November 2023 Olathe Public Schools Board of Education Meeting

001Al to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liy and justice for [Applause] all Dr mcmull good evening thank you for attending tonight's Lea Public Schools Board of Education meeting before we begin we feel it is important that we review the importance of conducting a productive and orderly meeting this meeting is designated for the board to work with the superintendent and staff to conduct the work as outlined in the agenda please understand that patrons attending the meeting do so solely in an observatory role out of respect for everyone in attendance we request that audience members not speak yell or give Applause during the meeting this ensures the board staff and other attendees are able to listen and understand the business

002conducted anyone disrupting the meeting in any capacity will be asked to leave and may lose the opportunity to attend future meetings thank you again for attending and we'll now proceed with the agenda thank you sir moving on to agenda item 2.01 seek a motion move to adopt the agenda as presented second we have a motion by Mrs Steel in a second by Mr wickliff Dr yovich yes Mrs steel yes Mr wickliff yes Mr Boyd yes Mr beverage yes Mr cun yes Mr Connell yes got it all right motion passes 70 moving to 3.01 good evening for tonight's recognitions we have one very special guest at this time we'd like to invite Prairie Trail Middle School's very own Taylor businger up to the front along with this principal Dr Jenna Jones and assistant superintendent for Middle

003School's Dr relle Waters Taylor who teaches 8th grade social studies at Prairie Trail was named the 2024 Kansas teacher of the year he was one of 124 Educators across the state nominated for the prestigious Award with eight finalists being chosen at the state level Taylor is now in the running for the national teacher of the year superintendent Dr Brent joerger said Taylor or as his colleagues and students call him Mr bus represents everything we want in a teacher and role model for our students he teaches his academic content with Excellence to ensure his students succeed while also taking the time to care for his students well-being so they feel valued and heard in his classroom Taylor received a Bachelor of Science degree in education with an emphasis on social studies and his Ms in curriculum

004and instruction from the University of Kansas he has taught at Prairie Trail for nine years he currently serves as the head boys basketball coach head Cross Country Coach a member of the positive behavioral interventions and supports team and he is the co-founder and sponsor of the diversity Club some of his students even came here tonight to not only facilitate the pledge for us but to support of their favorite teachers his principal Dr Jones said we are so grateful to have Mr bus on our team at PRT he is so deserving of this award he works Tire tirelessly every day to make a lasting impact on his students lives through positive relationships engaging instruction and making sure all of their voices are heard he's a fantastic teammate humble and always does what is best for kids

005as the Kansas teacher of the year Taylor will travel around the state to advocate for education and provide professional devel velopment for his fellow teachers and Kansas Commissioner of Education Dr Randy Watson who will present later this evening said as a former history teacher is truly an honor to announce Taylor as the Kansas teacher of the year he brings history alive for his students at Prairie Trail and continuously inspires curiosity I want to wish Taylor and the members of the 2024 ktoy team success as they travel across the state congratulations Taylor on this amazing achievement we're so proud of you all right we're going to do a couple of pictures do a couple pictures first so you guys first and then family I know your wife and your son are here and then students too

006if you kind of want to make your way up so Nick go ahead and take this one awesome one more yeah you may want to crouch and whoever would like to take pictures please come on up and take pictures of them give a few more Taylor would you like to say a few words think I have to in front of my students um I wish I had this memorized I apologize for not um when I think back over my 10 years in OA and at Prairie Trail I realized none of this is possible without Dr Dr yurkovich actually who took a chance on me way back in 2014 there I was a recent graduate an impostor trying to appear as that I hot it all together also happened to be dating the math teacher at

007Prairie Trail crazy how that works out since then this district and this place has become where Joe and I have invested our our our life's career we love this place the Educators the Young young people the community prayer Trail has and always will be a huge part of my life simply put I love my job because it's allowed me to grow professionally and personally I want to thank all the administrators that have invested in me and walked alongside me and supported my growth from Dr jurkovich to JJ liel to Rick solet to Dr Jenna Jones and all the support from Jennifer stos scope Brian Berman Carrie Snider and Brandon melon I'm not the person or teacher I am without you all to my co-workers at Prairie Trail past and present it's the standards and quality

008of Education that you ignite every day that energize me and that makes anybody who steps in prayer Trail know that it's a special place I want to thank the parents in the school district Community for supporting me and walking alongside me that may go late to the best place to work and go to school to be blunt I don't know who I am without being an educator this profession has allowed me to figure out who I am it's fostered a journey and a path for me to become a better person and I think every educator strives for this we want to be the best for our young people my job is and always will be about the young people their education their voice in that education their perspective their intellect their curiosity and their inspiration

009when we Inspire young people to be curious enough to want to know more about who they are and what they bring to this world we all win true and Lasting education is not something that we can ever finish it takes deep in place the hearts of our young people so lastly and most importantly I want to thank my past and present students for learning history alongside me for believing in me and inspiring me thank you give have one more surprise Dr Jagger is going to put his photo up on the wall congratulations Wonder all right moving on to information and presentations 4.01 um board it is my honor and my PR my privilege and my pleasure to welcome the Kansas State Commissioner of Education Dr Randy Watson um for a presentation [Applause] good evening Mr

010President good evening board I am just here to be the new chairperson of the Taylor fan club wondering if anyone wanted to sign up right the tour has just started for uh Taylor and uh he's going to be all across the state spreading his uh wisdom helping out soon to be teachers from in our colleges and universities spending time with high school students and uh past his his uh own classroom so we're just so excited for his journey and congratulations uh to everyone here in OA welld deserved and and as so true in Kansas you know so we've had a chance to get to know each other a little bit we'll get to know each other a lot better over the next year but he comes up and you know we're putting together people that

011he knows well that I know well and and before you know the nights out will'll be related um a lot of mcferson connections a lot of my own family connections that we have I send you greetings from the Kansas State Board of Education who like you are elected body and set to serve the children of our state like you serve the children here in OA uh what I'd like to go over with you today is some State data relative to Ala data and talk about some of the challenges that all of you are hitting head on and uh some of the things that we see in the future that I think will be instructive and answer any questions you have so we have this Vision that we started in 20156 that was revalidated by our

012board in 2021 and just uh literally in the last 12 months that we have some high metrics for our students many of whom you saw tonight uh so that they can be successful now what I want to tell you is and and you get drugg into this you get drugg into this like I do uh everyone wants this simple definition of success and it's multifaceted and it's multi-layered and it's it's not a simple answer uh um but we know a lot about what makes that up but what I can tell you is even with the young people that led the pledge tonight for each of those children it's a little different that path is a little different and so uh what we're trying to do is develop a system as you are that enhances the

013opportunities that all of the students you know almost 30,000 students here in AA will have as they go forward so when we think about this this work we we say all right then what are the measurements that we can look at that would help us in answering the question are we headed toward helping each child be successful so I I'll share with you a couple of things and then talk about what makes up those those couple of things High School graduation rates we have set a goal of 95% and the reason is no child should not graduate high school in 2023 so it really should be 100% we know that's probably not attainable and no state has set that bar that high no state so what what we see here over the last several years

014is we've increased that percentage just under 90% at uh at 3.2 percentage points but like what you see here in OA and the work that all of you are doing here in OA that work is being done primarily not with the students who were easiest to graduate we've done that work we've done that work it's now with the students that come to school who English is not their first language e English language Learners that growth has been 6.7 percentage points it's instructive for I think people in the audience to understand when we say students that come to school who's who do not speak English has their native language once they can do that adequately enough to pass an assessment called the kelp they exit the program they're no longer in that category so these are

015kids who do not speak English and and that's the rate of their graduation rate free red reduced lunch is how we rate poverty or look at poverty that percents grown 4.4 uh percentage points and students with disabilities has grown 5.6 percentage points all of those subgroups are growing f faster than the overall average which is what you want to see because we call that narrowing the Gap we also see that in OA as as you see you're you're just you are a microcosm a big microcosm of the state of Kansas and the demographics are changing in the state of Kansas percent of Caucasian kids is dropping percent of African-American kids is slightly decreasing the increase of multi-racial students and Hispanic Latino students are increasing and so when we see things like this that's the effort

016that all of you are putting forth to to note that that work is is paying off but there's a second part to that success I graduate high school with skills I graduate because I the graduation high school in 2023 is just the beginning is just the beginning so let's take a look at then some of the skill set that we see across the state here's the a fiveyear average of what we call the postsecondary effective rate it's a pretty simple metric but we're the only state to really be doing this we just take a look two years after high school so on July 1 2023 we looked back to the class of 21 that makes sense and we asked did you graduate high school and did you go on to earn something Beyond high school

017or are you still in school pursuing it if the answer is yes then you are on the effective rate all right now if you go to Johnson County Community College if you go to KU and you're now a sophomore junior and standing or you've already graduated with an associate degree or you have a welding certificate already and you're in the workforce you have to have some skill or you wouldn't make it right you have to have some skill this increase is increased by seven percentage points over the last seven years the same year number of years we've tracked graduation I want you to think back how much did graduation go up 3.2 percentage points how much did this go up seven more students going on to postsecondary than in the history of our state and

018that's true here also so when we say postsecondary doesn't mean every student goes to a four-year College they they can earn certificate associate degrees back or at Master's phds professionals degrees that rate is up and then let's look at students in high school the number of students taking dual credit classes peaked at an all-time high last year 30 just under 36,000 students took at least one credit in higher education look at the just look at the growth since 2017 and the number of students Statewide then look at the number of credit hours they've earned since 2017 that increase we're now just under 37 ,000 credit hours earned so let me let me get this right so I can pass college algebra I can pass English comp 1 I can pass intro to biology I can

019I can and I can graduate high school I must have some skills must have some skills so the other thing we want to look at is what about those students that struggle when they get to postsecondary we call that remedial courses and and the most common is is college algebra uh we can argue about that Taylor pra and I want to talk since we're history majors about why did we have to take college algebra it was set up for engineers but it's it's it's the Gateway Math course Community College in 20 2010 almost 40% of students arriving at a community college had to take a remedial course or more that's pretty high in the latest data from Kansas borida Regents that number had dropped to 27.4 that's the latest data they have is 2021 if

020you go to State University that number was 15% in 2020 it's now less than 9% we've dropped the remedial rate more kids are taking dual credit more courses are being taken graduation rates the highest in the history of our state all the students with disabilities who are in poverty or who do not speak English have never been higher um than we've seen before that that's that's reality we like that so I'm here tonight to not just tell you all the good news to tell you what the challenges are laying ahead of all of us as a state and certainly here in OA as we look forward so how do you get then to help every student each student become successful well I like to think there are three big categories they got they need to

021come to school we call chronic absenteeism and we know this students who are chronically absent by the way these are students that Miss more than 10% of the days of school non-school related so if you're go if you go to school 170 days a year these are students that Miss 17 days or greater a year not because they're out for the basketball game for the FFA contest students are chronically absent in preschool kindergarten and first grade we're just starting school are much less likely to read at grade level by third grade I'm going to share some data but if you don't get there by third grade you rarely get caught up this is really critical and just to show you across the state be preco we averaged around 13 to 14% of our students chronically

022absent we want to drive that number as you want to below 10% so as you look and examine your own data think about get it below 10% would we like love it zero yes we want to but get it below 10% here's what happened when we hit Co and then what and then teachers and the audience know exactly what happened the year after that it got worse 26% of our kids in 2022 were missing more than 10% of the days of school last year that dropped but look it's not nearly where it was so I'm asking all of us and I'm asking parents we have to have kids in school and I know uh you know we're quick if we don't feel well maybe you ought to stay home and be safe and we all

023want people safe there's no doubt about that but we need students in school I also want to share with you what we know now about academic data I'm going to share the data of Kansas students 106,000 Kansas students in the classes of 2017 2018 and 2019 you say why why do we look back because you know where those classes are today they're well out of school we're going to look at them when they were 10th grade but those classes are well they're gone nothing we do today will impact them they're they're they're gone and what I'm going to show you is State assessment data which is one point of of data piece of information and talk some about that and show you the relationship to that to graduation and whether they go on so the

024two bars you're seeing are how those students scored in mathematics and language arts the uh the the blue uh bar is language arts mathematics is in the orange and then the percent of students that went on to graduate so we score the state assessment level one two three and four I don't think there's been anything in in my world debated more than the state assessment and the scores so I'm I'm here to set the record straight I want the state assessment like people ask me all the time what's grade level the entire test is on grade level we're measuring grade level we don't measure below it we don't measure above it we measure the the idea of how well can you do that work so that you can do what graduate and get on a

025postsecondary that's the measurement that's the measurement and and that's what we're trying to do what we know is that level two students graduated in our state 106,000 kids that we looked at 10% higher than kids in level one that's significant right just getting to high school you see that that number doesn't grow all that much from 2 to three or 3 to four and then when we look at postsecondary meaning the students going on past postsecondary where do we see the biggest move well again if I'm at level two it's 25% different than those students that scored in level one and while that certainly goes up a great deal from 2 to three and and 3 to four while we know is this academics matter moving students out of level one is critically important critically

026important do we want to move them towards three and four absolutely critically important for their future opportunities too many students inner High School in our state today with limited academic opportunities After High School because of where they were all the way back in third grade and so as you as you wrestle with your own data and and you talk about it that's the challenge how do we reduce that and and and uh and how how do we do it well this past year I can tell you that we reduced uh or in language arts and Mathematics level one drama dramatically we increased levels three and four dramatically you saw the same thing in OA I've looked at your data congratulations you've done the same thing are there too many kids in level one yes are

027we decreasing it yes both both are true that's why when we talk about each child every time I look at that I'm thinking of the 500,000 kids in the state of Kansas and you're thinking about the 29,000 and some kids that you have in OA because each of those students matter now I want you to look at level one all right if academics were the only thing that mattered how in the world and a level one limited right did they graduate high school and did they go on because about 30% of those kids went on during something Beyond High School how did that happen let's all look at level four these are kids at score equivalent to over 30 on the ACT test for those of you who know that it's a high high level

028why wouldn't I 100% of those kids go on why only 81 82% of those kids go on because all of you know as an adult what makes up success your knowledge your skill and some other skills we call them the Kansas can competence and it's the magic of those skills coming together with really good hard academic skills that make up that success and big buckets I come to school I have academic skills I have these skills and I mesh them together and I apply them every day and do really really well in that work and so when we think of this work then uh as to well then what can we do going forward as I said it's pretty simple we have to lower chronic absenteeism immediately we so we're looking at everything we can

029do to help get students to school and keep them there we want to move students academically out of level one you doing remarkable work we want to raise the level of academic rigor and have higher expectations for all students I'm give you a snapshot of that in a second we want to help students develop Kansas Can Company skills in uh conjunction with the academic skills I had the honor this afternoon and I know a lot of you uh have this too I get to I you know when you're the commissioner you get to wander into any school in the state uh people don't like that a lot I found out but uh uh but uh I get to do that and so today I got to spend some time in OA uh just just down

030the street um at Central Elementary School uh with a a fantastic staff uh I want to tell you about high expectations I saw a special uh education class uh where we had some students that were being pushed out into the regular classroom and then pulled in for various times of the day I happened to be in there when about three I think of the seven case loope and I saw a teacher academically challenging those kids at such a high level but an appropriate level and working with them where they were today and expecting where they're going to be tomorrow to be a lot better I then went to every single class classroom in that building to spend 15 minutes or so in every single classroom this is between 1:00 in the afternoon and 3:30 in

031the afternoon now what were you doing you know what most people in the afternoon like it's got to be close to quitting time and you know we're going I I need a break I saw every teacher engaged every student engaged just working so hard in what mathematics and so social studies and reading and language arts just working so hard and having a a great time doing it and I want you to know that because as you look at your that's happening because of wonderful teachers and wonderful principls and staff that are just so dedicated so I I I can't tell you how happy I am that you're on the right track um Boards of Education don't get much credit I I'm going to guess last week in your inbox of email and voicemail the the

032number of emails and voicemails that that were left for you say hey great job I can't believe what a wonderful job you've done the past month uh I I you just don't get those very often and while we have a lot of work to do a lot of work to do we're not you know a kid I grew up on the Oklahoma Kansas Border in Coffeyville you know we're close to to the Missouri border and I always kid we're not it's not about beating Oklahoma or Missouri you know and I often joke my counterparts and those that well that's easy okay and and uh Margie in Missouri is a great friend of mine so we joke about that we're here to do it because our kids and our families deserve that best right they deserve

033all those opportunities with that Mr President I'd stand for any questions I know you have a full agenda and uh um I I appreciate the work that all of you do thank you sir board any questions I'd like to ask a question Mr beverage I'm wondering if you might take a minute or two to kind of explain the the four levels and what they mean and the changes that were made and um I believe there's something federally that you know levels have to be considered non I think you know where I'm going on that yes sir so I'm going to get in the weeds a little bit and I apologize but when you design a test for federal accountability and state accountability psychometric people have to control the test and test environment so the first

034thing when uh I became commissioner um Ed next had and and Nate who does the national testing had just done a survey and given us a D minus in the rigor of our standards said they're not very tough anyone can get anyone can do really well on these on these things and so we brought teachers in this is all teacher driven in Kansas and said design the standards so that when we know when kids are doing well that that will lead them to future success uh in graduation and postsecondary in 2017 by the time we got that work done nap said you have the highest standards and the highest cut scores in the country you you you've inverted that you have an A so that was step one that's step one so now what does

035this test mean well level one means you have a limited ability to do academic work going forward toward that postsecondary level two is that you have a basic understanding of what it takes to go on to graduation and postsecondary uh and then level three and four are you have an excellent ability to go do that work I think too often we we want to look at a score and say well Randy is good or not good and it's not that simple it's not it's not that simple we have to look at multiple things so we have we have high standards high expectations why so that when students go to KU they're going to do great when they go to um wasburn technical uh school they're going to do great in HVAC and they and they

036go to the military they're going to do great that they have all those options open to them and our assessment's trying to show that so move students out of level one because that is the limiting factor and and even there that that that's pretty high but it's it is limiting compared to levels two three is that helpful sir yeah absolutely and thanks for being here board any other questions of Dr Watson well sir thank you for being here I'm glad you enjoyed your time in ALA did thank you thank [Applause] you all right our next presentation is coming from Megan bricks she's going to give us presentation on American Education week hello Board of Education thank you so much for allowing us to um talk to you and kind of explain American Education week American

037Education week will be celebrated this year from November 13th through the 17th when we're discussing American Education week to me it's really important that we think back to what the OA Unified School District was in the past and where it currently is so that we can understand how we play a vital role in our community the OA School District was formed by the consolidation of five smaller districts including country side Meadow Lane Mount Zion OA and Pleasant View with schools from the 1860s on the left of the screen you'll see a picture of Washington School from 1923 compared to on the right Canyon Creek Elementary School which opened its doors as the 36th Elementary School in 2019 within both those buildings both then and now Educators had to work extremely hard to meet the needs

038of their students using the resources that they had available to them when we think in secondary on the left you'll see the original OA High School whose doors were open from 1958 through 1981 on the right you'll see OA West High School which opens its doors as the fifth High School in the school district in 2017 throughout the history of the OA Public Schools the community the families and the schools Partnerships have created a school District that is exceptional within the state of Kansas as well as across the country what I want to share with you tonight is the history of American Education week it was first celebrated from December 4th through the 10th in the year 1921 the creation of American Education week stemmed from alarming data showing that 25% of the country's World

039War I draes were illiterate so a meeting was then held in the year 1919 by the American Legion as well as representatives of the Nea to seek ways to generate public support for Education the Nea asked for the week to be observed annually in communities throughout the country for the purpose of informing the public of the accomplishments as well as the needs of public schools and to secure the cooperation and support of the public in helping meet those needs for our students as schools and classrooms across the country begin to celebrate American educa Education week they have many opportunities to honor the substitute Educators the education support professionals the Educators and the families that all partner in creating a great public education experience for all students this year Monday November 13th is the kickoff day

040to help familiarize the school Community with the history of American Education week Tuesday November 4th 14th is Family Day where schools are invited to welcome family members into the classrooms and into our school buildings to experience a typical school day for their child Wednesday November 15th is education support Professionals Day where schools are invited to honor the contributions of all of our amazing School support staff Thursday November 16th is Educator for a day where schools are invited to welcome Community leaders to experience the day as an educator alongside those schools Educators to end the week Friday November 17th is substitute Educators day just as important as any other educator where schools will show their appreciation of their school substitute employees the staff in our community schools are invaluable to the success of our students and

041must be recognized as such specific resources for how to celebrate each day are available at nea.org in this month of gratitude please join me in celebrating how grateful we are for our staff in the OA Public Schools we want to encour encourage the OA Community to join us this year in celebrating American Education week for the hard work that each of our Educators do each day to support all the students here in OA we want to thank our community for their continued support of public education in OA thank you thank [Applause] you right moving to 4.03 the starting end time presentation Dr McMullan well good evening and uh thanks for the opportunity to to give an update ultimately a recommendation to the board on on an adjustment to our start and end time uh for

042next school year and I apologize in advance there's a lot of information to cover um and so this PowerPoint has got a few slides to it um but I think it's important to uh look at the why um the work we did last school year the work we've done this year uh review some survey data that was really important for us and then ultimately review a recommended schedule so that's that's the plan tonight so our Transportation challenges and and how did we get here um if we go back to 2223 school year um you know it's important to see the the services that we were providing at that point in time and I'll touch on the Staffing and how that relates to this data as well the gener general education Riders we had over 6,600

043students that were riding a bus every day uh 2100 we're over 2.5 miles and those are students that you're required by Statute to transport and then we had almost 3600 students daily riding as payright students of those 3600 over half um qualified for free and reduced uh lunch then we had almost 800 21st century Academy students and over 100 elll students then on the special services side uh we had another uh over 780 um 351 of those were k21 KSD in Lake Mary 219 early childhood uh sped Services 127 Head Start and 86 jump start so it's just important to frame the volume of students that we were transporting on a daily basis an example of of routing and what that looks like and I wanted to I thought it was important to share the

044the vast volume of of what a routing system looks like for just one school so this is AA Northwest from 2223 you'll see the school if you can see the PowerPoint I'm circling where the school is their attendance areas essentially this area right here and you can see that they had 14 routes which means 14 different buses serviced uh L the Northwest and you can see we were picking up students um from every corner of the district um had 297 stops over 600 students uh transported on a daily basis one other example is aan North High School and again you'll see the school right here right in the middle of of this map uh their attendance area is essentially in here and you'll see they had 15 routes 310 stops and over 700 students and

045I'll put that into perspective for you lean North uh was our largest High School uh with over 2,000 students so you're talking a third of the students at laan North High School were utilizing transportation services in 22 23 assisted transportation is is one of our other Transportation providers um and they've done a lot of work for us uh in 22 23 lots of day shuttles over 600 per day uh they helped out on some special services home to school routes our homeless students who qualified for mckenny vento services as well as some foster home additional support So as as the um bus driver shortage really started to to impact us um assisted really stepped up and and took over essentially some bus routes with their Vans and I did some Jed home to school some

046sped home school elll and even did some uh Sports shuttles as well so the challenges as we were trying to accomplish all of that in addition to sports shuttles in addition to field trips uh which I'll I'll cover later um is in our current bell schedule system our two-tier system you know our our needs required 182 routes and as we go through this just to you know look at equating a route to a driver um or a route to a bus um we had 155 drivers so every day if everyone showed up to work that day we started the day down 27 drivers uh DS made up for that at times um through a variety of strategies including having upwards of 85% of their office and support staff driving buses to drivers driving multiple routes

047uh to some some very excessive delays in service and here's some of the realities we were dealing with in the 22 23 school year which really prompted um this study uh you know rolling blackouts for pay ride students so families who had paid for pay ride came into the school year expecting it we had to put them on rolling blackouts which meant that for family a every Wednesday you would not have bus services so you're going to have to find other other means to get to and from school and again remember of those 3600 students who this was impacting over 50% of those children live in poverty uh we had middle school and high school students combined on the same same bus route certainly that presents some challenges uh we had one driver serving more

048than one bus route for the same school so for example La the Northwest driver would want to run a route get the kids to school and then go run a second route in the next neighborhood over uh and get kids to school uh right at the start time uh some other pieces there um we were averaging six gen Ed and five sped routes that were late every day so an example there is Pioneer Trail knew that bus 40 7 I'm making up the bus number but trust me um you know was going to be 25 minutes late every day uh picking kids up um after school every day so we're dealing with all those challenges um our buses were packed we were requiring up to three kids per seat um pushing 65 to 75 students

049per bus didn't have availability for out of town trips um we had many kids on a wait list um and then on all of our activity trips uh we were having to students were having to leave school so early to leave a prime example I've used many times is one of our high school soccer teams goes to Lawrence for a 5:00 game they're leaving school at 1 to 1:30 getting to Lawrence around 2:15 for a 5:00 game because that bus has to get back um to be able to serve students um releasing from school so um so those are those are a lot of the challenges we had in terms of why we even ventured into looking at a three- tier system um it would it certainly provides a great route efficiency as you look

050across the country most uh and my I say most 90% plus districts our size or larger are already on a three-tier system reason they have been is because it's just a much more efficient model you'll see it's uh definitely reduces the number of drivers you need allows you to provide service for all Riders eliminates combining middle school and high school students on the same bus lowers capacity shorter ride times uh and certainly allows for growth down the road there's also a cost reduction side to this and that's certainly not is not what's pushing this by any means but there is that cost reduction avoidance each year that bus drivers can serve two and three levels um of students versus one or two at the most uh certainly reduces the the number of buses you need

051fuel cost miles uh reduces the need and the Reliance on that third party vendor assist Transportation uh to pick up so many of the things that we would hope our our bus provider did and certainly everything's going up as everyone knows from fuel to wages to um Etc so as we look at our current bell schedule um we are on a what we would call a two-tier system and even though middle school and high school start 10 minutes apart and and dismiss 10 minutes apart they're essentially in the same tier because a tier means you know the driver can only drive one or the other uh both in the morning and the afternoon they wouldn't be able to run a high school and a middle school route so we were we've been living in the

052world of drivers having at most two tiers to drive either high school elementary combo or a middle school elementary combo so three- tier example and what that does it basically allows some drivers to drive all three levels another set of a group of drivers to serve to and then you'll have some that that just do singles and you think well why do you do that how is that efficient well there those are drivers that might be driving really long high school routes in the AM and PM and then they are turning around and then running athletic or activity shuttles as well for us so last year kind of a quick summary of the work that was done um we started this with a parent survey in December of 22 and that survey was was frankly

053very generic we were really just putting out a fueler to the community to say hey we've really got an issue we're looking for a fix uh where are you in terms of helping us address this and and the input from the parents was yeah we we're we're ready to talk about this but we need more information um and so we sent a staff survey in February and a parent survey in February that was much more detail talking about changing bell times and and support levels for that um to move to a three tier we had a focus group of about 75 um staff and parents last year um that met uh over the course of two months very intensely uh reviewed 20 different Bell schedules we were pulling them not only from all over the

054Metro but frankly all over the country just looking at all different options um for Bell schedules um ultimately we were prepared to provide a recommendation to the board in April and really the feedback that that started coming in from our staff and our community was folks just weren't quite there yet um so we made the decision to hit the pause button a decision I think that still was a good one um but unfortunately we had to put some interventions in place um for this school year because we couldn't continue to operate minus 27 drivers every single day U of the school year an example of some of the start and end times from other districts through the Metro you'll see a wide range you'll see multiple tiers um shaie mission on the top left excuse

055me is an example of a three tier their order of sequence is high school then Elementary than middle um but then you'll see others where middle schools in the middle Elementary is at the end KCK and Park Hill um and others and so uh that study group again vetted 20 plus schedules um and and did a lot of work there figuring out which levels work in each of the tiers so th the transportation interventions that we put in place we had to eliminate pay ride services for our middle school and high school students it was by far the most painful intervention um reduced Us by 25 routes um we were able to protect Elementary School pay ride um for this year um we had to switch our 21st century and oatc and mil Creek Transportation

056um to a pay ride option versus a free option um another pain point was eliminating some safety variances so students that lived um closer to the school than we would provide service but had some intersections that were concerned or TR traffic counts or speed um we had to unfortunately eliminate some of those at the secondary level um and then we had to require a minimum number of students to even create a route so if we only had eight students sign up for a bus we weren't able to offer it and then for the first time in our district we've had to put blackout days in on field trips to where we've sent lists out to schools that hey on these dates this month you can't schedule any field trips we just don't have anyone available

057so kind of the conclusions again lots of work done by by that group um we looked at a recommendation in April ultimately said we need more time and then the direction was given to resume that that bell schedule study this fall so onto our current school year and the work that's that's taking place here um and I'll I'll walk you through our data um our start and end time study group work survey data and and then ultimately the bell schedule so this fall we we um commissioned us start and end time study group much larger than the group last year this group was about 175 members um we had 50 well let me back up we had 25 parents from each level so had a minimum 25 Elementary 25 middle 25 High same on the

058staff side so 25 teachers at each level had administrators had classified staff um and District staff as well so a really large group uh that really dug into a lot of data we then sent a survey to all parents and staff in September um and the start and end time study group met again and we broke out by level at that meeting and and really had the elementary group really dig into Elementary options in A and B and what that looked like pros and cons challenges Solutions uh did that at all three levels um and then ultimately tonight we're here um to share more data and and a recommendation uh to the board as a reminder to everyone tonight is not an action item um for the board it's just a future action item uh

059we'll we'll request that the board take action at the December meeting so again the study group I I can't thank that group enough I know we have some some parents and and other community members and staff here tonight that were on that that group but really did a very nice job of taking the personal aspect of a change like this out and trying to look at this from a bigger picture lens and it's really hard to do cuz the minute you start talking bell schedule and when you have parents that have kids at both elementary and middle or high school and Elementary it's it's really so personal in terms of what works best for your family and some families it works best to have Elementary go in the middle of the day or the end

060of the day or the beginning of the day and so I'm really trying to look at it globally on what's best for our system as a whole um was really the task of that group so the data was really important for us um one piece that we did this year that we didn't last year was We got input from our students students and this was done at the secondary level where our Middle School principles and our High School principles um met with students and walk them through the what and the why and where we are because we have some students that are well aware and are affected and are walking to school two miles right now and we have other students that it doesn't impact them because Mom can drive them to and from school

061every day so uh the administrators went through that and then they ultimately gave a QR code for the students to um scan and and and provide input and so the middle school student input and you'll see um we had just over 400 students um participate we asked each principal to meet with at least two different classes some did more um but we asked them and we we put this just in general tiers of 30 minute blocks so we we use 7:30 to 8 8 to 8:30 and 8:30 to 9 and asked our middle school students their preferred start time and then their preferred dismissal time um um being a former Middle School principal for 10 years I can tell you um you know I see the math doesn't quite add up on realizing if you

062start at one time you still have to you can't get out like after 6 hours you still have to go to school for seven hours so but the good news is is uh the students were pretty clear they like those earlier start times the first and second tier if you will um and then we put together a hypothetical schedule on hey if this was your bell schedule which one do you prefer and you'll see 250 of the Middle School kids um preferred that first tier um another 150 almost on the second tier and then just a few 30 on the third tier the high school input was was really interesting and again uh we're looking at um over 275 students that that took part in this from all five high schools same questions again you'll

063see the high school data shows uh a strong emphasis on that first tier um and second preference on the second tier and and very little support for the third tier and again here's that mock schedule from the high school students uh and you'll see almost 200 of them um preferred that first tier 73 on the second tier so it's good to get that that student voice and student input parent survey incredible response in fact according to our Communications Department historic response on this survey almost 7,500 um parent responses uh on our parent survey and I'll walk you through that quickly we we break it down by level in terms of which level do your do your children attend you know I'm glad it's hot in here on the night I have the longest presentation in

064history of the district it's awesome ju ju just for the record since you stopped for a second uh we are working on getting fans in the room that's that's why people just got up and left and then there are people on the roof working currently as well so uh we are working on it Dr jger if you want me to get up and leave let me know but back to the parent survey um some general questions does your kid currently ride the bus um if we did were're able to reinstate pay ride would they uh got some some data there but nothing that that was drastic um then we just flat out asked the parents between option A and option b uh which model are you most supportive of option A came out on top

065but not by a large statistical amount about 4% difference uh you'll notice a 22% on the no preference and that is either um either parents that maybe have just high school students at this point in time and and as you know high school was the same time frame that first year on both options um or it could be a family that just the start times just don't impact them they have the means to get their children to and from school irregardless of what what time school starts so then we break it down by level and this is where you really get some interesting data um Early Childhood um preferred option b at 51% 35% a high school I thought was interesting option A came out at 43% um option b 21 again the the no

066preference was was higher there at 36 Middle School overwhelmingly option a um option b came in second there and then Elementary School um preferred option b at 51% 38% at option A so pretty good data there then our staff survey and again um I don't know if this is the highest response we've ever had but it's up there with with almost 2,800 responses between our certified and classified staff um you'll see we had over 2,000 certified staff members take it and 700 classified asked which building you work in and you'll see um understandably the number of of respondents differ by the level of building so high schools here in the blue middle schools in the gold and then Elementary in early childhood and support buildings are in the red so again same question which schedule

067would you be most supportive of in the 2425 school year option A came out on top but but it's 1% um so pretty well split um with our staff there then when you break it down by level um you really see some some disparity in the data um Early Childhood came out fairly even um a a recommendation for a but certainly lots of support for be Elementary on the bottom left um strong um preference for option b at 74% uh you go up to Middle School 90% preferred option A and then uh High School almost came out perfectly um to the Mercedes-Benz symbol somehow or piece symbol whichever one of you prefer but uh pretty interesting data there um between option A and no preference being almost the same uh and then our support buildings

068again we're we're pretty differentiated as well with all of them uh being about a third so our fi trip data review I think this is important data um for our community to understand and our staff in the volume of trips we have so this this these Transportation changes are much larger than just reinstating payright services this is getting all students to and from school providing equity and access for all students to all programming but also all the additional things we do on a daily basis in our K through 12 schools to provide great enrichment opportunities for our kids and you'll see uh this is 2223 data over 4,000 total District trips and just looking at it by Level Elementary had over 770 trips uh some of the more common destinations topa Capital uh City Hall

069mafy Ernie Miller Cod theater um just great experiences for kids uh you'll see that uh Elementary repres present 21% of the all the field trips including activities um in the district Middle School 739 trips get into your math counts k club Quest Olympics Kaufman Center um you name it um at middle school you'll see on the right hand side you got to add in almost 400 athletic trips so that's all of our football teams volleyball basketball track Etc so that puts Middle School at over 1100 trips per year and then at High school and this frankly was data that was pretty um compelling to me in that we had over 1,200 field trip activities at the high school level and so much of it is focused on College and queer Readiness and those opportunities for

070kids and you'll see those examples there uh the other kicker at the high school level is the vast array of activities and Athletics that we offer you'll see over a thousand trips um for students to get to and from soccer volleyball swimming golf tennis um you name it so grand total of 2200 at the high school level terms of trips so then we got into looking at option A and B um and really the as I mentioned earlier in option a high school and PLC are in the same time slot that tier one 740 to 240 um in option a middle school and Harland uh we're in that second tier 820 to 320 and then Elementary School was in the third tier the frankly the difference between between A and B is just the swapping

071of middle school and Elementary um between the two options now you'll see our current drivers drivers required number of Triple double and single routes and then our field trip availability which obviously is an important data piece as well so again as I alluded to option b has Elementary in the second tier uh and Middle School in the third tier and then one thing that the study group uh really wanted to dig into is is what a what's the difference between the instructional day and the contract day uh for our staff and what's that look like in both option A and option b so you're you're able to see and I want to start with um just a side note here you know the the contractual day is is negotiated by our bargaining unit and so

072any change to our contract day irregardless of of what decision is made um any change to that contract day would have to go through the bargain unit and be ratified by that group but so on on the left hand side you'll see our current instructional day and the contract hour so currently Middle School contract day is 7:30 to 3:30 as is high school and you'll see Elementary is 8 to four so in option a um where middle school goes in that second tier 820 to 320 you'll see that fits within their contract day again if this is the option that is is is chosen then certainly um the bargaining unit could look at keeping that same contract error and or looking at a 720 to 320 or or what have you so um High School

073same thing fits in the current contract day but again negotiable to look at a an earlier start if they'd like and then Elementary School you're looking at a minimum of a 10-minute shift um the currently contract day again is 8 to4 um if they're in that third tier 855 to 355 um you're looking at an adjustment needed um potentially a 810 to 410 um option b instructional day it's where you get a pretty significant change for middle level it's a a minimum 40 minute shift from their current contract day um they would have to move from a 7:30 to 3:30 to at a minimum 810 410 um again High School could stay the same and then Elementary if they move to the second tier could stay in their current contract day as well um One

074Piece that's important to note is that both option A and option b align the instructional minutes at all three levels um which is certainly something that that has been uh negotiated for quite some time so our recommended bell schedule um that we're recommending for the board to consider and take action in December uh is option A that has high school in the first tier uh middle school and Heartland um in the second tier and then Elementary School and Harmony in the third tier and I'm going to dig into that a little bit more more um in terms of the rationale so when we look at change to the system obviously changes hard and and it affects everyone uh anytime uh you look at something like this uh like a bell schedule frankly I've used the

075example many times of of going back to 2010 uh when the district moved to a 68 Middle School model in a 912 High School model from our former k6 79 Junior High 1012 High School um you know at the time it was very very controversial and there was a lot of work done um to um get our system to see why we needed to make that change and all the benefits of it and and from my perspective I think it would be really tough to go back now to that old system I think people love our K5 68 912 model so again at the at the high school level um in in option a uh currently has no change uh to their contract date doesn't have to be again that's negotiable from the bargaining unit

076uh middle level again same thing we could be looking at no change to the contract day um and and then at the elementary school level again their current contract day is 8 to4 we could look at a 810 to 410 contract day which would be a 10-minute change in that time that staff are required to be at work and and and exit work and so um from our perspective it certainly is the least minimal to people's daily schedules um as we provide a long-term solution um to our challenges so again the rationale least disruptive to the system as I just showed you uh you know the data supports it um while it wasn't a drastic difference both staff and and parent data supported option A we think it's a long-term solution to address the labor

077market in the transportation industry um and again there's that Financial Savings of moving to a three-tier um that we will see every year moving forward that we're on a three-tier system okay seeing no questions appreciate the opportunity I don't think you're getting off that easy all right fair enough board any questions of Dr McMullen Mr Kon um one concern I know many parents have addressed is Ban practice in the morning um you know there's no ordinance in a late the 7:00 how will that affect their practices in the mornings if school starts at 7:40 yeah that's a great question so um you know with with the noise ordinance being at 7:00 a.m. currently our our high school marching bands can't can't fire up the band until 7: a.m. um certainly you can be outside prior

078to 7: a.m. but just not fire up all the horns and drums Etc um so twofold one there could just be an adjustment to that schedule in terms of um potentially there can be I've had some b band directors say hey we can go out and still march we just don't play we just practice marching and then at 7 we start playing um there's others that have said well that's that's maybe doesn't work for my program but we'll look at some other things another piece is is on that city ordinance and we've had some initial talks with the city nothing finalized but um that noise ordinance is really in place for construction purposes and and we could certainly apply for a special use um per that might allow us to start a little bit earlier

079to adjust to the new schedule so we've we've got some things we're working on currently to support that okay um one other question you said that all the other schools in the district or excuse me in Johnson County are currently on the three tier system not all blue valley shaie mission shaie mission is blue valley is essentially on a two-tier uh their middle and high are pretty pretty close like ours are now okay so shaie mission is do they have a driver shortage right now do you know uh I couldn't speak to I assume yes but I don't know their data per se but yes okay yeah board any other questions I have I have one Dr yovich and I know that um this has been looked at and discussed but just for purposes of

080the presentation that later Elementary start time I know the the concerns that I've heard from elementary parents is child care during that time can you talk a little bit about maybe what was discussed in the meetings or what other districts might be doing with that later absolutely so um that definitely in option A was was frankly probably the the biggest variable that that kept coming up and that is is before school care um for for students and with a later start time what that looks like and so um we actually had Johnson County Parks and W who is our before and after school care provider come to our start and end time study group and meet with the elementary group answer questions problem solve share data um and so that's something that they are currently

081in fact I saw them walking out of the Ed Center yesterday or the day before meeting and and continuing to work on that there's a lot of of options that will continue um to work on heavily um over the next semester and it's pretty much everything's on the table whether uh we look at bringing in another provider if Johnson County Parks and wreck feels they can't meet the increased demand or whether that is looking at um offering some positions for staff to to fill in and help out with that whether it's classified staff or others uh on a voluntary basis um so we're looking at every option we can to help alleviate that and and uh support parents there one one thing that I may mention that Landing this schedule through board action is really

082really a critical next step for us um as we look at some of those things and actually defining what the solutions are um because all were're able to really say at this point as it may stay the same it may be a it may be B and so that makes it a little challenging when we meet with jcprd or or anyone else that's impacted by any of these changes in order to say this is what we're doing and here's how the support looks so we really believe that after we have a a finite decision from our board in December that will give us the opportunity to move forward and lots of different aspects of this whether it be city ordinance child care whatever that may be to say this is the schedule will now let's

083navigate around that and figure out how to best support our community that way Bo any other questions just a comment um Dr McMullan I just want to thank you and team I know that this has been an absolute beast and a really heavy lift and I think that you guys have done a really great job so thank you I do have one question will the three- tier system eliminate the interventions that were put in place for this school year yes so you know with the three tier we'd be able to reinstate our pay ride Services um uh look at at lifting those those safety variances that and put those back in place uh on the academy um The Academy busting is one that we'll have to study further um as we move to a to

084charging students for that what we found by doing that is we eliminated a lot of Ghost Riders um and parents who would sign up but then their child would never ride the bus but we'd still have to Route it um and as as students were applying for a c this year we certainly each Academy facilitator and and the building principles all worked with families that if there was a financial hardship the student remained in the academy and was able to continue and so something we'll consider to continue to look at whether or not we we make that free again or whether we continue that as a pay ride but um help any family that would would have a need because at the end of the day part of this um you know change is providing

085equity and access for all students to all programs programming and so if we want to continue to allow um students from the Ala South attendance area to attend ala Northwest because they want to be in the engineering program then we need to provide those those offerings but I will tell you our 21st century Academy numbers are up this year from where they were a year ago and so that that change that intervention really didn't have an impact on student participation or enrollment thank you Mrs steel um so along those lines with this also um repeal this um leave time for kids in sports or other activities that they're having to leave at 1:00 for a 5:00 game is it going to help that I'm I'm kind of going back to what Dr Watson said about

086the number one thing we all need to as a community um come together and that's for reducing chronic absenteeism and how that affects academics and I know he said it doesn't I'm not referring to trips and that sort of thing he was referring to kind of those all day absences not showing up but I can't help but think it doesn't affect um academics in some way and luckily we have those measures in place where we monitor academics for kids that want to play sports um but would it is it going to help that as well it's a great question it will absolutely alleviate it um will it eliminate it 100% I can't stand here and promise that but what I can tell you is it definitely uh you know on a it's kind of like

087soccer is our greatest example there with with their start times having a JV and a varsity game at 5 and S you know all all five of our high schools know if you're going to Lawrence you're leaving it by 1:30 you know I we do believe that in this three-tier system we will have drivers available to just run that trip and stay actually at in Lawrence with the team not drop them off come back and then go get them three and a half hours later so yeah that that is without question the goal great great thank you for your work Dr yovich I have one more question just as um we re-examine the academy busing I know this has also impacted the oatc busing only being provided in the morning because of the challenges so

088will that also be reexamined yeah the the the piece of the three tier that really helps out is it it really takes much of the load that we've put on assisted transportation to fill those gaps and and will allow assister to be able to run some of those shuttles that only have two to five kids that are going to um o ATC from a given high school so yes that that that piece is on the table as well okay thanks board any other questions Mr boy do you mind if I make a couple of comments um absolutely okay thank you I appreciate that you never know um I want to thank Dr McMullan for his work on this and our folks that participated in the Committees it was it was a massive undertaking um you

089know the truth is Jim probably could have spoke for three hours tonight and still not cover covered you know all the ins and outs of everything that we're looking at but one of the things I so appreciated that Jim and the others who were involved in this committee parents staff our other administrators um really was the focus on our kids who had access to riding a bus before they don't at the current time you know we have 3,500 students who are active bus riders last year who are not active bus riders this year that's significant you know we have schools like Indian Trail Middle School that used to have five buses last year year this year they have zero um you know and and as we talk to our principles and and staff obviously they

090care deeply about kids being at school um they're really worried as our weather turns this winter and kids are walking and riding bikes to school much more this year than they have especially at schools where we don't have bus service anymore um that's going to be a reality that our schools are going to work through you know certainly when the weather gets cold and and what have you but I I really appreciate that so many in our community Through the process have been able to focus on that larger picture and that really is you know Dr McMullan and him asking folks to do that as they work through the process and you know the the other thing too is you know Jim mentioned assisted Transportation you know they've been such a good partner with us

091and trying to fill the gaps and the holes um I saw something today that uh their trips are with us over the last I don't know 5 years are up 166% um and that's a variety of reasons but obviously ly you know we're at a point where the capacity for us to continue what we're what we were doing and trying to restore all those opportunities for our kids um this is really the only way we see that working uh for us moving forward so I just wanted to say thanks to Jim and everyone that's engaged in this this process it's as I said last month it's not an easy process and likely there will be people who say yes this works great for me and people who say this absolutely doesn't work great for me

092and but I can tell you that our team is is dedicated to trying to find regardless of the schedule for next year hopefully it'll be the recommendation um really try to find solutions to those challenges in terms of child care band practice all those sorts of things um we have a team that's ready to do that work thank you sir and um apologize Dr Jer I'd be remiss if I didn't thank Olivia Mone who's our our director of transportation for all of her work um throughout this process um I can't tell you how many hundreds of bell schedules I asked her for data on and routing and everything and and she and her team and and our Communications Department um Aaron and Tony and Becky and and the whole crew they they've just been outstanding

093so I I promise you Jim mcmullen's not qualified enough to make these PowerPoints so I've gotten a lot of help so well thank you sir and if you're ready to move on and talk about Open Enrollment we can go over to 404 and the floor is yours all right well what a treat for everyone two presentations from Jim so um but I am here tonight to talk about our open enrollment policy um earlier this evening at 5:00 we held a a public meeting um to allow input from the community to the board about our our upcoming open enrollment policy and and I'll explain um a little bit about the the law and and what we're doing in ALA to adhere to that um moving forward so the new open enrollment law that went into place

094was uh came out of house bill 2567 it takes effect for the 2425 school year uh and it's important to know that this this impacts all school districts in the state of Kansas so every 1A School District up to every 6A School District um is impacted by this open enrollment law uh there's a timeline uh that that is in the statute um that requ requires all districts by January 1st of 24 um so um here coming up uh to adopt their own policy and procedures to accommodate the new open enrollment law uh includes a public hearing which I mentioned uh we we held earlier today uh at 5:00 and then um our board um will need to take action uh at the December meeting uh on our board policy um per the statute so the

095annual timeline some of this is um we put into place internally and then some of this is statutorily required and I'll I'll differentiate for you here um but beginning in the 2425 school year so starting essentially in the SE the spring semester of 25 um January 4th our IND District transfer window opens we will continue to give priority um to our residents um in terms of transfer needs um for exceptional circumstances uh that will be a two-month window that'll go through the end of February uh then in March 1st we'll open our second window which will be our employee child transfer window um that allows our employees both certified and classified to bring their children to AA if they reside in another District uh then we get into the state uh required pieces of the

096timeline um by May 1st our capacity must be determined and I'll talk in a minute about that how we will determine that um then prior of June 1st um we have to post our capacity on the district website and then from June 1 to June 30 which is frankly pretty late in the game but it's it's the way it's written in the statute uh the non-resident application window um is open uh that closes June 30th each year and then as a district we have from July 1 to July 15 to award those uh spots uh if there is space available to non-resident students who apply so how do you determine capacity um because there's there's a few different ways to look at that one is functional capacity and that's your square footage in a building

097um where we have many buildings based on enrollment gains and and decreases in certain pockets of our community um where we may have more classrooms than we have classes and so um certainly we we are going to focus on our our um pupil teacher ratio PTR um to determine our staffing because at the end of the today we can't add staff to accommodate um out of District students enrolling so we're going to have to uh determine capacity based off our our current PTR so this doesn't impact Early Childhood uh the the bill um specifies K through 12 at elementary school will certainly look by grade level by building and so an example might be our PTR and HR correct me if I'm wrong but uh I think third grade our PTR is 25 to1 if

098I'm not mistaken and so let's say we have three sections at a given elementary school so that would be 75 seats in theory and let's say we have 60 students enrolled well that would then technically allow you 15 seats now as a district we will certainly protect and hold back spots as we have statistical data historical data to show that we have a lot of movement both internally folks moving into the district moving from one side of the district to the other Etc um and so so we will have to determine our capacity to make sure that we're not going over our PTR and adding staff um based on our numbers uh middle school will be configured the same way um by grade level um in PTR and then High School is a little unique

099um it's tough because frankly um students take you know a student could be enrolled in one of N9 to 12 different math courses at a high school and so we're going to use our Ela p which is our uh language arts uh Staffing um because that's the one subject in high school that every student takes all four years so we'll determine our high school capacity based off of that then obviously your District capacity uh ends up being the sum of of your building capacity some other items uh that are unique to this this legislation um transportation for parents that um apply to be a non-resident student in our district or frankly any District transportation is not provided um for gened students on transfer um one piece to note that that students who receive special services

100are on a 504 in their current district and transfer into our district if they currently have transportation written into their IEP then we would be responsible to transport uh that child um certainly can can present some challenges but we'll certainly deal with those on a on a case-by casee basis um other items in the policy um as I me mentioned uh we we put in some protections for our our residents our our patrons um with that early um transfer window and then our staff and as I mentioned before per the statute June 1 to June 30 is the non-resident window um we'll have guidelines for Acceptance in terms of students needing to be in good standing uh to not only be accepted but then once admitted to remain on transfer um you'll see in the

101policy we have guidelines in place to ensure um appropriate grades discipline and attendance one piece of the bill that's that's unique um well one of many but uh is that once the students's admitted you are admitting them into the Ala public schools for the duration of their K12 career so if we were to approve a second grader at Forest View then we would be approving that child to finish at Forest View on the Mission Trail onto ath West High School and so I'm certainly trying to forecast out 5 to nine years on on kids is is challenging but we're certainly working on that as we determine our capacity um the other piece uh questions we've fielded from from patrons regarding Casa and if I transfer in as my kid eligible um Casa has all those

102guidelines clearly spelled out in terms of what constitutes a physical move for a child to be eligible um once they've started their High School career so we'll continue to to um adhere to all Casa um guidelines uh the policy itself is is it's a six pager it's long um but again there's a lot of pieces to it um Chris Pitman our staff counsel and I've uh worked with KB and and other districts uh to ensure that that policies are are pretty consistent and they are we certainly have our ath of piece to it um but you'll see um on board docs the the policy is there as a future action item um for your review and uh I won't take the time to read all six pages to you so but I will be happy

103to stand for any questions about the Open Enrollment policy Mr me I just have a quick question so we would potentially get students in the 24 25 year um but we would not be paid for those students by the state until the next year is that correct that's my understanding yes is that right Mr Hutcherson two or two Dr yovich I have a couple of questions one um just in relation to how many movein we have after the school year starts can you give us an idea of this year and then can we include that in our consideration of capacity just anticipating movein yeah that's a great question so yeah on the first day of school this year we had 28542 students um and then on our September 20th count date we had 2878 87

104so we increased 245 students from the first day of school to the September 20th count date um certainly I don't have the data in front of me of what we've captured since September 20th but certainly that that number's gone up so yeah we will look at our historical data of of where we start and where we hit mid year and end of the year and definitely uh use that data to help drive capacity and make sure we're not overextending ourselves and then my second question you referenced um a student with an IEP who's provided Transportation but we won't know that until after after the lottery correct because we can't ask if they're a special ID yeah that's that's 100% correct so yeah you can't ask questions um regarding special services or or other things on

105the application so yeah we would not be aware of that until after approval has been granted so board any additional questions I have a couple um having just come off a presentation about busing and transportation in that challenge um do you feel comfortable pontificating on how this open enrollment policy could impact us from a transportation perspective yeah you know um with with on the Gen Ed side again it's written into the legislation that we don't provide transportation for for Gen ed students on the sped side certainly could prevent some some pretty big challenges there's no doubt about it um we're in a bit of a a position where we're going to have to roll with it and see how it plays out because the the law is what it is but the reality is hypothetically

106a a family from Ottawa Kansas could apply to come to Ala and then we find out after approval in you know mid July that the child uh receives special services transportation to and from home to school and and we would have to look at a common that so it's a real it's a big probably the biggest challenge of this legislation and I would add too not just a transportation challenge the other challenge that could come along with that is Staffing related to special education which you're all aware of we're very challenged by right now as well and so again we would have a hard time preparing for that until students were admitted into our district we know they're here they know that they receive services and then we're quickly either shuffling staff around or trying

107really hard to hire staff you know 6 weeks before school starts thank you and then the second question I had is um as we're looking at guidelines for accept acceptance some of those guidelines are spelled out in state stat right but who determines quote unquote good standing is that something that we would do as a receiving school or is it based on past performance yeah that's something we set in our policy yep in terms of grades attendance and discipline so right the good news is we've got those pieces in place for our internal transfers already so we will we will mirror those for our our out of District transfers thank you board any additional questions m still um so my question is more about this is um State Statute we will be the ones to

108approve it next month or not but the overseers of the policy you've drafted and we've worked with other school district and school districts in kasb is there um someone at the state that monitors this once this has been handed down and once we approve it how does that look that's a it's a great question I frankly don't know the answer we're we're we're doing according to the bill that was pass yeah what the legislation says but in terms of who's monitoring that I I don't know yeah I I I I can assume the monitoring side is is certainly going to be there on the capacity to where if you have districts that that claim they have zero capacity at every grade level at every building you know that's not going to add up so I

109think there'll be some accountability on that end but um P do you have answer to that perhaps sorry I think Jim I think Dr Ma just needed a break no yeah m still just I just grabbed the statute as you were asking the question because I knew it referenced a bit and one and one thing specifically Ires is publication of this policy on our website which in turn would get to the State Department of Education obviously would know that but I I I can look into that further about what if there's some filing procedure with them but that's one thing that's specifically required after adopting this policy that's on our website which which we would do anyway normally so okay very good it it I certainly see um the Integrity to um be true to

110what the intent was with the bill in our policy so I you know appreciate that like you said if we put zero at every grade level obviously that's that's you know um not being forthcoming with the intent so that's why I just wondered who overse the the other thing I would mention too and and Jim talked about this but this will change uh you know if if approved by the board it will change what we've done in terms of our own transfer process for our families that live in AA we obviously will do a massive communication effort about that um but you know typically transfers have kind of rolled in all spring all summer um you know when we looked at it when we've worked through it in the past just with as a district

111um but we will really communicate our efforts in order to take best care of oura families and our community that that window is pushed up exponentially um so we can get our local taxpayers our local community members um where where they should be before and inviting others if you will from the outside so that will be a a challenge for us just because it's a change in practice um from where we've been since probably 1965 and in our school district so board any final questions well thank you sir take a seat all right moving on to public comments M Steel at each regular meeting the Board of Education reserves limited time for individuals to address the board we request that individual speakers limit their comments to 3 minutes the clerk will monitor the time and

112notify the speaker when the 3 minute time limit has expired please direct your comments to the entire board if a response is appropriate the president will respond or refer to another individual in an effort to respect privacy we ask that speakers refrain from discussing personal complaints and involving individual staff members or students those speaking are advised that public comments are videotape recorded for broadcast on the district's educational access Channel and audio tape recorded as a matter of public record individuals addressing the board should come to the podium at the front of the room and state your name and address thank you our first public speaker is Erica sheets thank you I appreciate the opportunity to address the OA school board and the community here tonight my name is Erica sheets and I'm here representing our

113local moms for Liberty Johnson County Kansas chapter as well as supporting our friends at gaze against groomers in our joint challenge of three books in the olus school system the titles of those books are let's talk about it gender queer Memoir and all boys aren't blue I'd like to thank Chief academic officer Dr Reeves for updating us that internal reviews of all of these books are proceeding and we are pleased to hear that for those of you who are not aware of this these books should be removed from OA schools as they do not meet the criteria of multiple OA policies these books contain obscene sexual illustrations obscene sexual nudity sexual assault sexual activity with a family member vulgar language and profanity including homophobic and racial slurs as well as alcohol and drug abuse despite

114being placed in high school libraries the reading complexity level or Lexile scores of all three books are at an elementary level and in 202 23 data 58% of OA students are below the effective level three that represents an 11% decline since 2015 by the way as Dr Watson was speaking I got on to kreport card. ksde.org where you can find all the performance data for the district the building by year by subject um and by level and for otha in ela level one students were 13.29% in 2015 in 2023 it's up to 24.5 eight% in level one for math in 2015 it was 14.9% in level one and in 2023 it's up to 22.8 n% so thought you might want to know that the uh Reliance on the standard and lists and reviews provided by

115the Ala or American Library Association is a fundamental reason school librarians are placing and fighting to keep obscene books in our schools the Ala director Deborah Caldwell stone is onv video stating quote But ultimately what we found was and the thing that needs to happen most is sustained messaging that reframes this issue that takes it away from the idea that these are sexually inappropriate for minors and promote them as diverse materials that are about inclusion so in other words they had to lie the ala has been fired from five states thank you thank you thank you our next speaker is Chris bar good evening everyone my name is Chris Barrett and I am the co-director of chapters with gays against gmers we're an LGB and organization that fights against the sexualization indoctrination and medicalization of

116children I spoke here last month and I felt the need to drive home a few extra points tonight books like all boys aren't blue and let's talk about it are obviously inappropriate in their approach and are not suitable for a Public School library but a book like gender queer is not only inappropriate it's also dangerous gender queer pushes the homophobic notion of gender theory on kids it makes them think that being the opposite gender from which they are born is a viable option as a kid I can tell you that is not the case so why do I call this book homophobic let me explain a lot of kids experience gender dysphoria which is a condition where a person feels their gender doesn't align with her biological sex in plain terms a boy may feel

117like he's actually a girl or vice versa when this happens in childhood or adolescence most kids will have their gender dysphoria resolved through cognitive behavioral therapy psychoeducation therapy or cognitive enhancement therapy and when I say most kids will recover from this I'm not talking about a slim majority in fact according two scientific stud 82% of kids will grow out of these feelings and out of that 82% the vast majority are gay lesbian bisexual or autistic as a gay man I did not like it when radicals on the far right triy to prey away the gay and I certainly do not like it that radicals on the left are not now trying to trans away the gay this that's why a book like this is inherently homophobic it tells tells younger gay people that they need

118to be fixed that there is something wrong with them so if anyone here tonight thinks that A Book Like This is somehow helpful I can assure you it is most certainly not a young gay person may pick up this book and have a seed planted in their minds that they need to change themselves in order to be normal this is completely unacceptable and again this is dangerous gender trans transition turns a person into a lifelong patient is this what you're trying to encourage gay autistic kids to do I certainly hope not in the end I have to question whether any librarian or other educator for that matter pushing to keep a book like this is even fit to be around kids they obviously haven't looked very far into what is actually going on in the

119LGB NT communities and they are only listening to a few radicals within those communities to make their decisions they are open to listening to gay voices like mine that are warning them that this isn't the way to go that's a huge problem in the end let's protect the tomboys protect the fin boys and as I said before listen to parents thank you m shimel good evening my name is Meg Shimmel and I'm here tonight to advocate for our district Librarians libraries and the students right to read I have a M's in school librarianship and 30 years of teaching in school libraries including wiah TOA and finally retiring after 5 years as an ala School librarian I was an adjunct instructor in the witto State Library certification program and was also the witchta District Library instructional

120coach around the country and in our community there have been some contrary narratives and misinformation about books in our school libraries first what is the purpose of a school library a good library and its materials are always evolving to support curriculum and student interests in a nutshell the school library is an essential excuse me essential part of our Learning Community qualified school librarians lead effective School libraries reading is the core of personal and academic competency and ual freedom is every learner's right and what is the role of the library media specialist think of librarians as the Uber Educators they are they teach students how to learn they help teachers Drive students success they work with every individual student in the school they are essential partners for all teachers providing print and digital materials that meet

121diverse needs and collaborating to deepen student learning they develop a collection that is responsive to curriculum and student need needs and interests Librarians are required to take extensive Court work coursework on appropriate material selection they spend countless hours reading reviews they engage with their students and teachers about curriculum requirements and personal interests challenges to library materials across the country and in this District are not new but must be addressed with respect parents absolutely have the right to guide their children's reading choices but they absolutely do not have the right to decide for other parents and students students don't lose their first amendment rights when they choose a library book and only their parents should guide them in making that choice when there's an objection to library materials the process is to utilize the district reconsideration

122policy a book should always be considered in its entirety not just selected passages that are taken out of context Learners deserve access to information on all sides of issues and interests the primary function of public educ excuse me public education is to teach students how to think for themselves reading a wide variety of texts develops critical thinking skills discernment and empathy not all students have access to resources outside their school school is their place the place where they deserve to learn and grow our district model guides our Learning Community students prepared for their future prepared students are students who've been taught how to think critically that's the goal of education and a responsive evolving library is a critical piece in achieving that goal let's respect the processes we have in place and above all let's

123trust and respect our students because it's not our future it's their future thank you thank you Megan bricks good evening as you all know my name is Megan bricks and I'm an Elementary music teacher here in the OA School District District tonight I want to spend my time focusing on how educators within our school district partner with families to support students and their needs within each building they are Educators who are working past their contract times and during their plan time to send emails to guardians or make phone calls to families educators are reaching out to communicate how students are performing academically and asking questions about how they can best support each child when they are in their classroom in relation to their academics educators are also reaching out to communicate with families when a

124child's typical Behavior has slightly changed educators are reaching out to partner with families to provide supports for students and ask questions if they need our support I want to ensure that we recognize these Educators and families for taking the time to partner with each other they trust the process and the process helps their students in the end one leadership skill we teach our students is to synergize and work together when we work together there is a higher possibility for success I want to then take this same thought and apply it overall to our school district when we partner together within our buildings across our grade levels across our content areas across our feeder patterns and across the entire School District we are better able to support our students and work to prepare them for their

125future I hope that the Board of Education will continue to partner with building staff Educators Educators who educ education support professionals as well as anyone who works within the school Community to best support our students thank you so much for giving me all your time tonight to present thank you thank you Charley Allen brand Shirley allenbrand El the Kansas um president Boyd and honorable um board members thank you for allowing me to be here tonight first of all I am NOA graduate along with my um siblings and also my kids so I'm very proud to be here and I want to thank you for your service and continued high standards I also wear ah hat of a Johnson County Commissioner and have been out visiting um city councils and also school boards so what I'm

126hearing tonight from some of the things that you brought up I'm hearing at other board meetings as well but one of the things I've been working on is Workforce um on Workforce and also um housing needs for um for uh uh workboard housing needs and so I've been working on in the community to do that and I want to thank um Dr Jagger and I'm going to reach out to him more because we have the new centry airport with businesses there we have Panasonic that's now um being built um and there's also um industrial um within my district so if you look at the districting that's well in 2025 we're going to have to do a redistricting you see all the growth and so it's a perfect opportunity to work on those things within that

127District but you look also look at the um hourly pay scale that's coming up so you've got Hostess um other companies that are paying right now $25 an hour with $1,000 signin bonus um no high school educa or high school education but also certifications are needed for those and then you've got Panasonic coming in and SM SM companies that are now on the verge of opening in the next 2025 2026 $31 an hour plus sign on bonuses and we need to um work harder and I'm going to reach out to you Dr Yer would you you done a great job um I was at an event and I was talking about the thousands of employees that will be coming from Japan and saying you know we need to find somebody who speaks Japanese and well

128we've been teaching it in the OA schools for over two years so um I'm going to be reaching out to Dr joerger to see if we can't provide some more um in our middle schools in high schools to um promote certifications which anybody that lives in a are tens of schools need be part of the foundation so I just want to thank you um I'm proud to be here and I thank you for your service so don't give up thank you thank you EMT beros hello my name is Emma baros I have autism I attend PLC and I am in working into the SC program at Summit Trail tonight I want to talk about my experiences of bullying and seclusion I've been in multiple bullying situation since kindergarten often these result in my parents being

129told is likely misunderstanding other times I am secluded from my peers even though I did nothing wrong and sometimes I I am suspended but informally of course here are some examples of seclusion I experienced during Middle School instead of conflict resolation with my peers I was offered alternative passing periods instead of a PE being held accountable for an assault on me which was upon School cameras I was secluded I had to stay in the office every morning for the following week instead of providing my PE and I guidance through negative interactions occurring during lunch I now in my SC classroom when our district fails to address Bowling of sped students they are putting a bigger Target on our backs when our district includes fed students instead of taking opportunities to address situation process with us

130and guide all students involved oh they make us feel like we don't matter I want to leave something in your heart tonight at the young age of 11 I hated school it wasn't for like the typical reasons like homework or having to wake up early I developed depression and PTSD due to bullying seclusion and lack of appropriate action I experienced suicide ideation due to the bowling seclusion and lack of appropriate active we need to do better thank you thank you Elaine Gart good evening my name's Elaine and I am the Kansas chapter lead for gaze against rumors my co-director AR explained what gaze against rumors is I'm not going to do it again we are seeing books that are not appropriate for schools in schools we already named them they are uh gender queer boys

131aren't blue um and there's another one can't remember it off the top of my head these are a misappropriation to try and push inclusion on a misunderstanding of what gay culture is drugs alcohol sexual assault all kinds of other mental health issues that people think push gay people to be gay are misconceptions we are gay we're just gay it happens we weren't taught these things in school we didn't have these books we didn't have any of these resources that these school districts these libraries these teachers and the Nea is trying to push onto everyone else we didn't grow up learning these things I didn't grow up learning these things and I'm relatively young I'm still a bisexual woman I don't know any person in the gay community who's actually taught this and still turned out

132to be a lesbian gay or bisexual woman children were not transing 10 years ago 15 years ago they were not transing they were transing as adults which is perfectly fine putting this information out there trying to show children who are autistic who are Outcast who are questioning their sexual orientation and telling them that if they feel better if you were a straight girl instead of a gay boy it's harmful it causes suicide ideations in these children already who are already having a hard enough time trying to deal with their own lives and you want to sit here and think that it's okay and tell everyone these books are perfectly fine no it's not and you are responsible for any outcome these children have as adults when they are made medical patients for Life by keeping

133these books in these schools by trying to be inclusive of all of these ideology these gender ideologies that are portrayed in these books the school districts have every single one of you are responsible for the outcomes of these children they don't need this they need help they need inclusion to say you're perfectly fine the way you are stop transing kids Patty lanter Carrie Vin busker good evening esteemed board members Carrie van buerk proud parent of ala students with disabilities thank you for hearing my gerine comments this evening I wanted to start this evening with a quote from a favorite author of mine since books seem to be a common theme this evening this might be relevant James Ballwin a favorite africanamerican Urban gay rights poet of mine penned not everything that is faced can be

134changed but nothing can be changed until it is faced what I'm asking for you to face this evening and perhaps change is the use of seclusion please note that the use of seclusion can cause a trauma response of school avoidance also referred to as chronic absenteeism a concern expressed by our commissioner this evening as you are aware just recently in July the Kansas legislature passed a bill redefining seclusion and provides explicit guidelines regarding our expected response and documentation if we haven't already completed this onboarding I ask that we do so as soon as possible seclusion means placement of a student in a location where the student is placed in an enclosed area by school Personnel the student is purposely isolated from adults and peers and the student is prevented from leaving or the student reasonably

135believes that they are prevented from leaving the enclosed area please also be advised that the Kansas department of education does not promote the use of seclusion KSD recommends focus on prevention stresses that seclusion is not to be part of an mtss system or any student Behavior plan it is only to be used in an emergency ksde views seclusion as a reactive strategy that does not decrease the likelihood of the behavior reoccurring so I encourage our board to request a view of these areas that are used for that purpose we don't call them seclusion rooms I think it's because we honestly don't like using them but if we're going to use them we need to call them what they are not the room a mascot room a Celestial being room calm room but a seclusion room

136and I ask that we really really take a hard look at the data and reduce its use completely if possible I ask that you ensure timely reporting I ask that we look for patterns of use in specific buildings and work to reduce and cease its practice thank you very much thank you Patty lanter that concludes our public comments this evening moving on to action consent board any questions on any of the action consent items on our agenda seeing none I entertain a motion move to approve item 6.01 through 6.18 as presented second we have a motion by Mr wickliff and a second by Mr Kon Mr cun yes Mr Connell Mr Connell yes Dr yurovich yes Mrs Steel yes Mr wickliff yes Mr Boyd yes Mr beverage yes motion carries 7 to zero moving on

137to action BS contracts and agreements board any questions on 8.01 through 8.07 seeing none I entertain a motion move to approve 8.01 through 8 07 has presented second we have a motion by Mr beverage and a second by Mr wickliff Mr wickliff yes Mr Boyd yes Mr beverage yes Mr cun yes Mr Connell yes Dr yurovich yes Mrs steel yes motion carries seven to zero all right board there's um looks like 27 items on future action for us to look through and read through there's a couple information written reports board members any topics for discussion Mr conell do you have any topics for a discussion sir I will pass this evening thank you for asking thank you board Mr boy Mr whitler um I was going to do this in December but I thought I'm

138thinking about it so we might as well just go ahead um I was thinking about the choices that we make and life is about choices and right now I'm staring at some fantastic staff that have to make really difficult choices and decisions and doing an excellent job at it and I thank you for that um in my time here I've tried to I've tried to choose to to be a good role model um to support students and staff um to listen to understand and not to answer um to represent the district um in a positive light in public and always be a good Steward um to represent my family in a positive light um shout out team WI cff um I try to take the high road I try to comport myself with as much

139class as I'm able um and I only choose for myself right um and just hope that I get it mostly right uh because we don't all none of us get it right all the time next month is my last meeting um that'll make some people very happy and I'm good with that I'm fine with that um my hope is that all of you good talented people that are having to make big decisions tough decisions and tough choices are here to do that um After I'm Gone not that it would be me but I just hope that you're here to continue to guide this District um the way you have that's what I've got thank you sir board any other comments Mr beverage no oh I saw you grabbing the mic and pulling it down I

140could ask Mr wickliff if he's planning on skipping the next meeting but I do not have any comments that is TBD I reserve the right all right Dr dieo the floor is yours sir all right thank you I'm GNA share quite a bit of information tonight uh so I may have a quiz at the end because I'm going to give you a lot of facts and figures tonight so you know one of the things that we continue to focus on and this has come up in a variety of ways tonight is our continued uh Staffing challenges primarily in the area of classified staff you know I said last month and it's true that you know Staffing and special education seem to be the two topics that all superintendents have in common right now when we

141get together and look at the things that that we are trying really hard to do our best with but I wanted to spend a little bit of time tonight just talking about the the things that our HR department has done um in the last several months to try to bolster our efforts in this area and lelle smiling she's great she she's ready for this so um but you know one of the things that we've always done in our district is hold job fairs at least for the last number of years um you know school districts used to be a place where you held a job fair and everybody just came and it all worked out great so we continue to do that our team does a fantastic job of always picking up some employees in

142that but the other thing that we've done and especially in the classified realm is really working to go out into our community and try to uh recruit and higher classified staff members um this year alone we've been to the OA Salvation Army job fairs that they host um as you know Yellow Freight closed in in our area Johnson County Community College held a a job fair for for staff that had worked there our team was there recruiting people um La Mega KC job fairs hosted at the Johnson County Museum that's a job fair that happens uh frequently and and our teams have participated in that the Patrice rice Community Center job fair in Kansas City and also job fairs at Indian Creek Library here in ALA we've also really notched up our advertising um efforts

143if you will as a school system um we've had multiple radio ad campaigns and some live radio interviews uh for you radio fans out there we've been on 104.3 102.1 94.1 in 93.3 a little country A Little Rock a little pop all those things included there so uh very nicely rounded group of radio stations um social media blasts all over the place conducted throughout the year every single chance that we get um we post vacancies on outside employment websites ones that we've not used before um if you followed a district box truck around the district you have seen that it says come join our team on the back of the box truck with a QR code to do that um now hiring yard signs um all of our district newsletters certainly a focus on folks

144that we'd like to have in our our district here in the coming weeks you're going to see a billboard ad campaign across Kansas City encouraging people to come and work in the OA public schools and also video to advertise at District events the things that we've done um I say that to say that there are things on here that our district and school districts have never had to do before but I'm really proud of our team for working so hard to come with new and innovative ideas to do that also tonight on the HR report you hired some people who are early hires for next school year so we have not only early hires we now have early early hires um that we're working to get the very best in the brightest as we can

145in in our district we're also working with an outside Employment Agency to assist with our sped staff hiring right now um trying to fill some of our gaps that exist within our system we've also started offering part-time sh shifts if you will where folks can come in and work for 4 hours um that doesn't work typically great historically in schools but we're in a place we're willing to try about anything to get the staff that we need to do a great job for for our students and we're continuing to look at Job shares and what that looks like when two people share the same job so I just want to be clear that our team is working day in and day out trying to do everything they can um to combat the National Labor Market

146situation it's certainly not unique to Kansas it's not to AA but there are things our team are is doing that I've not seen other people do and I think it's just worth mentioning that tonight the other thing that I would say is lelle and her team and all of our team we're open to ideas um we you know constantly get um you know why aren't you doing more why aren't you're doing more and I just want to assure you we're doing everything that we can think of but by no means does that mean we have all the answers and if there's someone in our community on our board whatever the case may be that has some other ideas we're we're in for that I mean we're willing to take a look at anything because we

147do know that it is so important for us um the next thing I want to talk about is our enrollment a little bit um someone tonight talked about our enrollment was that Dr MCM had to be he was the only person that presented tonight after Dr Watson so um I just wanted to share some statistics about our enrollment and you will find these interesting you know there there's a little bit of a narrative that kids are leaving um our school district and droves and going somewhere else and I'm going to tell you that's simply not the case and so I have some data about our um District numbers this year that I'd like to share with you this is the part I'm going to have you uh have a test for you but we're down

148about 170 students this school year um we expected that but we are down about 170 our district had its largest senior class ever last year with 2400 students so in the history of our district last year senior class was the largest we ever had the incoming 2023 kindergarten class is 560 students smaller than last year's graduating class this is the largest deficit in the history of our district as well it's not surprising if you look at birth rates and our ZIP codes and in Johnson County this mirrors what we're seeing across our County the interesting thing and this is the part that I'll test you on later in comparing last year's kindergarten through 11th grade students versus this year's first grade through 12th grade students so it's simply essentially the same kids they just moved

149ahead one grade if that makes sense we're up 129 more students so the students that were here last year still here this year that group has grown 129 more students some other interesting thing about our students in ALA the number of students participating in the free and reduced lunch program this year is at 31% this is the highest in our District's history 20 years ago the percent of students participating in the free introduced lunch program was 13 % want to talk about changes in a school district the number of students needing special education services excluding gifted or speech and language has increased to 12.15% of the student body in 2012 that percent was 8.7% of the student body the percent of students whose native language is English is 80% in 2023 meaning 20% of our

150students their their language they language is not English in 2012 the present the percent of our students whose native language was English was 91% or 9% of our students that didn't speak English as their primary language the other thing that's interesting in the 2010 census in our area 87% of the students who could have attended the Ala Public School District attended the Ala Public School District in the 2020 census which is the most recent 89% of the students who could attend the student the district did attend the district and so I asked Chris growop who studies all of our numbers back and backwards and forwards I said give me some interesting facts and figures about our student data uh this is just a snapshot of who our students are this year so many things speak

151to me about that data and so many of the opportunities that we have but also uh so many of the things that just make our our district really great so um I will quiz you on that next month during the superintendent's comments I did want to mention a couple of other things um principal appreciation month was October you've probably seen our social media posts about that um I have to tell you that we have the best principles in the business in ALA um you know they they work hard they care so deeply about their students and their staff um you know I had my principal Advisory Group in just this week and I can tell you that you know there are no better Advocates and people who care so deeply about doing what's best for

152their staff and their students and really advocating whatever it takes to meet the individual needs of our kids and so I just want to thank our principles for the incredible work that they do each and every day and each and every year also you know that this is an important time of the year as fall Sports come to an end um I would just like to congratulate our teams that are still playing we have many of them um a list that's too long to go through tonight but you will see them all I'm sure right in front of you in the coming months Mr beverage and Mr Wickliffe you're welcome to come back for any of those celebrations over the next few months um if if you'd like and and enjoy that um so we

153have that happening this is also the time where we have our fall musicals and our high schools and so many kids doing incredible things to demonstrate their their talents across our system each and every day so just kudos to all of our student athletes all of our students that are involved in in the Arts and and really taking advantage of those things that that they have at their disposal here in ALA that's my comments tonight thank you sir and we have two executive sessions the first one how long how much time do you need for that one 20 minutes please 20 minutes move to I move to discuss matters relating to actions adversely or favorably affecting a person as a student and that the board returned to the regular meeting at 8:20 p.m. in this

154room second we have a motion by Mr beverage and a second by Mr Mrs steel yes Mr wickliff yes Mr Boyd yes Mr beverage yes Mr cun yes Mr Connell yes Dr yurovich yes motion carries 7 Z okay so whoever's going to make the motion in second making the motion could you come in read it off my screen I apologize I move that the board adopt the decision and findings of fact regarding a complaint filed under board policy gaaf concerning student d1a second we have a motion by Mrs steel and a second by Mr wickle Mr Boyd yes Mr beverage yes Mr cun yes Mr Connell Mr Connell I'll come back okay he's not g to vote okay Dr jurkovich yes Mrs steel yes Mr wickliff yes motion carry 60 moving on to agenda item

15515.01 motion sorry we're ready to we I move that the board go to Executive session for the purpose of consultation with an attorney for the body or agency which would be deemed privilege an attorney client relationship and the the board returned to the regular meeting just trying to think so we don't to come back out let's go 35 minutes at 905 is that right close enough okay second we have a motion by Mrs steel and a second by Mr wiwi Mr Connell Mr Connell Dr yurkovich yes Mrs steel yes Mr wickliff yes Mr Boyd yes Mr beverage yes Mr cun yes motion carry it's real thank you Pres