gender ethnicity socioeconomic status or political affiliation of the individual that was trapped inside her car on that dark Highway he saw a fellow human being that was in trouble and he instantly acted as I have shared before character is not something that we often measure in assessments it is not seen or reflected in a GPA either but my how I have seen the reflection of Benjamin's character and his love for his fellow man and his many peers and the teachers that inspired him shaped him and led him many if not most look nothing like him on the outside this is the very Beauty and essence of diversity equity and inclusion this was so very apparent in
106the attendance and the story shared at Benjamin's Memorial every single Walk of Life came to pay their respects and mourn their friend I'm honestly not certain how many different nations were represented that day but one of his uncles commented that it looked like a United Nations convention and my heart was absolutely delighted so many parents came forward to pay their respects in varied languages and their beautifully bright children translated for them while our languages did vary that day our love and our grief is exactly the same numerous families and children with disabilities were present and every shade of skin created a beautiful tapestry of Benjamin's world that day one that is shaped here in our ala schools the idea I came to speak tonight on this very important subject matter was birthed from my emotional
107response to a recent Facebook I saw on our Al the public schools Facebook website that featured the HBCU Club at OA South it was posted in recognition and honor during Black History Month I captured glimpses of many of Benjamin's dear friends and staff that were so incredibly important to him and my heart was warmed by the beautiful sight of the Bright Futures ahead for these students that embody black black excellence and I am so incredibly grateful that my son cherished their friendships simultaneously I was struck with immense concern and fear due to the various governmental pressures that may deeply impact the access for these important opportunities departments and institutions I may just be one voice and some may characterize that voice as woke whatever that is but I prefer the simple term decent human thank
108you thank you to our Lea Public Schools each and every one of you for aiding me and Mark and our common goal in shaping an incredibly decent human on what would be his honorable 18th birthday thanks you thank you miss bker m [Music] bker board at this time we will move to action consent and I would welcome a motion for item 6.01 to 6.20 I Mo to approve consent actually Number 601 through 6.20 as presented second motion by Brad Boyd second by Will babit can I make a comment my thing's oh probably because I didn't turn you on go ahead um sorry yes um regarding item 6.20 um which I also group it in I just want to make a comment about the Head Start um evaluation and the um ersy I think is what
109they call it policies and procedures and the eligibility chart for Head Start um I've had the privilege of being the board representative on the Head Start policy Council and the amount of detail and time that goes into making sure these uh littlest of our students who are identified as having a need that could be served by this federally funded program um this was uh it fine tooth comb goes through all of these things and I just wanted to say how proud I am to sit um on that policy Council and listen you know I am not a head start policy expert um but I've learned a lot and the detail and the care and the specificity um that is reflected in the uh eligibility criteria um you know it's we have an amazing program and
110I just wanted to reflect that before we take our vote thank you Miss Reagan Miss be Mrs Reagan yes Dr yurovich yes Mrs steel yes Mr Boyd yes Mr babit yes Mr cun yes Mrs Joan yes motion passes 70 item 7.01 to 7.05 I'd welcome a motion I move that we approve items 7.01 through 7.5 as presented second motion by Miss r second by Miss Johan uh before we go to a vote I think Mr umfrey had some comments about 7.05 in the Apple device replacement thank you I don't have any comments but I'm happy to answer any questions I know I kind of listed in the administrative section about some changes that we were hoping to to see from Apple Apple's kind of in a transition period between the iPad 10 into the iPad
11111 we were lucky enough to kind of work that solution so that the iPad 11 which was released on Tuesday would be the solution that we would go with which save the district a considerable amount of money so all all good things that's actually we noticed um from the future item until tonight that the actual cost was significantly less than what um had been predicted so this is a this is a solution that we've been trying to work with apple directly to try to ensure that we could position ourselves in the best possible way to be ready for that purchase to get to our students in time for the start of the Fall but not be behind um any other purchases that may have come in so thank you for your flexibility in that it
112really did help and then we positioned ourselves really well to to save some considerable money could you clarify I I know headphones are part of this as well as keyboards so yeah great great question one of one of our big initiatives is kind of a combination between the principal's staff was the idea of keeping iPads on premises much more than we have than we are currently if you know some of our schools keep them on site some of our schools send them home to be charged and those transition periods is when we tend to see the most breakage so one of our biggest goals is to be able to provide a solution that will keep them on site for a a good considerable portion of the time if not significantly all the time um you
113know mainly some accommodations can be made for those Upper Grade levels but um as a part of this bid it does include charging solutions for every classroom so that teachers can house those iPads on in their classrooms make sure that they're charged and ready to go for class the next day there's a significant change in the iPad uh structure uh the iPad 10s are uh now the iPad 11s they use USBC like all of our phones use where the iPad 8s that they're currently using uh use those 3mm 3.5mm headphone Jacks so part of our solution was to provide um a percentage of headphones for those schools to kind of replace their current inventory also adapters to convert USBC to 3.5 mm so the purchases that they've made in the past don't go to waste
114they can still use those um as a see fit and then one of the other thing is we get a lot of requests for keyboards we know the importance of teaching keyboarding and um we wanted to provide that solution to our buildings as well so this bid does include charging solutions for all of our um classrooms across the district it does include keyboards so that teachers can use keyboards with their iPads however they see fit to um to teach those skills or however they see um need for their classes also headphones and headphone adapters so that they can be up to speed with the current use of the iPad or the current peripheral of the iPad but also not waste any um inventory that they currently have thank you Bo any other clarifications okay Miss
115be thank you Mr yeah you're welcome thank you Dr yurovich yes Mrs steel yes Mr babit yes Mr Boyd yes Mrs Reagan yes Mr cun yes Mrs Johan yes motion passes 70 moving on uh board just to draw your attention to the Future action items there're a number related to curriculum as you can see it's kind of that time of the year wouldn't you say Dr Rees yeah yeah yeah um and then also information about school capacity related to the open enrollment which we'll learn more about in the next couple of months there were three written um information items the Head Start director's report um the bond issue updates Mr palangi thank you for consistently providing that and then learning Services Dr Reeves thank you for that as well at this time then we will
116move to topics for discussion any comments board members might have Mr babit thank you um I wanted to start by uh I just wanted to respond to the last gentleman that spoke that he said aamayum and I the only thing I really remembered from Iraq from Arabic was you always had to reply with uh Salam so I just wanted to make sure I responded thank you um a few things for me uh I was lucky enough to go visit California trail with Dr Waters and Dr Reeves uh last week and quick history I hated Middle School I was bullied endlessly I was from a small little Elementary School that funneled into a bigger town and I hated it and I told uh Dr Waters the first time I met her that um Middle School was
117not my favorite and she made it her uh mission to to convince me otherwise so uh I was lucky enough to visit the school and uh Mike Wy who's the principal there took us around and uh he wasn't expecting us that nothing was set up and I was really Blown Away by a few things we saw there that really made me start to rethink how I feel about middle school and today um the first thing was we went to the pool where kids were uh taking their final final part of their swim lesson swim section and we were at the end of it they were doing a Navy SEAL uh game to learn on to help do teamwork across the pool to they had to move things across the pool as a team and not
118touch uh the bottom or the walls or the poles and just work together as a team and use some creative thinking uh one kid was having some issues getting across the pool he was well behind behind the other kids who were at the other end and without a thought two other kids just Dove back in the pool immediately went back and helped him swim to the side and everybody was cheering him on um that is definitely not something that would have occurred when I was back then but it was great to see these kids help each other encourage each other and um see them grow and right in front of me uh the other thing that he brought up was that a C of teachers had done what they called student shadowing for the first
119time they actually followed a set of students around for the entire school day to get a feel for what the day was like for them and he was describing to me all the things they learned some of which were how hard it is to go from class to class in four minutes which I still don't know how they do that uh how hard it is to shift your brain from math to science to reading to whatever electives they're taking so quickly six seven times a day and immediately dig in and start learning and doing your homework and uh presenting to class so it was really interesting to see how the administration and the teachers really wanted to understand their students better it wasn't just tell them what to do and they better do it or
120else so it was really encouraging just to see uh that that done so I want to thank Dr Waters and Dr ree for taking me and thanks to Mr Wy for showing us around uh I went to the Black History Month month's Black History Month celebration of Excellence at uh Eagles Landing uh here in ALA and it was my second time going and it was again a fantastic event celebrating our black Educators and our black students um I wanted to give a thanks to the Department of culture and belonging as well as all the Affinity groups and the black student unions and the high schools for putting it together it was uh just so much fun to see all the students encouraging each other and celebrating each other and to see all of the teachers
121taking part as well as the speakers um so that was wonderful uh I went to the February culinary night at the uh oan North for the culinary arts program it was another fantastic meal of Gumbo smoked salmon tacos chicken and waffles and incredible carrot cake um the last meal of the Year opens up tomorrow I'm not going to say what time because I want to sign up before everyone but it's on April 11th um so if you have that evening free I really encourage you to sign up it's a great meal a great program to see these students uh interact grow not just cook but interact with everybody take their orders learn to deal with people on a it's a great great uh environment and last ly uh yesterday was the 3D Market expo at
122OA East and it was it was incredible uh these students um put together their own ideas their own business ideas and they pitched them back in believe December uh at the Oracle campus to investors who give them feedback and then at the market Expo which was yesterday they have prototypes they have Booth set up and you can go Booth to booth and these students present present their ideas to everybody that comes by including their fellow students and their parents and Business Leaders and the ideas were were incredible everything from services like car detailing and shoe shining to uh making clothing to making lotion to making candy to making uh these sport sports equipment and it was just really great to see these students that I don't think normally would be out in front of people
123presenting um really put on the spot and really grow into it so it was a really a lot of fun and I look forward to expanding within ala and thanks to Ala East and Junior Achievement for inviting us and that's it Miss steel thank you Dr yurkovich um tonight I'm going to depart for just a few minutes to um talk about a couple of people up here who really don't spend any time talking about themselves um but we have a couple of birthdays and it is my pleasure to embarrass them a little bit um but I'd first like to tell you a little bit about both of them um the first one is uh Brad Boyd um he and his wife Maisha are raising four amazing humans all students here in our district he is
124our ranking member on the board of education our longest current serving member and he has served as President and Vice President and he's been appointed as our Boe rep on other boards including opsf which is a big time commitment um he was elected in 2019 and he was sworn in in January of 2020 so with no idea of what was to come I think you had maybe three meetings before things got really interesting he has seen a lot of phases of public education and of OA public schools and in all of those phases he rises to what this community needs Brad has a way with words you all know that and so I'm going to tell you a story but I'm going to tell you Brad's words I was newly elected and I walked into
125a classroom and a kid asked me are you Martin Luther King Jr here and not only is that funny and I thought it was funny at the time but I also thought it was a great example of why diversity and representation matter and why kids seeing themselves in leadership is so important I couldn't agree more and I'm thankful that you're in this space but I'm more so thankful for all the ways you are in this space you are calm but also direct you're supportive of the Winds while challenging our progress and you're a champion of hard work while reminding us why the heart and our why are so important so happy birthday to you and thank you for your service to our community [Applause] okay second thank [Applause] you I'm telling you Dr fluke this
126whole feel about yourself thank you so as you all know Dr jurovich does not sit up here to tell you all about herself but we are so blessed and lucky to have her in this space she was a dist a teacher in our district for two years and a junior high and Middle School administrator for 24 years and following her retirement from OA in 2015 she continued working in education and served as the Director of teaching and learning for another Kansas district and a high school administrator and director ofies in a Missouri school district she fully retired from public education in 2022 but did she thank goodness for us there was no quiet quitting for this one she decided to take yet another position of the non-paying kind and we here in our district we
127are so much better for it you don't have to talk to her for too long to know she is a proud mother and grandmother her grandkids are all OA public school students and she spends many a weekend at their events I'm going to let you in on a little history lesson when Dr Stacy yovich was born things looked different for women women weren't allowed to make contracts or wills and it would be another 20 years before women were treated equally at banking institutions and more importantly although not prohibited women were highly discouraged from holding a political office so we can see how she thumbed her nose at that and aren't we lucky she did we benefit so much from having her on the board of education here in OA and so with that happy birthday
128to our fearless leader and our current president and we are so grateful that you couldn't stay away from [Applause] education that's all I have Miss Reagan thank you um I would be remiss if I did not mention as the oan Northwest dance team was up here I could not help but think back to my days as a head drill team coach at blue valley Northwest where our very own Mrs guba was one of my captains and um yeah that was a blast from the past I mean yes I just they walked up and I'm like oh Becky it's coming I'm going to say something so yes once it Dazz always a dazzler um all right so I I can't believe it's already March February January took 5 years and February took 5 minutes and um
129it A lot's gone on but I I find myself so grateful for our district and our schools I got to visit because I haven't been able to make it to a site council meeting there I visited Manchester Park uh principal Steele was um happy to host me and show me around and um we popped in and out of classrooms and the kids were completely unfaced it was like I was invisible that you know they just kept going on with the learning and um that was really neat to see they are one of our Spanish immersion programs and it was amazing to see the kids learning math in Spanish I got to watch that for a little while um and you know and and they switch during the day so they are they're not Spanish all
130the time till they get a little older for my understanding but watching the teacher teach fully in Spanish math they were looking at Angles I think was was really just so neat to see I I mean I know we've had the program but um when when you watch it it's really magical to see the the way that language it just yeah I'm I'm lost for words guys I've lost the language I have okay um today this week at the capital um for my day job I got to see quite a few oeans um today Andrew Taylor who is a teacher at OA Northwest he is a master teacher this year was recognized um on the senate floor and I got to say hello to him thank him um and that was really neat yesterday I
131saw our oatc students um with Mr Chris Bergman um Bergen uh he brought a group of them and one of the students who spoke at our board meeting last month was among those kiddos um so it was really a pleasure to get to see them and chat with them and Angie Mendes our parents as teacher program coordinator was down there for advocacy day it just you know OA is in that building a lot our district is there and it just shows just how deep we are in the heart of Kansas OA Public School is so important um I'm really looking forward to reading in a few of our elementary schools for read Across America doing that tomorrow um I I you we're not in session so my job I don't have to be in the
132capital to do what I do and I'm really looking forward to being around our kids um it's an interesting uh time in Topeka to say the least um so I'm looking forward to reading and on that note I wanted to say um Dr little brought this up that in uh the Senate education committee there was a proposal for a budget recommendation to add $84 million and fully fund the excess cost of special education it was brought up by uh one of the Senators who's a former superintendent and as I don't know if Dr little mentioned this out loud but his um PowerPoint says that it failed it was a five5 vote and the chair broke the tie um not in favor of the funding but I wanted to thank Senator Adam Thomas and Senator Dina
133Sykes for voting for the funding it is so important when our delegation supports our schools and I'm speaking for myself it is disappointing when our dist when our delegation does not support our district and every day when I have conversations with people oate the public schools is what is on my heart and if you care about this District you need to reach out to your state legislators and tell them that we need the funding because our funding will allow us to give a 12% raise to our professionals oh I'm sorry 14% I was looking at last year okay our teachers are begging for more PA of professionals they are begging for substitutes and that comes from funding I apologize for getting emotional it has been a long day but I if you care about our
134district as much as I know you do our legislators need to hear from you unceasingly finally um it is women's history month and Saturday is international women's day and I just wanted to tell my girls up here on the Dias that I am so proud to serve with you and um you know I don't believe anyone is innately better or worse because of who they were born to be but it is pretty awesome that we've got four women up here leading this school district so um yeah guys advocate for our district advocate for our Educators advocate for our support staff ad advocate for our students because we will be nowhere without public schools and I will never stop beating that drum so there we go that was a whole smor Board of emotion there we
135go I know anyone else Bard okay I would like to just make a couple of comments and typically I I will talk about events that I've attended and and appreciate those individuals and I I think that has been reflected tonight with other comments not that I wasn't at events I was with Will yesterday at 3de and and multiple others and appreciate all of the work um that individuals in this District do and we continually see that in the presentations um in the in the approvals we provide for teams to travel to compete I'm so proud of our Science Olympiad teams who are going to state three middle school and two high school I believe um but I I wanted tonight um to to just make a comment for the people in our community um you
136have seen tonight emotion and passion from board members and I have opportunity to see that frequently in conversations and in executive sessions and I just want to say to our community um because there's a lot of uncertainty and change going on um we've talked about some of it at the state level tonight we see it on the news um at the national level and and the the individuals sitting at the dis tonight and working um as board members volunteering as board members um are committed to OA we're committed to OA staff and students and families in the these times of uncertainty we choose to concentrate on those things within our control um knowing that there is a lot that is not but those those values that we have the values that we all belong in
137OA the values of inclusivity and safety in a social emotional setting in a in a physical setting providing the most opportunity and education that we can and supporting one another in that process is where we will continue to put our energies and so again um tonight we we thank the staff in the district the work that is done daily we thank the students we we see so many great things a young woman tonight who was here representing theater and how well spoken the elementary math students who prior to were telling me the teams that they beat this year you know they were so proud of their accomplishments um and to our community we thank you for the continued support and engagement because that's where the difference is made and our ability to continue to work
138for you so that is all I have board members anything Dr T yes good evening so um I'm going to Echo many things that have been shared already but I'm going to start first with it must be a trifecta birthday because we have one on our team as well and so um she's going to kill me for this but today is Dr Liz Harrison's birthday and so we wish her a very happy birthday as well I'm sure there's no other place she'd rather be celebrating so um happy birthday to doctor Harrison um this week as it was mentioned before we are celebrating read Across America week and many of you have had a chance to be guest readers or mystery readers I know we've all really enjoyed that and sharing our love for reading with
139our our students and um I know I look forward to reading at North you tomorrow so I get to see the road runners and I look forward to that we have several staff groups that we're recognizing this month um as as was mentioned before also this is music in our schools month and so music and the Performing Arts are an essential part of the educational experience here in OA and helping our students to make connections within their schools and Community while enriching their lives in countless ways um from choir to band and orchestra music class and more our students are not only growing their musical Acumen but also increasing countless other skills through these experiences not to mention the fact that our entire Community get gets to benefit through the sharing of these talents with
140us um we're so proud to celebrate our music educators this month and sincerely thank them for all that they do each and every day for our students um this month we are also excited to celebrate our athletic trainers uh in OA Public Schools we've had a long-standing partnership with OA Health which is of course now KU to support our student athletes um our athletic trainers are more than just First Responders on the sidelines they are Educators and mentors and advocates for student health they play a critical role in injury prevention Rehabilitation and ensuring the overall well-being of our athletes uh allowing them to perform at their very best on and off the field um their work requires long hours uh deep knowledge and an unwavering commitment to Student Success and so we want to send
141out a special thank you um to our athletic trainers um for all of the things they do to um Champion student health and safety um this week we uh also along the lines of the work that uh Dr fluke was referring to we are celebrating our school social workers and so um their compassion and dedication and tireless efforts in supporting our students and families make a profound difference um if you've ever had a chance to see a social School social worker in action or work alongside one you know what I'm talking about um it doesn't take long to see the integral role that they play in our mission to support and grow the whole child so again we send out a big thank you to all of our school social workers then uh please know
142how much we appreciate you um and then we had some reference in a commercial for Taste of the town so I want to plug that again um awesome awesome event with with an even greater cause so if you are not attending you still have a chance to do that uh but again as Dr fluke mentioned if you'd like to support you can go online to the website and donate directly there as well um I think that wraps up all my comments other than just to say thank you for letting uh me sitting this seat tonight I sincerely appreciate it uh I'm always proud to say that I work in the the public schools um but even more so as the daughter and granddaughter of Educators um married to an educator Middle School even Mr babbit
143um have a middle schooler at home who's goes to uh here in the district um you could say I'm probably surrounded a bit by education but um I also then have the pure pleasure of knowing the incredible Educators and staff we have here in the district and um to be a small part of that is truly an honor and you all set the vision for that and so truly thank you um thank you for having me on the DI thank you and one more commercial for tast of the town because Mr babot mentioned um registration opens tomorrow for the culinary meal but if you can't get in there or if you just want to double dip our culinary students are actually some of the food that's provided at Taste of the town so you um
144have that opportunity as well okay um we do have a need for an executive session board and um believe we can take care of those matters in 30 minutes so if someone would like to make a motion I move that the board go into executive session for the purpose of discussing matters relating to employee employer employee negotiations under coma and that the board returned to the regular meeting at 8:20 PM in this room yes um motion by Julie steel second by Brad Boyd Mr C yes Mrs Reagan yes Dr jurkovich yes Mrs steel yes Mr babit yes Mr Boyd yes Mrs Joan yes motion passes 70 thanks to those in the audience if you choose to go home have a nice evening and weekend e for for