Blue Valley Board of Education Meeting 5-8-2023

001I don't know if we don't have our area good evening we're going to uh call the meeting to order appreciate everybody in the audience having a quick seat um let's start with uh board advisory committee reports I will start with the diversity equity and inclusion board advisory committee the diversity equity and inclusion board advisory committee met on April 27th in this room it was our last last meeting of the Year Dr Kelly Wessel opened the meeting with end of the Year celebrations and each member gave a professional or personal celebration for the school year then we went through a list of religious holidays and asked the committee because it was a very extensive list to help us to identify those that were the most crucial for us to make sure we shared with Educators around

002avoiding major tests or activities with those and so that was very enlightening with the committee that they helped us with that the committee also reviewed our board advisory committee dates for next year for the diversity equity and inclusion to make sure we didn't have any conflicts we then moved on to just talking about an activity about as we are hiring folks what are those attributes that we want to look for in the the hiring of folks and we concluded the meeting at 5 15 and our next meeting of this group would be on September 7th at four o'clock in this room so I think next up we have we'll do curriculum instruction with Dr Collier the cni board advisory committee met on April 12th Jennifer Lesinski shared information about the instructional design team that team

003is actually in its six years serving Blue Valley teachers and students the team is responsible for the leadership behind facilitation of professional learning communities across our buildings they support our mentoring program with our new teachers they provide teacher professional learning and coaching Cycles she also shared that they're responsible for facilitating student and building data reviews and provide oversight also for Content all content areas across the district just to name a few of their responsibilities and contributions to our district additionally Jennifer lizinski shared information about updated and new curriculum documents that are in draft form and will be presented to you the Board of Education in June for approval the curriculum and instruction committee is provided time to review these drafts during April and May any feedback that's received will be incorporated into the final drafts

004that will be presented to you for approval during your June board meeting finally killingat shared that we are in the beginning stages of receiving feedback on a proposal regarding updates and graduation credits consistent with the expectations of the state of Kansas this timeline suggests that we will bring to you and request in the fall approval for updated graduation requirements for the district between now and then the various community and District groups will provide feedback on the proposal created by the high school curriculum and instruction assistant principles thank you very much health and well-being with Dr Schmidt good evening the final health and well-being committee met on April 27th the final one for the school year anyway uh Carla treatiak shared information about how the district is providing support for mental and physical well-being of our

005Blue Valley staff and she talked about how the well-being of each individual employee also benefits the entire District some of the opportunities that have been offered this year include weekly yoga self-defense class walking groups free personal training and weekly Fitness classes Carla also shared that mental health professionals learning such as such things such as mental health first aid mindful minute bulletin and lunch and learning sessions have all been part of the offerings we even had a chance to practice a variety of stretches aimed at reducing stress that can be done at your desk while sitting in a chair I'm not going to have you all demonstrate that tonight finally we reviewed the topics from the year gathered suggestions for next year and thanked these members the members that have completed their two-year terms our next

006meeting is in September 13th of next school year the communications committee with Kristy mcderlin this was the final meeting of the school year and it was held out at Aspen Grove Elementary highlights of the 20 to 23 school school year were presented and included a summary of stories and information from the district while not comprehensive of all the work committee members were able to see at a glance District student staff accomplishments shared throughout the year using various communication channels the Blue Valley School District's 22-23 annual report will be published in August and that'll be a little more comprehensive um the committee then discussed what the work of the committee might look like for 23-24 there was consensus around a goal focusing on the activation of ideas that would more personally connect the district with patrons

007who no longer have students attending school but still live in the area considerations range from the student performances for our 55 plus patrons targeted content and a Community Connection point for our 55 plus patrons to meet the Board of Education the committee also discussed the reevaluation of how the district and schools use text messaging systems for the purpose of striking a balance between underutilization and overuse of text messages to families the meeting concluded then at 8 30 in the morning and members were given a special tour of Aspen Grove Elementary while we were there thank you and finance and operations Kyle Hayden the finance and operations board advisory committee met on May 4th the meeting started with a General District update I informed the committee members whose two-year terms are expiring which there are five

008of the ten who have expiring terms that they could reapply if interested in continuing to serve Jeremy McFadden Executive Director of Finance reviewed the Bona sale resolution and notice of sale documents that are on the consent agenda for the board approval this evening Jeremy also reviewed the quarterly investment report as of March 31st Director of Business operations Jason Gillum and executive director of operations Jake slobodnik presented the bids and contracts also on the consent agenda for approval this evening the next meeting is scheduled for June 8th facility planning I can give a real kind of a high overview facility planning board advisory committee met on April 26th I welcome the committee and thanked them for returning for a follow-up meeting I reviewed the work of the administration since the previous meeting on April 5th the

009committee reviewed the initial boundary adjustments proposal that was presented to you at the April Board of Education meeting I then presented three additional scenarios to address the enrollment and capacity issue specifically at Overland Trail Elementary many members discussed the four scenarios and came to consensus for a new recommendation that I will share in a more detailed report in a little while no future meetings are currently scheduled for this year that concludes our reports for tonight thank you Dr American the next item on the agenda is reports from board members and the superintendent not items items not included on the agenda I'm going to take a second here to start this off recently we had a board member Katie Bowers who has resigned she's moving out of the district we all wish her well and appreciate

010her time service and dedication to the district and all that she's contributing such a short period of time her last day will be May 21st right and so so we wish her the best and and and and and continue success in what she chooses to do the other thing I want to mention real quick is for I believe everybody whether you're at that point or not graduation is a is an important time in the in the school's calendar year and we've got uh was it 1800. seniors graduating this year yeah 1800s and so that's going to happen in about 12 or 13 days and so everybody's very excited about that I know several of us have seniors who are graduating including myself and I know that um you know that's the goal for every child

011starting in kindergarten all the way through is to do that in a successful manner whatever that may look like um and I know um several of us may have some additional comments on both those topics um you want to start with Jan thank you Patrick excuse me I attended several advisory committees the Blue Valley Rec health and well-being facilities in Communications also attended Night of Lights and then Jody and I attended the state of the city of Overland Park uh we met with the design team and The Architects to go over and review the selection for the bond projects also attended out at Iron Horse the staff and teacher retirement reception and then went out to excuse me Aspen Grove Elementary and met with well Gretchen Anderson a principal there and I did a video

012with a videographer from Tallgrass retirement community talking about the value of bonds to empty nesters retirees that's all I did thank you Jan did you are you in that age group Chan just checking I am nearing that age group and I want to prepare for it right just triple checking buddy it's a busy time of year um so we had Community connections I believe since the last board meeting where we talked to a lot of CI parents who are here tonight um a lot of Valley Park parents we talked about a lot about busing and a lot of the issues that we've had in the district recently and then I attended the CI task force meeting also so we've had lots of CI discussions in the last month um we also had a special ed

013parent and I want to emphasize parent in this advisory council meeting which was extremely impactful because it was talking about and you were there too Jim right we had a mother in The Early Childhood Program and it was just overall a discussion about the importance of parents seeing each other through the Journey of having a special ed child from early childhood and having an older parent a parent of an older child tell them it's going to be okay your kid's gonna make it through I think everybody was in tears by the end of it or at least I was and um so that was a great meeting and it was to end the year it was amazing we went on some School tours I learned that Pleasant Ridge is an amazing school I hadn't been

014there before it was my first time that building is just phenomenal uh Cedar Hill and obviously West is too but those were great tours and then I just want to mention Katie uh we'll miss her a lot I know we'll all miss her humor that she has brought to the board and matter of factness it's been great getting to know her even though we campaigned on opposite sides of an election cycle it was really great to be able to get to know her and have discussions regardless of being not agreeing all the time being open and honest and she was really great about that so it's really good to get to know her and then finally I have some words I wrote about graduation which I may cry so excuse me if I do but

015I have a senior and so um I just want to take a minute to acknowledge all the kids who won't have extra cords around their necks on graduation or get accolades at class day the ones with individ invisible disabilities or mental health issues um the ones who didn't know if they would even make it to graduation their parents didn't know if they would make it to graduation but thanks to sheer will and also their school counselors Paras special ed teachers coaches parents they're walking across the stage with a diploma from Blue Valley and I see you I celebrate you I am you um we're graduating not just great Scholars but great human beings here in Blue Valley and I couldn't be prouder so congratulations graduates [Applause] I know I made it okay um Katie wanted

016to be here but I think she she felt overwhelmed by her her feeling so she asked me to read something and it's kind of longish so she's the author hello and much too soon Goodbye Blue Valley I'd be remiss if I didn't mention that I have loved living here and I'll miss my people my family and I are headed onward and I'm looking forward to this new adventure dark money didn't pay for it but I'll enjoy it nevertheless there's been a lot of chatter to be honest it was said that it's a dark day in Blue Valley hi Katie had a mental that mental depth of a Smurf wading pool and I also vaguely remember someone mentioning something about a belly button when I was sworn in but I digress regardless I have to say

017that I hope to have left the board as good or better as I found it we are undoubtedly lucky to be under Dr marrigan's leadership she along with Dr Schmidt Dr Collier Dr Mr Hayden Mrs Hillman Mr Brunswick Dr Brunswick sorry Miss mcneurlin as well as the ever so sweet Anna Sweeney and Alicia Graham have your students incapable and perhaps more importantly carrying hands we are the best school district in Kansas for a reason and I'll get my Smurfette tattoo at the next available time as for my board cohorts I'm grateful that you have always made time to drag me along me the odd younger teammate you never knew that you wanted or needed I'm thankful to all of you for sharing your viewpoints and perspectives diversity of thought and yet United and compromise is

018how it should remain uh Jim spurned that phrase by the way speaking of Jim I am proud to have stood I did not write that speaking of Jim I am proud to have stood by you as friends and compatriots dare I say it I think we may have flipped some tables and might have caused the occasional Ruckus I regret to leave so soon but Blue Valley and your family are blessed to have you as a steadfast leader in these times I hope that everyone knows by now that you'll stick to our values and stand up for what is right thank you to all of our supporters as well as everyone who helped and contributed these past couple of years I encourage you to get and more importantly stay involved on the pulse of what is

019shaping our youth finally what a time to be alive I have found myself saying that more and more frequently since 2020 so I leave you with this peace I leave you my peace I give to you I do not give to you as the world gives do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid John 4 27. um I'll just say personally my wife and I have gotten to know Katie and her husband we're looking forward to having a new fishing spot in in Bourbon Kansas to to go and visit and I'll miss her on the board but I love her family very much thank you Jim Tom is it called bourbon Kansas is it location yeah that's awesome uh thanks for reading that from Katie so um enjoyed our time a

020year and a half on the board appreciated our friendship most of all loved our sense of humor and her thoughts and stuff and I thought she did a really really nice job where I wish she could be here tonight or showered with some cards and gifts this morning and we'll continue to do so so thanks for everybody's thoughts and Jim especially you for reading all those comments from her um as well um it is teacher appreciation week so I think we need to acknowledge our teachers and I know they're getting again showered with gifts and and love from in candy lots of candy from our our teachers and parents so thanks to all our teachers in every building the backbone of our district and we very much appreciate that uh attend Shawnee Mission North relays

021Friday night must have seen five or six school records broken from Blue Valley students which was awesome saw Patrick's Son run as well um cheering on so that was great to see my wife attended the Bluebonnet Foundation fall women's giving Circle to raise money and a great awareness event in April um groundbreaking or Ribbon cutting the Wilderness Science Center that blue valley had foundations funding the two new Bridges is next week May 16th so I know a few of us are heading towards that and then excited about graduation here in the next couple weeks and a special shout out um on one of our board committee Student Activities actually a few of them we have students and so on Student Activities we have five seniors that graduate this year that I thought I'd shout out

022they've been on the Student Activities Committee for the last couple years Gatlin Samuel from Blue Valley High Ella Shafer Blue Valley North Kate Newby blue valley Northwest Emma Kate selling Salon Valley Southwest and Evan Lobby from Blue Valley West Salem thank you again seniors they were on one of our board committees which is great to always see them in action so appreciate it and again looking forward to the next couple weeks thank you Tom Jody well it's hard to follow all that up so I mean a lot of the stuck I've echoed because Jan and I have hung out a lot lately it seems uh in in public events we we really um all of us here uh really make an effort to try to represent our district well um all across the city and

023county and state um so um I I it's been an honor to you know serve with with all my cohorts here um I will miss Katie um Katie and I actually have an incredibly alike sense of humor and we think we're hilarious so I will miss that I'll miss having her next to me so um and do wish her well I'm excited you know that she's making some steps and and doing what's right for her family so um supporting her with that so um shout out uh caps Network just announced the 100th affiliate today um so we're really excited about what started as a concept here in Blue Valley and has spread and has affected lives I think the the newest affiliate what is Nigeria Kenya thank you so that's really exciting the the great

024learning experiences where students are leading um that kind of started here and it's spreading and that's that's just neat I'm I'm so thrilled about that and all the work that the district and others have put into it uh let's see here uh big shout out to all of our patrons on board advisory committees and and big special shout out to all the students that have participated in in these committees um it takes time and effort and it takes a lot for adults to get there but for our kiddos to actually get there after high school day is over and all the other activities they have going on their voice has been really important um in all of the the Committees that we have so um much appreciated um yeah retirement reception it's always great and

025exciting but I'm always so sad because we lose some great great individuals that have been with us a long time so um that's that's hard and I know it's hard for for Dr marrigan and others but it's hard for me too let's see here uh yeah Knight light shout out wow that was a heck of a lot of fun Ed Foundation did a great job of of and I hate the word pivoting uh but but adjusting their schedule because of the the rain it was inside over at the Academy and the Caps building and it still was an incredible success what a great Community Builder so really enjoyed being a part of that um uh uh project so let's see here I think that so I don't be too redundant um yeah I think that

026should do it yeah as he put up the presentation I have here I first want to reiterate um I'm going to Miss Katie as well um we had a good little cry this afternoon as she stopped by and um we had a conversation so I wish her and her family well but I appreciated getting to know her and the feedback that she gave us was always really positive so shout out to her I also want to reiterate what Jody said about the Caps Network I had a chance to go over this afternoon and meet the 100 affiliate affiliate who is here from Kenya and he is a science teacher in Kenya and our caps teacher that I'm going to highlight here in just a little bit is actually set up a connection and they're going

027to do some video conferencing back and forth with classes so lots of really International things happening with that program so it is a busy time of year see if I can make this work you guys just want to advance [Music] oh there you go sorry um so National Merit we have several National Merit students but these two students happen to be Corporation winners scholarship winners and so we want to congratulate Gavin and Chin mahe maybe from Blue Valley West and blue valley Northwest and it talks about the corporation that gave them that award go ahead go ahead guys thank you we have some cap students here who actually took home the top three places in the Kansas City Invention Convention it brings Kansas City area schools together in grades 5 through 12 and so Grayson

028Charlie and John we want to congratulate them for those for winning that and they actually got I think some scholarship money with that so that was exciting another couple of students from caps Blue Valley West and Blue Valley Southwest student Nathan from West and Lauren from Southwest well in the Overland Park South Rotary Club scholarship so congratulations to them um there's the students with perfect acts you know that's not that's very um there are districts who would kill for that over a 10-year period so the fact that we had that in one semester because this is really those students who took it this semester who got the perfect ACT so shout out to them I mean that is a huge accomplishment um we gave a we had a guest host on our podcast so thanks

029to Amy Farthing who hosted an elementary teacher Christy Taylor from Indian Valley as well as a parent and her daughter and they discussed the exciting parts of kindergarten and the challenges and tips for parents with incoming students and here are our two teachers that Jody got a chance to go along with us on this but first of all thank you to Ken Seltzer and Deb Grimes who actually fund this every year and this is the Innovative education award and so Kelly tool at caps and Chris ollig at Blue Valley North won that award and they each have the award now to do some things within their classroom and Kelly was the teacher I was talking about with from caps who's made the connection with Kenya and then we talked about our retirees we had our

030retirement reception a couple of um or last week two weeks ago I think um but here's a picture of some of them that were able to attend and there's a lot of years of experience right there and we are going to miss them they have made a lasting connection on the Blue Valley District um and we wish them nothing but the best as they head off into retirement and then finally Tom mentioned it's uh teacher appreciation week uh there are different ways there are different depending on where you look it tells you when the week is so that's when we celebrate it we follow our national um Communications organization but we have a couple of days that have happened this month the national school principals day was on May 1st teach Appreciation Week national teacher

031day some people have it last week some people have it this week but we're celebrating our teachers a national school lunch day was last Friday and then national school nurse day is Wednesday so kind of our last groups of people that we're celebrating and thanking for all the work that they do and that I believe is the update we have graduations as you guys have mentioned a week from this Saturday and Sunday and we are looking forward to having those graduations so that's it thank you Dr merrigan next item is approve the agenda for the May 8th regular Board of Education meeting is published do I have a motion I move that the Board of Education approved the agenda for the May 8 2023 regular Board of Education meeting as published second motion by Tom

032second by Jody any discussion seeing none on favor raise your right hand all opposed same side motion passes 6-0. uh next item is the consent agenda do I have a motion to approve the consent agenda I moved to the board of education to prove the consent agenda for the May 8 2023 regular Board of Education meeting as published is there a second second motion by Tom second by Jan any discussion is are we going to talk about the bond here or or whatever I've seen where we no okay so because I saw our investment banker here so I I wonder if you could we talked a lot about this in the finance committee meeting but I think it would be helpful to just ask a few questions or maybe ask you just to reiterate a

033couple of points you made in the finance committee meeting certainly uh be happy to um and I'm David ardenberry with steeple Nicholas um did you just want me to kind of summarize yeah if you want to do that I've got to just get a couple of questions but why don't you maybe we'll answer them just by a tell us kind of where we are in the process I just want to make sure that the publisher knows sure um tonight the board has in front of it uh a sale to a sale resolution or sometimes what we call a go to market resolution it's basically a document where you give authority to to staff and to us into Bond counsel to go out and actually conduct a sale of the bonds between now and then we'll

034be doing some things like I'm finalizing an offering document advertising for the sale of the bonds getting the rating call scheduled and completed and then all that would lead up to actually on the 20 um 12th of June actually receiving bids for the bonds and would do that probably in the late morning and then return to you at your board meeting that evening with the final results in hand and at that time the board would be asked to adopt a bond resolution that would actually officially authorize the issue issuance of the bonds and lock in the interest rates best based on the bids that we had received earlier in the day right so and so the we're talking kind of 30 days from now ish when we would go to market correct and can you

035give just a sense for what what you see currently in the market and if they sure if those conditions hold yeah um the market um actually the last a month or so in the municipal Bond Market has been fairly stable um interest rates right now I would anticipate on the longer bond issue that than what I'm referring to is I'll refer to as the new money bonds um that were just authorized by voters I would expect an interest rate probably in the three and a half percent range the shorter bond issue which involves refinancing um a few of the school districts outstanding bonds since it's a shorter issue with a shorter final maturity date I'm expecting a lower rate on those probably somewhere in the range of about two and three quarters percent um so

036hopefully you know hopefully the market conditions over the next you know month or so won't change all of that much I know there is some issues of the debt limit that are kind of looming out there and I was talking to Jeremy a little bit before the meeting um you know if we do have a situation where the market really takes a turn for the worse we would have the ability to to postpone the sale and instead of conducting it you know on the 12th of June possibly do it at your your next board the day of your next board meeting this is like the Congressional fight over the correct in Washington yeah yeah all right and so then we're still kind of contemplating 150 million dollars of new issue and and 50 million of

037re refinance right right and the refinancing um that amount could grow or Shrink depending on the prevailing level of interest rate so if interest rates go up a little bit there might be some of those old bonds that we don't want to refinance because they might not generate much savings so we'll try to make the refinancing as efficient as possible and we're talking a little bit about a sort of a minimum savings Target of about 1.5 million dollars which is a number I think that one of the Committees was looking at back in I think it was in February okay that's all I have okay any other comments discussion so I just had a couple of questions probably for maybe Dr Collier or for Dr Marion just we we are approving a bunch of um

038curriculum purchases and a lot of these are digital sorry not curriculum purchases resource purchases and and a lot of these are digital um like digital only resources some of them I think are supportive but um basically they're not core curricular resources they're supportive and some are probably core but the the main question I had was about data collection on our students is there well do any of these programs collect data if they do what do we do with it how do we how do we make sure that individual student data is not disseminated Etc right thank you um so we um that student data is protected and the vendors have to meet certain privacy regulations tied to our student data and so that is insured and we do not um um also within the contracts

039there's an agreement about procedures for data breaches Etc but we've been engaged in um with work with these vendors that you're approving tonight for quite some time and have not had any issues with them in the past okay so kind of not exactly directly related but I I noticed that there's like an amalgamation of a lot of these companies like one a couple of them are kind of coming out as the top dogs are buying everybody else yep so maybe you could just talk qualitatively what you see in terms of um I mean generally what that means is the prices go up and the quality sometimes suffers I'm just wondering if you're seeing any of that or so um actually we have seen in some instances where there's actually value of or Improvement of delivery

040of services to the client in terms of customer service but we have not seen a downtrend necessarily anytime there's a purchase of one vendor of another of course you're working through you know getting accustomed to new Representatives Etc they're working with the vendors in the district but that hasn't been an issue for us Jim the other thing I would say is that this what you're approving tonight is not a new resource it's an extension to get us through to where we can look at an updated resource on the litter on the ELA yeah as well as health I think was another one both of those are current we have that resource we're trying to extend it so that we can we can take the time to look for an updated resource that our teachers will

041be involved in helping us select okay so then two two more these are probably more nitpicky but um there's a a resource for reading strategies who do not read at grade level um can you can you talk a little bit about that resource sure that's directly tied to our science of reading work in particular targeting our middle school students and supporting our teachers with that next level support and intervention for our students so that is directly tied to that work that Jennifer Lesinski has been talking to the board about this year so that's at the elementary level I think that particular one Jim I think is at the middle middle school level okay so it kind of is uh or I think I understand um maybe a topic for another day well first targeted at

042middle and we're continuing work around also the high school interventions as well and we have the board is approved the purchase of fast bridge and so that the fast bridge that one is targeted to our high school students I I I'm not singling out that particular expenditure my my um it's kind of an open-ended question but the the biggest question in in terms of all of the various resources we purchase is how we evaluate their effectiveness and whether it's a like people are people using the resource thank you for that and I can tell you um for instance the approval of fast Bridge so we know that that is supportive of our work in the area of literacy and Mathematics it's also endorsed by the state of Kansas and so we've been able to be

043in partnership with the state in the purchase of that additionally what we know is that we have been lacking certain tools in terms of monitoring and continuing to really have tools for our teachers to look back in terms of archival data about students and so our teachers indicate to us that's a crucial tool as students move through the system be able to to be able to watch and see where their gains have been particularly in those two Focus areas of literacy and math okay and so fun my final one is nearpod is is one that we're approving um is that one that I looked at it last year I think is I wasn't really familiar with it I looked at it it looked like a supplemental resource are people using it it is used and

044I will tell you that it really um increased and used and and Desire by particularly our elementary teachers during covid quite frankly it also is a tool that allows us to interface and exchange information with parents at the elementary level it's really Elementary student focused and you will see the students have ease teachers have ease parents have ease of access of that exchange and information as compared to what we see the use with canvas at the middle and high school levels so parents can access the video because they're like short video clips as I recall there is instruction within near parents preview that before their kids watch it or they can but I will tell you that we don't use the full Suite of all of the instructional materials Within nearpod okay and have there

045been any concerns raised by any families over it we have not but in any area if a parent wants to review content that we're teaching in a classroom at any time our teachers can review that with an apparent request and then of course if if there was something that a parent was uncomfortable with then certainly they have the opportunity to opt their child out of that experience per board policy any other questions comments otherwise all in favor raise your right hand all opposed same sign motion passes 6-0 let's move on to our regular appointment let's move on to our action items so first up this evening is Dr Kelly Wessel who is here to present our professional learning Five-Year Plan that is required by the state thank you Kelly would help if I hit the

046push button good evening thank you for the opportunity to come before you tonight and present the next iteration of blue Valley's five-year professional development plan that we must have on file with the Kansas State Department of Education this is part of the professional development statues and most notably the education professional development act that requires that we promote continuous professional development to our certified Personnel this is not only in the state statutes but it is also best practice we want to ensure that our certified staff are enhancing their knowledge and their skills and building their capacity in order to provide our students with the most extraordinary learning experience as possible sorry each board is is asked to approve a professional development plan for their District every five years this approval of the plan is directly tied

047to the state aid that we receive from ksde since 2018 the state aid has resulted in about a half a million dollars that then gets back into our operating budget we are so fortunate that in Blue Valley Schools we have a robust professional learning definition that was created in partnership with our Blue Valley Ed Association with an unwavering commitment to all students professional learning in Blue Valley Schools advances educator Effectiveness and is relevant collaborative sustainable and results oriented this definition rests upon our District's strategic plan and our priorities and goals most notably that we will build the capacity of every educator to ensure a transformative educational experience for every student I will also tell you that this is extremely helpful when we go out and Recruit new employees to our district the number one question

048that I get out on recruitment trips is how are you going to develop me as a professional they want to know what opportunities are before them when it comes to their professional growth what leadership opportunities exist and how they're going to get better at their jobs it is with great pride that I am able to express to them how much professional learning we actually do here the high quality of professional learning that takes place in the Blue Valley school district and the numerous leadership opportunities that are available to them within the school day and outside of the school day such as serving as a mentor teacher teacher leadership Academy aspiring principles Academy as well as the various graduate programs that we help to support the requirements before us from ksde is that every five years

049we have a professional development learning plan that has been approved by our professional Development Council our local Board of Education and then goes to the Kansas state board for their approval our last iteration was adopted by our board and KSD in 2008 18. that means our next iteration is due the due date is August 1st of 2023 and not being one to procrastinate I would like to get it done early hence why I'm here before you in May as part of this professional learning plan the most important component to it and what ksde is going to be looking for the most is that each licensed staff member has an individual professional learning plan on file we house this in front lines professional growth system which is commonly referred to as my learning plan among our

050staff this is where we can actually go into the tedious tasks of recording each professional development activity that occurs whether school is in session or out of session and we actually record points for the individuals for earning for the time that they have spent at that professional learning activity it is somewhat of an Antiquated system but the way that it works out is that for every hour of professional learning that one engages in they get one professional development point for those certified Educators with a bachelor's degree in order to retain their professional license they have to earn 160 professional development points over the course of five years for those individuals with a master's degree they have to earn 120 professional development points over those five years we're very fortunate that in Blue Valley School District

051it is quite easy to earn your professional learning points here because we do engage in a lot of professional learning because we feel it's vital to our staff to continue to build their capacity the awarding of professional development points are all governed by the professional development regulations and there are two types that usually are going to adhere to the professional learning activities that we're engaged in the first being content education standards I like to think of this as the what behind what I'm teaching for example I'm a social studies teacher so if I was to engage in professional learning about how to teach history or cause and effect or I was a psychology teacher so if we were I was going to go to a session on really how to help students understand the functions

052of the brain and cognitive psychology that would fall under content education standards the other category is the professional education standards and this is referred to somewhat as the how behind teaching this is going to be a little bit broader and it's going to include things such as standards-based grading formative assessment classroom management proactive Behavior strategies so all the other responsibilities that certain certified Educators have to do throughout the school day to make it successful for each and every student the final category which doesn't happen as much but is still an option for our staff is service to the profession these professional development points will be awarded for things such as serving as a cooperating teacher or we have a bunch of students that are in our teacher Preparatory program over at caps and they we

053they go out and they absorb observe our teachers throughout the school year those teachers are getting professional development points for playing a pivotal role in inspiring the next generation of teachers to come from the Blue Valley School District very excited about them and another component of our professional learning plan is that we are mandated to have a professional Development Council the purpose of this council is to ensure that we are facilitating continuous learning for all of our licensed staff members it is a representative body and each school or program site will have at least one representative that serves it's important that we have more teachers than we do administrators and in our case we have about 45 certified Personnel that serve on our PDC the role of the PDC representative can be summarized into three

054A's the minister of professional growth system so they're the ones that are actually logging into the system making sure that all those professional learning activities have been created they're tracking attendance they're completing attendance and they're awarding of the professional development points they're also advisors to the licensed staff while it is not terribly complicated to renew your professional license when you only do something once every five years and if the state changes the process it can become quite cumbersome so we're very fortunate that these individuals engage in training and they attend meetings throughout the year the year to make sure that they have the most up-to-date information on the licensure renewal process and they can provide advice to our licensed staff finally they advocate for professional learning these will be the ones that will meet with

055their building leadership teams they'll get descriptions of the professional learning activities that are taking place and they'll make sure that these professional learning activities do indeed align with the regulations and therefore our staff will be receiving professional development points for their time when it comes to professional learning activities there's three categories that we've that can they can fall under within the Blue Valley School District first is the district professional learning activities these are going to be ones that are based off of the district's strategic plan our district priorities and District goals so you're going to look at our district growth measures you're going to see where we currently are where we aspire to be and you're going to provide professional learning in order to close that Gap to enhance that Knowledge and Skills so that

056we can meet the goals professional learning activities that fall under what we like to call District design PL we're going to be led by District leaders such as directors from academic services or School administration members of our District staff which would include our instructional design team our sped consultants and perhaps our K-12 coordinators the next category is our building design professional learning this is going to be professional learning that's based in the district's goals and priorities but it's going to be a more granular approach of looking at the building's needs assessment what are the building's growth measures and their building goals again how do we close that Gap what skills do I need to help my staff achieve so that we can meet our goals these will be planned and designed and facilitated by our

057building administrators they're building leadership teams and if our schools are fortunate enough to have one on staff an instructional design coach oftentimes they might invite in District leaders as well to help support and finally we have educator design time the educator design time is going to be based on an Educator's professional goals or perhaps their personal interest this really is about their licensure requirements while we are not the issuing authority behind a license for any individual educator in our system we offer as much as support as we can but they are the owner of the license and therefore they are responsible for knowing their renewal requirements and making sure that they are meeting those requirements educator design time might look like attending a conference or a workshop and it might also look like pursuing a

058graduate degree all of these will provide opportunities for our staff to achieve those professional development points and meet their professional goals when it comes to the five-year professional development plan this process really began in October of 2022 when kste released a updated template and guidance it is their expectation that we follow that template and guidance and therefore that was what was presented to the PDC the professional development council at that point had an opportunity to review the template and guidance and then in December they looked at a draft planned that was created based on the guidance from ksde in January of 2023 we always do a next iteration of our annual training to make sure that we're refreshed in all of the KSD regulations and they were given an opportunity to also provide feedback on

059the draft plan right after they attended the training so that the knowledge would be fresh in February they were given one more opportunity to provide any suggest edits and in March of 2023 they approved the five-year professional development plan that brings us to tonight in which I am presenting the plan to you for your approval and hopefully if we secure your approval we'll be able to send it off to ksde for them to take to the Kansas state board and with that I open the floor for any questions thank you for your time any questions we imprisoned this earlier to us today and kind of went through it but it's something we're required to do it also obviously is to the benefit of the students and the teachers because it continues to support the curriculum

060and the Strategic Learning that we could do every day here right yes okay do I have a motion uh I move that the uh oh go ahead I just had a couple a couple idea thoughts absolutely I um wondered about after I mean if if teachers go to a conference for professional learning outside of the district are those reimbursable expenses to the to the teachers or they had to put that building so oftentimes it is not reimbursable to the teacher so if we specifically ask a teacher to attend a workshop or a conference let's say maybe that we're implementing a new curriculum or we're starting a new program we have some teachers this year that are attending an avid conference in order to make sure that they can better support students that are enrolled in

061our AVID program at that point we would take care of the cost for them to attend the conference that's all done up front though and it wouldn't be like all of a sudden here are a bunch of receipts for us to reimburse but outside conferences workshops maybe a webinar that they just find interesting that they want to attend would be on their own time and on their own dime okay so you've talked about the what and the how of the plan the what being is what what is basically content and so do we have enough content to really so I think you're referring to the regulations and what I meant by that is the content education standards is really the what behind what what somebody might be teaching so it's really how we are coding

062the professional development activities for KSD if a bunch of teachers were to let's say a bunch of social studies teachers we're going to go to chicken chicken and pickle and learn how to play Pickleball that might be really fun and it might be a great team building support but that doesn't fall within their content area and so they would not receive that wouldn't fall under content and education standards and therefore we couldn't give them professional development points for learning how to play Pickleball to teach social studies the how is the professional education standards and that's another category in which we can award professional development points and that might be if they're learning more strategies for grading classroom management stuff so that's what the what in the how is the we're approving this because it's required

063by the state right so that's the main reason that we're here but it it got me into thinking in terms of what is the um what is a teacher obligated to do it's their license they have to ensure that it's renewed but you know it's in the best interest of our teachers that they continue have continual opportunities to learn and enhance it would seem to me that having great content education you know continuing education would be critical that I'm just trying to understand yeah absolutely and I can tell you as one that has not only designed and facilitated a plethora of professional learning experiences for our staff and works with the individuals that do design and facilitate the professional learning of our staff we have without a doubt the best professional learning opportunities available to

064Educators in the state of Kansas and probably throughout the nation we're very fortunate that you have been so supportive in terms of not only just setting the school calendar the way that you do so that we can engage in professional learning but even allowing for the school times to let our professional learning communities meet to let our building administrators engage in professional learning based on their goals and it is to stay licensed I have to engage in 120 hours of professional learning very lucky that in the Blue Valley School District that is not too difficult to achieve because we do offer it and we need and want licensed teachers in our classrooms so yes I will tell you this is definitely a requirement I don't want to shy away from this but this is best

065practice for us to ensure that when we are going out and we're saying come and work for us I'm also being able to say to you I guarantee you that you're going to be able to keep your license intact I guarantee you're going to grow Beyond Your Wildest professional growth dreams and that there's going to be an abundance of leadership opportunities for you just because of the way that we design our PL I think another example of how this happens is that we often engage our teacher leaders in our professional learning too I know that recently for example and I mean it's my wheelhouse but in social studies they offered a bunch of choice learning sessions in which teach teachers were showcasing all the various successful strategies that they've employed this year so that they

066can learn from each other and go forth and put that into their classrooms so not only do I get to learn from my colleagues but it also gives me that opportunity as a teacher leader to Showcase and engage others in professional learning too so it's really good practice and we're very very fortunate to have what we have here in Blue Valley schools and then do you get feedback from I mean maybe it's part of this plan maybe it's part of just what you do as a practice in terms of the like what's the feedback you get from the teacher community in general about what like do you feel like it's because they're they're kids are off school maybe their kids are off school but they're working yes we do get a lot of anecdotal feedback

067we actually got some feedback too from our staff surveys that we took earlier this year through Panorama and I would tell you that um one of the challenges for us when it comes to professional learning is that teachers love the opportunity to collaborate and to connect and to build their capacity but it can be challenging to come to work when your students or your children are off we have neighboring districts that have adopted other forms of professional learning where you don't necessarily have to show up to the school site and so most of the feedback that I receive about our professional learning is this idea of when are we going to be able to do it more remotely and when are we going to be able to engage in it from home at the same

068time there is a Synergy that is lost that cannot be gained if you are not in person and collaborating and having those just um what's the word I'm looking for they're just really authentic conversations that you just aren't going to have on a zoom or if you're engaged in a webinar online by yourself or your home and the dogs barking and the washing machine's going off or honestly I have colleagues in other districts that have been in the car driving out of town on vacation and so I just think that we have to really think about the quality of the professional learning that we're offering our staff and at this point I'm I'm quite proud that we have not moved to that model in the sense of making sure that our staff are coming together

069and while they might Grumble like anybody might Grumble on a Monday morning at 8 A.M when they'd much rather you know be sleeping in um at the end of it they're always so thankful especially this year when we've adopted more resources when we've completely changed the way that we teach our math curriculum it is essential that we are providing them with these opportunities to build their skill and their knowledge and that they're getting to do it together collectively and collaboratively so what I would say Jim is that after every professional learning opportunity so we just had one in April we collect information from our staff what went well what didn't go well but what I hear over and over is that we need more time we don't have enough time so anytime we can give

070to our teachers is time well spent and they they rise to the occasion every time yeah I once somebody told me that for the most part people wake up and think to themselves I want to go to work and I want to do a really good job nobody most people don't wake up and say I just want to go to work and yeah it's going to be okay they they want to do well and the professional learning that we offer allows for that to happen it allows for our staff to continuously show up every day and just do the most meaningful work for our students thank you do you have a motion before I make the motion just want to say thank you to you and and all those that helped you out putting all

071of this together it's an incredible amount of work and it takes a lot of time and I mentioned this earlier today too sometimes we make things look really really easy but there was a lot of work that went into this and so it's much appreciated thank you I move that the Blue Valley school's five-year professional development plan for 2023 through 2028 be approved by the Board of Education motion by Jody is our second second by Tom any discussion all in favor raise your right hand all post same sign motion passes 6-0 thank you Dr Russell now we have Mr Hayden who's going to come up and he has a couple of presentations the first one around the facility planning committee a little bit more of an update than he gave earlier yeah so um last

072month I presented to you a recommendation from the facility planning committee that came out of an April 5th meeting um to kind of start the presentation though I want to go back and go through a few of the slides and it's I know it's a repeat for some of you but by and large the general purpose is to kind of for the audience whoever's tuning in to watch this whoever wants to look at it on the website can kind of see the background information that gets you to a new recommendation tonight so I'll go through these pretty quickly but you guys know the committee purpose and and basically it is around evaluating enrollment and space and creating a master plan that we would recommend to the board especially when there's School boundary changes it was

073a board goal for this year because we knew we had some challenges specifically in the Blue Valley North feeder tools for enrollment adjustments you can see the number of bullets there and the bottom bullet underlined and highlighted because that's really what we're talking about today the other things we wouldn't bring to the board necessarily for any type of action because it's stuff that's either already been approved or is approved administratively so this is a repeat about understanding the colors so anybody who pulls up these tables can kind of understand what am I looking at when I see these green cells yellow cells gray cells and then the blue text to remind you the blue text is something new this year where we highlighted schools that had enrollment above 600 and largely that was highlighted because

074it creates a lot of challenges with shared spaces and scheduling specials car traffic bus traffic there's a lot of different logistical things that make it really difficult to operate a building here's the boundary criteria for existing schools there's nine different criteria that that the committee will consider and when looking at potential boundary changes just a reminder these are the pre-adjusted projections just to kind of give you a sense of of you know the challenges that we had in particular the buildings that um are going to be impacted in one way or the other with this recommendation uh some receiving kids and some um having students leave their buildings so in particular look at the the two buildings that we've spent the most time with talking about is Overland Trail and Valley Park Elementary Schools both

075of those schools you'll see numbers in particular we focus on the midpoint number and at the midpoint number for both of those schools you see it exceeding 600 currently Valley Park has is over 600 is well over 600 it's been over 600 it continues to be on a path to be over 600 Overland Trail has not been over 600 but is on a path to exceed 600 by quite a ways all the way up to 668. so this is a reminder of the last recommendation I showed you on April 5th of the full map and all the different areas the boxes and triangles the shapes that are outlined in red were the spaces that are neighborhoods that were going to be moved to one location or another the explanation for all that different movement is

076on this slide here where you see Autumn Park Villages of Overland view Executive Hills would be Valley Park current Valley Park students that would go to Indian Valley Deer Creek area the south of 127th Street would be Valley Park students who would go to Overland Trail sandstone's Creek and and Savoy Apartments would be Overland Trails current Overland Trail students that would move to Harmony The Villas of Carrington Square would be students who are moving from Harmony to Heartland and then Quail Crest Glen abian Villas of Chapel green and Highland Villas and Highlands Creek would be students that would be leaving Overland Trail and going to Prairie Star so that was the recommendation as of April 5th this would have been the post-adjusted projections off of that recommendation bringing this to your attention because I want

077to make sure that you see the differences in the numbers between this and what I'm going to show you as a new recommendation in particular focus in on Overland Trail Overland Trail in the midpoint projection on here shows it getting right up to a 599 in 2026-27 on the high projection it shows you know well well above that and obviously a concerning number in particular with with Overland Trail there's a lot of mobility within that community and so you'll see that number could vary quite a bit and it leads to a fairly unpredictable scenario year to year so after that presentation that I gave on April 5th we received quite a bit of feedback you also received some feedback and because of that feedback and the types of consistent information we were receiving and quite

078honestly it was quality feedback and it was it was helpful quite honestly to an informed not only myself and fellow Administration board Representatives that served on the committee along with committee members themselves with a good understanding of okay what are some conditions maybe that we hadn't thought about and and taking that input back to the table and seeing what we could come up with so because of that the administration came up with three different additional scenarios and presented those scenarios to the committee on April 26th so a reminder this was the April 5th recommendation I just want you to see the map because it's going to change to this and essentially it's one really minor change the change this is the fifth recommendation so you see the box that is right on the border of

079the Prairie starts the smallest box up there the border of Prairie Star and Overland Trail this was the quail Crest community and students that were re-transferring or be moved from Overland Trail to Prairie Star um that is no longer in this recommendation instead in lieu of that basically there's an apartment complex that is adjacent to Savoy and Sandstone Creek in the south west corner of the Overland Trail a boundary that is now included and so there is from an adjacency standpoint how the neighborhoods connect there there's a lot of logic to looking at that and also from a student count perspective it was also helpful for the overall population of of lowering the population of Overland Trail Elementary all the other recommendations remain the same so no addition no changes for Valley Park as far

080as the neighborhoods that we had recommended April 5th the neighborhoods of Highlands Creek with the Villas uh along with Glenn Glenn Abbey area was obviously still going to go to Prairie Star The Village Villages of Carrington Creek would still go to our Carrington Square would still go to from Harmony to Heartland so this is a summary you look at really the the first four lines are the same the change comes in the next one where we add Plaza Gardens with Savoy and Sandstone Creek to for to Harmony Bill's currently Square I said it was the same and then we subtracted out the quail Crest community from the recommendation of neighborhoods to move to Prairie Star so here's a summary kind of give you an overall of look of this along with I'm going to talk

081about some recommendations here that go with what the proposal would would entail so first of all a reminder to everybody is this is boundaries that would not go in effect until 2024-25 school year so it's not this August so it allow for a lot of planning logistical planning not only from the district standpoint but for families who have to maybe make adjustments to how they get kids to school or or other things so the projected impact is 220 students with this plan originally on the other plan it was 196 so there are some more students that are impacted and those other students are impacted mainly are the students from Overland Trail who would be moving over to Harmony 149 of those students will attend a new middle and high school at some point and with

082the recommendation is also a recommendation that all the current 4th through 10th graders who are in our in those schools that are impacted could remain on the path that they currently are if they chose to do so so um in essence if if you were a fourth grader at Overland Trail Elementary and you happen to live in in the Savoy apartment complex and we're scheduled to uh that was changing to Harmony you could continue to go to Overland Trail Middle and then on to Blue Valley North in lieu of going to Harmony Middle in blue valley Northwest those are the students who will be the 6th through 12th graders when the boundary goes into into place kind of reminder the reason for that really is the issues we have as far as a space are

083not at our middle school and high schools absent you know Aubry Bend who were taking care of that with a new Middle School Oxford we do have some concerns uh with with space there but we believe we have solutions for that too so um that's why that recommendation is is is out there thank you net results of battery adjustments here you kind of see the the sums net totals for each building um obviously the the biggest reductions come at Valley Park and and Overland Trail that's where the because that's where the issues were so this is what the post-adjusting projections look like it is much better quite honestly for Overland Trail as it reduces it down to 564. this is a better scenario for them and and one of the differences quite honestly between Overland

084Trail and Valley Park is that Valley Park has a lot more capacity to to manage more students we still want to be able to monitor that make sure that it it stays under 600 or very near that and that we're able to successfully operate that building logistically I do want to show you also the middle school and the high school projections and when you look at this you have to look at it from a standpoint that all of these students that we're talking about actually move with with the recommendation I have quite honestly you probably will have a lot of students who don't so um you would probably see a more accurate reflection of what enrollment will be when you look out to probably year four or year five to where those numbers are it

085does help Overland Trail Middle substantially that was one that was showing a lot more green so it wasn't also it was all you know it was an issue at Overland Trail Elementary but also Overland Trail Middle it does provide more students to Prairie Star which takes away some gray for them because they were pretty severely underpopulated and that creates staffing issues for us quite honestly there is a dip obviously for Blue Valley North because of the ones that are losing most of the students and um but that when you look at year five they kind of have a bounce back so can you go back to the elementary slide specifically change here to me Harmony goes from really not adding students to adding 50. and so what's the capacity at Harmony and because in the

086projections now they're nearing 600 and the higher one so just what are the thoughts on the absorbing 50 yeah so um one of the things that's happening with Harmony is that there wasn't any we weren't projecting any growth in fact we were projecting a little bit of a tail off for them and um you know they're going to be very near 100 capacity you know obviously it's it's not like a massive concern to us until it's 110 um if they were showing green at all we wouldn't be moving that many students there so um but current capacity wise current and projected sections we have them being okay yes any other questions yeah optimally all you see is yellow if you're looking at a building that's you know really operating within its capacity and in a

087efficient way what is capacity for I don't understand like the 24 18 19 and how that translates to enrollment so what is the capacity then for Harmony so you know my expert here Eric can kind of speak more to how that's calculated but that's that's classroom count you look at currently they have 508 students and they're projected to not gaining 50 I mean honestly it's under 40. and they have been bigger than that before several years ago when I surprised and they were they were I think they were closer to 600. I don't know the exact capacity of it so in Gray means it's under capacity yes okay which means it's below 75 capacity when we look at capacity for elementary schools we do it by the number of sections right and not by the

088same as like a middle school and high school we actually use a number um and the reason we do that with Elementary is just is because it's much cleaner quite honestly because it's it's we know how exactly how many classrooms we have available we know exactly how many sections we have and section breaks can change quite a bit but you want to speak anymore yeah so depending on who those 50 kids are will greatly affect it's not just about the overall population in the building but when you have a capacity of 24 sections um if those are you know spread evenly or they uh come in at specific points that can change what your experienced utilization of that building is um and the the projection model knows what students we have what grades are in

089and it will move them forward accordingly and it knows where all the break points are to add sections take sections away so when we talk about the capacity of in any of these cases it's saying this is what the projection model says are the number of sections you're going to need and then based on how many are available in that building it'll calculate out the percentages so you can't really say 50 more kids results in a raise of 10 percent of their current capacity because it depends on what grade levels those kids are in real estate uh uncertainty change you know in this area most of them talking about this area up there kind of by Sprint campus that North Area that where we saw this big influx the last five years yeah so um

090a lot of what we're seeing is neighborhood turnover um it's a kind of a generational effect of some folks who are newly becoming empty nesters and wanting to downsize and handing over their homes to or handing them over selling them to new families with with younger kids um there's a little bit more of an affordability in that area of the district too compared to the new housing in say the South part of the district there's pretty low inventory of stuff available right now but we do still have that movement and we've been observing it in the north feeder specifically most noticeably for a few years now so we've been watching this as as we got to this point obviously we don't make recommendations to change boundaries unless we feel it's going to be absolutely necessary

091so we've been keeping an eye on this and working with all those tools we have short of a boundary change in the the years leading up to now thank you any other questions there was one other thing I wanted to talk to you about that wasn't part of the April 5th presentation so very very recently um a neighborhood came to our attention that I wanted to put in front of you here it was kind of an interesting situation and and we have these on occasion where you may be presented with some information that you didn't have before that makes you take a look at something so in this particular recommendation a proposal for a change there's a neighborhood that is just referred to actually as Morse and it's a currently zoned to Timber Creek but

092it's right next to this blue stem neighborhood that is a you know pretty good sized neighborhood that feeds into Morse Elementary but this particular sliver here it's kind of a peninsula by itself quite honestly as far as how you enter it and navigate in and out of it but it is currently zoned Timber Creek um there is uh currently only one high school student who's a senior that is living in that space or in the in that neighborhood it's only a handful of homes we do know that there are some students that are going to begin coming to our schools or just entering elementary schools and and more on the way and um and so uh that's where we have kind of learned this information and and look at this as is really kind of

093a logical move because the impact is is quite minimal Morse is has capacity quite honestly Timber Creek is is more challenged on a with when it comes to space we're only talking about a handful of homes which will result in a handful of students so this is something that we would propose that we would put into effect for the 23-24 school year as opposed to those other ones who are much bigger much bigger impact that would be recommended for 24.25 so any questions about this I just want to say since it's kind of my neighborhood too um I appreciate you taking a look at this because my understanding is that little Nook uh was zoned the way it was because Bluestem was not there and so they were zoned you know to everything on the

094side they we lumped them in with Harmony South back back whenever we made that decision so um it definitely makes sense um for them to be a part of our Morse community so thanks yeah it's literally the difference of maybe a thousand feet versus two and a half miles to the elementary so I want to give you next steps so we do have public hearings that are scheduled for next week at the elementary schools that would be having families that have their boundary changed and they would be asked to move to another elementary school so Harmony Elementary on May 16th from 5 30 to 6 30 Valley Park would follow that that same evening from seven to eight and then Overland Trail Elementary from 5 30 to 6 30. the format for these is not

095a presentation so I'm not standing up there and giving the same type of presentation we've sent a lot of information out to families via newsletters into the buildings so they have received that along with that information there's QR code that allows for them to provide public our feedback via Google form and then that population Excel spreadsheet so I'm actually I've looked at that multiple times over the course of the last couple days and will continue to look at it and kind of see what type of feedback's coming in but the format for that will be basically an old School approach of we'll have poster boards up there'll be several of the administrative's team there and prepared to answer any questions that people may have around the different changes we'll have information to hand out to

096them along with provide them an opportunity for here's the place where you can provide feedback to the district we'll review that feedback and if there are some things that we feel like need further consideration the committee could come back together if that does not happen though then I would imagine that we would be back in front of you in at the June meeting asking for your consideration of the recommendation that I just showed you thank you Kyle any other questions let's move on to the next item right consideration of the transportation services for 23 24. yep there we go so a lot of this information is repeat from our last meeting it's it's nothing new that you have have not heard before um the only thing that that really is new is that we do

097actually have a ratified agreement that has already been put in place so um I do want to talk to you about and just for as a reminder to you and anybody else who may be observing this of what has been done or where we Current stand with with our busing situation last year we did reduce our paywriter program for our middle school and high school students to be offered only to students who were at least a 1.5 miles from school up to 2.49 this did help us stabilize our our busing a little bit because we were able to reduce 10 routes we also made a schedule change with our high school and middle school to to stagger them by 10 minutes next this year that's actually going to be staggered more to the tune of

09815 minutes and which you'll also help us but that helped combining some middle school high school routes and got a savings of five more routes um this spring semester well and for most the school you're actually I'm going to start the school year I think things were pretty good um we gave a report I believe early on to you that that talked about how we were pretty much just flush like we were we were kind of hanging on by a thread when it came to coverage for our routes we didn't have a bench at all um but if everybody showed up to work and people stayed healthy and so on and so forth then we'd have coverage um that started to kind of dwindle a little bit as far as our success when we got

099to later in the first semester throughout the second semester it's been a pretty continuous problem really of having at least a dozen drivers short on a daily basis that number has actually grown in the last week or two to above 18 consistently and up to 20. so that actually slide could change could have changed for tonight's presentation just based off information information I received in the last couple days so we have tried to keep hiring aggressively it just has not kept up with attrition with absenteeism and just how life happens so you know our peer districts are experiencing the same um they've had and and many of our peer districts have a different vendor so it's it's not necessarily vendor specific when it comes to the problem it's a local it's a regional it's a

100nationwide experience for schools and in many cases some of our peers are in worse shape than we are I have a hard time imagining that but that is the case in some some cases so I did tell you we do have a recently ratified and negotiated agreement which makes our drivers for for Durham um the best paid drivers not only in the Kansas City metro but really in the region so in addition to that with that competitive wage we are also allowing up to 15 years of service time to transfer which is really kind of an unprecedented move to allow for all that experience for from another District or another company to come to us we also have a salary schedule built to where it goes down to 20 steps so if you come in

101with that 15 years you still have ability to to move down on a schedule much like our teachers do with more experience in the in the system we're still offering referral and sign on bonuses that are quite substantial up to three thousand dollars start offering free training for those who are willing to learn to drive which is has helped we do have some new technology in our buses that once again is his help with routing it helps when you have Subs which that happens a lot we have expanded our recruiting and continue to to beat on doors as much as we possibly can and really despite all the efforts we just have not been able to get on top of this and some of it really is is a lot of it's about and we

102have this similar issue with as you know with our classified support staff is that many do not live in Blue Valley in this particular case only five percent of our drivers live in the Blue Valley School District and so they're commuting in from other places and in some cases passing by other districts to get to us we hope that more people will do that given that we have a more competitive wage even for next year and just a better negotiated agreement than than our peers we do have a new general manager that came into place just a couple months ago and I believe that that will also have a positive impact on our on our busing situation um obviously when you don't have enough drivers why the biggest impact quite honestly is the concern of

103the loss of instructional time uh impacts it just impacts the school day and impacts our teachers it impacts our principles in particular and then also it impacts families in a very negative way because it's just unpredictable um late notifications of not having a driver when they do get notified they may have a driver that they may have a sub driver for a week or two um when we don't have drivers on time why we have what we call Double Up or out situations where they will deliver students and then have to come back and and if that happens while you're typically you'll be standing there waiting for 45 minutes at a minimum so all these different things just create a just a really unhealthy system of failure that does not feel very good and obviously

104it's not something that that you know we want to have representing Blue Valley quite honestly in particular if it it's it's one thing to have an issue that you can foresee maybe a glimmer of of light but if none of the circumstances are changing and then the circumstances only continue to worsen then we have to inwardly look at what we do as a district and can do to maybe change the situation and turn it around so with that said we are recommending recommending a policy change and kind of reminder of of what we're required to do so we're required to transport students who live 2.5 miles or further from their home to school or students who have an IEP that qualifies them for transportation so discontinuing a paywriter program for just our middle school and

105high school students for this next year so those students that we were still allowing it for that were in that 1.5 to 2.49 Miles gives us another 10 routes and if you ask the question does that fix the problem Kyle I don't know if that fixes the problem I know it makes us gives us a better opportunity to be successful so when you look at the impact of that it is an impact of over 700 students the majority of those large majority of those would be Middle School age students we do not we aren't recommending a change to the elementary school pay Rider program at this time what this does for us is we already had more middle school and high school routes then we have Elementary so this levels it out um changes to

106Elementary pay Rider system you know could that happen it could happen it could be a lever that you would pull just because it would potentially you know set up success even for the second tier if you're let's say short drivers but it's not something that you know we want to recommend at this particular time um the point of doing it now and really not delaying it any further is usually by this time we've already had a sign up for a transportation bus transportation and people that's in process and well underway so we don't want to delay it any further and obviously if we're asking for a change that begins in August we really need to allow people time to to make adjustments to their schedules and or plan with their neighbors so that's the recommendation

107eliminating the paywriter school bus program for all middle school high school students obviously this is not a feel-good moment to even stand up here and make a recommendation like this because I know is going to present some challenging situations for families um but out of uh obligation to look at the broader picture serving all students making sure that they're not missing instructional time and then meeting our obligations of transporting the students we're supposed to um I really feel like there's no other route but to make the recommendation I'll stop there for questions Kyle I know this is your term but pulling every lever imaginable to figure this out I know this has been a hot topic for two years and probably even longer we exhausted every thought or Avenue on this I know we've been

108like I said diligently looking at this but and you're you and your team's opinion we've covered about every base here correct I do believe so you know um last year I was tasked with having a a review of this and it was actually part of our strategic plan to look at school start times and then actually how the impact you know Transportation or or what efficiencies could be gained with that so we had a committee of um you know nearly 20 you know teachers principals District administrative staff who were looking at this issue and and trying to solve it looked at multiple start school start times different scenarios and basically what we came up with is that you know a significant change to school bell times and trying to create this little three-tier system was

109not something that was really palatable quite honestly because somebody was gonna have to start after nine o'clock and the issues that that would create for families were you know pretty significant and so we made that tweak with the middle school high school schedule we came back with the recommendation for the pay Rider reduction for middle school high school and we felt at that time that that was our hope is we could stop there with as far as you know creating any more pain for anybody but obviously that wasn't enough well what about I know we always talk about to and from school but what about the daytime issues you know you've got field trips or special needs kids go into a certain you know outing if you will or Athletics teams that you know the

110varsity doesn't play until seven but they have to go at noon with everybody else just because we can't get buses I'm assuming that's significant as well correct absolutely um you know we've tried to limit field trips we've tried to limit not only the number but the time frames in which they can go because really you if you have field trips that leave anytime before we get all the kids delivered to school that's that's not going to be successful if you have them come back too late before the so that the drivers can't get on their route to go take kids home then that's a problem um yes and because of all that it's all exacerbated by not having enough drivers and yeah on the activity side absolutely um you know sometimes pulling kids out of

111school two hours early to get to to a game and sitting at a visitor's gym for you know hours waiting for their contests and yeah it's or the flip side to that is starting the games at 7 38 and so kids get home really late right um but we we had a day just last week that was awful for us as far as field trips go because we had so many drivers we don't have any subs we don't have anybody jumping in who can do so they have to kick kids to school I mean that's our number one priority is to get kids to and from school and so we have to take care of that first yeah yeah my biggest fear here I know you alluded to it already at this 10 routes actually

112fixed this we do I mean this is an ongoing deal with every District it's a it's it's a huge huge problem and we're paying as high or higher than anybody so we're pulling that lever hard I just I know 10 does help I'm just like 10 helped earlier this year but this this is uh these continue will be tough so that to piggyback on the said so I know you know last year or about this time we had to make a really hard decision cut back again Middle School and High School saving 10 to 15 routes I think um wasn't a great you know wasn't a great remedy and my concern at that time was okay we eliminate that then are we gonna is the bus company going to quit trying and we're at the

113same spot I think that we kind of were last year too so I just like a little bit of um dialogue about with this new management team over at Durham that you know you don't just stop recruiting when you have your your what you think you need how how are they going to keep those on reserve or how what are they doing to build that Supply up a little bit Yeah well first of all I think we pinpoint that that they should be 100 motivated by having more routes more routes is more money right so when we're reducing routes and and so we reduce 15 that's a loss of revenue for them we lose we reduce 10 more that's 10 more routes of Revenue so their motivation would be to service at the highest capacity

114possible and so that alone serves as really a motivation to continue recruiting and position us as best they can for Success obviously the other motivation is continue to want our business um you know they're on a contract we have the ability to go out for an RFP in two years and look for a different service so that's a that's a constant thing that's hanging over I think a contracted company's head now I don't know if we'd have better service with somebody else I do know that just up the road they have a different bus service whether with a couple of our peer schools and have the same issue and so if not worse so I I don't think it's it necessarily is particular to this company when it comes to let me see when it

115comes to the number of drivers service that can be a whole other topic right so that's something that we can you know continue to put pressure on as far as when it comes to communication things like that that that you know we need to be spot on when sometimes we're not so so Kyle if we contracted with Jerome to provide this service and they're out doing it couldn't we also add another provider could we add another provider yeah um I don't know typically I've never seen that quite honestly where you have a dual partnership or provider I would imagine most companies they would they would not put in for a situation like that or or want to be part of a situation like that we have we have though aggressively looked for a third party

116to help with like special education routes smaller routes we have another company called All Points that we use and we've I couldn't find anybody I mean we found somebody to do a few routes but we have aggressively looked for that addition to again relieve from the smaller routes so they can drive the bigger bus same talent pool right or yes yes yeah we have contracts with two different other van companies essentially that try to help us with that and we've maxed them out too so a big problem is for the bus companies attracting drivers is that the drivers are hired and they work for nine months they cannot get unemployment that's a state law and we've addressed when I was in the legislature we were trying to address that but it didn't get any support

117so the the bus companies have a have a real challenge trying to be able to get people to take a full-time job but oh it's only nine months a year and you know they need to be able to come up with something creative or the legislature needs to fix the unemployment issue the bus companies say that they want to be able to do this for the drivers but they could they could pay them for 12 months of the year and fit you know we we want to be able to to provide the service which I guess leads me to an unrelated but related question which was if we end up Suddenly with an abundance of drivers is or would we take a look at being able to reinstate the routes that were canceling yeah absolutely

118yeah I mean if if that was uh you know I would I would be very thankful if that were the situation if I could come back to you you know next spring and go well guess what we're up 30 drivers you know we have a surplus of 30. and we've got a really deep bench we have the ability to survive when there's you know a number of people out sick or whatever circumstances arise um but yeah that that would be yeah it's I found it to be real interesting that bus drivers school bus drivers are singled out they do not qualify for unemployment yeah we do have some that work for us as far as delivering kids for summer school so yeah uh what um what what are the wage what's the wage rate that

119was in the new negotiated contract um I believe it was 22 an hour up from like 1850. and so how that contract Works basically I mean basically that just gets passed along to us right correct the cost yeah but who knew did they negotiate it did we negotiate it's kind of a joint negotiation they negotiate yeah the teamsters yes but the wage rate who who's setting that because to me it seems like six seven dollars per hour too low yeah not suggesting that that's what a solution would be but yeah so this problem would be quite a bit different if we were paying what the market is which the market for CDL Drivers is 28 29 an hour so we and Tommy asked this question early I forgot about this but we had a third

120party come help us with a restructuring of our contract uh last year that was kind of part of our whole study um so uh transpar I believe that was the name of the company who is a national firm that has a real good pulse on on transportation and so we directed Durham to move towards that 22 dollars an hour knowing that that was kind of the threshold that would get us up above everybody else knowing that when we did so that was also going to coincide with a 19 increase to our con contract for two consecutive years and so it was kind of a balance of how far can we go and for how much money is it going to cost us yeah so I I mean I'm not I'm just trying to understand kind

121of what the market is like what's the market for city bus drivers for of airport bus drivers you know for people that want to be to drive big vehicles there's there's a there's got to be a market that's it can't be 22 yeah I don't think yeah I'd kind of alluded to this board workshop last month I think you're simply asking the what-ifs right whatever you understand what what because to me it it sounds like a it's a labor market and it's a mismatch of the labor market and the wages now that would then mean if we just you know it's easy for me to say I'll raise it seven bucks an hour it might cost like three million extra dollars something that's not not feasible but it it does feel like the wage rates

122have increased so dramatically in the last couple of years for this type of um service and it's it's only like you can offer to a lot of people 20 bucks an hour to drive a little van but you couldn't pay them forty dollars an hour to drive a big truck or a big a big bus because it's just an intimidating vehicle to drive so I think that's that's what I see is there might be an abundance a year or two from now if the economic environment changes but I think as long as we are kind of running to catch up with the private Market or the municipal market then then it can be a challenge do you have a sense for that with where the mark where the market really is I don't um I

123think that you know driving a bus is is probably all together different than probably driving an 18-wheeler when it comes to schedule and things of that nature a lot of people that we attract are people that have retired from another occupation quite honestly or um are not interested in working in a in a full-time capacity and being tied down you know to a 40-hour week job 12 months out of the year so you may have those people who want to work all year but in many cases you know those aren't that's not the actually the the demographic quite honestly of what our drivers are I would say you know to your statement in you know we have a similar problem with our support staff quite honestly trying to increase wages how far do you go

124um in and at what point does it is it making a difference or not and I think some of the things we found is when even when we've increased wages with classified staff up to 20 percent uh we start the same number of openings or more which is because the labor market yeah so yeah um is is uh Durham in breach of their contract I mean I know that we have slas in there but do you think that they're in legal breach of the contract I don't want to speak uh too necessarily that necessarily I mean not that we have an alternative could we set a notice and say you're in breach of the contract Melissa is very in tune to the contract um so our chief legal council is is aware we do have

125slas that have been enforced for the last two years on a monthly basis so there is there are penalties for not you know achieving the level of service that that we do but when you say breach of contract the contract we put out for bid win yeah um in in two years so we'll actually start the process next year um we would uh begin the you know the beginning of you know putting requests for proposal out there for qualifications out there um if we do it where we want to do it right and to do it right you're going to have to really go out and cast a pretty wide net because if you go to the same players quite honestly who have had the same experience as our current partner then nothing's going to

126change right so we would have to see if we could attract somebody to this area that um has not been here or hasn't had a presence here that has access to you know a lot of resources but when you look at that there's none bigger than Durham you know they're the biggest in student transportation services in the country so I I know it's a it's a I mean you could terminate the contract but you then what right yeah um the I had a parent call me and talk about this issue and they asked the question which I said I have no no idea but could Blue Valley have basically a stop Gap or a backup alternative use of District Vans and drivers that are go you know to to hey XYZ routes aren't being filled

127could we could we backfill that with with our own with our own kind of solution um I I think it would be really challenging woefully inefficient but what you would some problems you could run into is is um first of all in some legal liability quite honestly that would be different you wouldn't want to have just one adult on a van you would because our vans aren't equipped with security cameras and things of that nature and and things that are safety devices that you would have on buses you yeah you don't have enough we don't have enough fans so you're going to have to purchase a lot more which quite honestly is you've actually been in the finance committee so you've seen how hard difficult it has been to get bands in the last two

128years we've had to order them like I don't know how many times Jake three four yeah it's been ridiculous because they're going out of they're not making Ford's not making them anymore so the other thing is those vans are doing what Tom talked about is sometimes if you can instead of ordering a bus if you can take your soccer team take two Vans instead of taking a bus or take three vans instead of taking a bus you do that because then you don't have to leave until three o'clock and you're not kids aren't missing school and you're not sitting there for two hours so those are used to fill that stop Gap um but I'm I'm with Kyle the first thing that came to my mind was there's no cameras on there there are cameras

129on every single bus that we transport kids with and they we would have to have two adults we would have to figure out how to do that yeah and there just simply isn't enough fans I mean if we went purchase a ton more which we can't right now but so I want to go back to the um if Durham can't provide the service that they contracted for why wouldn't we also um look at another provider based on you know between now and and the rest and next year there would be some time to put another RP out for another provider for the was it 764 students yeah that and that's the fraction of what we currently transport every day right yeah it's a it's yeah it's a fraction yeah so why wouldn't that be a

130viable option I think well I think it would be impossible to have it in place for August so first of all I I'd have to look what Melissa and I would have to look at the contract to see if that's even a possible thing to add another provider because I don't know if that's what that says in our contract um you know could it be a future look if I were you know if I were responding and thinking about logically I'd probably think that it would be something that you maybe consider with your next contract that comes up in 2025. to where you want to say I want to do multiple providers if that's possible but to have to do an RFP and have somebody in place for August uh yeah so I was going

131to say I don't know of if I knew of a local school district around here who had like Rockstar who could because I ask every time I go to a meeting I ask whether it's a state meeting or a local meeting is talk to me about bus service what what's it like and everybody is struggling to find drivers as Kyle said I think we can work on the communication piece but the actual driver piece everybody is struggling so I don't know who we would get to provide that at this point could you just provide us um of like if like for every dollar increase in the wages under the current what does that translate to an incremental cost could I do that right now no no no just get back to this on that yeah

132I could yeah yeah so what is the budget impact of this approach changes you said that there's a decrease in Revenue to the to the provider what'd you say take about 200 every dollar two hundred thousand dollars for every dollar okay so what's the budget impact on this proposal you said that that Durham is losing Revenue so what does that mean to us we also lose revenue from pay Rider so it's actually a wash so there's a neutral impact yeah Financial impact is neutral but okay so um correct me if I'm wrong um the the pay writers Elementary or whoever right we have not adjusted correct we've they've been untouched and that is because um because the Middle School in high school had more routes already um and so um and and then all I

133think quite honestly too it's it's our it's our little kiddos right so when it comes to their ability to to maybe get to and from school safely that is is can create more of a problem I think for families than when we look at our our teens so not that there's not the same types of obstacles and that there aren't the same type of concerns I think it's elevated though when we think about our younger kiddos but right now we're running heavier on middle school high school with routes so we can get this down to even then we'll have a driver for each middle and then also Elementary so does that make sense it does but my understanding is that we're not even charging break even for the paywriter system true yeah but that being

134said the state aid that we receive usually exceeds the amount of money that we um can spend quite honestly and so we're giving that money back to the state anyway so it's not it's it really doesn't financially make any sense for us to do it and if we were losing money and because our state aid wasn't equivalent or meeting on the need then yes absolutely I think you would raise it you know more so than we did already this year that I know it's a swag that 200 000 per dollar of of wage increase that would be an incremental budget expense to the district correct okay now as a pay writer so it wouldn't necessarily be a incremental increase to the district we're talking about the group it'll increase the question I suppose you're saying

135is there could be some Revenue associated with it well we're talking about eliminating the paywriter program for middle school and high school for 23-24 yeah I'm just saying neutral in our current plan not not contemplating this a change if we if because that's my theory my theory is this unfortunately this happens more often with public entities than it does private entities because private entities can respond more quickly to the the market um you're playing catch-up in an inflationary environment and this is like the biggest inflationary environment from wages for a long time so they're being passed through at the very least no no it wouldn't be because if we just charge what we're charging today and we do what we're doing today but we were paying people three dollars more an hour be an additional

136six hundred thousand dollars of operating expense correct okay I just wanted to make sure I understood kind of the financial impact yeah the other thing you have is still going to be an obstacle is it's it's a it's a negotiated agreement and it's a union and you know we worked on these wage changes last year with the proposal coming over the summer and it took till now to get it ratified so I I know that the teamsters are difficult they don't usually spit in the eye of a wage increase but what was it that I I don't know okay yeah so your point Jim went from 22 to 26 27 and paid extra X or charge or did whatever would that increase the amount of applicants or bus drivers because we paid by far more

137than anybody that's your point right and this problem could get solved there is a solution to the problem it might be a really expensive unpalatable solution but it's a tight labor market we're also in a freight recession where a bunch of CDL drivers are getting laid off over the course of the last few months so it could change in a year but it's not changing now I mean it sounds like it's gotten worse in the last few weeks it has it actually may not help I'm just I don't because I brought this up I don't disagree with your overall logic but if we end up paying it may not help either I don't know yeah it may be that out of out of out of hand yeah so what happens if we don't approve this

138um things stay status quo which means what um probably the same issues that I've outlined here I'd probably be in front of you in August with the same type of report we would be very clear with our families that likely we would be eliminating a lot of of field trips that would be something we'd likely have to do or really limit them down we would always get kids home if they signed up that might mean you're waiting at the school for an hour for the bus to go do its route and then come back and pick you up and take you home it means we would we would be working with our schools to identify staff to supervise them we of course would pay them but that that's a challenge because you can't just live

139kids at middle high school or Elementary just hanging out until the Bus shows up so that those would all be the things that would continue and they're continuing this year and if anybody anybody listening or in the audience has kids on a bus I'm sure they've experienced that any other questions just we would talk about and I don't think it's uh it it didn't sound like when it was an option but this all points they they're experiencing a labor shortage as well because they seem like a great provider right yeah yeah man we do have we've maxed them out basically we've exhausted all their resources along with another provider that does similar things in the KC metro so you're going to say Dr Marion I was gonna say we will continue to work with Durham

140Kyle and I already had this conversation about setting up a meeting with Durham to talk about the recruitment efforts they're making and our expectations moving forward so that will continue regardless um but as Kyle just shared with you it's a minimum 12. I would say closer to 18. drivers short a day yeah right now any other questions got a motion move that the Board of Education eliminate the pay Rider school bus transportation program for all middle and high school students beginning 23-24 school year is there a second motion by Gina second by Jan any discussion about the proposal change now there's kids getting to school late every single day missing core classes I know I got two emails this week about field trips and activities that were possibly going to happen because of the busing

141issue and so we can't just do nothing at this it's not it's not a popular thing to do to get rid of these this pay writer program but I think we have I don't think we have a choice I think we've got a lot of problems going on and I think you know there's a number of factors that are weighing into it and obviously Durham is is the provider of this service for the district and at the end of the day I don't think anybody interested in on the board is interested in in eliminating bus service and I don't think the district is either I think this is a huge problem and we need to continue to work on this to find Solutions either with or without Durham I mean I understand they're in a

142difficult situation but at the end of the day we still got kids that need to get to school and that's a problem so I think you know this is this is a difficult decision I think for the board and um you know it's it's it's bad if we do and it's bad if we don't and I think it's a question of what's the least of two bad options uh as we're here is really what we're talking about today you know the comments I'm just going to say I I could support this if I felt like I mean I one I think the Durham is probably in breach of contract and they're a crappy provider and no offense but I have never heard anything really good about them in those times since I've been on the

143board and two I do think it's a wages I just don't I just don't think that the market is 22 bucks an hour we had in my own company we went through like a gazillion CDL Drivers when we put it to 28 bucks an hour we have the same driver for six months it's just that where we are so I'd like to explore it I'd like to table it for a month I know that that doesn't really give us much time but that would you know if we if there's no way to to explore it further that be then I could you know or there's no other option then I I guess I would think it's it I would vote in favor of it but I wouldn't do that right now because I feel like

144Durham has got to to respond to the to their failure to to provide the service any other comments Tom I mean obviously we have the ability to keep working on this correct and I mean I'll be supportive of that because this has been a huge issue to be supportive of the motion but we have the ability if things do get better and we get you know a provider when contracts expire or we get a catch a break and get more drivers then we can pivot but I think we've got a I think we got to be leaders and take care of some of this right now well I think without a question that we've got to continue starting tomorrow to look at any other options that might be available between now and next year to

145try and figure out the transportation issue obviously Durham like I said is in the position of providing this service and we've hired them to do it if they can't then they need to be part of the solution or we need to move on any way you look at it obviously they're providing some service and that's important to the district but at the end of the day we need transportation I I just want to you know throw out there too it this is not unique you know Dr American has said this over and over this is everybody is struggling with this so whatever provider you're using this is this is a market this is this is a labor shortage issue um and and I don't know how you get around that like right now so no

146matter how much you pay um still as a labor we don't have enough people willing to do this job so I think that's a good point I also think that we won't know until we release the second RFP to find out exactly who is in the market and who can provide that additional support that we need but nonetheless I want to reiterate a question I asked about 20 minutes ago which was if we had drivers available will we reinstate it in that's yes I think we're we are committed to that but I think it's also being fair to parents to let them know that hey you know what next fall we're not going to have that pay uh option for you but we're looking to get it I mean that that to me is good

147you give them warning and be able to make other plans and if all of a sudden drivers fall from the sky and signing up I say well that's great let's put it back in session no I think that'd be great if drivers are fall from the sky but I just don't think it's going to happen but I think we got to take things in our own hands and and go beyond Durham as and not just rely on them to show up one day with a extra 25 drivers for us okay all in favor raise your right hand all opposed same sign motion passes okay motion passes um five one we're gonna take a quick break for our interpreter five minutes and we'll be back we're gonna take a recess foreign okay I think we're gonna

148get ready and and uh resume our meeting Jan and Jody please return I know you're you're doing a great job too um so let's do with the start with the legislative update we're we're getting close appreciate everybody sticking with us thank you for uh taking that quick little break for our interpreters to um rest up there so uh legislative update uh the legislative session is maybe done but just as a reminder this was the schedule they went through the veto session and the uh they have adjourned um these are our priorities uh fund special education at a statutory amount apply at risk funding increase or modify Cola enhance student mental health and eliminate tax credits and vouchers so those are all the the board approved the there were other priorities remember but those were our

149main ones um so I'm going to go through some of the legislation and kind of tell you where we're at first one is around school Finance so this bill has not been approved so it has been passed by both the house and the Senate but we still do not have um an act or for sure this is what your budget is for next year once the governor has this bill my understanding is she has 10 days as of Friday she didn't have it yet did she get it today okay so she got it today so the 10 days starts today so in this school finance bill which is the committee report conference committee report for house sub for Senate bill 113. but it does include funding for 23 24 25 including the base Aid and

150retains the statutory language related to the calculation around the cpiu that's the Gannon case that everybody talks about it does raise the cola cap from 5 to 7 that was something we asked for that helps us and so we appreciate that that was in there it does include an increase of 7.5 million in special education funding not the 72 million that the governor asked for but it does include 7.5 extends high density at risk that's what hdar stands for high density at risk is not something that blue valley benefits from it's something we have always supported because some of our colleagues even in Johnson County have real pockets of of at-risk low-income students and they get extra funding for them as they should reauthorizes the two years the 20 mil Statewide tax levy for schools

151that's a requirement um this one it revises the base Aid per pupil calculation to allow funding based on the current or the preceding year it used to be it was the preceding two whichever was higher so it eliminated that it's the base or the preceding year that's kind of a wash for us it really helps growing schools like a Spring Hill for example more on this budget bill it there was some policy in there so I'm just going to highlight that it authorizes that non-public are part-time students can participate in activities regulated by Kesha so we would look to kaisha for guidance on that expands the tax credit for low-income student scholarship Again by changing the definition authorizes Boards of Education of school districts to compensate board members for the duties and obligations of board

152members you'd have to you'd have to approve that though um establishes a special education task force uh for fiscal year uh 2025 and expanding membership to include um somebody in the infant and toddler group still more on on school Finance authorizes any non-resident student whose parent or Guardian is employed by a school district to enroll in and attend such School District without entering the lottery that is in response to really what school districts were asking of our legislators is that the Open Enrollment bill that came out last legislative session that takes effect in we wanted a provision so our staff would not have to go into that lottery so we appreciate that they fixed that and then requires ksde to compile a report um that looks at those models of teaching I'm not sure a

153lot about that that one kind of came in at the last minute and then finally modifies low enrollment and high enrollment weightings for school district this talks more about buildings that have been closed so that wouldn't affect us per se that that first bullet and then provides the legislature first right of refusal if you were to dispose of real estate property so if we were going to sell a building we'd have to give the legislator first right of refusal so this has passed the house it has passed the Senate and it's a waiting action of the governor so go ahead any questions what is the purpose of giving the legislature the first right of refusal for property I don't know sorry I don't really know why that was put in there any other questions okay

154there's some non-finance bills we want to check on too so this is the interstate teacher Mobility compact that was passed by both House and Senate and it was signed by the governor Kansas is one of the early States in that compact so we're excited to see that would allow licensure between states easier as opposed to jumping through hoops to go from one state to another a couple of other non-finance bills we appreciate this one because this was one of our platforms the Kansas cigarette and tobacco products acts raised the minimum age to 21 fully support that for a purchase or possession of cigarettes that was again passed by the house and the Senate and signed by the governor um they revise the definition of children with disabilities a couple of different things one to go

155from emotional disturbance to emotional disability and then they also added dyslexia as a definition of children and individuals with disabilities again that passed both went to a conference committee and it was signed by the governor um this next one is a house bill 2138 requires school districts Board of Education to adopt a policy regarding separate overnight accommodations for students on of each biological sex during school district sponsored events so that was passed by the house passed by the Senate the governor vetoed it and then it was overridden in both the house and the Senate so that was something that we will have to adhere to to pass a policy I will tell you that already is our practice so that's not a difference but we will have to press a policy on that um created

156the fairness and women's sports act requiring interscholastic Intercollegiate Etc sponsored by public entities um for uh designated based on biological effects again that was vetoed by the governor but it was overridden in both House and Senate we will follow Kesha's guidance on that we follow the Kansas High School Activities Association they've already put out some guidance and and we will be working with them to it to adhere to that and then finally the last thing is just this is just a reminder of that open enrollment um that was passed last legislative session but these are kind of our dates um that we have to adhere to the board this morning started very briefly talking about the transfer policy and our goal will be to have a transfer policy to the board for consideration this summer

157for feedback with a goal of passing it sometime late fall early to late fall and all of this information is on our legislative page so right now we are awaiting the governor's action on the finance bill and so then we will start planning accordingly for next school year thank you Dr American anybody have any questions okay can I have a question okay about the seven and a half million in additional sped funding by the time that comes down to us I mean that's like what ten percent of what what we were asking for Statewide so does that I mean does it directly translate in the same way where it comes down to like less than a million dollars of the nine that we are looking to make up I'm looking I guess at I don't

158know who Jeremy all of those factors 128 million but isn't isn't the overall spending um or the funding that's been before the governor and and what's been passed so far doesn't that translate into a a reduction of funding for for the district reduction right but even when you consider inflation I don't not necessarily okay I think we have to wait and see again we we await the state telling us what the categorical Aid is for each special education staff member I'm looking at my finance friends there I'm talking as a whole the overall funding bill for for education and what we would receive next year is that slightly less than what we got last year no no it's more it's more because they use the CPI okay but our coven money is ending right as

159our money is ending we've we've spent that that's all gone at the end of this year right emotions correct but but nothing that's going to have a positive or beneficial impact for the for the years going forward right correct okay okay moving on to the next item it's our board vacancy resolution uh the Blue Valley School District number 229 board vacancy resolution is as follows whereas a vacancy will exist as of May 21st 2023 in the membership of the board of Unified School District 229 Johnson County Kansas and whereas KSA 25- 2022 authorizes a board of education to fill such vacancies no sooner than 15 days following publication of notice in a newspaper after May 21st 2023 having General circulation in the school district be it resolved at the clerk of the Board of Education

160of the Unified School District number 229 Johnson County Kansas shall cause such notice to be published in the star do I have a motion I move the Board of Education adopt the board vacancy resolution is there a second motion by Tom second by Jody any discussion all in favor raise your right hand all opposed same sign motion passes 6-0 do I have a motion for adjournment a move that the May 8th 2023 regular Board of Education meeting be adjourned second is there a second okay all in February's right hand all post same side motion or board meeting ended