001e e e look okay okay thank you I don't know this is yeah I don't know what this is down okay all right so uh next up is our regular agenda um we're going to call the meeting to order I would like to go ahead and read our mission statement uh for the district um I know we're going to be working on that possibly this year and next but this is what we have right now so um mission statement the mission of the Blue Valley School District committed to reimagining learning and changing the world is to ensure life Readiness and personal Excellence for all students through a school culture characterized by exemplary Educators safe and inclusive environments and an atmosphere that Fosters creativity and meaningful educational opportunities to maximize the potential of all so thought
002that just uh Center ourselves on that all right so we're going to go ahead and uh go to reports from board advisory committees so we have two reports this evening first up is Kyle Hayden with Finance um and operations the finance and operations committee met on February 29th in the Board of Education room I welcome welcomed committee members provided a General District update and then reviewed the meeting agenda Jeremy mcfaden reviewed the quarterly Bond progress report for the 2020 and 2023 bonds Jeremy also shared the quarterly investment summary report Eric palum presented the annual enrollment report Jake sodnik and Jason Gillum presented the bids and contracts that are on the agenda for board approval this evening the next meeting is scheduled for March 28th and the second report we have is from the curriculum of
003instruction and Dr CER will be giving that the curriculum instruction board advisory committee met on February 21st Kelly June provided an update and an overview of professional learning in Blue Valley uh she shared with an unwavering commitment to students professional learning in Blue Valley advances educator Effectiveness and is relevant collaborative sustainable and results oriented professional learning in Blue Valley encapsulates many different activities that deepen the skills and knowledge of our Educators so next in the meeting Kim Barney was present and she shared an update on professional learning redesign and this is a project that Administration has taken on this year uh Kelly June discussed um with Kim Barney with the group what professional learning um could look like uh going forward next year for our staff this redesign um would be about the delivery and
004allowing our professional Educators more voice and choice to guide their own ongoing professional education uh we will provide an update to the Board of Education uh prior to July 1 with hope of implementation of revisions for next school year finally an update was provided on the work of the elementary plane time collaboration committee the board reviewed this work last month and this morning again in workshop and a final recommendation for consideration to improve elementary teacher collaboration time will be presented to the board in April the cni board advisory committee meets again on April 10th thank you Katie um next up are reports from board members and the superintendent so should we start with Jan thank you um attended the finance committee we heard a report on uh a bond update and everything else that we
005just heard a couple of contracts um at Community Connection that most of us attended I visited with uh couple of parents talking about um the uh concerns on busing and that we continue to work on and then General enrollment at Valley Park and options there um every Friday again Jody you know this we you and I both are on the Kansas uh what is the advocacy Network good I so many acronyms um updating us on on the legislature and uh our lobbyist Patty Markley will give us more of an update tonight and then uh a real highlight for me since we last met was when Dr mergan was presented with the award as or least announced that she was administrator of the year for the Kansas music Education Association it is the first time I
006have seen her speechless um and then uh the Blue Valley Education Foundation Battle of the Bands uh many of us were also there thanks Jan Jim Gina um a couple of things so I got the opportunity to go to Blue Valley Middle Blue Ridge Elementary and sunrise point um which starting the day with kindergarteners is always like a favorite thing to do um and the assistant principal I think it was at Blue Valley Middle was fantastic that showed us around I mean he did such a great job oh he's the principal I'm sorry cuz there was somebody there filling in anyway yes for the assist gotcha okay so he was he was fantastic um and sunrise point is doing a food drive right now for our uh food pantry which is awesome so uh really
007love getting into the schools it's been fantastic Community connections was great also we had good attendance um we had um some CI parents that I got the opportunity to talk to which was fantastic they're um thrilled with how things are going and you know wanted to talk through ideas and then technology and things like that so it was a really good conversation I think these Community connections have been very valuable to us so thanks Gina you wna go I'll put you all right clay all right it was a uh busy month for being so short us coming in a little early this month um you have I I think I join I mean I think everybody was there at Community Connection so I was there last week oh Jim was out of town okay um
008that was very productive conversations I attended the curriculum and um instruction committee as um Dr Collier has already talked about um also attended the suicide prevention Coalition um the Johnson County Suicide Prevention Coalition um we did our annual leadership annual planning and also had our monthly meeting with a guest speaker discussing foster kids and the unique mental health issues um in that population so it was very informative um on the upside the surprise on Dr American's face when she rece when that announcement for the kmea award administrator of the year was just Priceless it was pretty awesome welld deserved and uh so very proud of you um turning to the more mundane I did attend a town hall with um a large number of our Johnson County delegation senators and um House Representatives and it
009was very encouraging to see such a majority supporting the positions of our of the district um a little disappointing to see that some of our initiatives are being thwarted um but I'm glad we've got people up there fighting for us here fighting for us in topa um and then the most exciting thing the thing I just really love doing are the school visits so I uh Gina and I went over to to sunrise point Blue Valley Middle and Blue River with the Fantastic um I also visited um Blue Valley High wolf Springs and Stillwell and I tell you if you haven't been down to still well and walk into the gym they have down there it is right out of the 1950s I swear where there have been some movies in a good way oh
010no it's it's classic it's beautiful it is lovely I mean it is well-kept it's a beautiful gymnasium um but I know there were some movies Back filmed in that space I just I've seen that place too many times um so that was just a that's a short recap thanks Clay Patrick Sonia as have been indicated before the Community Connection was awesome just to talk to the patrons and they give you your their ideas and you kind of have a dialogue as far as um understanding what their issues were and I think that that's really good um also I enrolled and and participated in a youth Mental Health First Aid training program and that's that was sponsored by the Blue Valley well and partner in partnership with the blue valley Education Foundation and basically what that
011is is an early intervention education program that teaches adults how to recognize the signs and symptoms that suggest a potential Mental Health Challenge how to listen non-judgmentally and give reassurance to a young person who may be experiencing a mental health Challenge and how to refer that young person to appropriate Professional Health the in-person instructors were Mo admins a social worker at Blue Valley high school and Amanda Levan a counselor at Blue Valley North High School and I just want to say this was an outstanding program I see one of my uh cohorts that was at the the table that I was at and I thought it was very very good and the reason why I enrolled in this particular program because I feel that I'm on the board and I do have interaction with students
012and I felt that I just needed that that tool just in case I'm somewhere where there's kids and I just noticed some type of symptom or sign and I just felt that I just needed to be equipped uh with that type of skill set and the the program that I was in it was a pilot program it was the first program that they had offered to parents and I highly recommend and encourage uh anyone that's a parent whomever that when they offer another uh training program to to take that program it was very very good and matter of fact I'm using some of the tools of my grandson you know as far as not showing excitement or whatever shocked in your face you just kind of just be cool with it and uh so I
013think is it's a great program and I highly recommend it thank you and I I do think that they said the first the pilot one filled up so fast they they are adding another one like immediately so there's a lot of momentum in that area so thank you for attending that I just want to say there is pre-work two hours worth of pre-work and then there's five hours uh in-person training at Hilltop this is a result of the Ed foundations um we applaud the Ed foundation for giving us the funding on that so Dr Maran yeah so um as Kyle pulls up the the presentation here I have I before we go through that I just want to highlight since since the last board meeting I have a really sad update and that we have
014lost two staff members um first of all Dustin lechner coach Le uh Blue Valley Southwest uh longtime social studies department chair social studies teacher and had had boys basketball and girls golf coach um died recently from a fight he's been fighting West Nile Virus all year and it was um it's been very it's been hard in the southwest community um the basketball team has been playing for Le I'm so proud of of that community and and the basketball team but I was there um over the where over the weekend at basketball games and It's just sad they're just sad right now because they've lost their their coach and friend so uh we're thinking of Southwest Community and then another really sad longtime staff member was Lisa um son stagen son stagen um So Lisa uh
015has been a member or is a school psychologist for the district um was at Liberty View also worked with our private school placements has been a long time staff member was a member of our flight team which you're going to hear about in just a little bit so many of us have worked with her over the years on that and she lost a long battle with cancer so we're thinking of her family we're thinking of Dustin's family but we're also thinking of the Liberty View Community as well as the Blue Valley Southwest Community so with that I'm going to give you a transition it's hard to transition but to some highlights that have happened over the last month because there have been many uh first one I want to talk about is Bri and Bri
016will be here at at some some point soon uh Bri mccahan was named a 2024 Kansas Master teacher there are only I think seven it's either seven or eight uh Master Teachers in the entire State everybody gets to every District gets to nominate um an elementary and a secondary teacher and I always say that um our teachers are at a disadvantage because they both can't win uh every year they typically only she's one from a district but we have one almost every year and we're very proud of Bri she's a special education teacher at Stanley Elementary will be celebrating her later in April um we also want to thank our bus drivers February 22nd um is school bus driver appreciation day and I know our schools did many things for the our bus drivers who
017are so vital um first people that our kids see when they get up in the morning um that's my recognition and you are correct I was very stunned to walk into the gym and have the band playing I wasn't sure what was going on so um I'm very honored and humbled by that recognition um Blue Valley North boy swim team um winning back-to-back 6A state championships so our pool technician I should have mentioned that um we have very successful swimming programs and and congratulations to North we also had several individual in relay um Champions so you can see the 200 medley relay from Blue Valley North uh the 100 butterfly of blue valley Northwest Micah Churchill 100 yard breast stroke uh Jack punswick that would be Dr punswick son and the 400 yard free relay
018from Blue Valley North so congratulations to those students and many students who receed second third fourth you know Etc but we just put the first place up oh got to hit the right button um it was music it is music in our schools month right now and and we have such phenomenal music programs uh it's they're quite incredible honestly um we want to congrat congratulate the five Blue Valley musical groups who were selected to perform at kmea so kmea has two fold one is that students audition uh and they go down and they practice throughout the weekend to perform in the um band choir orchestra with people from across the state also different groups a are go through an audition process and are selected and so these five groups were selected and performed a concert
019uh down in witcha at the conference so lewood Middle School 8ighth grade band Blue Valley High School Corral um Oxford Middle School 8th grade choir Blue Valley Southwest Orchestra and the Blue Valley West procussion Ensemble so a huge thanks to those students those directors and their parents um many of them who chaperon those kids um on the way down and back but they were I went all five they were incredible you would be very proud um here is all the students who were three and four year we just recognize those tonight that's a quite a lengthy list uh Blue Valley West uh were National Esports uh Champions so we want to congratulate that team that's awesome isn't that fun and then March 2nd was officially read Across America day um I know that many of
020our schools are celebrating read Across America this week several of you I think are reading at some schools I'm going to a school tomorrow to read um it's very fun I love it when they ask me to come and read and then it also this week is national uh School social worker week and so we want to um give a shout out to our Children's Mercy Karen you're going to hear from Karen in just a little bit from Children's Mercy but to all of our social workers I just came from a meeting right before this uh with elementary teachers and one of the things they as at the end I was asking if they have any questions for me and one of the things they asked me about is social workers and listen is there
021any danger of us losing social workers next year so that it's an important thing for teachers and then finally I just want to give a a a plug for our podcast you're going to hear in just a little bit about some mental health supports that we offer in the district and we recently um I want to say filmed it's not film recorded thank you in my mind recorded a podcast and Karen was a part of it Mindy Wells who's up there who coordinates our counselors for the district and Tim deise from Johnson County Mental Health and we talked about um supports for students both in this District as well as supports in the community so that is up and ready to be listened to at any point and that's it for this March update thank
022you Dr Maran um yes so you know just to to piggyback on um a little bit of information that was shared um yes Dr Maran was surprised but it for the kmea uh administrator of the year but uh I think it compounded because there was a wonderful musical band playing at the same time the brass sounded amazing but I think that adds to surprise sometimes when we walk into a room not expecting uh kind of the Fanfare so that that was really exciting I think the kids did a great job the the flag Corp was right in front of us so it was it was fun to watch um uh yeah Community conversations um really enjoy the experience um so glad that we started doing that a couple C years ago um I think it
023was the right thing to do um I actually really enjoy um the the people I I sat down with and and we had some really great dialogue so um I really appreciate people showing up and and just having conversations um so thanks to that um yeah read Across America uh was or is this last week or is this week um I would like to do a little shout out that um because I'm also um I I do a lot of work with um our Johnson County Library System um they posted um uh our Blue Valley uh West uh 15-year-old sophomore uh mahad zamir um volunteers with the library and he wrote more than 100 book reviews for the Johnson County Libraries website um teens page and uh recommending books that others might want to read
024um and earned over 200 volunteer hours so I wanted to give a little shout out that was kind of a surprise but um kind of exciting how how that um we community in that way um regarding um um our coach lechner um at Southwest um you know yes the Southwest you know grieving um at at our loss but seeing all the support at at subsequent basketball games of all of our other um high school teams supporting um coach lechner and his family and supporting you know the their um opponents uh the the other players um is really shows what kind of a a solid Community we are so that was really moving and I really appreciate the support from all of our other high schools for that so um yeah I think that's all I
025have to add so we can move on now uh we're going to need to approve the agenda for the March 4th 2024 regular Board of Education meeting as published oh wait I'm sorry before I do that quick we've got some students some kiddos in the room um you hear for a class or you just here for fun nice excellent but it's fun too right it is fun this is great yeah well thank you for being here and feel free to email or ask any questions after awesome thank you all right so let's uh I'll entertain a motion I move that the Board of Education approve the agenda for the March 4th 2024 regular Board of Education meeting as published second second motion by Gina second by Clay any discussion all in favor raise your hand
026or say I any opposed same sign motion passes 70 on to the consent agenda um I'll need uh see we need to approve the consent agenda for the March 4th 2024 regular Board of Education meeting as published I have a motion I move that the Board of Education approve the consent agenda for the March 4th 2024 regular Board of Education meeting as published great second okay I've got a motion by Jim second by Sonia any discussion all right all in favor oh I just want to point out there put your microphone on there uh I just wanted to point out to the public that there is some um good financial information that's embedded on bond the various bonds we've had and what the expenditures have been progress Etc so uh those are embedded attachments inside
027the you know on the website for this meeting so I point that to you if you're if you like that kind of stuff so if you go to the Blue Valley School District website go to the board of education site and the agenda you'll find all that fun information there so on the consent agenda which is a lot of financial information but it's big expenditures related to our bonds on 2020 Bond and the most recent Bond and probably prior bonds as well but for those that um want to see what we're spending the money on it's all detailed there great thanks Jim all right so all in favor raise your hand or say I any oppose same sign motion passes 70 all right on to new business legislative update so Patty's going to make her
028way up um Patty is here to give us a little update on what is happening in Topeka Patty I'm gonna give you quicker P the little button so it's on perfect thanks so much for having me all um as a reminder Patty Markley with Markley strategies as of your November vote to um approve my annual contract I am your contract lobbyist in Topeka and I'm very excited to be doing that so just wanted to give you kind of a quick overview of our um what has happened about the first half of this legislative session and when advocating for our schools um we always try to do so within the framework of our legislative agenda so just as a reminder these are our primary positions that we we have taken as our leg save agenda so
029fund special education post tax credits and vouchers for private schools apply atrisk funding to Define student measures uh support recruitment intention and retention for our teachers including um looking for alternative teacher certification opportunities support funding um on current year are largest of twoe previous years so that essentially means we take the count of our our students either this year or the previous two years and also of course we want to include our um priority of student health and always looking to enhance student mental health so as of February 23rd we reached the legislative sessions halfway mark so you know it's about nday session it moves very quickly um that halfway mark is considered turnaround um so the last two days of that week the house and the Senate are on the floor the entire day
030they usually go through 30 or 40 bills a day and um at the end of that those two days the bills that have been introduced or in committee or or voted out either have to be passed out of their original chamber so if the house bill that has to be passed out of the house sen it the same thing on the other side or it can um be blessed by leadership so that essentially means it goes to that they let it Live Another Day so they're blessed by the the leadership and it goes to an an exempt committee and then it can go back to its Committee of origin to be blessed in and live on for another day or the bill dies and this is the second year of our session so the bill
031is so there's several bills that are no longer on on our roles and um if people want them they will have to come back next January and reintroduce him again um one of the bigger things that has happened over the last few weeks is um there was a tax relief bill House Bill 2284 the um legislator passed legislature passed that the governor uh vetoed that bill and then it went back to the house and they were unable to override the governor's veto of that bill so that the governor's veto of the tax relief bill stands um that bill a single tax rate of 5.25% um it would elimin completely eliminated the sales tax by uh April 1st and some other things um the governor has a version of her tax bill and quite frankly the
032two bills are pretty close so one has um single tax rate hers does not but in a lot of other ways they're similar so um people are going to have to get together from the governor's office and Leadership and hash out a a compromise hopefully and we can have some sort of tax Rel this year um they also believe it or not the only thing that the legislature is required to do every year is pass a budget they they hold the pur strings that is all they have to do they do not even have to pass another bill if they don't want to so budget's important they will uh usually we end the session and then they come back for veto session and they work on the budget and they if there are any bills
033that the governor vetoed during their break they will um they will try to override those or or let those stand um that's how it's supposed to be just like everything even though bills are supposed to die nothing ever dies in the in the Kansas legislature and also um lots of things are discussed in veto session um and speaking of veto session everyone is committed to have a very short session this year uh all 165 legislative seats are up for reelection um legislators who are running for re-election want to get out there and um begin to campaign and there's even been discussions of not even having a separate veto session so maybe just going through April 5th and then having the the official day of the last day of session which is called signy die which
034is end of session so there there's talk of that um there's also talk that if they do not pass some sort of tax relief bill the governor will call them back into special session so we will see if that happens so there have been many many education related bills introduced this year but I thought I would just spend a few minutes talking about kind of some key ones that are of of interest to us and our priorities um House Bill 2700 was a um library book rating system it would have established a Statewide commission to um look at books and um establish a rating system for them uh that had a hearing on the house side but it did not make it out so that bill actually died this session same with there was a
035bill um for a process to restrict cell phone use of students um during the school day they actually had these it was a supplier that came and discussed kind of this packet that they put it in this um that you can lock it up and you can access it if you have to but um and it's been pretty successful in especially one um District out west but that bill did get a hearing in in house education but um did not go anywhere um there are two bills with alternative teacher certification Senate Bill 407 and House Bill 2521 um the House Bill had a hearing um they both have been blessed so they are they are living on and so we are keeping track of that as as we want to um take a look at
036different alternative ways for our teacher certification um Capers so there are two different bills in the House and Senate that would move um teacher uh Capers from Capers 3 into Capers two and those bills actually the Senate bill has a hearing this week and the house bill is having an informational hearing um this week as well so that's Tuesday and Wednesday um Dr merrian is um submitting testimony for both of those we already discussed uh School your funding calculations how they do that the Senate the Senate bill and a house bill and both of them have been blessed as well so we will see what happens with those there are um at least one bill on school accreditation that we're following closely and I can talk a little bit about that more in a minute
037but um there are uh ways to possibly take away accreditation from school districts if they do not follow the rules and regulations or if they don't um it can possibly be a result if you don't have a certain percentage of your ask atrisk students um doing uh sorry level three and level four on the Statewide tests so um both of those we are we're concerned and following closely um sped funding we have um submitted testimony regarding that issue there is a bill that um has a new funding formula for for sped um that bill has also been blessed um there is a bill in the house K12 education budget committee that um would uh do away with the sped task force that was created last year they would it would dissolve that and create a
038new task force um that has to do with sped funding and other funding looking towards redoing the fund funding formula that will be up in 27 2027 yeah so it's 2017 it pass it has to be um Revisited every 10 years so we um keeping a close look on that there's um a couple different bills of of tax credits and vouchers that are on the Senate side um Senate Bill 509 has a hearing this week uh in the senate committee on on assessment and Taxation and so representative meran will be submitting some testimony for that and then I know that we had talked quite a bit about um our ongoing issue with with um needing bus drivers and representative tarwater um who chairs the house Commerce Committee put a provision in um a large um
039uh in sorry Insurance um Reform Bill that dealt with our um that would help um that school bus driver issue um school bus drivers employed by private contractors would be eligible for work share so that um we are we are supportive of that it um actually passed the house 122 to Zer and is now on this in the Senate Commerce Committee and they have a hearing on it later this week too as well so that's a lot of bills we're looking at these are just a um a few the few of the key ones that were were keeping their eye on I want to talk a little bit about kind of where we're headed and some concerns some of us have about the attempts to defund and deit discredit public schools um kind of that
040ongoing attempts and the K12 education budget committee has a process for their budget that is different than most other budget committees budget committees usually pass the committee passes the budget it goes to the full Appropriations Committee they hear presentations on it they debate it and they um determine the budgets um for the last few years the K12 education budg budget has been taken back from appropriation so they do not hear it and it stays within the education budget committee and it also includes policy legislation as well it gets bundled into that and that is that is a unique way of doing it and um that that that's what happens and I mentioned um the accreditation and atrisk funding attempts um and and the concern there is that there are these very strict ways that they're
041attempting to have school districts possibly lose accreditation so if you don't for atrisk funding say you have to have a cohort cohort of atrisk students um and for a year you follow them and the goal needs to be that 75% of those those students are levels three and four on the Statewide tests now Blue Valley I believe our entire student population in Blue Valley it's only 50 some 50ish 55% or or three and four so you can see that that those are pretty steep steep ideas to get that and there are penalties for that up to and including having your accreditation taken so when you have school districts that possibly could risk losing their accreditation then that gives more Credence to the the premise that we have these non-accredited schools we should therefore divert money
042to other schools that can or other services to um provide that quality of education for kids so we are following those very closely yeah so does that mean that um there are other schools that are at 75% for three and four no no no no one is no one is so that means that virtually everybody would be unaccredited potentially up to and yes including that um I mean there's several steps before that I mean in these legislation and um but it's not like we're in the bottom 25% no we would be in we would be the the other thing is is that this money that would be diverted to a private school doesn't have to follow that same criteria right and that is always kind of our position that if we're going to have public
043money for private institutions that they have to follow the same guidelines and have the same requirements that we do and currently they do not so um so one more quick question yeah so does the tax relief bill impact the school Finance funding calculation bills in any way no they would because that it's um using um unless there's no there there's separate bills that might do with um the Statewide school levy or something but that's not separate yeah um these are dealing with um the almost $3 billion do of budget surplus that we have now so that could some of the other initiatives that we have right yeah so yeah so um yes I'm sorry am I right also that the legislature currently does not give accreditation that's the role of the state school board it
044is the state school board yeah so it's it would be something new yeah well the legislation um would give the state school board the power to do it but you know here it would be in statute that they would need to do this if X Y and Z happened and continued to happen so yeah sure Jim maybe a step back just for a big picture question so um does is the legislature responsible each year for establishing the base state aid per per pupil or is that formula driven that is Formula driven they just appropriate the funds according to the formula so the formula was written in 2017 and that's the formula that's base state aid and then all the other waiting obviously and so annually it goes up by some sort of cost of living
045or yes um it does and I can find out exactly what it is there's there are inflation Target yeah it is it's is tied to inflation yeah yeah so when when the legislature is passing a budget that is really not one an aspect of the budget it's it's and the budget just yeah they just appropriate the funds they don't determine that formula every what if they don't um does that make sense they don't what if what if they don't allocate or appropriate you know funds to hit the base state aid for pupil then they're out of compliance with the right Ganon case or the G case was dismissed it was dismissed so I mean probably I mean there are a lot of things that would probably happen um one remedy might be that some school
046districts would sue and say you're you're not constitutionally funding the schools at at the level and then is there just trying to in accreditation is there a funding penalty if you're not accredited I don't think there's a funding penalty but um no it it wouldn't be tied to funding as much as just um if you're an unaccredited school all the X Y and Z that goes along with that okay yeah so I'm going off of your agenda here but I'm just trying to understand some big picture things the so the like 2024 is going to be a banner year for collections in the state of Kansas yeah it's going be better than 2023 right unless the stock market crashes or something crazy happens which could but you know right now it's business is strong Etc
047so what what what do you see the conversations going on around the influx of of cash coming into the state cers well I think that's where um all these tax relief bills and how you give money back to to people is it property tax relief is it state income you know is it income tax do you do you reduce down to um you have one tier tax rate you know you cut it that way um sales tax cut you know you cut you get rid of the sales tax on food so all there's all those discussions about all the who who considers what's the best way to return some of those excess funds to the to the taxpayers and that's kind of where the rub is is you know people have definite opinions that it
048should be you know how it's written in this bill and other people think that more needs to go for property tax relief or whatever it might be so those those discussions are going to get worked out over the next month uh conversation around modifying the base state aid per pupil because of some influx of no um I think if you messed with the funding formula it would put you out of compliance pretty quickly the state out of compliance with constitutionally funding the school although not not if they over allocate it yeah but only if they under allocate it yeah true yeah okay if I can just they're not going to over allocate chime in on that we we did miss our Revenue projections in January and February already just so it's not all Sunshine and
049Lollipops yet but that's true we had two years of where we kept coming in over over over continually over projections those are Reven projections by by the legislature or by the budget Department Bud dep Department yeah which we've been exceeding them up to this point which is how we end up with a couple billion dollars sitting and waiting to be given back to the taxpayers uh but one other thing to be I don't know how much you're seeing in in the legislature Patty where with the courts no longer having I'll use the term jurisdiction over school funding uh case that we won and uh got us back to constitutional funding there may be the legislature may try to re things back in from their perspective and end up in court again I yeah I mean
050it's possible um you know the court found that you know the Attorney General went to the Supreme Court and said you know we have funded adequately funded suitably funded you know adequate and equitably for the past five years so that and therefore there really isn't a need for the for the courts to continue oversight but um yeah I mean I think that's always a possibility if if something happens then there's always a recourse through the judicial branch so um final weeks and days of session like I said you know things have a calendar things are supposed to go a certain way what will inevitably happen as it usually does with education funding it will come down to the last couple of weeks there will be bills probably voted on in the house and depending on
051how many votes that gets and whether the governor can veto that that bill if if if she chooses to and um what a bill looks like coming out of the Senate side and Conference committees where the leadership of both of those committees so the chair Vice chair and ranking ranking minority member all get in a room and hash it all out and that's really where if you want to see the sausage grinding of of the legislative process that's truly where it is because there are bills that get bundled in you know suddenly as long as a bill has some sort you know it's Germain in some some way they can bundle them all together so you know last year there was a tax bill that had 30 some bills in there so and as long
052as a bill has passed one house it can possibly get put in conference committee even if it hasn't sometimes they they can sneak it in so that's that's really where a lot of this work happens is towards the very very end where where this will start really start speeding up and and we'll see what happens with school funding I interrupted you you had sped funding on there and I don't I don't I think you I ski what did I talk about I think I um what I want to say about spunding I think more um back to that issue that um the sped task force that was put together last year and had a great Community input um and some great members on there that um there's a bill to dissolve that and create a
053whole new whole new committee um so that's somewhat concerning on on the funding level of you know that there's some really good recommendations that came out of that committee and um if it's dissolved and I do know that um we were on a a zoom last Friday with representatives from the King State Department of Education and they were asked by Senator bomgardner uh to look at some alternative ways to fund special education and so uh Dr Frank Harwood who's the Deputy Commissioner commissioner for I don't know fiscal whatever title is something with fiscal at KSD um presented a model uh for this this would be probably a short-term fix yeah uh for funding some additional special education funding uh we we by we I mean Kyle and Jeremy and I sat and listened to that
054and that would net Blue Valley some additional money we would be in support of that um we're what what we've what I've said to anytime anybody will listen because anytime I get legislator's ear and they ask me what we need I always say you're not going to get away without talking special ed funding right and we're willing to collaborate we're willing to sit down at the table uh but the bottom line is is that we are continuing to spend $9 to15 million additional from our general fund a year and the state has this money and we would love to open it and be a part of that conversation you know um the deputy superintendent um spoke to uh chairwoman balb Gardner had him come speak to Senate education last week and it was it was
055really good as much as a deep dive can be in one hour it was a really deep dive about sped funding and what it means and always the number of you know it's supposed to be 92% and then there's a narrative out there that certain schools certain districts have much less than the 92% and some have over 100% um and it was really trying to get people to understand that the 92% is a Statewide percentage the money that districts get is an appropriation so they're not the same thing so there's really no District that's getting 102% of their expenses say that no school district is getting more funds than what they they're act and it was interesting to see that because you know the Senators that have been around for a long time and no
056school Finance I mean when he said that they're like four hands a went up like okay please you need to break that down again and explain it and I think it was really good to finally start to get people to understand because it's it's complicated and in his presentation he did have the alternative um formula that that we would support there's other bills out there with some different formulas that we're not we're not as happy with so um hey Patty would you mind just for um our wonderful viewing audience who I'm sure there's lots lot online um just do the simple version of kind of what what special ed funding looks like and kind of our talking points that that we give or that you give to to our legislators to help them understand that
057Gap that Delta yeah so um we try to keep it really simple and if you start getting into 92% and all that it's it's it's tough and what we what Tanya myself what we and I know that Jan and Jody you both came and spoke to all our legislators and we had breakfast with them and kind of the message is that we only get 6 I'm you're going to tell me 60 64% of our expenses covered by our state funding so what that means is every year we take approximately 8 million to things up in 16 million from our general fund to cover that Gap so every year we have to spend money that we should be getting from the state for special education and we have to pull those from other sources if it's
058our general fund if it's it's whatever it might be in addition to that I think it's important for people understand in Blue Valley over the last five years our population and our enrollment has been stagnant it's gone down maybe 1% those same five years our special ed population has increased by 26 20 25 plus percent so you can see that the percentage of our students that require special ed is going up while while we are saying um basically flat with our enrollment and passage last year of open enrollment we know that um we have great special ed services in our district and people move to our district and come to our district for those services and we are absolutely committed to providing those Services um but need our policy makers to recognize that that n
059that that Gap probably not probably not closing anytime soon and those are that's a significant funding issue for for our district so um thank you and then I had also heard that there was some confusion in Topeka and or some effort to try to close this Gap with local taxpayer funds can you speak to that just a little bit I think it's more that um legislators are trying to figure out exactly what constitutes special ed funding and if it's that if that's um what local monies do that what there's Medicaid money that can be used for special ed there's um the federal government is supposed to fund a significant aort of special ed and they are hundreds of millions of dollars in a at this point and um they just it's not really a priority
060I mean I think our Schoolboard people and um others Lobby every year in in Washington DC for that and there support for it but it just never quite makes the priority to actually fund it at the level they're supposed to so I think there's a lot of that going on just trying to figure out all the money that should be counted and um and again we try to stay out of a lot of that because it starts getting in the weeds and again you know when even when you're explaining 92% the people that should understand it as better as anybody is is struggling with it the idea that we have to spend x million dollar a year for our special ed students who and we're committed to doing that and there's a gap that will
061probably only get wider because we have an increase of those students keep it simple I think that's it well wait okay I was going to tell you guys what you can do so you know I continue to educate and persued legislators on our on our policies um superintendent mergan um does inperson and written testimony we've had um superintendents had a really great lunch with the Johnson County delegation a few weeks ago um you all you know continue to um Foster those relationships you have with our Blue Valley legislators and um committee members that are you know we have several you know several of our Blue Valley legislators um you know Senator bomgardner uh chairs Senate Ed we have um senat uh representative Thomas chairs House Education so um we have a lot of people that
062have a lot of influence up there so and you guys your voice is important so whatever you can do and I'll reach out to you if there's specific things that I say I need you to call about XY or Z keep doing that so and there's my contact info which I think all you all have but just in case hey Patty yeah you had a list of um House and Senate bills up there and you kind of explained what they were um but could you just go through real quick and let us know which ones align with our priorities and our interests and which ones go against them um sure I think these are ones that you know we're just tracking but um the book rating system I think one we were just paying attention
063to I don't think we have a specific position on on library books I know that Senator holsher has a bill on the Senate side that was introduced in Senate fed and state so technically it's still alive because that's Exempted committee but it hasn't had any hearing so it's probably not going anywhere but hers um essentially has essentially bans book bands um Banning the book bands uh so that's still live but probably not going anywhere this session you know cell phone restrictions um again I think just that's in general something that local control yeah a lot of these that's usually what we come down to Alternative teacher certification um it was a presentation by kind of one organization that has kind of pushed this way this certif c ification um and while you know we in
064general want to look at those alternative ways for Teacher certification we just want to make sure that this is the best way to do it um know the Capers obviously we're going to support because we need all we can to support um our you know paying our paying our teachers and and the benefits packages that they get you know we are obviously not only competing against our other school districts in Kansas we're competing against Missouri school districts and we're competing against the private sector so you know if you can beef up their retirement plan and capers we we would definitely support that um I kind of talked about the accreditation and the atrisk um funding those were obviously um not super fond of so we're opposing those um sped funding um the house bill 25594
065was a um a specific funding formula that was not our favorite so we're looking more at the one that was introduced on the Senate side um long-standing opposition to vouchers and tax credits and um School the insurance Reform Bill you know including that school bus driver piece was important and we're we're very thankful that representative tarwater got that included in that in that bill and hopefully seem seems to be they're moving it forward in the Senate too so hopefully we can get something done there and then yeah I have a question yeah so why was the cell phone restriction brought about to the house for a bill I mean what was the motivating factor regarding that um the chairman was interested in um hearing from the school district that had successfully done this program so
066there was a bill introduced that um would provide a way for it to be done Statewide and so they came and gave the presentation in in house education but that bill did not get voted out of committee and so well and you said that it was regarding an apparatus to to lock up the phones and yeah so they yeah I I have their website it's kind of like a little yeah what's it called yeah so it's almost like this little packet that you put in and lock it in um yeah so and to Patty probably knows a little bit at least when I read that bill um it I think trying to enforce on it would cause such a heavy burden for us and you would be like uh committing a crime if you did
067not like enforce on it so I it was written really interesting it wasn't the best yeah it was a poorly written bill um but the the premise was interesting I mean and that the district has had good success with kids just being okay with putting them in the things and setting them aside for their so I think they they even said they have more problems with parents you know wanting to be yeah I want to be able to text my child and yeah so if you had a crystal ball yeah um which of these should we be concerned about or excited about that may actually pass or not pass uh I think Capers has a good chance this year um there'll probably be some sort of funding calculation redo um I think we should be
068concerned with um those accreditation bills and the way they do atrisk funding um that being folded into the Appropriations bills for education and um because a lot those you know um that representative Thomas' bill no uh the accreditation the accreditation may be Thomas is it came out of his committee I'm trying to remember um if he introduced it or if it was just a committee Bill uh leadership especially in the house has gone on the record to say there's not a lot of appetite for any kind of tax credit or voucher bill this year so you know that that's a relief but at the same time you know one of the education um Advocates kind of said it's this almost a small slow moving train of you know risk to accreditation risk to sped funding
069risk to at risk funding that there are ways to divert funds from public schools that don't have anything to do with vouchers or tax credits so so they've essentially given up on vouchers and they've tried a new strategies what you're telling us um you know the Senate still um again they're hearing a voucher well they're hearing a tax credit bill this week um I think there's more appetite on the Senate side I think the um quite frankly I think leadership in the house doesn't want their people to have to take that vote in an election year okay quite frankly and and why would that Miss Markley be because it's not popular potentially with with many areas in Kansas and even rural canons um are not yeah it's interesting that um whenever uh savings accounts or
070version of vs for bills come up a lot of time you do get a lot of push back from rural legislators quite frankly because there are not private school options out in rural Kansas so if you have you know if you're saying money can go for private schools there's many legislators say there's not a private school within 500 miles of 400 miles of my whatever it could go to homeschooling or or it could go to you know a neighboring area and then you could lose even in in some of these rural districts you lose three kids four kids yeah and it's detri detrimental for your for your school um because you're still paying the same teachers you're still paying for the same you know the bills the the lights and heating and all that so
071right and then those funding that's when that those funding calculations come into play especially for those rural districts that are losing losing population so back to the crystal ball um so so specifically around sped funding do you think there will be any I mean they've kind of kicked the can the last few years right not nothing's been done and then they formed the task force everybody yeah they all say they that they want to do something with sped funding we'll see you know everybody wants to do something with tax relief too we'll see if you know and if they end the session super early April 5th that's you know we got one month left so you know we'll see what has time to get even dealt with in the next four weeks but if they
072don't tax pay a tax bill they may come back for special session and then they can potentially bring up anything then all right anything else are we good we good thank you Pat we appreciate it I think we're going to take a a couple minute break for our live captioner and then we'll be back uh for our esol program update SK I e e e okay I think we're going to get started for the last few bits and you gentlemen are you leaving early [Laughter] all right Patrick will sit down here in a second too sorry calling everybody out all right so next is a presentation on uh under new business for the esol program update thank you and good evening my name is Jennifer linski and I serve Blue Valley as the Director of
073curriculum and instruction and I'm very pleased this evening to introduce to you Jackie dir Jackie is our District's coordinator for esol she supports our program uh kindergarten through 12th grade we're here this evening to share with you some information about what esol is how many students are supported through our program and what this looks like in our school buildings but before we jump in Jackie is going to provide some background for you on the number of students currently in Blue Valley in which a language other than English is spoken in the home we think this provides some context for our esol program yes so so districtwide we have 110 languages spoken again this is not just in the eso program in fact the es program has 55 languages represented but we have 3,530 students that
074have a language other than English spoken in their home this does not mean that these students are not proficient in the English language it just means that they do have a language other than English you see the new languages that's new as of this past year to the Blue Valley School District and then I have our most reported languages there as well again those reported languages do also differ from the eso program all of these numbers refer to individual students rather than families so I have some acronyms for you because these are constantly changing and the first two are elll and MLL I will probably use these interchangeably this evening um elll is the most commonly accepted term how and that stands for English language learner however we're phasing out of that because it's not
075quite as inclusive as multilingual learner all of you here are English language Learners um you might occasionally learn new vocabulary words uh however multilingual learner refers to learning multiple languages another acronym we'll be referring to tonight um is esol and that is our program which is English for speakers of other languages in the past and even in Blue Valley it was referred to as English as a second language however as I just mentioned um some of our families or some of our students know three four or five languages so English for speakers of other languages is the more more appropriate term and then we have the kPa the kPa is our Kansas English language proficiency assessment we also have the Kela screener which is a screener that we'll use and I'll go into more detail
076about what those are but I just wanted to make sure you're aware because I frequently use those acronyms and I don't want you to be guessing what they are I have our mission statement here um basically describing what esol is overall we provide instruction for the acquisition of the English language while also helping students succeed academically and socially we operationalize this mission statement through our program objectives I won't read each bullet to you but I will explain each one so first is to teach the Eng the English language our teachers may have a Proficiency in language other than English but for the most part they use they support their students um through different strategies second the eso program assists with the social and cultural adjustment we know that all blue valley teachers care about their
077students but our esol teachers in particular are dedicated to their adjustment um we know that students new to the United States face unique challenges such as culture shock when they come and our ESO teachers are trained in addressing these challenges as we use the term adjustment we keep in mind that the students previous background and culture is also important our third program objective is to allow students to practice the English language and a variety of settings from the classroom to the playground fourth collaboration is the main component of this objective ESO teachers collaborate with general education teachers to make sure MLL needs are met throughout the school day they also work with special education staff members they work with art teachers they work with cafeteria workers anyone you can imagine to make sure that the
078transition is um successful for our students and finally communication and connection is at the heart of our program we are the liaison between home and school we're able to work with families before they even register in the school district because sometimes they can't access access our registration documents that we have all the way until our students exit the Blue Valley School District um I'd like to explain what qualifies a student for our program these are the four questions that the state of Kansas has all families fill out during registration So currently this is completed online during online regist ation and if a language other than English is marked on any one of these four questions we do screen the student to see if they qualify for English language Services we give the kelp screener that
079was adopted in 2023 this is um adopted Statewide so every school district in Kansas uses this same screener and then we monitor student progress with the kPa which is our English language proficiency assessment many of our schools are wrapping that up this week it's given in February and March and we get the results in May to determine if students are proficient on the English language they take speaking reading listening and writing components on this assessment um and then if a student lives in a School boundary that does not have an esol program and they qualify for esol services then they attend our Center Program instead which Jennifer will be discussing yes so if a student uh would be determined to benefit from ESO supports uh and their home school offers that support then the student
080would attend that home school and and get that support but because we're Center based not all of our schools have ESO so some students then receive free bus free District paid bus transportation to go to those ESO centers and you can see in the table there that this school year we have 12 of our 22 elementary schools four of our nine middle schools and three of our five high schools with a program and then if if you look to the right you'll see we'll be adding two new centers at the elementary level for next year wolf Springs Elementary and Harmony Elementary so um we're growing in mainly in middle or Elementary School at this point um across the district we have 32 certified Educators highly qualified certif licensed in esol Educators uh who support students
081in each of these centers and in addition we have the support of nine amazing pair of professionals who also support students in these programs and um if interested that link below will take you to the district website where you can see which uh more about the centers that we have oops I'm not doing my job I also want to give you an idea of what the proficiency levels are for English language Learners um this first category uh we often refer to as newcomer there are a lot of terms for students that are beginning to learn the English language So Silent receptive pre-produced um or beginning those are all terms that are used for students that are just beginning to learn the English language I also want you to note on this chart that you see
082it says 0 to six plus months or six months to one year plus because the rate at which a student develops the English proficiency varies um just depending on each student and the type of instruction that they receive so in those beginning stages we have students that are gaining their playground language or their bicks that's their basic interpersonal communication skills and then in the later stages those students are G gaining the academic vocabulary or their help their cognitive academic language proficiency so students at all of these levels need the eso support because if we have an elll that is proficient in speaking and listening they might not be proficient in reading and writing sometimes we have students that are proficient in reading and writing and need support with speaking and listening so this is just
083a general time frame of the proficiency progress for English language Learners some of the instructional services that we provide look different at each level at all of the levels we have ilps these are individual language plans and on these plans um there are goals that are set for the students so our scheduled classes are more at the middle and high school level we have one or two classes depending on student proficiency level then as we look toward the elementary level those are more small group instruction and these depend on either the grade level or the proficiency level of the students all of our levels are able to provide some push in or co- teaching support and this is usually for newcomers or students that are at a higher proficiency level perhaps they don't need that
084scheduled class or the pullout small group support instead they get support in the classroom with the par professional or esol teacher we also provide individual instruction newcomers require a lot of additional support so sometimes that looks like individual support to help them access the content of the general education classroom and um some fun numbers information for you we currently have 985 students classified as Ells or mlls in the district so we refer to 15% of the district that has a language other than English in the home 4.5% of the students um are classified as Ells or mlls so um when we say that they are classified that way they could be actively receiving esol Services they could be on monitored status which means they're proficient now in the English language and being monitored it could
085look like transition status status so if a student um scores proficient on arela but they need a additional year of support their transition status and that also includes some of the students that have declined esol Services as well so this graph shows us uh our esol population Through The Years uh it's interesting to note that uh as a reference point in 0910 and this graph starts at 1819 Blue Valley had 300 students served through ESO between 0910 to 189 so 9 years that population Grew From 300 to that 400 number you see first on the graph as a point of reference the number of students served through esol has doubled in that same time frame so from 09 to today that number has doubled to the 600 that it is um you will notice that
086around 2122 we showed a dip and we believe that correlates highly with some of the covid restrictions that were in place as far as travel and and and similar things but you can see we've rebounded right back to where we were um pre pandemic and um this information is in regards to newcomers so to give you a little bit more information about the term newcomer federally that means any student that um has arrived in the United States within the past three years again federally this could mean um a student that is proficient in the English language because it's an umbrella term however as we look at this chart this is referring only to those students in Blue Valley that are at the beginning proficiency level this is this helps us to kind of track to
087see um those students that are still beginning to learn the English language um and these are the students that require the most intense support and have the greatest need for our esol teachers so you can see the significant growth that we've had in the past several years and our esol teachers are responsible for a lot of the communication with their families that are English language Learners um one system that we use is called talking points it's a text message system that provides quick real time and low stakes um communication with our families we have found that our families enjoy responding to these text messages um if a teacher can send a message in English it goes to the parent parent in their preferred language or their home language their parent responds in their home language
088and then it comes back to the teacher in English so it has really increased our parent engagement and we do find that parents prefer text messages as well um we have interpreters some are contracted that families are able to um reach out to or or we have key contacts in our buildings that schedule these interpreters we also have an agency we use use for those um languages that are hard to find locally interpreters and then we have tools as well that are um families and our teachers and students use one thing that we've really encouraged our schools to use or two things are Blackboard and s'more because those are Communications for things like schoolwide newsletters that can be translated into the parents preferred language and our ESO teacher do a very great job building Community
089um with their families we have events like back to school events where we're welcoming the families making sure they understand everything going on at a back to school event there is a lot of information provided we make sure families um have interpreters if they need them we make sure that they know where they're going within the school building um previously we had very large Multicultural festivals um and we're determining the most effective way to keep going um and we found that one way to keep going with the Multicultural Festival as we've kind of outgrown our space is to have individual schools have these Multicultural festivals and we found that it really reflects the unique character of each school as well um so we're we're glad that we have been able to continue those and uh
090we provide resources for our families we referenced the eso website earlier on there you'll find parent handbooks available in several of our top languages that talk about the basics of not only the esol program but also of the Blue Valley School District in general and they include Community Resources for our families as well we have tonight talked about how wonderful social workers are and our ESO teachers are able to work closely with social workers to make sure our families have what they need within our schools um we have begun registration events so online registration is um complicated it's necessary but complicated and for our families that have a preferred language other than English we have interpreters available to come to registration events and they are able to work through each aspect of the registration process
091with those interpreters um and then as we referenced earlier interpreting as well we do have goals program-wide and some of our more immediate goals I wanted to share today we're hoping to have newcomer welcome guides available in all of our buildings so that our families understand um everything from a class schedule to what um donuts with parents or Guardians might be really getting to know the very basics of each building and then we are planning additional engagement events for our families as well so that was a lot of information but we'd be happy to entertain any questions that you might have I a questions I have a few questions thank you for your presentation it was so interesting um so my first question is as it relates to our diversity equity and inclusion committee um
092I don't know if you've presented that it before not when I was there we will uh in April oh you are oh perfect okay because I was going to say this is stuff we talk about at Dei committee how to engage the parents who don't speak English who have cultural differences you guys are already doing all this stuff so questions around do we use these tools with our PTO um to communicate to parents to try to engage them more at you know to get them more involved in the school but you're already coming in April so yes that's awesome yes and we are um working the esol teachers work as closely as possible with parents to make sure they understand any information that the PTO have and to make sure events are culturally inclusive as
093well so right now a lot of that is on theol teachers to make sure that they are communicating with the PTO and so at the center based programs I can see where that goes really smoothly and then how does that work for students who aren't at center-based programs so all of our students that are not at center-based programs still have access to all of these resources available to them um but again there's not that liaison that's really helping to guide them um but we haven't run into too many situations in which the family are not getting the support that that's needed if they weren't in a center-based program am I correct that they've either declined the services or they have uh they're monitored or they're at that stage is that accurate yes and one I'm
094wondering if Jan is referring to the 3500 families where there's another language in the home are you specifically to our program really it's kind of both yeah you're right because because with 15% of our population excuse me um it could be the parent doesn't speak English the the child could be proficient and not no longer getting services from us but yes the parent still isn't and we um are able our all of our schools are able to um run reports to determine what the parents preferred language is so that way we um know that they are getting the language support needed even if they don't have that ESO teacher there so Jackie's very modest she has done a lot of work with our building leaders to help them understand how they can find the preferred
095language in our student information system and then use Blackboard or s'more to translate into that preferred language for that family and that's been a really game changer for us and secondly I think we can't um overstate you how um pivotal our our our coordinator and our teachers are in really carrying this work forward and and building those relationships and there's such what they do goes to the classroom teachers and and moves forward to just building those bridges and being welcoming to our families I have a question you're say is there an app that they have to download on their phone or their computers for the parents the sure if if that's in reference to talking points um they can download an app but most of our families choose to just respond to an actual text
096message so we always have we've trained the staff members to introduce themselves in a text message let them know who they are and to explain that they can reply directly to that text message well I'm referring to when if you text them in English and it transfers to Spanish or whatever language it is so is there an app or something they download or uh in and yes four talking points they they do not have to download the app the system automatically translates it yeah it's a lot of our school offices love that because you know if a student if they're taking attendance and the student isn't there they can in real time um get get in contact without needing the services of an interpreter having to interpret you know through what system is this I'm
097curious what type of system is this it's I'm I don't know exactly what it would be called um other than just that it's a communication system that's driven by yeah magic driven by text messages it's called talking points that's the official name of it I have two more questions sorry um so first of all you were talking about translating and interpreting and stuff like that and having them at the schools do you consider ASL and second language when you're asking those questions if people only speak ASL in the home so there are families that will Mark that however um in that report it it does not include ASL okay we do um when a family lets us know they need um that an interpreter there to facil we we absolutely provide that and then finally
098um how is ESO funded is that a federal funding mechanism or how does that work that is a great question so we do receive some funding title three funding um not enough to pay for our um the service say that we provide the instructional materials the staff um but we do receive some three so I have I was just going to say the fundings the there's a there's a a formula and it and it it's either applied by headcount of students served in the program or uh allowable or minutes as determined by the audit of of students with a lied es educator so is that state funding or federal federal it's Federal it's like Title One title two this is called title three and so there's nothing that comes no expectation of any state funding
099for that to come through no we don't want it oh we do get State funding too oh oh the thanks thanks very much for the presentation very uh helpful can can you just describe a Newcomer's day let's say in elementary school who's not who doesn't who's not proficient in English yes um would you prefer a newcomer that's is their first day of school or one who's been here for two weeks one that's been here for two weeks okay um so usually that does look like the esol teacher or a staff member checking them with the student when they arrive at School making sure they understand where their classroom is reminding them of Loc like the bathroom or the lunchroom asking them if they're buying lunch that day um then they are in the general education
100for the majority of the school day our usually newcomers receive two hours of support at minimum um so that support could look like pullout instruction could look like the individual instruction we were referencing or the in-class support a lot of times our newcomers have peers that they are working with during this school day um sometimes they know the language of their peer sometimes they do not but they um are they have that buddy system in place and overall we just make sure that the student the newcomer during the day is as included in the classroom as possible so really it looks like a typical student just with those English language supports is that pretty similar at each level at middle school and high school as well um do you have um um I stats around
101the duration that that um like newcomer to I graduation I don't know what you what you might call it to to your advanced level what's the duration that you see and observe and and what's been the experience over the last let's call it period of time that you've been measuring it and and managing the program in the manner you have yeah typically it takes 5 to seven years for a student to um exit the program if they start start at the Early Elementary level as a kindergartener a lot of times it doesn't take quite as long if they start as an eighth grader it seems to take a little bit more time because there's so much academic language that they have to acquire by that point in time um every year we have around 25%
102of our Ells that score proficient on the state assessment um quickly so um when my kiddos were little you know the district had the wonderful districtwide cultural Fest and it got it was small in the beginning and it grew like rapidly and you tried to you know get to the tables and you you were waiting in line which was great and uh so it got huge love the idea you know you pushed it out to the schools here's the one thing though because I've been to a number of cultural fests in the schools then at all levels and parents there don't necessarily realize there's cultural f going on in most of the schools they think they're the only one and so trying to make for sure they understand that this is this is a district
103you know wide um celebration of of you know differences is is um I think really important and I I would like to see a way of connecting those bridges just so everyone understands that you know maybe Morse elementaries doing one and then you know Timber Creek maybe doing one you know the next week or or a month later and just knowing what's going on with that would be really nice yeah I agree I think we could communicate a lot more about what all of the buildings are doing and when they are doing those events thank you um very eye openening presentation so thank you very much um I'm Blown Away with everything that you guys are doing to support these kiddos um so I got two questions one I was struck by the high number
104of I think you call them new arrivals newcomers newcomers that are in the low proficiency area I mean that I remember that chart you put up there it looked like there was a big spike just recently um and overall the numbers have been going up um so this might be a question for Dr klier but these these folks when they come in are they also are they being tested along with all the other kids as as far as State Testing goes and going into the scores you can hear us it's not working there goes okay okay um yes they are some of the assessments our kPa takes the place of the ELA assessment for newcomers um but the other state assessments our students are taking okay so that will certainly impact the scores and we
105we're not going to expect someone that is an early English learner and low fluency to score very highly on the let's say the one through four scale that one of our state assessments have so they're all going to be included in that okay um the other question I had um sign language is that does that fall under you guys do we have any um hearing impaired kids that oh you did say you did say ASL sorry yes yes okay good it's good I was just going to say too right thank you you I will add with the newcomers we have seen a a a rather rapid increase we it slowed a bit obviously during covid but I did pull numbers of state report cards and and we have had our our other five Johnson County
106districts have held more consistent and we we are the one that's really had the jump up thank you thank you very much we appreciate it thank you both appreciate it uh next up mental health supports so uh Mark is going to come up and um I asked Mark to to do an overview for you of the mental health supports especially during times of Crisis and so um we've had I think you're going to see in this presentation that I referenced earlier that we've had two staff members die just in the last month we've had many other crisis that Mark and his team have supported our buildings on so markam and turned it over to you thank you very much I do appreciate um the opportunity to come and talk to the board today uh before
107I start I'd just like to recognize a couple other members of the flight team leadership group we have Dan Carney over here who's giggling in the back row because he's not up here in front um we have Karen Mulligan who is our lead who is the lead of the um uh social worker group uh Children's Mercy social workers and then Mindy Wells who's not with us here tonight because she's teaching I believe other counselors how to be counselors uh in a college program uh also I I want to make sure to point out uh Casey brudo who's an honorary member of the leadership team because she responds to just about every crisis that we have because communication is such a integral bar part of what we do and communicating to a lot of different audiences
108in a lot of different ways um let's see is the Kyle can you put the presentation up or you okay um as you're going to see here in a minute when this comes up uh so far this year we've had um six full full-blown crisis responses uh that happened this year and that includes two teachers who were current teachers or current staff members that passed away uh two staff members who were recently um left the district because of physical health conditions and so they're very much still part of our community and then we also had two students who passed away uh who had chronic illnesses that that we needed to support some of our classrooms on I also added the the shooting at the chief's parade although we did not respond to a to any
109single building because this affected the entire Community uh there was a certain amount of communication that needed to happen in order to prepare the building uh counselors social workers and psychiatrists how to support the staff and the students following that and I wanted to make sure we added that because there's a wide variety of things that happen um and we need to be ready and prepared to respond to it you know based on the individual circumstances hey Mark quickly on that first slide um not at but from right you mean from is that correct I don't want I don't want people thinking that you know there's going on you know places so who are we uh Flight Team it consists of 49 individuals and it's a mix of like I said mental health support social
110workers counselors School sites and then there's also some Logistics folks people like myself district office administrator uh Dan Carney and and all of the SRO are also part of this um the way I like to think of it is if there is a crisis going on on at the moment and so there is a car wreck for example the First Responders the police officers the SRO would respond to that we have a district crisis team that includes Dr merrian uh and other people on that team the flight team is the group that comes back in after the crisis is over to try to help the school regain control of a of a situation that feels very out of control uh the crisis team not only agrees to respond uh to at all all sorts of
111hours or to get phone calls about you know responding at all sorts of times we also ask them to come in and train uh three times during the year we don't want the first time that people are working together to be when they're showing up at a given crisis and so what do we expect to happen because the crisis team exists because Flight Team exist um really it's about how do we support the build buing crisis team as I mentioned when there's a crisis things feel out of control and so if the flight team would come in and take control that does nothing for the building team about feeling like they have a sense of control so that they can return to an educational environment so it's about supporting the principal for communicating with staff
112community and students uh it's preparing this the staff members the teachers what are they going to say when kids walk into the room first thing in the morning what can they expect to see with grief how long should they expect to see grief in these cases you know how do we turn um a very our goal is to reduce the ambiguity of an emotional situation and to provide some structure to that um we really want because when we provide structure structure helps bring calm to a situation and it it provides people that sense of control again and ultimately as I mentioned on here our ultimate goal is to return the school to an educational institution instead of you know when we're no longer in crisis so as as I was trying to think okay how
113do I explain how this works because on one in one sense it's really about asking questions and then listening to what the school needs and then applying best practices to that so as we go through this you can kind of see that theme it's about asking questions listening and then applying best practice when we first when there's a given situation normally the principal is the first to hear somebody from the staff calls them they receive a text message from a from a student or a parent about you know a situation that has occurred the principal will call one of the administrative executive directors uh or call somebody on the district office sometimes they reach out directly to me and say hey this is what I've heard and then the next thing we need to do
114is to confirm you know how do we find out whether this event has happened or not uh Dan Carney and his connections with the uh various police departments is often able to find out you know did this accident actually occur you know what is the you know what is the condition of the people that are there are there any names that we can um find even before they're released to the public and so we can start to gather that information at that point if we haven't been called yet uh somebody will call me to share the information and then we start to think internally on our team how to shape that response uh as we talk about how big of the building is how big of an impact is this going to have across the
115the building for an example if there's a situation that involves um a student that is heavily involved in band or an athletic team that's going that's going to have a tremendous impact on a broad range of people it's the same it is the same tragedy however some require a bigger response uh more support to the building and so once we decide how many people are needed we'll send out text messages to some folks that we believe would be good in that situation we take in consideration who has expertise in whatever crisis we're responding to the grade level all of those things go into who you know who's going to respond we also think about the personal lives because people experience tragedies all the time so we try not to pull people in if they've experienced
116something very recently and then we also Engage The Communications Department and we schedule a sit-down meeting and this is all about planning you know when we sit down and we sit down with the principal the counselor from the building or the counselors from the building social workers anybody that's on the building crisis team and then along with the leadership from flight team and we just ask a series of questions what happened when did it happen who is involved are there any students that weren't involved that are relatives of this student you know we we look up or the siblings what other buildings might be impacted we start doing communication planning is this going to need to have a you know response to just that school's Community or is it going to be required to send
117it out to all the feeder systems as well um and then also how are we going to communicate that how are the teachers going to communicate or if they will communicate to students we also talk about you know when kids show up that day how are we going to respond where are we going to meet uh what supplies do we need in order to be prepared and then also the mental health Team and you know Karen and Mindy are so good about coming up with what are the activities and not just actually it's not just the leadership team it's the the people that we recall to the scene what activities do we want the kids to do to help process the their grief how can we help them Express what they're feeling so that they
118can start to heal um like I said what this looks like from the outside looking in would be communication you know parents receive communication from the flight or from the building principal um we will often have a morning meeting with all the staff members just to sit down with them and say hey this is what this response is going to look like today or if this this is the first time the staff members are hearing it giving some time to process that information for the staff before they go in front of the kids um teachers teachers are encouraged you know after we do our initial activity during the day there's two pieces to this one is it's not healthy to have the students relive this situation over and over throughout the day and so we
119want to help the the kids process in the staff process and then we want to try to have as much normaly as we can so that we can work individually with students that need that individual attention does that make sense so it's a process of establishing structure and then have setting up ways that we can work with triage and support those that need it most um one of those ways is to develop or to meet together in the uh crisis center which uh is a fancy way of saying Library uh almost in every building is it's the library tends to be the place that we meet because we can spread out uh we can triage kids as they come in collect names so we know who we're talking to who felt the need to come
120down here and we use that information for both followup in the future but also so that we can contact parents and let them know what's going on are there things that they that we see that we might need to help make sure parents understand connections um and in the week days and weeks after there's a loss uh there may be some discussions about memorials or you know how do we process down the line it's very common for the in the first day after there's a death to start that talk about well what kind of Memorial can we do and we always encourage best practice is to wait you know to wait an extended period of time because we have to think about how is the more Memorial going to be seen 20 years from now
12140 years from now you know how is that going to impact our community and so putting a little bit of time so that we can really be more of an intellectual response rather than an emotional response and then in some cases we have follow-up meetings with staff members that were heavily involved for example we we had a a parent at one of our buildings a couple years ago that passed away in front of Staff members and and some students and so we we had a gathering you know a week or two later to help process that information and so those are the things that it's just you know as needed basis and we there's there's not really a formula it's more of like I said trying to figure out what's happening what's needed and just
122relying on each other and our expertise so after a crisis um the flight team is only there for a very short time uh one day two days probably the longest would be a three-day and that's probably a very small response um because we turn things back over to the staff that are in the building and in Blue Valley we're we're very fortunate that we have a a group of counselors in every building we have a social worker in every building and and a school psych uh at the elementary level that and the middle school they're typically shared but at the high school they have one at each and those are the folks that need to be able to continue communicating with the students continue to check in um and continue to check in with staff
123in the days ahead um I also threw this on here and Kyle wanted me to read it all to you I'm not going to uh but this is this is a just a copy of the crisis support for staff these are the resources that we have through um our insurance companies um the employee assistance program in some places you have to be recommended by your administrator and it has to be something that's affecting your job performance and before you can access access Mental Health Services several years ago we went away from that model because nobody wanted to be labeled as my mental health is affecting my job and so now what it is it it's anybody at any time for any reason um if you're eligible for the district um uh Health Plan you can
124access three sessions through ea uh through the employee assistance program and if you actually have one of the Blue Cross Blue Shield of Kansas City plans you can access three additional and if you're on spirare there's unlimited Behavioral Health supports so we have those that really get people started and in most cases after they've experienced a crisis it doesn't take months and years of of necessarily therapy it it's how do we move forward now and the therapists that work with folks will help connect them to Long ongoing support if they need it so that's all I have what questions do you have U just quick on on followup um so sometimes the the biggest silence in someone's life is let's say a month after some some some traumatic event wondering how you guys address those
125well that's that's where we go back can you know like like I said we collect information about students that are have been really impacted um and then our mental health Team support you know steps in after that I'm GNA I'm going to call an audible here and bring Karen up Karen was hoping I would so Karen how how do the social workers follow up with students um yeah what great question um absolutely that that we we have extended response many times um and you know what we do at the at the close of a crisis response in the building is we we give information to that building team about the kids that we worked with and the kids that we have ongoing concerns about and then the building team follows up and continues to follow
126those children to ensure that that they're doing okay and coping well in school and and also checking in with families to to you know see how parents feel about how things are going and connect with resources as needed while you're up there um you know I know we have students who lose parents or lose siblings or other persons close to them throughout the year do you guys provide supports for those kiddos and in what in what ways and maybe it's the chist team as well well I'm going to throw it to you in a second so just hang on um typically when when it's a crisis that involves an individual family that is normally handled by the the staff members that know that family the best which would be the counselor and the social workers
127that are within the building um they always have the option of reaching out to other colleagues uh it's common for somebody to reach out to the flight team and say hey what materials do you have for this situation and we do have um a lot of resources that we've collected over the years that can be utilized for that uh you want to talk about individual you know how how the social workers would handle that situation at the building sure and again uh you know we always Embrace a team approach in terms of um you know monitoring not only what's going on with that child in in the moment um but reaching out to to family um you know I can think of s situations where we've had the loss of one parent and you know
128we've act team of of mental health support has has gone to the home and talked with family and helped um you know helped secure supports for family and connecting them with resources um you know and every every situation is different but trying to really assess um you know what's what's going on what how can we help stabilize and you know know keep that family moving forward and then continuing to assess and connect with resources um you know and obviously things like anniversary dates um you know we and we do this for Flight Team responses as well that we're you know we're conscious of a year after the event that that sometimes buildings need additional support well not just individual families I guess I'm thinking more because a community can be impacted by their neighbor you
129know the death of the neighbor and all the kids that you know soccer team together one of the things I'm I'm always amazed at our building principls and our teachers um and just all of our staff members um although we're talking about this through mental health empathy is not necessarily something you have to have mental health training in order to share and and I got to say that the staff in blue valy is is so good good at sharing their empathy and and like you said I know principls that go over to the house and spend significant time with the family afterwards and just to help keep that connection and making sure you know the surviving parent knows that there's there's a community outside the house uh which they can lean one Mark I'm I'm
130a huge fan of the program um I know that it takes a lot of time and effort and um you know I guess really the only question I have is um you know it certainly um is very positive for our learning environment and contributes what you're going to tell me a lot to our Student Success and growth and development so what else do you need well um the 49 people that I talked about not a single one of them has flight team on their job description I guess except me who but it's it's all made of volunteers everybody volunteers uh to do this very recently we asked for a couple of things we asked for to have some uh Flight Team Garb that we can put on so that when we're in a building instead
131of who is that person it's oh that's a member of the flight team or that's a person that's here from the district to help and uh uh the Blue Valley you know Ed Ed Foundation was very generous in a donation to supply that uh there are times that we we will provide food for a staff and actually um we we have the the program over here Katie's Katie's group provides food for us and so there's a budget that that comes out of and so forth and so right now I I don't have a big ask because anytime we needed something it's been provided and and and once again that just kind of goes back to the heart of Blue Valley in my opinion so to piggy back on that just a little bit Staffing then
132wise do you have enough staff to cover Flight Team helicopter what what you're as being asked to do I'm not even I'm not even going to repeat what he said he he wanted a flight team helicopter we're going to put Jim in charge of that we'll put Jim in charge of that he'll the moped a scooter okay anyway you were you were saying okay uh once again it's it's a group of volunteers we recently increased the number because we were we had a couple of years where we had 12 responses or or you know 10 to 12 responses and that really did put a strain on our system um when we added the social workers to to our district five years ago six years ago on or eth year e eight years ago like I
133was saying eight years ago um that really provided a boost because you know the first several years they weren't necessarily part of flight team but as they got part of our community we started to bring uh the social workers in and right now I think we're okay as far as that we always have more people want to join than we have spots yeah they have the heart for it um but we also need to limit because if we if we don't limit then we get to a place where we're really watering it down and people haven't been involved enough to have experience when they go to a crisis I think one of the biggest things about the flight team that they do uh that I think is sometimes overlooked is they get the building back
134to normaly yeah and because you when you're in the middle of that I've been the building principal in the middle of a crisis and I didn't know I needed to get us all back to normaly and so when the crisis team comes in you need to provide that support at first but at some point you have to go the best thing you can do for kids and staff is to get them back to the routine um and that's one of the things that I think gets overlooked that you all do and that's why when you say you're there for one one day two days three days would be a big stretch um that is exactly true you they they aren't there for like long periods of time because they're getting the building back to what
135we do because that's what's best for kids and stuff yeah and I do you know the existence of this team you know just further points to the importance of continuing to fund our mental health supports in our buildings that this is another way that we are utilized and um you know we come in as flight team and provide that support and help kind of stabilize and um create some equilibrium and then we turn it over to those building teams um and our needs just continue to be greater and greater um so we appreciate your support of supporting mental health one more question so this is more around like emergent crises so perhaps a school lockdown situation and communication with students or perhaps siblings of students at like a middle school who are getting all this
136so I'll give an example of Northwest being on lockdown earlier this year and half of the middle school is finding out about the I mean obviously they don't have their cell phones with them in class but um you know half the middle school is finding out that their siblings are on lockdown what is the communication like what are we is communication protocol for emergent situations like that this might be so yeah this would this would be you know we talked about the district crisis team you know when it's going on that that goes back to Dr Maran and the communications team I'll take that so first of all when things are happening in real time um we used to have the luxury uh 20 years ago I can remember a crisis at Blue Valley High
137School when I was an assistant principal there and we had the luxury of being able to be the ones to communicate it to parents now we don't necessarily have that luxury because we're still finding that information out at the exact same time that kids have pulled out their phones and are texting sometimes accurate information sometimes very inaccurate information so we we assemble a team very quickly typically in my office or the conference room over here and we have a Communications person in there uh sometimes one Christy or Casey might be on site at the school if we have a crisis going on the other one is in the office writing and so we try and get something out as quickly as we can but we we have to be careful that we have the right
138information and so that's what's always the tricky part sometimes it's just we know the situation is going on and we'll update you when we we have more accurate information there's there's another piece to that as well it's it's do we have accurate information and secondly is it our information to share right so you know like for example we may know that that a student or staff member has passed away but we don't want to be the ones that communicate that to the community when and not allow the family to communicate first and so that's that's always a question that we we talk about is even though we know can we share should we share but Gina to your specific question about we don't we have not communicated with middle school students about a high school
139situation we've communicated with parents obviously that's been our and if there's a a whole feeder situation we might communicate to the other schools around that to the parents but we have not I mean that'd be something to Think Through uh communicated specifically to middle school students well and my question I guess my question is more around the kids are getting this information that's largely incorrect right I mean but their siblings on lockdown home I'm on lockdown you know and we know it's a safe situation do we communicate to the teachers like tell the kids this their siblings are okay yeah so we we do communicate to principles um we can talk through I mean we can think through that what that looks like um but yeah that's legit to make sure that the feeder schools
140the schools connected to that would know what's going on or even that it's just a sa right so and we will also a lot of times even communicate to other high schools um like there's this situation at Blue Valley West Well we'd communicate to the other high schools just so they're aware because you know how Blue Valley is a small community well and then we have commonalities like we have caps that so information goes from one to another yeah um quick question um so this is our model this is what we use did we take this model from someone how many other schools have this type of crisis response um uh support are we are we on par are we where we at with that I what we have is fairly unique um there there's
141other districts that have uh some folks that are on the crisis team that they call to a building to help support have extra people in the building I don't know of any other building that puts the planning into it and the the communication and so forth I know that we're called by people I'm connected with or people that have been in Blue Valley and we freely provide any information that we have any of the communication information so that they can use it with their communities um I know that um the arch dicese actually met with us several years ago and asked us and met about our team and they now have something called the angel team and it's it's you know fashioned after what we've done here and so they they'll run out to their
142schools when they have a situation like this I just want to throw that in there so they that they actually took that with our with our assistance can I talk about yeah psychological first aid um the other model that we use that's an evidence-based model um is psychological first aid which is used internationally um in response to disasters but also in response to you know many levels of Crisis um and I can tell you that we you know we implemented that about three years ago I think but you know I was really proud We we said let's make sure we're doing what we should be doing and looked at that model um and we were in line with it um but making sure that we are covering what the evidence says is important and doing
143in a way that helps helps kids get better thank you so much appreciate it very informative all right on to the next uh let's see we're going to appoint board Liaisons for the Kansas Association of school boards region 11 nominating and legislative committees um do I have uh the first motion hopefully maybe maybe from Jim oh excellent I mve that the Board of Education reappoint Gina nap to a one-year appointment as board leison for the Kansas Association of school boards region 11 nominating committee the second a second okay we got Jim making the motion clay seconding um any discussion all in favor raise your hand or say I any opposed same sign motion passes 70 next motion I move that the Board of Education reappoint Jan kinger to a one-year appointment as a board liaison
144for the Kansas asss region 11 legislative committee I'll second it all right clay yet again on the seconding nice all right um motion by Gina second by Clay any discussion all in favor raise your hand or say I I on opposed I voted same sign are you opposed are you no no no no no no I'm for just a little slow that's okay he he told me I didn't raise my hand High you get appointed to the next thing if that's what happens all right uh fantastic all in favor uh let's see 70 vote uh okay so uh next is the adjournment the March 4th 2024 regular Board of Education meeting is adjourned thank you e