June 2023 Olathe Public Schools Board of Education Meeting

001[Music] thank you [Music] thank you [Music] thank you [Music] thank you foreign welcome or welcome back uh call the regular June meeting to order cheer Mr Kuhn Mrs Steele here Mr Wycliffe here Dr yurkovich here Mr Beveridge here all right let's switch one more time checking one more time for Mr Kuhn here excellent would you join me in America of Allegiance reasons one nation under God Dr McMullen thank you good evening thank you for attending tonight's Olathe Public Schools Board of Education meeting before we begin we feel it's 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

002an observatory role out of respect for everyone in attendance we request that audience members not speak yell or give a pause during the meeting this ensures the board staff and other attendees are able to listen and understand the business conducted 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 will now proceed with the agenda thank you all right adoption of agenda seek a motion to adopt a move to adopt a dinge item 2001 as presented second okay have a motion by Mr Boyd a second by Mrs Steele Mr Boyd yes Mr Beveridge yes Mr Kuhn yes Mr Connell yes Dr yurkovich yes Mrs Steele yes Mr Wycliffe yes all right we will move on to recognitions and

003awards well good evening everybody as we move into our Awards and recognitions I'd like to take a moment to welcome all of our distinguished guests and first I would like to invite Westview Elementary principal Cindy capella to the front if you have any staff with you you guys are welcome to join us well [Applause] Westview was named as a 2022 challenge award recipient by the confidence in Kansas public education task force 91 schools were named across the state for outstanding achievement and uncommon accomplishments based on Kansas assessment results in math and reading the awards recognize Kansas schools that are making a notable difference in student achievement despite facing significant challenges in their school population of course this comes as no surprise to us as Westview has been recognized before for their incredible achievements they also

004received the challenge award in 2021 and earlier this year Westview Westview was honored as a National esea Distinguished school by the National Association of Elementary and secondary Education Act State program administrators for Bridging the achievement gap between students we are so proud of Westview and know that these honors are a testament to their amazing staff and students congratulations [Applause] tonight we are also excited to recognize two outstanding science Educators at this time I'd like to invite olathen Northwest physics teacher Drew Smith in Olathe North Earth space science teacher Stacy Kavanaugh up to the front thank you all right [Applause] oh okay well then Stacy it's your night Drew and Stacy were two of five recipient recipients in the inaugural Kansas science teacher of the year award sponsored by the Departments of chemistry geology and physics

005at Kansas State University Drew was recognized as the Kansas science teacher of the year in the physics category while Stacy was recognized in the geology category the award aims to recognize the extraordinary work that is done by high school science teachers in the state of Kansas what makes this award even more special is that students were asked to name the science teachers who inspired them to study science or made a difference in their growth and development the nominees were then invited to apply and a committee selected the finalists Drew and Stacy congratulations on this well-deserved honor we are so proud to have you representately [Applause] next please join me in welcoming members of our human resources leadership team including Dr Lachelle Sig Dr Kathy Donovan Mr Eric Hansen Mrs Michelle Morris and Mr Justin Howe

006tonight we are thrilled to recognize our human resources department for not one but two honors earlier this year Olathe Public Schools was named to Forbes 2023 list of America's best mid-size employers coming in at number 12 Olathe Public Schools was the only K-12 School District Nationwide to be named within the top 60. in addition to making the national Forbes list Olathe Public Schools was also named as the number two Public School District in the Kansas City metro area by Ingram's magazine both of these honors are a direct Testament to the community in Olathe Public Schools and the work of our HR department to hire and retain quality staff through their efforts we have created an environment that people want to be a part of congratulations to our HR department but also to our Olathe Staffing

007Community for helping make Olathe Public Schools a nationally recognized employer and District thank you [Applause] and last but certainly not least I'd like to recognize some of my very favorite people my colleagues in the Communications Department at this time I'd like to invite assistant director of communications Aaron Schulte and Communications specialist Nick Sola up to the front I will note that we are missing a few from our team up here tonight our webmaster Marlene Colgan was unable to join us and our assistant director of visual media Tony Rangel and multimedia specialist Holden Potter are busy at work behind the scenes live streaming our meeting right now so they couldn't join us in person this team of incredible individuals was honored this year at the Kansas School of Public Relations Publications contest in conjunction with the

008Kansas Association of school boards the awards recognize the top work produced by cancer members in the Olathe team brought home four Awards of Excellence which is the highest level of recognition in the following categories crisis communication audio and video for the 2022 Bond video district report card or annual report for the 2021-22 Olathe Public Schools annual report and website or social media for the 2022 Bond website what we typically operate behind the scenes it's my distinct honor to recognize these individuals for their hard work and dedication I have the pleasure of seeing the amazing work they do to support public education each day and I'm so proud to recognize them publicly tonight so congratulations [Applause] [Music] [Applause] all right we'll move on to presentations first from Olathe East I'd invite Carrie Lane and team as

009Carrie and her team make her way up here I want to take the opportunity thank you guys for allowing us some time tonight to talk with you about the 3D program at Olathe East High School I was a little over a year ago we came before you to talk about kind of timeline and implementation for the program that would be implemented in the 2022-23 school year this past school year so we thought we'd come back and give an update of what we've learned how it went and the progress and maybe plans for the future so with that I will turn it over to Carrie and her Entourage here good evening and thank you for having us back tonight we're excited to share uh where we're at in year one um like Dr Albert said last

010year at this time we were finishing year zero and we are now getting ready to conclude year one and so we wanted to share from not just um my perspective but from the greater Kansas City Junior Achievement perspective and then also from the student teacher perspective how things are going in about 10 minutes so we're gonna go um through this pretty quick but I wanted to start off by just sharing um that um this wouldn't have been possible without the help of the Olathe School District without the support of the 3de program and especially not the support of Junior Achievement of Greater Kansas City and Megan and Kate are here and I'm going to turn it over to Megan just in a second but the support that they've provided for us the excitement that they

011bring whenever they come into our building and into our school district keeps the teachers keeps me keeps Dr Dash I'm excited and we couldn't ask for better partnership so I'm going to turn this over to Megan and Megan's going to just remind you a little bit about the program and the corporate Partnerships foreign good evening as Carrie mentioned I'm Megan Sturgis Stanfield and I have the honor and pleasure of serving as the president and CEO at Junior Achievement of Greater Kansas City uh rewind three and a half four years ago I learned about the 3de model it is a National Junior Achievement 3D opportunity and I said out loud at a conference we're going to bring that to Kansas City and my team knows when I say something we usually find a way to make

012it happen so we are very pleased that Olathe particularly Olathe East staff was willing to raise their hand be a guinea pig a pilot playground and I think we are Beyond pleased I'm actually overwhelmed by the first year experience that we've had with Olathe so as a reminder 3de is a model that really looks to systemically change and redesign the high school learning environment we want it to be more relevant and authentically connected so that students are really prepared for life beyond the classroom but also really ready to embark on all of life's adventures and maybe onto the side experience helping teachers fall in love with teaching again so that is done in a true public-private Venture so we need the school district partner and particularly the School Junior Achievement is a key player in

013that piece and then the business partners in our community in individuals companies organizations who are willing to come and really bring the authenticity and bring the model to life I had a great privilege of just reminding you that the methodology and the learning model that is used within this program is a competency-based model and so our students if they go through the program all four years as a cohort we'll have the opportunity to complete 17 case challenges by Corporate America not just nationally but also locally Megan's going to come back up and share with you some exciting news on that front in Kansas City but every single competency that our students learn is weaved into every case challenge not just the challenge itself but also in the standard Core Curriculum that is being taught and

014so I wanted to share with you these are our six competencies the students I'm bringing up to are freshmen but I'm sure they could tell you if I asked them to name all six of these and they'd be able to do so um so we're weaving in these competencies through the case challenges and then weaving the case challenges in through our educational standards by the state of Kansas so it's a heavy lift it's a different way of looking but none of our students have to take another elective there's not a lot of after before or after school and kinds of commitments what they're getting is an authentic work based experience and they're getting employees of all of our corporations and national and local businesses in their classrooms modeling for them answering their questions and helping

015them through these case challenges throughout the way so I don't want to talk a whole lot more so I'm going to turn it back over to Megan I want her to talk about the exciting things on the Business Partnership front and then I'm going to have my teachers and my students speak a little bit so really the way that way that comes to life life is through the authentic connection so the business partners the volunteers that join the students at the school and helping them put together their presentations their pitches and then really impactful that they provide real-time feedback when the students are presenting at the culminating event so there are six of those during the freshman year and six of those during the sophomore year this is a national uh model we are one

016of ten cities that are participating in the model so I will tell you Doctor year I don't even think I've mentioned this yet but when the national CEO of 3de was here having a conversation we all sat down him and his counterpart walked out of the district office and said Megan there's something really special happening at Oli Olathe East and they have seen 3de in the model across the country so there are currently 42 schools involved so these National partners are activating case challenges at each of the schools and then Junior Achievement is actively engaging in local Partnerships so that the students can see right here in their own Community where can they find career opportunities connect bring that Social Capital to life I know when I was here last time that they were really

017hopeful that the Chiefs would sign on I have not yet inspired them but we were very successful to bring on Sporting KC for this next year and just a number of different industries that are really bringing a lot of perspective and presenting high growth career opportunities to the students so that they can really start to think about what does life look like beyond the classroom this is my last portion of the presentation so I just want to say thank you for believing in Innovation thank you for partnering with us this has really been a dream to work with Olathe and Olathe East Kerry and the team and the teachers and the students like I have been so excited to welcome outside visitors to come and look at the model in action I think it has

018inspired some friends in Iowa to sign on the dotted line and bring this to their school after a visit to Olathe East and very excited about where this might be able to grow in The District in future years to come thank you now who you really want to hear from I'm going to introduce our Pioneer a group of three teachers um this is my freshman team a biology teacher named Darian Ogden a social science teacher will Buller and a mathematics teacher Caitlin Foster and they're doing the heavy lifting every day they're the ones that are taking the challenge and meeting the expectation applying the flame flying the plane while we've built it to be quite Frank and I want them to talk just a little bit about what 3D has done for them and the

019perspective they've had okay okay so I'm going to take the first bullet point here of what it looks like in our classroom and this is probably the number one question we get from a lot of people about 3de and to be quite honest with you um it doesn't require us to reinvent the wheel or anything like that which is really nice especially when you're kind of building the play as we fly um so the competencies are soft skills the employable skills that we want all of our students to have when they do graduate from high school I do think subconsciously teachers are teaching these but the 3de model allows us to be really intentional with those skills and so the way that intentionally comes into play is how we end up planning our lessons and

020our instruction that's in the classroom so if any of you did come I think it was December we were able to kind of showcase some of the things we are doing in our classroom and so if you don't get the opportunity and you would like to I highly recommend coming in so what those things could look like is for example if we're talking about creativity and innovation in my class I could ask my students to come up with two polynomials that create a particular sum in science I know this year they had a project where they were doing a sustainable housing project which was very creative it was very cool seeing all those presentations and I know in Mr buller's classroom when they were talking about World War one they talked about the propaganda posters

021and so his students had a project to make propaganda posters for Olathe East in terms of like why not during choir or why Math and Science just happens to be the worst enemy ever and so that was really cool and um it's really nice because it just really enhances and complements what we're already doing but it does challenge us to think outside the box to really benefit all the stakeholders that are involved in a particular class period so I'm going to turn it over to Darian and she's going to do the next two bullet points for you okay so when we get our case from Jay it's got a competency built in so I put our little board out here we pretty much live and die by this board especially as we learn so I

022know not everybody can see it but we sit down in PLC and they'll say the one out there is your competency is cultural agility and um it's the Arby's case and the Arby's case was all about the customer experience and improving that for 13 to 17 year olds so we sat down and we looked standards what standards do we need to teach and then we look at our competency okay we need to get cultural agility with our standard so then we go through buy content and decide how in our class we're going to do that um this was one of our Strongest Ones and our best this year because cultural agility basically means like dealing with others bad days good days they look different are different so what we were able to do is sit

023down and I was on infections and cells and things like that so I've been bouncing to Caitlyn she needed to work on exponential functions as it would turn out infection follows an exponential function and then with Mr bullard's class they were right at the tail end of world war one which is when the Spanish Flu occurred so we were able to hook all those together and then turn around and talk about that experience and then translate that for our students into Arby's and allow them to be creative and um just work through it so that's a one example of the six which doesn't experience now I'm going to talk about the teacher experience um everything you're taught like in school when you become a teacher and how kids learn you talk about how you guys

024get to integrate interdisciplinary curriculum um and that's what we do here uh the teaming aspect of being able to talk with each other and work with each other sending kids to one another and say hey what are you working on and how can we work on this together so when she talked about how we did the Spanish flu and how the actual right and infections go with math um in science we did that in my class and really it's when you talk about these things you think if it's a great idea but other schools really hard to do that doing this as a teaming model and being able to do this together with those same kids makes it really really easy to implement and do as a group along with the other kids as well

025I have two amazing students that are um freshmen and they've been our year two of our year one students I'm gonna have them talk just a little bit about it from the student perspective you have the wonderful Isaiah and the wonderful a yes that and they're both going to talk a little bit about the next goal all right hi everyone I'm Isaiah Peterson I'm going into my sophomore year at Olathe East and I'm in the 3D program so what does the classroom look like a 3D classroom looks very similar to what a non-3d classroom would look like on the surface but once you dive into the class you're met with a tightly knit group of students and lessons being learned and displayed in a way that does not occur and not in a non-3de classroom

026students in 3de can experience in public speaking teamwork and many other things I don't know how in depth they've gone with what case challenges include like the day-to-day basis but it lasts about a month we've partnered with companies like Arby's mark one electric Delta Blue Cross Blue Shield BML INR and then next year we're spreading we're partnering with Sporting KC so the company will give us a challenge question which and then we are assigned to groups of three to five in which we are tasked to come up with a unique solution for their problem we have a few weeks of work time and then after that we're met with internal judging which occurs in each classroom and groups present their solutions to the class and then the best groups out of everyone will be chosen

027to present at the culminating events and then we'll have judges come in and people from the company come in and they'll judge and decide the best group so to me 30e is like family everyone in 3de at Olathe East knows each other this helps make group work such as the case challenges go very smoothly 3D has helped me with so many things including public speaking and more thank you for your time hi everyone I'm ayasa Hernandez and I'm an upcoming sophomore in Olathe East High School and I'm in the 3de program so in every case challenge we work in we have a coaching day it is when employees from the company we work with come to our school and help us with our Solutions and they give us more context to the situation of our

028case problems and students like me and Isaiah also ask them for more information about the case that would help us conclude and come up with a working solution so so far my experience with 3de has been excellent it has made my learning experience more fun and definitely more engaging engaging as I was able to express my creativity and critical thinking into our cases being in 3de helped me improve my confidence when presenting in front of other people I also gain a lot of friends who have helped me with the cases and people that I enjoyed working with throughout the year thank you and for the sake of time we we brought some data and I'll let you guys take a look at that we score above the national average on all of the survey responses

029that we've done this year but I wanted to let Dr D Dash just talk to you a little bit about our specific cohort and then we'll wrap up good evening um first I want to say thank you to the board to giving us for giving us the opportunity to be here today um uh basically a part of uh my role every day is to meet with Sharon nahuna I want to give a special shout out to Sharon Noona she's our 3D representative who's out uh housed out of uh Olathe so I work with her on a daily basis we basically dive into the data uh that the teachers provide us with and some of the indicators that you see up there on the left side that you will see is our cohort overview and the

030reason why we included that was to 3D once our 3de cohort to be a mirror of our student population uh they wanted to look exactly like what our student population looks like so that's why you see there on the on our demographic side that you'll see it mirrors very closely uh as far as what our freshman cohort was this year on the right side those are indicators that we're looking on on weekly basis this is a very broad view of it but we're constantly monitoring individual students on how they're doing and those are the indicators of attendance that you see we're right there with the rest of the 2026 the rest of the Freshman cohort you see the discipline numbers that we're looking at uh that is those are numbers you will see the 12

031out of the 66 discipline we had the SES numbers and of course our GPA were right there with the rest of them uh the big piece that we're always looking at for our freshmen is the percentage of the credits that they're earning uh throughout the year and you see that we are right there with them we're constantly looking at other indicators as well uh you know the common assessments that we're given are are for example biology is giving our 3D core of biology how does that look like uh with regards to non-3d students we're always comparing those data to make sure that we're our building on our areas and strengths and addressing areas of opportunity okay I do need to brag um every year we take um a case challenge that's a national case Challenge

032and we send it off to the National level and um like um was mentioned by Megan earlier there are currently 44 schools in the state in the nation sorry um we tried for the first time it was the Arby's case challenge there was the first a second and the honorable mention and Olathe received honorable mention on the very first time out so I have to brag on this group we've had like Megan has said other states come in to see what we're doing in in Kansas based on this program the other piece I will say and then open it up for questions is that this program is one of the first that I've ever been a part of in 28 years of education in this District that does and brings the support with it like

033already said Sharon ahuna is in our building PLC with our staff every single day and that's how they have time to weave all of these competencies standards and case challenges together I also have students who have never seen anybody of a different ethnicity in my building that are for the first time seeing people out in the corporate world coming in and coaching them on the different aspects of their business and their corporation so it's opened our building up to different community experiences not just the students in 3de next year we're adding three more sophomore teachers as this Co moves up we go from four to three we're bringing in another 130 freshman students in our attainment rate we started with 130 we ended with 126 and all of those students are heading on to 3D

034for their sophomore year so we're proud going into year two we're excited to see what these sophomores do and you could see a sample of them tonight questions for any of us thank you no that's just impressive and I appreciate everybody's hard work questions I have a few questions actually so so the first one you mentioned three content areas is that and Ela all four really couldn't be here but all four okay I saw a four on that um freshman sophomore year what happens Junior Senior Year great question junior year and junior year they are actually picking a business and running through several different scenarios with that business senior year it's much like a Capstone project in our 21st century programs where the St the students will go out into the business world and partner

035with one of these employers that we've been working with so is there a component during freshman sophomore year where they actually are at the workplace glad you asked yes how many times have you guys gone out for for um been to what where did you all go you guys want to share mark and um foreign so the employers will sometimes if they can house 125 kids they'll let us come out didn't take over their space and we'll get to go and view the company and the corporation make it anything to add one thing to add so I'm working um closely with the Kauffman Foundation to start to back the lovely market value assets that I know everyone is talking about not only locally but now at a state level so what we're working on is

036basically identifying freshmen and sophomore year during the 12 case challenges those would basically map to client-connected projects junior year is really an entrepreneurial venture so we could get the entrepreneurial MBA and then Senior Year we call it a consultancy so they will work on a 12 to 14 week project with one specific company which I believe equates to also the equivalent of an internship as well so I believe you know per Kaufman definition we can check three of the four boxes and Dr Yeager and I've talked about you know that they're even more at the state level than yeah and one more how are the students selected um the first year they um filled out an entrance inventory and we took everybody the second year we've had a larger swelling of students but um there

037is every every student that once in gets in and that's great for my master schedule because I I don't get any extra FTE so I need as many kids as I can get in the program and and I will share that that was one of kind of the rules of being a partner within the model is that if we really want to drive systemic change this has to be a model that can reach and support all Learners not your top 10 person not your students who are really struggling so we really challenged Carrie and team to find a way that when we look at the cohort you know against the 2026 cohort how can we try to mirror that but there's no apple there's no like interview process you know some not nothing like 21st

038century academies if you raise your hand and we Inspire the parents at the eighth grade level to participate then we will welcome you into it's a great question anybody else yes others I just want to say how exciting kind of makes me want to go back to high school what a really cool program um and these six core competencies what amazing skill sets to be teaching our kids no matter what they end up doing After High School these are skills you'll take with you I remember being in a math class in high school wondering what you know what do I need this for so is it Caitlyn the math teacher that you know I Googled polynomial is that right and you know when you read the definition it's not real exciting but the fact that

039you're putting it into context that's real world learning that's very cool so excellent job thank you very much thank you thank you [Applause] screwball well hello again twice in one night um I am pleased to be here tonight to talk to you guys about the results of our 2023 District parent and staff surveys and as you guys know one of the goals of our district is to continually seek input and feedback from our stakeholders to help inform our decisions and just help us to kind of check in on ourselves and and hear from our community so that we can always make sure we're making the right decisions with our stakeholders in mind this year we opened our annual staff and parent surveys during the month of March and if you'll recall this spring was pretty

040survey heavy with our work around Bell schedules and transportation and so despite that we were still really pleased to see that our participation numbers remain just as high as they had in the past so that was really great um before we dive into the actual results I want to just take a moment to remind you guys of a couple of the ways that we seek and receive input from our community so obviously we have our annual survey that we send out each spring and that serves really as a benchmarking tool for us um we keep the questions the same each year and so we're able to go back and compare and contrast from previous years see what growth areas we have and again areas for improvement we're constantly assessing our social media sites any direct

041messages we receive so that's kind of an informal way we receive feedback we have formal email surveys that go out our website we can put a feedback form on our website you'll recall with our Bell study we had a specific feedback form just for that so we were able to receive feedback that way oftentimes if there's a special project or event we may send out a survey following those to get specific feedback and then our department also manages our Communications inbox and so we receive a variety of questions um but also thoughts feedback that we monitor regularly too so this year for our parents survey we had just over 3 400 responses and that is almost a thousand um responses more from last year so that was great because we love to hear from our

042family because we want to hear from our stakeholders so to see that participation increase was really great we had parents from all three levels and early childhood represented as well as all buildings and parents with students in multiple levels were also represented and thanks to our I.T Department who helped put the survey together we were able to get some data that drilled down by building level as well so now for the points of Pride um this really is an overview for you guys of some of the highlights from these surveys and so we had several points of Pride that I wanted to draw your attention to as we go through these the red portion is going to represent the combined total of folks who responded as agree or strongly agree the light gray is neutral

043responses and then the dark gray is disagree or strongly disagree and one of the things that really stood out to me was that that disagree and strongly disagree for the most part you're going to see is less than 10 percent across the board and so that was a really proud moment for me to see that that's a pretty minimal slice of the pie going through these questions so first when it comes to learning opportunities we had 85 percent of our parent respondents say that they are satisfied with the learning opportunities provided to their students and that was no change from last year so that remained the same 71 said that diversity equity and inclusion are valued in their district and that was a four percent increase from last year and then 79 said that the

044leadership at their child's school is effective which again was a two percent increase from last year so we love to see those positive jumps 85 percent of our parent respondents said that their child has a high quality and Effective Teacher again no change from last year so we were able to maintain that high level 85 percent said that the Olathe Public Schools provide safe and secure learning environments and that was a five percent increase from last year which is one of our highest jumps of the various questions that folks answered and I think that's a real Testament to Mr kyger Dr McMullen the work that they've done this year around Safety and Security from crisis alert implementation and then just really some concerted efforts to keep safety top of Mind through some video communication efforts

045with staff and families so I think that's a direct reflection of those efforts 82 of our parents said that Olathe Public Schools Compares well to neighboring school districts which again was no major change from the previous year and as we think about the conversation around school choice and that conversation our community I think it's great to see that Olathe continues to be a top-notch district that compares well to our neighbors and while I love to focus on the positives I think one of the great things about survey feedback is that it also brings to light some areas of growth and opportunities for improvement and so we'll go through a few of those here um and while we do that I'm really going to focus on that light gray area for all of these so those

046neutral responses um because to me that's where the opportunity really lies this first one the district is preparing students for Success After High School clearly we just heard from some rock star students that were doing some great work to prepare them for success but um we have about 26 percent of folks who responded neutrally and I'd really love to move the needle there so to me that's a Communications opportunity really highlighting the work that we're doing in our district to provide those opportunities for kids whether it's our academies 3de so that we can help educate our parents around what those opportunities are I think that 26 could also reflect maybe some of our younger families who don't have kids at the level yet who would be engaging in those programs or opportunities so there's a

047variety of factors but I think we have some real opportunities there to move that needle the next one the district provides high quality social emotional learning we had 64 percent of folks who agreed with that and 21 neutral again an opportunity for Education around maybe what SEL is and what it isn't for our community so just helping them understand what SEL is and then also partnering with our schools you'll see later on that a lot of our parents respond that they get their information at the school and teacher level and so maybe having a counseling Corner uh portion of their newsletter where they talk about the SEL work going on in their building and making sure that we're focusing on the academics but also sharing out that SEL work as well and then finally the

048district provides quality Mental Health Services we had 60 percent of people strongly agree or agree with that which is actually an increase from last year so wonderful but I think there's still room for an improvement um again that 28 of neutral could be folks who don't engage with our mental health services so they don't feel comfortable answering one way or another but it could also be reflective of education and just wanting to make sure that people understand what services we offer for our staff survey we had just over 1600 staff respond 72 percent of those were certified staff and 28 identified as a classified staff member and just like our parent survey we had stopped from all three levels represented and all buildings including our support buildings represented some points of Pride on our staff

049survey 68 of Staff responded that they are satisfied or very satisfied with their job so about two-thirds of folks again that 19 neutral we'd love to move the needle on that so people could really feel strongly about their job satisfaction 72 percent said they were proud to work in Olathe Public Schools and 70 percent said diversity Equity inclusion were valued in the district and that remained the same from the previous year as well new this year and we added this question on a sense of belonging so I mentioned we really try to keep our questions the same so we can Benchmark each year but we did add this question around a sense of belonging and I think for an initial year we were super pleased to see that almost two-thirds of our staff responded agree

050or strongly agree that they feel a sense of belonging um and I think that is a testament to Marquis Harris his Department of culture and belonging and the efforts that they've made around that initiative he's had his culture center podcast this year they've developed Affinity groups groups for staff and they've had the culture center cohorts and so I know he's made some real intentional efforts on that sense of belonging first stop and then just like our parents survey we had a five percent increase in Safety and Security among staff so 75 percent said they feel like they work in a safe and secure work environment some areas of growth for the staff survey even though I mentioned the sense of belonging as a strength I also think it provides an opportunity for us again that

05123 percent you know we recognized our HR department earlier and clearly we have a nationally recognized District where people want to work and we would love for that 23 to feel strongly to say yes I want to be here I feel a sense of belonging so moving that needle on those neutral responses 55 of Staff said that they had the resources to do their job which is a slight decrease from last year's responses and I think that this could be a variety of factors um it could be new initiatives that staff have been asked to tackle um I also think if you look nationally just in the K-12 or the labor market in general there's labor shortages and so if you think of resources in terms of human capital I know that we continue to

052find challenges to stop our support roles and so that could be part of that as well and then finally 47 said the district provides high quality Mental Health Resources and support to staff again that 37 percent may be folks who don't engage in those services but as always we can look at this as an education opportunity to make sure people know and understand what's offered to them okay this is my favorite slide um communication so we asked folks to respond to the statement I get the information I need from Olathe Public Schools and I think these are actually flip-flopped I think it's 89 of parents agreed or strongly agreed that they get the information that they need and 91 of Staff agree that they get the information they need but as a Communications professional that

053makes my heart real happy to see that people feel like their schools in the district is providing the information that they're seeking and they get that in a variety of different ways but you'll see that email continues to be the primary way that people receive communication as I mentioned earlier parents get that more at the local level so the school email classroom teacher but also District staff get district and supervisor emails our website continues to be an information hub for both audiences and then on staff you'll notice the in the no newsletter we launched that last year it is our Weekly Newsletter to staff and so in our second year I'm pleased to see that it continues to rank highly in our staff or finding value in that Weekly communication that they receive we also

054had an opportunity to provide some open feedback and again nothing here really surprised me I think if you look at the landscape of K-12 education both locally and nationally I think these are themes that you're going to see emerge um nationally and so Olathe the public schools is an immune to that either especially when you see things like paying compensation staff morale burnout workload those have been things we've kind of been hearing about for the past couple of years just in the landscape of K-12 education when you look at the cost of living the rising cost of living and wages kind of remaining stagnant again those are just not surprises to me that those rows to the top uh building and District leadership was a mix of positive comments from individuals who have really positive

055experiences with their principal and want to give them a shout out in this forum and then also constructive feedback for both district and building level leadership on just decision making on big initiatives student Behavior again a national conversation I think we're hearing that our teachers continue to face challenging behaviors in the classroom with students and class size those were some of the top themes that emerged for staff in our parent comments I was very pleased to see that just general positive feedback Rose to the top um these comments were very specific to each person so it could have been a thank you to the district for what you're doing you're doing a great job my child's principal is a rock star I love our third grade teacher my child's getting the support they need so

056I just couch those as positive um but we also saw diversity equity and inclusion rise as a theme and that could be anything from wanting to see an increase in diversity among our staff which we know is an initiative among our HR department wanting to create Equitable opportunities among schools so that no matter what School in Olathe your child attends you know that they're going to get the same quality education regardless of where they're at and inclusion creating inclusive environments for both our students and our staff academics and academic rigor of course we are a school district so parents wanting to make sure that academics continue to be a priority of the district we saw earlier that question about preparing students for their future that was a theme that came up making sure that we're

057challenging our students appropriately that they're being prepared for whatever post-secondary experience they might have and then there were specific comments around different content areas so science social studies math that all fell within the academics category technology again kind of a mixed bag of positives and just individual experiences it wasn't in the previous slides but we did have 82 percent of our respondents say that they felt like we have quality technology in the district so that positivity was reflected in the comments along with personal philosophies on screen time and traditional academic instruction personal experiences with devices all of that and then just like staff class size was one of the concerts as well making sure that our staff have the support they need to manage class sizes as well so next steps our senior leadership team

058has all of this information and has either reviewed or is in the process of reviewing it to help guide our decision making moving forward as I mentioned we do have school specific information so that has been provided to our GA team our general Administration team and they'll be sharing that with principals to help guide their decisions moving forward as well um and as I mentioned at the beginning this continues to be a priority for us so we're going to continue to survey our staff survey our parents seek feedback because we want them to be partners with us in whatever decisions that we make so we'll continue this process and certainly the annual survey will continue every year with that I would welcome any questions thank you and thank your team for all the hard work

059and Diving through this data um questions from the board yeah I guess could you remind me the number of staff that responded 1600s what percent of staff is that so we have about 5 000 stock members okay and then um did the survey lend itself in those areas such as growth or sense of belonging to disaggregate by level and by classified and and certified staff we certainly would be able to do that at we didn't do that at this level this was just an overview but I'd be happy to get that information for you if it's something that you want okay I think that would be something interesting for us Church C is the end you know the example that you gave about the response about students being prepared for their future and perhaps it

060you know was influenced because of Elementary so to be able to see kind of how the responses came by level I think would be helpful we can absolutely do that thank you thank you yeah so I had a similar questions to Dr yorkovich um so I'll I'll let her have those um but I do want to make a comment um it's interesting you know as we talk about learning loss from covet um and then have have a feedback from my parents that says academic rigor is now starting to to be on the top of their mind it's you know sort of signal to us that you know maybe they have come out of that that phase and our parents are ready for their kids to be challenged further so we can continue pushing them and

061make sure that they are prepared so yeah I was reading through the through the back questions all of the ones around education educational opportunities learning opportunities most all of them ranked 80 or higher so I think people are pleased but as you said are continuing to keep academics at the top of mind and just want to make sure that we're launching challenging all students absolutely others can you remind me Becky is um I I think I filled this out as a parent but I can't remember is there a place to put your name if you want it or is it so it's an anonymous survey the only opportunity you would really have to include your name is if you included it in the open feedback portion but other than that it's completely anonymous I'm good

062I was just going to say if somebody had included their name and had some pretty grave concerns is there a way that senior leadership can reach out to him but they'd have to provide their name for that to happen and certainly if anyone did and that was the case that is why we provide that school level data um I also provide it on the staff side to um any classified supervisors as well they all receive that open-ended feedback so if something would come to the top as a concern to them or if someone had listed their name and asked for follow-up they'd have the opportunity to do that and many times too the the concerns come back to this to the email not the survey so a lot of times somebody responds to the email

063or the survey link is sent and said I have a concern and then Becky and her teamwork to make sure that gets to the right person that's pretty frequent whenever we send a District's email out thank you others seeing none thank you very much thank you guys I don't want the moment to pass but I didn't want to say this till the end because I didn't want her to be nervous but that was Becky's very first presentation uh in her role to the board of education and she did a great job so uh thank you [Applause] all right we will move on to public comments the Board of Education reserves limited time during its regular meetings for individuals to address the board individuals addressing the board should come to the podium at the front of

064the room when requested by the board president when beginning your address to the board we ask you to please share your name the city where you live and what schools your children attend or have attended in the district tonight we request the individual speakers limit their comments to three minutes a staff person will monitor the time and notify the speaker when they're three minutes has expired please direct your comments to the entire board if response is appropriate the president will respond or refer to another individual we ask the speakers refrain from discussing complaints involving individual staff members or students if they have not been previously addressed to The District administration out of respect for everyone in attendance yelling foul language props visuals and addressing the audience are not permitted in addition audience members are not

065allowed to speak ill or give Applause during public comments this ensures the board is able to listen and then transition to the next speaker please note that these that those who disrupt a meeting in any capacity will be asked to leave and may lose the opportunity to attend future meetings thank you Mr Boyd our first Speaker Thomas Greger uh Thomas Greger I live in Olathe and I have one son at Rome Elementary Dr Yeager members of the board with the school year at a close I believe is appropriate we take stock of the previous school year and look forward to the next that end I intend to speak to disruptions in my classroom learning environment and the resources needed around our district during the past year the classroom environment was often noisy and disruptive this

066is not a comment on the work of our teachers paraprofessionals or special Educators rather we are our staff are outnumbered by students who did not receive sufficient support throughout the day well most of the time a para is present in the classroom to assist students of special needs they are often overwhelmed by the number of students needing emotional or educational support the Staffing may be within the collective IEP guidelines of the students in the room it is insufficient regardless piercing wailing Tantrums on the floor General noise and other disruptions occur on a regular basis my son's impression was as classroom was quiet enough for focused learning just half the time while his experience may not be representative of most classrooms in our district it is clear in talking to parents and staff from other elementaries

067in the district that our experience is not isolated the district is currently seeking over 200 paraprofessionals across its schools and centers for the USD 233 job application website some requests are for a school year just ended numerous others were open recently made due to apparent resignations these positions are mainly hourly with starting rates of 15 or 16 25 per hour or seven hour work day or 19 to 21 000 per school year given the challenges these roles represent and compensation offered it seems highly unlikely the district will fill close to the totality of these positions leaving some students without adequate support and contributing to disruptive classroom environment for all a goal of the individuals with disabilities Education Act or idea and its amendments since its passage have been about meeting the needs of our special

068needs students in our classrooms and providing them with the research resources they need to succeed over time schools have moved many of these students away from spending a significant portion of their day in special education classrooms like my own School District in the 90s these students occupy the general classroom and socialize with their peers more often but they require numerous additional peras for support I am not here tonight to promote an older model the current model or a new model that is something for the district to solve I simply ask these questions does pay need to be raised prepare for professional positions Should students composition within classrooms be re-examined in light available resources do IEPs need to be reevaluated and ultimately what should be done to restore order in our classrooms I am concerned for

069the coming school year and I hope the district and this board will seek answers to these questions thank you for your consideration thank you Megan bricks good evening Board of Education members my name is Megan bricks and I just completed my fifth year of teaching I can proudly say that I've spent each of those five years teaching Elementary General music here in Olathe in the exact same classroom that I student taught it I was extremely lucky lucky to be given the opportunity to teach here I want to thank you for allowing me to speak in front of you all tonight as an educator it is extremely important and valuable that I'm able to speak my voice in front of you all I never once thought that I would be the educator who shows up to

070each board meeting and speaks during public comment every month I began attending these meetings and speaking to stand up for the Educators and students of this school district but I've begun to realize that it means so much more than that Educators parents and community members see and hear me each month and they they hear me taking a step outside my comfort zone those same people have expressed to me personally how thankful they are to have me speaking up for those who are not here to represent themselves they have told me that I've made a difference in their life I have had my very own students in my very own class tell me hey I saw you on my TV last night as I discovered their parents were watching the live stream of the meeting the

071time to attend and speak during public comment each month has truly made a difference in my life and hopefully the lives of students and staff here in Olathe as Educators one of our primary focuses is helping our students find their voice or their passion as an educator at a leader in me Lighthouse school we utilize the eight habits within all areas school-wide from math to music to recess to science to library each and every day we teach and model these habits for our students as our students discover their passion and find their voice our role as the Educators to seek out and provide them opportunities to use their passion and then step outside of their comfort zones you as the Board of Education have provided me the opportunity to utilize my passion of advocating for

072educators and students while speaking during public comment each month why don't we see more of this I wish that every month there was a line of parents Educators or community members standing in this exact same spot stepping outside of their comfort zone to advocate for their children or their family or their colleagues or themselves I'm so proud of the students who tonight showed up to use their voice to impact their educational experiences here in the Olathe Public Schools public comment is a place for people to use their voice to better our school system I hope that you as the Board of Education continue to actively listen during public comment and I hope that we can continue to use this time to work together to prepare students for their future thank you for allowing me to

073stand up here each month and use my voice I appreciate you listening to my thoughts as well as your responses to my emails as I bring forward my thoughts concerns and celebrations as educator here at the Olathe Public School thank you Ian mateer good evening I'm Anne matier all three of my children graduated from Olathe schools but I'm here tonight as a librarian at California Trail I have just completed my 34th year and I still love what I do and I have a rock star principle and I've been honored to work for a district all those years that has repeatedly recognized for its excellence and commitment to students success there's a wealth of research on the importance of reading and it leaves no denying that competence in reading skills and fostering the love of reading

074is one of the greatest predictors of that student's success unfortunately I see this District systematically dismantling our library program not only in the removal of secondary Library clerks but more importantly in the refusal to hire an experienced credentialed Library coordinator in all of my years here in Olathe last year was the only year we have not had a credentialed library coordinator because Library science is such a niche role in education for you understand its reversing complexity we need a credentialed librarian to provide leadership vision and when needed advocacy with groups such as yours we need a credential librarian overseeing our policies and practices we need a coordinator to run screening interviews so that principals who don't know our specialized Library skill set have a vetted list of people to choose from we need an experienced

075person to interface with our book Automation and database vendors as well as District technology who supports those platforms we 51 Librarians and libraries in this District are not autonomous but rather we are interdependent with over ten thousand titles traveling between buildings this past school year your 51 Librarians require and deserve specialized professional development uh this is not committee work nor can we expect three facilitators to add to their already tremendous workload okay some point just last year I circulated 1200 books at over 500 classes in my library for checkout or instruction I wrote 28 new web pages to support learning on top of maintaining 50 existing pages and I am amped up the district's Trail challenge reading program so that 27 of the students at California Trail actively participated heaven forbid oh my point is

076that no one person or even group of three people can take on the demands and duties of a full-time coordinator heaven forbid that we Face another formal book challenge here in Olathe but in the culture and climate we live in we can almost expect it the district would be vulnerable without a coordinator who is well versed in the American American Association of school librarian guidelines and recommendations for book challenges several highly experienced Librarians in the district who would Excel IF promoted to coordinator Librarians who could support the 51 of us and are uniquely daily our unique daily challenges and who could deliver the level of oversight vision and Leadership only a certified Library Coordinator would provide us I implore you to provide us with a Prudential library media coordinator thank you for your time thank

077you Sarah Coddington good evening my name is Sarah Coddington I'm a parent of students at two of our Olathe high schools and I teach science at Olathe East I am here tonight for my lgbtq family for the transgender students that I worked with this year and for the kids that come into my classroom seeking a safe place to exist it has been one complete school year since the district produced guidance related to gender identity in the face of many concerns Dr Yeager shared at our December 21 board meeting that we would never have the intent to out students to their parents and that this document really truly was intended as guidance and not as policy having seen this play out for a full school year I can attest that the guidance is a de facto

078policy and has caused harm for our students the guidance says that staff suspected to treat students to respect preferred name and pronouns but to seek parental consent before using them publicly what happened is that students that don't have parental consent were not supported and have been addressed by their dead name as a normative practice guidance says that we prohibit discrimination against any student for any reason including gender identity what happened is that if I have a student named Craig that wants to go by junior or by Ryan that's fine and a kid that's named Marie and wants to go by Annie is fine but a kid named Alexis needs permission to go by Andrew guidance says that parents and eligible students could submit a request to amend educational records to update gender and or name

079in our educational system what happens is that that form is no longer available as per my counseling department today parental permission can grant a nickname now in Synergy but to change the actual name and Synergy we now require supporting legal documentation name and gender changes in Kansas might be illegal beginning July 1st guidance says beware of in cautious disclosure of students gender what happens is that in Synergy student grade level and gender information occupy a single display field so anytime a grade level is on display so is the gender information substitutes also might inadvertently use students dead names because the dead names are how the system is rostered nicknames aren't a default setting I have to speed up I'm sorry um as students bravely struggle to be seen and recognized for who they are peers

080pick up on the Discord when someone is misgendered or dead named repeatedly correcting a teacher or substitute is hard and serves to invalidate our transgender students it also sends a message to all the other students that being transgender is a problem I've sought information from our diversity Department regarding how the impact of SB 180 might have and I think it's too early to tell but parents should and are concerned I believe that our board and employees want to do the best for our students but it takes work my work was when I tried to follow this guidance this year now we need to reassess and adjust and tell our guiding documents uphold equal access and equal protection for our students thank you thank you Solomon Desta thank you foreign students 130 South High School was

081given a name badge the n-word engraved with a copper meta on July Metallica I'd like to speak up on behalf of him today I am standing before you as a parent who is hurt sick because of the Discrimination that my son has faced because of the color of his skin it has been called the n-word preparations work that has been used to demonize black people for centuries I'm not your task for your petty or sympathy to raise awareness about the issue of racism in our supply my son has been hurt humiliated and agonized because of his way I cannot imagine the pain he felt when he heard that word used against him as if as if he were less than human no one deserves to be operated that way that it happens all too often

082to people of color we need to acknowledge that there is racism in our society and take meaningful action to combat it we cannot ignore the fact that black people are disproportionately affected by hate crimes police brutality housing discrimination and many other forms of prejudice we need to educate our service have conversations and take active steps to create an inclusive Society that values diversity I worked for to my son and his friend Jamal and urban I'm proud of you guys for your strength and courage in the face of discrimination I want you to know that you guys are loved and valued and that you deserve to be treated with respect and dignity no one should ever make you guys feel less than Who You Are including all of you to speak out Against Racism and to

083be alive to those who are marginalized we need to create a society where everyone can live with dignity and equality regardless of their wrath ethnicity or religion thank you so much thank you Robin Wilson kale good evening I'm Robin Wilson kale I have three sons one of whom has already graduated one will be a junior and the other one is a freshman this upcoming year at Olathe South our family comes from a history of slavery and Veterans one of our ancestors who was a slave was sexually assaulted by her owner when he was done with her he sold her for 25 cents my grandfather and Uncle fought for this country to make it a better place for all of us including their family my grandfather who was a sergeant in the U.S army fought in

084the Korean War and was shot and ended up passing away at the age of 33 from his injuries my father attended the first integrated School in Chillicothe Missouri this is just part of our family's histories was just not taught we live an uncomfortable life every day I'm tired of hearing it might make someone uncomfortable to learn about our ancestors history we learn your ancestors history why is our history less important without us your history would look a little different we are all here to create the best lives possible for all of us and we must work together to achieve this parents received an email from superintendent Dr Yeager on May 15th about at quote unquote an upsetting incident Adela at the South that involved the use of a racial slur among students two days later

085at Chisholm Trail my eighth grade son was called the n-word during PE class when asked when he asked the other student why he called him that the student replied I don't care and started to swing on him the student admitted to the principal that he had called my son the n-word I saw Dr Yeager during the walk out at South and I mentioned to him that I was the mother of the child it was called the N word of Chisholm his response was yeah I heard about that a month earlier at Chisholm a student made a video which I have using the n-word and sent it to the whole entire eighth grade class during school not once did I see an email go out to parents consider concerning the situation and how the district was

086going to handle them these types of incidents happen way too often and are frequently ignored with the hopes that it will go away because it makes people uncomfortable to talk about it I attended the walkout at South along my sophomore to let my children know I will protect them stand by them and find a way to make their schools safer a safer place for them I never thought I would have to make school of all places safer for my children let alone because of the color of their skin I shouldn't have to worry about sending my young black children off to school and whether they will be safe school is for educating our children's Minds helping them to grow into successful people and guiding them into the next stages of their lives which is adulthood

087every time you sweep their concerns under the rug ignore students outcry pretend like it will go away or be forgotten that's another teenager that possibly gets depression becomes suicidal or finds another way to handle their problems and I think we all know that way every time you ignore their concerns you become part of the problem teenagers feel that no one understands them no one listens nobody cares some factors that cause depression in teenagers are having issues that negatively impact self-esteem peer problems or long-term bullying suicide and homicide are the second greatest cause of death among teenagers do you really want to be the reason why what if it was your child what would you want to see done we can choose to be a part of the problem or a part of the solution we

088are all human beings and skin color should not be a factor in any part of our Lives it's time to get uncomfortable and do better for all of our children we need better policies in place in all Olathe schools and stricter consequences for these types of incidents thank you thank you Judy Denton my name is Judy Dunton I've lived in Olathe for over 30 years and I must admit this is not really where I want to be tonight but I would like to see this board begin to work together in my opinion everyone serving here should be above reproach there should be no questions concerning conflict of interest Financial or political gain or whether or not the board's following its own policy there should never ever be an appearance that a member is being silenced

089or targeted and while I admire Mr connell's passion for children and consider him inspiration I was very upset and deeply disappointed by his reactions in May but I strongly believe that every single board member is equally responsible revisiting just a few of the board meetings that quickly recognized the pattern Mr Connor would try to initiate a genuine dialogue Miss Elwood motion Mr Beveridge would second discussion over Mr O'Connell at any point during the previous meeting any member could have chosen to do one of two things to de-escalate First you could have simply answered the question did the board follow its own written policy concerning information or the formation of the Ethics Committee yes or no admit it was an oversight and just move on second seen Miss O'Connell's growing frustration the board could have also

090called a 10-minute recess but instead you chose to deny a break putting gasoline on a fire every day teachers are threatened and face classroom battles and literally come out bruised and scratched the board voted to censor an elected board member because he yelled and someone felt unsafe maybe because of my experience being a pharmacy manager or maybe just raising three children being yelled at does not make me feel unsafe the overuse of this word minimizes those who are in very real Danger however given that Mr McConnell was acting like a whistleblower exposing the board's inability to follow their own policy I can imagine how our board member might feel uncomfortable somehow without violating coma five of seven members prepared written statements to censor Mr Connell how safe and valued to Mr and Mr Connell feel

091even during the special meeting Mr Connell respectfully asked to be able to respond last as a rebuttal he was denied because and I quote we meaning five or seven members already decided the order before the meeting honestly from the outside every single one of you looks like a bunch of middle schoolers with their clicks doing petty stuff to just antagonize each other and assert some sort of dominant and Mr Connell unfortunately makes a very easy target I think all of you seven need to read seven habits of highly effective people together and then take a very hard look at their role in this total Fiasco Mr Connell at least publicly owns up to his own mistakes and strives to do better well the rest of the board please do the same thank you thank you

092karabel Solomon turn uh yes I don't care about salami I'm a sophomore I like the South High School tonight I'm hurt and I've been hurt due to the fact that I am a student who has been victimized and has been struggling in this vicious environment for some time now oh based off the color of my skin I don't believe that in any case that is correct for anyone to feel so confident in their environment that they use they use school materials to carve out a racial slur so I'm here so I can once again be heard on all of these matters tonight I'm addressing you all the board on race-based issues with our schools growing up I without fail have experienced racism hate and ignorance in all three School levels I never understood the gravity

093of what was going on around me until just recently answer a realization that the environment in our schools is extremely harmful for students on multiple levels and I'll gladly share examples of that claim for you all for as long as I've been here students have been teaching each other ignorance and hate causing kids to lose their self-confidence and hate who they are based on their features what's also scary is the lack of Education or racial matters whether that be on a staff level or at a student level from my experience I do not believe that teachers are adequately trained to teach a diverse curriculum or have classroom environment where students of all statuses feel safe to learn and express themselves yet still at a student level the curriculum does not do a good enough job

094teaching kids their identity and their proper history as a student of color or giving all students regardless of status proper education or race-based matters the fact that this district has banned books teaching things such as critical race Theory change needs to happen the narrative created by the American education system has catered far too long to the downfall of black students this dictionary has also catered far too long to the hate and ignorance directed at these students the status ignorance has created a home for actions like this to take place at our schools and the negligence for Ministries and District officials has let it come down to this it has become increasingly alarming how can we trust a district to educate us when they refuse to protect us finally as a student who's been victimized by

095this environment I am firmly asking you all to do the following make harsher punishments for hate-based offenses provide mandatory training to all teachers on diversity matters and changing the curriculum to stop only teaching black failures including more diversity in the general curriculum for all classes as well thank you for your time thank you Patty Lanter trying to chop this up because some of it was repeated from a prior speaker and I didn't want to do that so I'm a parent and concerned taxpayer that reads and thinks for myself I was also taught actual logic Concepts in ninth grade math it is a travesty that this is no longer being done in public school if any of what I say tonight sounds impossible I urge you to start reading today I can give you sources or

096you can listen to those who have escaped communism such as G van Fleet you hopefully are unaware but need to get up to speed now especially if you don't believe it is happening in the U.S or review the four olds of Communism work in the Chinese Cultural Revolution where up to 80 million people died children were pitted against parents and Elders that did not go along with the state narrative a life is not unique in that these tactics occur in most public schools across the country wherever you see the castle wheel or portrait of a graduate or notice many buzzwords like and like Castle is the main culprit here but uh the expansion of Head Start is rooted in Marxism as our community schools with health clinics it is not for anyone's convenience the revised

097history textbooks in the queue for tonight ain't a Rosy picture of Marxism and the Communist Manifesto the decry Capital capitalism and individualism in favor of the collective what it does not say is that communist communism leads to death every time it also does not mention the existence of the elitist chosen class that silences the voices of those that disagree through censure and gaslighting today's neo-marxists are interwoven all throughout our society in plain sight Behind The Smiling Faces and soft voices they show in public backed by the tax-funded money of the self-feeding K-12 Collective unions and other agencies using Marxist techniques of double meanings for words does not change the actual truth one of these is unsafe I won't repeat all that the previous speaker stated regarding the unethical actions of a majority of this board

098discrediting and silencing is another tactic of Marxism for any thoughts opposing the collective they're more concerned with ideology and shaping a Marxist culture rather than one base and individual achievement a microscope is placed on differences between people through Dei and the Very nature of equity we need equality of opportunity not Equity of outcome unethical false premise of every question on transformative SEL and Dei survey tonight that was shown given by the district assumes that we want SEL at all when we do not the questions can only be answered as affirmative that SEL should be there this is an intentional technique as you state in the document you see this is a community you see this as a communication opportunity does that really mean re-education opportunity use this instead of as a mandate from your actual

099customers we do not want this give the fed money back and remove the Marxist tool from the entire curriculum it is not the school's job to shapes values especially political Marxist values just it's a deceptive practice designed to keep unsuspecting people in the dark local media is used in this way also the goals of Castle are to transform a child's thinking to share collectivism I've wondered why many teachers send their own kids to private school looks like I'm done thank you thank you David Brocks [Music] good evening Dr Yeager and other members of the board and people and students who were gathered as a unified Community tonight and sociological and anthropological studies civic responsibility is a key component of cultural and Social Life as We Know It civic responsibility is a task that begins with

100you and it is up to all individuals to exercises accordingly for the defense against injustices and for kindness to spread at a proper proportionate rate the instances of recent racial hatred and bigoted attacks are some of the most demoralizing instances that minority students within Olathe and any Community have to go through to be part of a marginalized group and to have your parental figure educate you on what to do if you yourself are met with this hatred is one of the most important times of one's life in a core memory of the beginning of adversity during one's academic trajectory due to unfortunate recent events of social justice the student body faculty and members of the community have been impacted by the multitude of situations to take place within Olathe and surrounding communities as a community

101with multiple instances of different minorities Olathe as the community needs to tear down the empathy Gap that is disconcertingly plating our community day by day to revisit my previous plan as well combating Injustice and microaggressions is an example of civic duty civic duty and civic responsibility are two concepts that are intertwined and rather than blatantly disregarding this fact the change needed for our community requires all voices and adjoining of forces as one unified entity to achieve the life that we so desire for our community think not of your current students but rather the Ambit of future students young children to adolescents everyone equally affected I come to everyone tonight to remind you guys of the simple fact that Unity takes communal Harmony civic duty and responsibilities are a must and it is my hope for

102Olathe in Johnson County as a whole for a change in this mindset and as the United States Pledge of Allegiance States this very flag right here liberty and justice for all and this very saying starts with us thank you thank you Kerry vane Buskirk foreign good evening esteemed board members Carrie vampas Kirk Goleta parent of a student who recently graduated from South and an incoming Junior I'm also an advocate for students through families together thank you for hearing me tonight I haven't spoken publicly in this forum until tonight regarding my son's autism or our experience because frankly my son masked throughout his time at Olathe he hid his disability for most and would slip in and out of resource throughout Middle School and High School praying that he would not be seen Ty shared that

103students with disabilities were often treated as less than by peers and mocked or taunted thus he tried to appear neurotypical I wanted to share with you all a brief summary of our experience as a family with an autistic learner served in our schools we must do better during his Elementary years I worked diligently to ensure our team understood how to effectively Implement his sensory needs in an inclusive manner I work closely with our teams to ensure he was not isolated within his General educational setting for instance I found him sitting at the end of a lunch table with other special education students surrounded by Paris and witnessed himself isolated and bordering outside of the playground perimeter not knowing how or supported to enter into purposeful play he was just left to walk alone all by

104himself all throughout recess I was able to successfully advocate for changes in these practices at that very time this was nearly 10 years ago but it still happens on our playgrounds in our lunchroom still today well I sat among many families in celebration as my son walked across that stage last week I too rejoiced in his accomplishments and I credit many excellent teachers and staff that effectively taught him along the way that must be commended and acknowledged blame them for not knowing that he had an IEP at all until parent-teacher conferences year after year I blame a failed systemic practice in school culture I don't blame teachers who failed to implement his accommodations so that he could access his advanced classes I blame an entire system that needs more support knowledge and training we must

105simply do better to my shot guy experienced an unexpected trauma response as I heard my son's bullies names called to receive their diplomas that night well I do believe that these students matured and grew more compassion over the years we as a team in a school district failed we failed to protect my son from trauma during those formative years my son has received frequent and at times intensive mental health treatment due to the trauma that he endured through his fourth and eighth grade years note he was in third grade when we moved to Olathe we must do more to efficiently address bullying and to provide more social skills support to those that need it I weave feeling exhausted and relieved that he survived I was hoping to leave jovial and accomplished but I haven't we

106have to do better thank you and I'm going to apologize if I get this last name wrong in advance Deborah coleca hello my name is Deborah kalecha and I am a 2023 Oliva South graduates and recently I have been taking the time to reflect on why I've taken away from my experiences as a student in the district and without a doubt the teachers I have had have shaped me in academically in numerous ways I've grown as a student and I know moving on to the next part of my life I will have invaluable resources in South staff however no matter how valuable those academic experiences were they will never outweigh the damage that being a minority in a predominantly white school did to my self-confidence and ability to stand up for myself minority students in

107this District condition themselves to accept comments and remarks on their differences and that condition takes years to undo school is Preparatory in more ways than academic and unfortunately my school and the district at large have failed to foster a safe environment and in turn have failed to Foster fundamental life skills in the bulk of their students this is not just a South issue this is a district issue and it's a state issue and it often goes unsaid however we have been lucky enough to have had a student come out with his experiences here we go and the actions as a result of that were satisfying and it felt like finally students voices had made an impact however those actions were also short-term Solutions and without long-term long-term plan there will always be other incidents no

108matter who the principal is or who gets suspended the problem is larger than that is the culture of South that will allow this to happen over and over again as it is the school the district and the board are all failing minority students and allowing for ignorance to continue to harm the very individuals it is your job to protect I want to know what the long-term plan is what will you do to ensure diversity is something celebrated because taking each issue one by one will not solve the larger problem students don't think racial harassment has consequences how will you work to change that students participate in racial harassment because their education lacked and continues to lack sufficient diversity how will you address that this problem is multifaceted and I along with many other concerned community

109members am anxious to know if you understand and are willing to do the work to begin to make a minimum change for the well-being of hundreds of students who feel like they're it's in their best interest to suffer in silence and wait until they can make it out it's your job to both prepare students for their future and protect them and currently you are failing how will you fix this thank you Spencer Titus hello my name is Spencer Titus I live in Lee's Summit but have several family members that live in and attend Olathe schools so Olathe is part of my community I strive to love my community fiercely and unapologetically this is why I can no longer in any good conscience stay silent about the violent patterns of racist behavior that have been exposed

110in our Olathe schools white supremacist ideologies and the use of the n-word by white people need to be immediately addressed and disciplined in school board has Authority I have been greatly moved by hearing the words and bearing witness to the actions of the black and brown students and parents that are taking a stand to facilitate change in our schools I know that our community needs to reckon with the violence that has been experienced by black and brown students breathe and process the trauma that has been done in the halls of our educational institutions well black students need the time and space to unlearn the white supremacist ideals their peers and school culture have forced on them white community members including students faculty and administration must be unlearning our racial superiority complex as far as the

111actions that need to be taken by this board the black student solidarity network has offered their time and emotional energy to list out the steps that you can initiate to make our school safer and more Equitable for all students what an Incredible Gift at the word has been laid out for you already we eagerly wait to hear your commitment to enact these necessary changes more specifically to the white members of the board we have an opportunity in front of us each of us has a choice to make there is the choice to stay silent perhaps a choice of comfort led by fear just keep my head down and avoid the con by disconnecting from those being harmed in my community this is a choice to continue in the participation of the racist violence happening in

112our schools silence is compliance but there is hope and another choice one informed by love we can love our community enough to stand alongside the black students demanding change we can prioritize bravery compassion Justice and connection not just for our students but for everyone in our community that has felt racialized harm there is no middle ground between these two choices fear or love it's in your hands I want to leave you with this quote by a revolutionary White Community organizer and Braden the battle is and always has been a battle for the hearts and minds of white people in this country The Fight Against Racism is our issue it's not something that we're calling on to help people of color with we need to become involved with it as if our lives depended on it

113because really in truth they do thank you that can excuse me concludes public comments we're actually going to take a five minute recess foreign Madison Place Elementary School it's no great here thank you guys so much for your overwhelming support of my teammates and I as we're about to head out to Arizona to play the Philadelphia Eagles in the Super Bowl it's really encouraging y'all to have such amazing friends who care so much about me this support is just such a blessing and I'm just so grateful to be able to read these this cookie was absolutely phenomenal I'm still working on it so thank you so much for making this for me sending it my way but seriously I'm super excited about getting to Arizona such a blessing and hopefully we won the Super Bowl

114this year go Chiefs and have a great recipe thank you foreign [Applause] [Music] thank you [Music] foreign kids get golden tokens for following our Four B's of be safe be kind be helpful and be the best you and this is our PBIS initiative that we're doing and really focusing on building wide expectations but also creating our love of literacy has anybody in our building have three tokens to give out until the end of the year we just started two days ago so we've already given out five and so we're really excited so the students have the ownership and choosing the books and we have like a great partnership with um junk drawer that actually provides the books for us and so the students get you know it's not something like you have to read this

115book you have to do certain types like since they have so much ownership and choosing it that they love getting it and that they get their own like the book oh as soon as it was installed it was great to see I mean every time we walk by there's they notice the new book and they're all excited and you know not all of them have an opportunity to bring brand new books home we have a wonderful Library here but this one they get to keep and it's wonderful how excited they get for each other because they know how exciting it is to bring a brand new book home foreign thank you so we'll move to uh the consent agenda if there's anything that anyone would like to pull off Mr President yes uh I would

116like to separate 6.03 from the rest of the consent agenda please have a separate vote on that okay I don't need to pull out 6.05 I just have a question for Mr Hutchison okay so if you want to pull it out so I can ask fine otherwise I can just ask it before we left Mr Hutchinson thank you sure um I just have a brief question um on accounts payable it do you can you answer whether a board member has taken a vacation on taxpayer dollars uh no no they're not thank you since we're on that Mr Hutchison could I ask a question since Mr Steele brought it up so when board members travel to nsba events those are funded by taxpayers is that correct no they're paid paid out of our gifts and grants

117fund so gross gifts and grants fund yes okay so Who provided that money into the gifts and grants fund that would have come from Johnson County Community College so the attendance by board members or staff were paid for by money coming from Johnson County Community College correct a taxpayer-funded entity correct I would say yes okay thank you or tuition based also I mean there's a combination of both thank you okay go ahead how do you want your motion yeah we can either do all but 6.03 or we can just do 6.03 now and then take the rest I moved to approve consent agenda items not uh all except for 6.03 as presented second motion by Mr Boyd is second by Dr yurkovic Mr Connell yes yes Mr Wycliffe yes yes Mr beverage yes Mr Kim

118yes okay then I would seek a motion to approve the minutes that would be 6.03 a move to approve Mr could I make a comment before the board votes on something that may not that might not be within board policy protect the board on their vote yeah I mean we what we'll do is we'll have a motion if there is a second and then we'll have discussion I move to approve consent agenda item 6.03 as presented second okay so Mr President Mike my concerns with the approval of the minutes is that not in its Essence that they are minutes it's that they miss a lot of content and the minutes call out an action that was not uh available to the board the board of education does not have a board policy to take action

119against an existing board member if censure or in any way shape or form so while the meeting you can have the meeting and you can have minutes the action taking in that meeting we're against board policy because no board policy exists so the creation of board policy on the Fly and that action and the board I did ask for the special meeting that if you all felt so strongly about your comments that they would be included and published with the meetings and if I can tell directly from what's actually in the agenda that none of the board members felt so compelled that their information and their commentary was strong enough to be included in those board minutes so what I'm worried about is that the board would vote to approve minutes for actions that were

120not within the purview of the Board of Education to take so that's why I might that's my concerns that the board would be voting on approval of minutes or something that they did not have the power to even do Mr Boyd I would just say that the the board has the power to govern itself the board could function with zero policies in place the board could vote to suspend all their policies but that would take a vote would that not correct Mr Boyd it it would but again we could we could function with zero policies in place we don't need a policy to say we can do x y and z the board governs itself correct and there was a motion on the table the motion was debated and Mr but there was no debate

121there were States okay okay there were statements made and the board took action yeah I believe this question has been asked and answered so the the board meeting in particular the action was not identified in up front so it's not disclosed publicly the discussion or the action and the presence of the information and some some way multiple board members more than three that makes it a come a violation would have taken action and had statements prepared in advance what I'm concerned about is that conversations about board policy following board policy the board while you say the board could Act without any board policies that's not how the board has been structured or has worked and operated for a long period of time so the board policy is our governance it's written in our board policies

122that it is our governance and if we want to change policy or create policy it is the board's responsibility to vote to change or modify board policy prior to taking an action that's that's not that's not accurate correct and I would also say that Mr Connell you also had a statement prepared that you read yeah that evening and I did not have a statement that I read that evening so you did a statement you just said that I chose you chose not to read that that is incorrect I do not have a statement you said you sure you're not going to read your statement I did not say that you should go back and look at the tape unfortunately there was no tape that evening because the board chose not to videotape the materials but

123the tapes do stuff um Mr Pittman can you answer a question as it relates to disclosure of our our meeting and how that was handled and if we are I hate to put you on a spot but if we um follow State Statute in in our disclosure of that meeting police yeah you bet by chance could you ask that they get the song yeah I believe um Mr Connell raised and he can he can restate it but he he alluded to us not um giving disclosure or not publicly saying what we run the action that was going to take or possibly take at the special meeting that we had yeah correct yeah yeah you know that I mean I in my opinion the the dose was appropriate uh it comes down to the date of

124the the date but but by which by which the meeting is posted which which was within or without outside of that that time period um and it can be waived by a majority of the board anyway um but no I think the the uh the agenda that's posted uh just needs to be basically clear that what it was thank you so can I ask a question sure did you at any time provide any consultative information with the board members in preparation of that meeting Mr Connell I'm I I don't want to dodge the question um but I know that you are represented by Council and I said in a meeting with you and your attorney and two others and unless I have the authority of your attorney to talk to you about the substance of

125that I I have an ethical Duty not to discuss this with you unless your attorney is present or I have something in writing and made me do it and I am more than happy to sit and talk about about that so I'm curious you're referencing a meeting in which you stood up red face slammed your hands on the table and yelled at my counsel with me representing a disturbing action but my question you're referencing that but I'm referencing I have a point of order board meeting Mr Boyd I'm referencing the board meeting and you the question was specific I believe that we call the question do you have a second second Mrs Bean yeah just so just so we clear the vote that we're voting on right now just call the question is to vote

126to DEC to decide if this discussion shall continue or if the discussion shall be over and we'll move on to the motion on 6903 correct Dr hirakovich okay clarification I guess that means that we will move to a vote we will move to vote Yes Mrs Steele yes Mr Wycliffe yes Mr Boyd yes your beverage yes Mr Kim no Mr Connell no okay promotion carries five two Mrs Gene on 6.03 I have a motion by Mr Boyd in a second by Mr beverage yes Mr beverage yes thank you no Mr Connell no Dr yurkovich yes Mrs Steele yes Mr wickler yes okay motion carries flies too moving on to section seven we need to adjourn to Executive session uh how long are you 10 minutes 10 minutes move that the board adjourned to Executive session

127for the purpose of discussing salary benefits and related items of the bargaining unit pursuant to the exception for employer employee negotiations under coma and that the board returned to the regular meeting at 7 55 PM in this room second motion by Mr beverage is second by Mr Boyd Dr yorkovich yes Mrs Steele yes Mr wickler yes Mr Boyd yes Mr beverage yes Mr King yes Mr O'Connell yes motion carries thank you foreign [Music] thank you foreign thank you foreign hey what's going on Madison Place Elementary School it's no great here thank you guys so much for your overwhelming support of my teammates and I as we're about to head out to Arizona to play the Philadelphia Eagles in the Super Bowl it's really encouraging though to have such amazing friends who care so much about

128me this support is just such a blessing and I'm just so grateful to be able to read these this cookie was absolutely phenomenal I'm still working on it so thank you so much for making this for me sending it my way but seriously I'm super excited about getting to Arizona such a blessing and hopefully we won the Super Bowl this year go Chiefs and have a great recipe thank you foreign l i n n e t [Applause] [Music] thank you [Music] thank you foreign kids get golden tokens for following our Four B's of be safe be kind be helpful and be the best you and this is our PBIS initiative that we're doing and really focusing on building wide expectations but also creating our love of literacy anybody in our building have three tokens to

129give out until the end of the year we just started two days ago so we've already given out five and so we're really excited so the students have the ownership and choosing the books and we have like a great partnership with junk drawer that actually provides the books for us and so the students get you know it's not something like you have to read this book you have to do certain types like since they have so much ownership and choosing it that they love getting it and that they get their own like the book as soon as it was installed it was great to see I mean every time we walk by there's they noticed the new book and they're all excited and you know not all of them have an opportunity to bring brand

130new books home we have a wonderful Library here but this one they get to keep and it's wonderful how excited they get for each other because they know how exciting it is to bring a brand new book home foreign thank you all right we will continue on uh Section 8 action bids contracts and agreements I want to talk a little bit about 8.01 um the 2023-2024 negotiated agreement we'll pull that one out separately and any board members that have comments but I just wanted to say a couple things off the top and um I just thank you to everybody who worked so hard to pull this together um you know there are some things here that um we've talked about since I joined the board in Prior so and that's been eight almost eight and

131a half years so just a huge thank you um to to the team um and everyone who participated in those negotiations and um I think it's a it's a win-win um and it's just June so hey I don't know if anybody else had any others but if not I'll seek a motion I just had a question from Mr palangi it'll be brief okay Mr Wickliffe did I would like to Echo what you said about the negotiating group um I sat in I want to say I said an executive session I want to say it in public is the between the bargaining unit and the the group from the district very professionally done all last year over the last year amazing camaraderie between both sets of groups all working towards something that could be successful for

132all of them and and I want to make sure I said on because not everyone got to see all those meetings but they were very well run very run very well managed both teams working and it's really a really big hit this isn't November this is June five months ahead of normal schedule and so great Kudos if you were in the bargaining unit of any kind of role you can be very very proud of the work you guys did over last year so that's it thank you Mrs Steele so Mr palangi can you just briefly explain for those of us who maybe have never built a house let alone built in Middle School what how change orders happen and how they come about and then what exactly um that we aren't weaving future discussions about

133change orders we're simply waving it being part of future action so that you can go ahead and procure supplies before they increase that is correct so um is any part of construction projects we have a set of documents and specifications that go out and that's what the contractors bid on but at the time there's there's no really perfect set of construction documents or specs up there so we hold a contingency back for change orders that happen during the construction it ranges from unforeseen soil conditions to some changes that are owner directed in the field or jurisdictional changes as well so we hold that back to make sure that that we have enough to cover for instances like this that come up that we're presenting tonight with structural steel modifications that we need and by weaving

134it being part of future action we're just approving it ahead of time so that you can get your supplies purchased before they continue that is correct and to maintain the the construction schedule great okay thank you appreciate it can I ask you a question yes sir so I like that idea right being proactive is there a threshold if a change order most are Changers you know the policy says over 20 grand right the ones who are approved today in the scheme of a 60 million dollar building 50 000 or 20 000 is not significant are there any types of change order structures that historically that you said that's so huge we really ought to bring that before the board that you might say I I need to go ask or or that we would have

135a special meeting because you know a special meeting can be called we can by paper to say right is there any level that gets so big that I haven't encountered one in my timeline that's here some of the things that could possibly happen was some of the stuff we encounter at the beginning was some subsurface soil stuff that we can't really account we try to with all the previous inspections and surveys that we do prior to construction but some of the things that kind of pop up those would be the ones and then that really and those you would likely see where we would ask to waive future action and bring those Riders actions so yeah so we could continue put on this and approve the waiving of future action kinds of stuff would you

136still be providing a monthly updated report on the bond things okay okay and I support it like it's a good idea a move to a proof action-based contracts and agreements number 8.01 through 8.15 as presented I second that okay I'm motion by Mr Boyd a second by Mr Connell Mr Wycliffe yes Mr Boyd yes Mr Beveridge yes Mr Kuhn yes Mr O'Connell yes Dr yurkovich yes Mrs Steele yes okay motion carries unanimously Mr President uh Mr Hutchison would like to say something about 8.15 I wasn't looking I just wanted to point out and thank Mr hastert and Mr Charlesworth for their work on uh the insurance renewals as you can see from the length of that agenda item it's a very complicated process the reason I wanted to do that is uh Charleston's brother Bob

137are getting out of the property liability side of Consulting they've been our Consultants I believe for 28 years so I just wanted to thank them for all the service they've done in case you'd understand how that works we have a broker but they've always sort of helped us translate what the broker says so it's they've been a tremendous help and over the years I just wanted to thank them you know Echo that thank you well said all right as many of you know we've had a special meeting before the meeting um to need to approve the republished budget for 2022 2023 uh I would seek a motion to do so move to him to adopt the amended general fund budget per the publication notice of May 12 2023. second here you're a little late Rob

138I've got a motion to ask for beverage in a second by Mrs Steele Mr yerkovich yeah steel yes Mr Wycliffe yes Mr Boyd yes Mr beverage yes Mr Kim yes Mr Connell yes motion carries future action items um as always I know I sound like a broken record but if you've got questions please forward those to Dr Yeager as they come up so that we can make sure that we get you accurate answers foreign actually in in preparation for next month do you care if I ask Mr Pittman a couple questions okay thank you yeah thank you you're welcome so with regard to revisions to the code of student conduct and um specifically surrounding I think it's enumeration there was a policy there we've made some changes and can you speak to that to help

139explain behind why we made the changes yeah absolutely and I'll try to proposing I should say yeah proposals and I'll try attorneys aren't very good at being succinct uh we you know the the code of student conduct goes to the board annually for your all's review and hopefully adoption um this year we we we can be in a committee and I that I that I led there's there's some others in this room Dr McMullen Mr Albers Mr tiger Mr Johnson Matt Johnson and also some administrators Elementary Middle School High School level and also Mill Mill Creek we met in April uh with an idea we our code is is in good shape uh but you know it could certainly be improved those kinds of things and we met in April and then met again actually

140last week or I think yeah about a week or so ago and it came up with a version that came to you to all of you so one of the the changes that was in there was particularly with the bowling section and there's a Kansas statute that specifically defines bullying um it requires our all school districts to to have a policy that prohibits it and a plan and training and those kinds of things for for students and staff so also included in that in in the current code was also some language prohibiting essentially conduct geared to a student because of their sexual orientation or something you know some other uh classification and that language was essentially moved over towards harassment moved to harassment so harassment and our current code as a class is offense two

141we have one two three four four is the worst ones the least brassum was a two bullying is is a two presently in the code that's before the board hopefully be adopted later this month uh bullying was remained a two and the the language that you that that you mentioned Mrs Steele uh has kind of been wrapped into harassment which is a class three under the uh under the code that's going to be actually before hope you all hopefully at the end of this month so I hope I answered that without too much gobbledygoop there but I think I got there um does that help can I repeat back in very very layman's terms so the idea that um harassment of a biased student of a student that is classified as lgbtq is going to

142be handled under that bullying is going to be handled under harassment and it's specifically spells out harassment of different groups of people correct and that's actually a more severe offense than how it's listed now potentially correct yeah yeah that's right and there's all there's also another piece of this where we're bullying requires a one act of bullying one could be severe enough potentially to be High bullying but it's also severe and or pervasive so that's kind of conduct over time that's bullying generally harassment could could be a one-off type type scenario which unfortunately the student here you know is describing the horrible uh thing to happen with him so that's that's right and I should just add whereas the the difference between a and right now our administrators have options under each class each of

143the fence kind of uh and options on on discipline um you know so the difference between a class two offense and a class three the options on discipline are almost identical class three allows for expulsion which is a student being out of school out of school dates for more than 90 days it's a long-term suspension is 10 to 90 days which is under class two that's the most you could have now under the code that would be presented that is presented to all of you expulsion would be now under past is still under class three but harassment removing the enumeration does that allow for our administrators to create a gray area whereas something was spelled out in our policy and there was really black and white there's removing that language allow for some different interpretation

144of that part that was removed you know it potentially could Mr Boyd um I'm trying to think think through that um a bit you know one of the the what I my view of a code you want to be specific enough that folks know what they can and can't do and administrators know what they can or what they should discipline board on the other hand you don't want it to be so strict that administrators have no options in terms of dealing with things there's only really the only offenses they have no options are are guns in school and just really goes to school that's a year that's that's federal law state law coming back this way and all the less severe punishment administrators have a lot a lot more discretion there um and I as

145I as I shared with Mrs Steele if where's if there's some tweaking that needs to be done with with harassment as it's worded you know in the code that's before you to make sure we cover that that that that concern we can certainly look at that yeah I would and this isn't for you but I would just say I would just say um removing language that would create or have the potential to create a gray area um where we we heard tonight you know some of our students haven't um in those interpretations of whatever that process has looked like for those students um hasn't left them feeling heard or seen or respected or valued um I think that would lead to more of that type of um experience um removing that specific language from our

146policy it's just something to I know this is a future action item right um something to think of mine and as we move forward and Chris I'm sorry I'm not supposed to ask questions but the the wording that's now and the harassment policy wasn't in the harassment policy before correct uh correct we added some language there correct it but there is let me think here I don't have it in front of me right now line by line it has been changed a bit doc doc Dr Yeager it has it's some the same a little bit different we added more which covers uh the one that comes to mind is sexual harassment it's changed a bit more there in the sex discrimination sex discrimination aspect of it um it gets into craps let me ask a

147quick question is this really so it's a feature item we'll vote in July right so if the board was that or is it special meeting at the end of June let's not yet identify okay yeah so in a future meeting as you work through it and that kind of stuff one of the things um I know as we've got a new school this school year starts in August right right so this could be changes for a lot of teachers a lot of Administrators and staff is there and I don't know the answer because I wasn't here when they're done before is there a grace period is there a training period is there an understanding period um to make sure that all of the staff administrators and students are fully aware of print moved from two

148to three so how does that typically work I don't know yeah so a couple of things so um this is good you guys are getting all the questions out of the way at this meeting right so um the um way it typically works is we do an administrative retreat in the summer with all of our administrators where we'll update them on policy things and what have you one of the things that is in the works right now through conversation and part of it is even to Echo what our students shared with us tonight to some degree is our expectation has always been that our administrators at the beginning of the year spend time going through the code of conduct with our students talk about you know what are the level ones twos threes and fours

149those kinds of things talk about related consequences but one of the things that we're talking about is preparing kind of a fundamental Baseline for everybody and we've really left that up to the schools where you know we say to our administrators the expectation is that you go and review the code of conduct but with these changes and also some of the recent things that have happened in our district we really feel like we probably need to have almost a presentation we put together so we can guarantee that everyone across the system receives the same information both our staff and our students as they're in those situations and because we we feel like these changes are important enough to Warrant that but also some of the experiences that we've had recently that we need to be

150able as a school district to say we know with 100 certainty that everyone received this information as well where the changes so does that answer your question oh yeah that's exactly what I was looking for so you you I didn't even know you were going to say that but yes the the education process the making sure because accountability you know there's ignorance and we heard some of the students say that ignorance and of racism and stuff but we've got to eliminate a function of ignorance from our students our staff and back is a big big step so when you said that I was like yeah thank you excellent thank you Mr Pippen Dr Yeager and I will expect that there will be no further discussion on this matter when we vote on it I can't

151make any promises yeah I know I know Mr boy and that's perfectly fine um hopefully you had an opportunity to look at the the written information in Mr Connell brought up again just that the bond issue and that written report that will continue to get updated um and we'll move into topics for discussion if anyone has any I'd like to start if I could model so um our librarian I'm just just double checking amateer I spoke earlier and I and I hear what she's saying but my mom had a masters of Library science and you know throughout her career people always thought well you're a librarian and I think there's a lot of value in understanding exactly what they do and how they do it and how they support our folks and I uh was

152happy to be if I remember correctly I was only the only board member that actually showed up for the book challenge this spring that um Miss bishop and others invited me to and so the work and time those Librarians of the various schools put together for those and with those kids and to get them reading that was a room full of exciting energy Dr Edgar was there that day as well and um I think that's one of the things that we always have to be you know look at every person that works with our kids not are technically educators the second thing I wanted to kind of bring up is then I did meet some of the folks in the hallway when we took a quick break is that along with preparing the kids for

153what and making sure there's a baseline that everybody knows what harassment is um we really do um have a fundamental need to put something in place at the earliest ages around respect and dignity and kindness and understanding how to draw each other together um I have been researching a lot of that stuff I've shared on my my public space as I've shared with the district as well I'm pleased with the the activities of Dr Yeager and others to engage and look at right one of the structures I was looking at is a K-12 program it isn't going to make everybody happy on the left or the right but what it does is it really focuses on diversity without division if you want to go look it up it's moralcourage.com I have been reading their books

154I've been getting certified as one of their folks as well that I'm paying for that I think it's really important that we all do everything that we can both on the styes and the district but with our kids to make sure that they're understanding the kids with disabilities of any kind and how does that work and how does it mean to include them the kids with any racial background I heard a lot about black kids but we have Asian kids we've got his Latino kids we've got kids of every kind who experience um biases and prejudices against them economically or where they came from or we really we're in a situation where we have an opportunity to do better right and and I'm that's one of the things I know we've talked about for the

155last year and a half and I I really I'd invite the board that this is something we could do together right I think we're all on the same page that our kids matter to us and every kid should matter to us and that's one of the things right I respect those kids and those parents and those teachers who got out and said this is enough and walked out of the school and and got on the news and raised Cain and it spoke tonight right um that's just one of those things that I know that we can do better so those are my comments for this evening others I just briefly okay nope just jumped in I was about to going once going twice Shannon yeah um just really quick I just have a couple things

156um first of all that we have the written reports from um Head Start and I'm always amazed at their daily attendance is always 90 or above and we're talking you know Little's um so I just I always want to shout out that program and great things that are happening there with Head Start and thank you for everybody who's involved in that and then also to Travis palangi for our written report on the bond updates and the playgrounds look amazing I drove by a couple just randomly did wasn't trying to but I did and there were families out there so super fun I'm sure nobody's gonna miss gravel in their washing machine so thank you for overseeing that um there's been some heavy conversations lately that I've been allowed to participate in with different people Educators

157I met with a parent this morning and um it's just a heavy time I'm so proud of our students that spoke tonight I feel like it takes a lot of Bravery to come here and speak for anybody but when our students do it is heard loud and clear and I thank them for that it just feels heavy right now and so um I'm processing I'm here to learn to listen and make sure that we do better we've all heard when you know better you do better and part of knowing and getting to that point is listening and learning and um what I'm doing so um I think that's all thank you both Mr bully nothing you sure I'll turn it over to you Dr Yeager nothing notice how the staff on the front room is

158like seriously you're not gonna say anything I love it I'm not even buying that one I was just trying to be like Mr boy tonight um you know uh you all have alluded to what's on my heart a little bit tonight and that's been that it's been a pretty heavy end to the school year um you know I'll I'll get to that in a second but as I think about this school year and the work that's happened across our system I think it's really important that that we remember the things that have happened so well to support our students and our families across our system this year you know they're and I've said I say this to a lot of people you know in a district that serves almost 30 000 kids and sixty thousand

159potential parents and Guardians and you know another hundred thousand taxpayers um the averages are not always in our favor that things are always going to go right we're going to get it right make 100 perfect decisions with our our staffing or um you know a resource we choose or something like that but what I can tell you and and when I go to sleep at each night what what I know having been in the system for 16 years is vast vast vast vast vast vast I'm going to say about 19 more times majority of our people who are on our system are here because they love kids and they want to do the right thing for all kids and there's examples of that every single day across our system and that's you know teachers going

160to kids houses to drop off homework to you know bringing snacks to their own classrooms so kids are fed when they need to be fed or the kid that just needs a high five or a hug because a teacher or staff member realizes that they're having a tough day or you know in in my own house and you all that our parents know this my two kids need very different things and we have people striving every day to meet the the needs of both of the kids that live in in my house and I know my kids are no exception to that but I think it's important for people to know that there is no um curtain in front of our eyes and the district level and I'm proud of the board for this too

161that we know that there's things that we can do differently and we know that there's things that we can do better and you know as a superintendent of all kids that attends school in this District the experiences I've had talking with many of our students of color over the last couple weeks have really been hard and you know hard to hear because there's kids who deserve better from us who deserve better from their peers who deserve better from our community and that's one of the things I really appreciated in our student voices tonight is how many of them recognize that yes this is a school challenge that has to be solved and something we have to work on but they also recognize that it's going to take a community effort and you know I I

162do have a resounding belief in our board and our staff that we do want this to be a place for all kids to be successful and and feel like they're you know welcome and what have you and and that's incumbent on on all of us I think in the work that we do each day and you know some times it takes a group of kids to slap Us in the face a little bit to say gosh we need something else right now and you know I've had the opportunity to get to know some of the kiddos that spoke tonight just a little bit better over the last couple of weeks and you know I walk away from every one of those conversations and it helps me remember how bright our future is you know there's

163a lot of challenging things in our world right now but you know I think a lot of times if we lean into our students and their expertise and hear from their experiences that it will make us all better so and I just say that all to say that there are so many positive things about this school year and so many things that have gone well you know our our seniors that graduated were offered over 50 million dollars in scholarships I mean that's just incredible when you think about that but you know until we have all kids in our system going to sleep at night feeling like that this is their place and they're safe at school we have work to do and you know I I'm and I know our team is too we've had

164a lot of conversations about this and it's important that we get it right and if we don't get it right we're going to make every effort we possibly can to get it right and I think it's important for us to publicly say that those are my comments tonight I I would just add and thank you and your team um none of you got into this business to not help kids um and to your point there are always going to be things that we can do better and there are a lot of really great things that are happening but you know sometimes things happen but I just want to take this opportunity to personally thank you I'm not speaking for the board this is just me um but I I think that they would agree that

165um the hard work your team puts into these tough things and then you're just the the personal connection with kids because I know you do that especially in these tough times and that's not easy to do I just want to personally thank you publicly for that so um well said first executive session first time you won sweet 10 minutes don't believe it's fine okay ten please I move that the board adjourned to an executive session for the purpose of discussing potential property pursuant to the exception for preliminary discussion relating to the acquisition of real property under coma and that the board returned to the regular meeting at eight thirty eight okay I've got a motion by Mrs Steele in a second by Mr beverage I'm sorry and it was somewhere down there yes yes Dr

166yurkovich yes Mrs Steele yes Mr wickliff yes Mr Boyd yes Mr beverage yes foreign [Music] foreign [Music] thank you foreign hey what's going on Madison Place in elementary school it's no great here thank you guys so much for your overwhelming support of my teammates and I as we're about to head out to Arizona to play the Philadelphia Eagles in the Super Bowl it's really encouraging you know to have such amazing friends who care so much about me uh this support is just such a blessing and I'm just so grateful to be able to read these this cookie was absolutely phenomenal I'm still working on it so thank you so much for making this for me sending it my way but seriously I'm super excited about getting to Arizona such a blessing and hopefully we won

167the Super Bowl this year go Chiefs and have a great rest of your day thank you foreign l-i-n-n-e-t linen [Applause] [Music] all right [Music] foreign kids get golden tokens for following our Four B's of be safe be kind be helpful and be the best you and this is our PBIS initiative that we're doing and really focusing on building wide expectations but also creating our love of literacy anybody in our building have three tokens to give out until the end of the year we just started two days ago so we've already given out five and so we're really excited so the students have the ownership and choosing the books and we have like a great partnership with junk drawer that actually provides the books for us and so the students get you know it's not something

168like you have to read this book you have to do certain types like since they have so much ownership and choosing it that they love getting it and that they get their own like the book as soon as it was installed it was great to see I mean every time we walk by there's they notice the new book and they're all excited and you know not all of them have an opportunity to bring brand new books home we have a wonderful Library here but this one they get to keep and it's wonderful how excited they get for each other because they know how exciting it is to bring a brand new book home foreign [Music] fortunate 1501 so uh we'll move to yeah 1501 I'd seek emotion I moved at the board approved the acquisition

169of real property at northeast corner 119th Street and k-7 Highway second motion but Mr Boyd second prime minister average Mr Boyd yes Mr beverage yes Mr Kuhn sorry things off Mr Connell yes Dr yerkovich yes Mrs Steele yes Mr Wycliffe yes motion here is six zero uh second executive session on this I'm trying to decide how long uh 20 and then if we need more we'll come back for more I move that the board adjourned an executive session for the purpose of discussing individual Personnel performance okay sorry of discussing individual personal performance pursuant to another elected Personnel exception under coma and that the board returned to the regular meeting at 9 00 PM in this room second okay motion button Mrs Steele a second by Mr Boyd Mrs Steele yes Mr Wycliffe yes Mr Boyd

170yes Mr beverage yes Mr Connell yes Dr yurkovich yes thank you [Music] thank you [Music] thank you foreign [Music] thank you [Music] thank you [Music] thank you [Music] thank you [Music] thank you foreign Madison Place Elementary School it's no great here thank you guys so much for your overwhelming support of my teammates and I as we're about to head out to Arizona to play the Philadelphia Eagles in the Super Bowl it's really encouraging though to have such amazing friends who care so much about me this support is just such a blessing and I'm just so grateful to be able to read these this cookie was absolutely phenomenal I'm still working on it so thank you so much for making this for me sending it my way but seriously I'm super excited about getting to Arizona

171such a blessing and hopefully we won the Super Bowl this year go Chiefs and have a great wrestling foreign [Music] l-i-n-n-e-t linen [Applause] [Music] foreign [Music] thank you [Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music] kids get golden tokens for following our Four B's of be safe be kind be helpful and be the best you and this is our PBIS initiative that we're doing and really focusing on building wide expectations but also creating our love of literacy anybody in our building have three tokens to give out until the end of the year we just started two days ago so we've already given out five and so we're really excited so the students have the ownership and choosing the books and we have like a great partnership with them junk drawer that actually provides the books for us and

172so the students get you know it's not something like you have to read this book you have to do certain types like since they have so much ownership and choosing it that they love getting it and that they get their own like the book as soon as it was installed it was great to see I mean every time we walk by there's they notice the new book and they're all excited and you know not all of them have an opportunity to bring brand new books home we have a wonderful Library here but this one they get to keep and it's wonderful how excited they get for each other because they know how exciting it is to bring a brand new book home foreign [Music] thank you foreign [Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music] foreign

173[Music] foreign [Music] thank you [Music] thank you [Music] foreign Madison Place Elementary School it's no great here thank you guys so much for your overwhelming support of my teammates and I as we're about to head out to Arizona to play the Philadelphia Eagles in the Super Bowl it's really encouraging though to have such amazing friends who care so much about me this support is just such a blessing and I'm just so grateful to be able to read these this cookie was absolutely phenomenal I'm still working on it so thank you so much for making this for me sending it my way but seriously I'm super excited about getting to Arizona such a blessing and hopefully we won the Super Bowl this year go Chiefs and have a great wrestling thank you [Music] foreign [Music] l-i-n-n-e-t

174linen [Applause] [Music] thank you [Music] foreign [Music] kids get golden tokens for following our Four B's of be safe be kind be helpful and be the best you and this is our PBIS initiative that we're doing and really focusing on building wide expectations but also creating our love of literacy anybody in our building have three tokens to give out until the end of the year we just started two days ago so we've already given out five and so we're really excited so the students have the ownership and choosing the books and we have like a great partnership with um junk drawer that actually provides the books for us and so the students get you know it's not something like you have to read this book you have to do certain types like since they have

175so much ownership and choosing it that they love getting it and that they get their own like the book as soon as it was installed it was great to see I mean every time we walk by there's they notice the new book and they're all excited and you know not all of them have an opportunity to bring brand new books home we have a wonderful Library here but this one they get to keep and it's wonderful how excited they get for each other because they know how exciting it is to bring a brand new book home foreign [Music] thank you foreign [Music] thank you [Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music] thank you [Music] thank you [Music] thank you [Music] thank you foreign hey what's going on Madison Place in elementary school it's no great here thank

176you guys so much for your overwhelming support of my teammates and I as we're about to head out to Arizona to play the Philadelphia Eagles in the Super Bowl it's really encouraging y'all to have such amazing friends who care so much about me uh this support is just such a blessing and I'm just so grateful to be able to read these this cookie was absolutely phenomenal I'm still working on it so thank you so much for making this for me sending it my way but seriously I'm super excited about getting to Arizona such a blessing and hopefully we won the Super Bowl this year go Chiefs and have a great rest of your day thank you [Music] foreign [Music] l-i-n-n-e-t linen [Applause] [Music] thank you [Music] foreign [Music] kids get golden tokens and for following

177our Four B's of be safe be kind be helpful and be the best you and this is our PBIS initiative that we're doing and really focusing on building wide expectations but also creating our love of literacy anybody in our building have three tokens to give out until the end of the year we just started two days ago so we've already given out five and so we're really excited so the students have the ownership and choosing the books and we have like a great partnership with junk drawer that actually provides the books for us and so the students get you know it's not something like you have to read this book you have to do certain types like since they have so much ownership and choosing it that they love getting it and that they get

178their own like the book as soon as it was installed it was great to see I mean every time we walk by there's they notice the new book and they're all excited and you know not all of them have an opportunity to bring brand new books home we have a wonderful Library here but this one they get to keep and it's wonderful how excited they get for each other because they know how exciting it is to bring a brand new book home foreign [Music] thank you foreign [Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music] thank you [Music] thank you [Music] thank you foreign hey what's going on Madison Place Elementary School it's no great here thank you guys so much for your overwhelming support of my teammates and I as we're about to head

179out to Arizona to play the Philadelphia Eagles in the Super Bowl it's really encouraging though to have such amazing friends who care so much about me uh this support is just such a blessing and I'm just so grateful to be able to read these this cookie was absolutely phenomenal I'm still working on it so thank you so much for making this for me sending it my way but seriously I'm super excited about getting to Arizona such a blessing and hopefully we won the Super Bowl this year go Chiefs and have a great recipe thank you [Music] foreign [Music] l-i-n-n-e-t linen [Applause] [Music] thank you [Music] foreign [Music] kids get golden tokens and for following our Four B's of be safe be kind be helpful and be the best you and this is our PBIS initiative

180that we're doing and really focusing on building wide expectations but also creating our love of literacy anybody in our building have three tokens to give out until the end of the year we just started two days ago so we've already given out five and so we're really excited so the students have the ownership and choosing the books and we have like a great partnership with junk drawer that actually provides the books for us and so the students get you know it's not something like you have to read this book you have to do certain types like since they have so much ownership and choosing it that they love getting it and that they get their own like the book as soon as it was installed it was great to see I mean every time we

181walk by there's they notice the new book and they're all excited and you know not all of them have an opportunity to bring brand new books home we have a wonderful Library here but this one they get to keep and it's wonderful how excited they get for each other because they know how exciting it is to bring a brand new book home foreign [Music] thank you foreign [Music] thank you [Music] foreign [Music] thank you [Music] thank you [Music] thank you [Music] thank you [Music] thank you [Music] thank you foreign hey what's going on Madison Place Elementary School it's no great here thank you guys so much for your overwhelming support of my teammates and I as we're about to head out to Arizona to play the Philadelphia Eagles in the Super Bowl it's really encouraging

182though to accept amazing friends who care so much about me this support is just such a blessing and I'm just so grateful to be able to read these this cookie was absolutely phenomenal I'm still working on it so thank you so much for making this for me sending it my way but seriously I'm super excited about getting to Arizona such a blessing and hopefully we won the Super Bowl this year go Chiefs and have a great recipe foreign [Music] l-i-n-n-e-t linen [Applause] [Music] thank you [Music] thank you [Music] thank you [Music] foreign kids get golden tokens for following our Four B's of be safe be kind be helpful and be the best you and this is our PBIS initiative that we're doing and really focusing on building wide expectations but also creating our love of

183literacy anybody in our building have three tokens to give out until the end of the year we just started two days ago so we've already given out five and so we're really excited so the students have the ownership and choosing the books and we have like a great partnership with junk drawer that actually provides the books for us and so the students get you know it's not something like you have to read this book you have to do certain types like since they have so much ownership and choosing it that they love getting it and that they get their own like the book as soon as it was installed it was great to see I mean every time we walk by there's they notice the new book and they're all excited and you know not

184all of them have an opportunity to bring brand new books home we have a wonderful Library here but this one they get to keep and it's wonderful how excited they get for each other because they know how exciting it is to bring a brand new book home foreign [Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music] thank you [Music] foreign [Music] thank you [Music] foreign [Music] thank you [Music] I moved the board extend the contractor of Dr Brent Yeager superintendent starting July 1 2023. second okay motion by Mr Boyd a second by Mrs Steele Mr beverage yes okay yes Dr yurkovich yes Mrs Steele yes to Wycliffe yes Mr Boyd yes twice [Music]