001so let's start with reports from board advisory committees um I will lead us off with the diversity equity and inclusion committee uh the diversity equity and inclusion committee met on November 3rd the first part of their agenda was a presentation around bond 2023 all of our committees have had that presentation or will have that presentation if they haven't we just gave general information showed the video that we're going to show later on this evening as well as answer any questions that that anybody would have the second part of the committee or second part of the meeting involved the committee really focusing on they this committee really wanted to do something actionable to assist within the district and so they brainstormed ideas and what the committee decided that they wanted to work on second semester was
002to to work on a reading list of books around Dei topics for parents to utilize at home with parent with students not something that would be used in school necessarily but something that parents could use at home with their choice and so that's what the committee will be working on over the course of the next semester next up we will have curriculum and instruction and I believe Dr Collier is going to do that one the curriculum instruction board advisory committee met twice prior to this board meeting so during the October 12th board advisory meeting Jake slobotnik executive director of facilities and operations was present to highlight completed projects from the 2020 Bond Kelly Ott presented on proposed High School course changes which you will hear more about this evening and finally Jennifer Taylor and our
003K-8 math coordinator was present to help the committee understand the four pillars of math education in Blue Valley along with the advances in teacher practices associated with the implementation of our new board approved I ready math resource during the November 9th Ward advisory committee meeting Kelly Ott elaborated on high school course proposals and revisions for the 23-24 school year Adam Wade shared an update on District growth measures which are used as metrics to student growth this year in conjunction he provided a review of The District's balanced Assessment program this was a continuation of his presentation earlier in the fall to the committee finally I presented to the committee regarding the 2023 Pond the committee does not meet in the month of December and will convene again on January 18th thank you Dr Collier Kyle Hayden
004I believe has two committee reports Student Activities as well as Finance the finance and operations board advisory committee met on Thursday November 10th in the boardroom I presented information about the 2023 Bond referendum including a short video highlighting the key projects Dr Eric punswick Chief Human Resources officer presented national state and local data around teacher preparation and teacher supply and demand he also shared Blue Valley Schools Recruitment and Retention efforts Jeremy McFadden Executive Director of Finance reviewed the proposed Board of tax appeals application for elementary school number 24 that's on the board agenda for approval this evening Jake slobodnik executive director of operations and Jason Gillum Director of Business operations presented the bids and contracts also on the board agenda for approval this evening the next financed operations committee meeting is scheduled for December 8th
005the Student Activities Committee met on October 20th in the high plains room I provided an update and presentation on the 2023 Bond enhancered Committee Member questions the Blue Valley Schools activity core beliefs were reviewed and discussed in small groups amendments will be made to those core beliefs in November the high school and middle school administrators and the Blue Valley Recreation provided their monthly activity and athletic updates and the next meeting is scheduled for November 17th and I believe Casey Bruto is going to give the communications committee update the communications board advisory committee met on Tuesday November 1st at 7 30 a.m committee members saw the bond 2023 video followed by discussion about Bond messaging and the informational campaign the committee then reviewed the Community Connection point plan details this event will take place quarterly during
006this one hour of dedicated time attendees will have the opportunity to connect with board members learn about a specific topic and engage in conversation additional details about these events include that they will be held in a high school in each of the three board member districts topics will be announced in advance of the meeting and promoted through the district's Communications channels and a sign up will be available for patrons who have questions for board members but no sign up is required to attend the First Community Connection point will be November 29th at 6 pm at the Blue Valley North library and the topic will be Bond elections the other two Community Connection Point events are scheduled for February 1st at 6 pm at the blue valley Northwest library in April 13th at 6 pm at
007the Blue Valley High Library discussion then shifted to looking at feedback from community members about how to communicate with patrons who do not have children attending a Blue Valley School additional conversations will continue at the next meeting and will also include a review of the community survey results as it relates to communication thoughts and preferences of our patrons the next Communications board advisory committee is scheduled for 7 30 a.m on December 6th in the Board of Education room foreign and that concludes our committee reports Dr American we'll move on to reports from board members and the superintendent for items not included in the agenda Tom yeah just real quick um National psychology week enjoyed that speech and then high-five to Maggie Bhutan for all the emails she sent us last week so good stuff uh
008congratulations to our very own Jody Dietz who just completed ksb leadership for tomorrow one year deal so nice work there so all the hype and all the media stuff and then um you know continues to be a great fall with Learning and Sports and activities and shows and cheer and dance and musicals and um and everything like that so hopefully uh continues to be but it's been it's been a lot of fun so far so that's all I got Jody uh well let's see here it seems like seems like Fast couple weeks um uh other than you know attending some board advisory committees um equity and inclusion committees as well as curriculum instruction I I really want to emphasize how much I absolutely love having our community involved in those and then a big shout
009out to the students that are showing up and and really having some great dialogue in in the Committees at least I've been in so I absolutely love that was at the kasb conference this last week weekend and some really fantastic information was given a lot of networking across the state which is really important for us as well as they had an absolutely absolutely amazing keynote on Sunday that talked about uniting schools and uniting kids across the world apparently he was the what the guitarist for Hanson so many of you may remember but but he's also like uh second cousin to uh Gandhi so well right so it was really a fascinating good talk great message very inspiring um really gave you know us uh in attendance kind of you know um hope for the future
010and and helped us really um remember our Focus right which is our kids so um let's see other than that I'd like to give a shout out to all the students in the room um I know we've got uh you know kiddo from a Civic civics class and it looks like we have a lineup behind them and um absolutely love having the the student engagement and at least listening so thank you what school are you guys from all North basketball okay best one yeah wait later and then where are you where are you from right here okay yeah awesome so anyhow but that's all I have I think thank you Jody Katie okay Jan thank you well I toured uh four different schools including the academy and uh caps and I thought I had a
011good handle on what we are doing academically but uh it blew me away I'm saying well I'd be back in elementary school based off what Blue Valley is doing I was so impressed I also went to about Bond presentation at the Overland Park chamber uh board meeting and um then various committees uh Blue Valley Rec health and well-being and uh Finance all those but uh I'd say weren't pretty doggone good shape Gina I just want to Echo congratulations to Jody Dietz on her graduation from leadership 2022 kasv there's a lot of work a lot of time put into it so thank you for doing that for the district otherwise I think it's to you Jim okay Jim I went on a couple of school visits over the last couple weeks with Dr American who's they
012were really really good um and I got invited back to one of those schools Liberty View which did a Veterans Day concert second like second graders it was I was really proud I thought it was um it was you know just a fantastic concert they were made you want to you know made you want to go sign up for the military it was it was really it was really it was awesome and it was like a new music teacher that we stole from some some other district and that's a great hire and that's good stuff I'm sure it's replicated across the 30 plus other schools we have foreign yeah with they'll pull up my presentation there we've had a busy month and we just want to highlight a few things well they're doing that a
013couple things that have happened recently that didn't make it in here because it's just so recent but today Blue Valley North and blue valley Northwest unified bowling made it to State and so unfortunately they didn't confer with us to make sure it wasn't on a board day otherwise one of us could have been there but so they went to state today in Topeka so that was exciting for them um well there we go so Blue Valley Southwest cross country made State his or made school history by winning the 5A state championship for the first time in Cross Country so congratulations to those we only put the teams that won first place on here because there would be a lot if we if we didn't but congratulations to the Southwest boys I also want to highlight
014that Blue Valley Schools ranked number one on both school districts in Kansas according to nisha's America's rankings um first podcast of the year and we've done a couple since then on the bond but I did a podcast with three of our principals uh Dr Alexander from Blue Valley Southwest uh Jenny Hayes from Leewood Elementary and Courtney domini from Oxford Middle School and we talked about how they build community within their school because we all know that is so important is how do we get students parents and staff all involved and that was that's out there and on our website if you're interested in listening one of the highlights for me over the last month is I got to go out and present the Blue Valley teacher of the year nominees to Katie karst at Overland
015Trail Elementary and Brandon Hawks at Blue Valley Southwest um okay I thought it was very interesting that KD teaches some of our youngest students as a kindergarten teacher and Brandon teaches some of our oldest students where he has AP Calculus and a lot of Juniors and seniors but both fantastic teachers and they will go on into the district competition with other other schools at this point last week was national school psychologist week here's a picture of all of our school psychologists and I could not agree more about the importance of those individuals and the fact that we are very lucky in Blue Valley to have the number of school psychologists that we do I'm it's not lost on me when I talk to colleagues from across the state and across the country who aren't as
016lucky to have the school psychologists this is American Education week it's always celebrated annually the week prior to Thanksgiving it honors all of the people I believe in our schools who are educating our kids each and every day so we want to celebrate with our staffs this week and thank them for all that they do Blue Valley High School won the 2022 Kansas band Masters Association open class Grand Champion so this is basically the state competition for our bands and I think one of the best stories about this is that Blue Valley High School won they were they were the the first place winner when they got to Topeka to compete they they found out that they had forgotten an entire segment of their I don't remember what it was some sort of instruments and
017so they didn't have it and they were afraid they weren't going to be able to compete but the other Blue Valley Schools who were there heard that and rallied and got them the materials that they needed so that is huge that that's what our schools do is they just work together to make sure that they had what they needed and they ended up winning and beating some of those other schools but it really is about that community so congratulations to all of our bands who were there um we recognized Polly earlier today she was the outstanding Elementary art educator of the year so that was fun we recognize Miss Casey again she was recognized at her professional associations conference and and we want to congratulate her um one of our assistant principals Ashford Collins we
018were notified that he is the Martin Luther King Jr living Legacy award and it will be be presented on January 17th at the annual Martin Luther King Jr Community celebration at Mid-America Nazarene University so congratulations to Ashford um the Caps Network you heard about that it is one of only 10 organizations from the United States that made this Global list and that Network remember helps to uh or helps to make sure that there are caps networks across the country and now even internationally the Blue Valley Education Foundation surprise Squad went out last Thursday and they awarded a record 683 thousand dollars in Grants to teachers and buildings um that's a lot of money across our district on last Thursday so thank you to all those people who gave money and supported that and then Timber
019Creek Elementary so last Thursday Dr Collier actually went over to Topeka to the state school board meeting and the Timber Creek Elementary PTA was named a national PTA school of excellence and they were recognized before the state school board so we want to congratulate that that school that parent-teacher Association for all that they do and then two Blue Valley students were named National Scholastic press Association National winners our national champions so you have Blue Valley West um Morgan winner won in sports game action photo and then on the other side you have blue valley Northwest uh Sabrina Saiyan Augustine designer of the year so congratulations to both of those students that's a pretty impressive national award and so as you can see lots of exciting things going on additionally I would just highlight that we
020have last week we had Mary Poppins at Blue Valley High this week we have musical Little Mermaid at Southwest and Catch Me If You Can at blue valley Northwest so those both Mary Poppins was unbelievable I'm sure the two this week will be unbelievable as well and then the other two schools will do musicals in February so and winter sports started today that's it oh and congratulations to Blue Valley Southwest who uh has continued on in the football playoffs and they have a game Friday night against Mill Valley thank you Dr merrigan certainly uh the school year is well underway as you can see from everybody's comments tonight the district is off to a good start certainly not without its challenges but at the end of the day we're continuing to excel in the areas
021that our students are choosing to participate in um certainly want to thank Jody for her efforts in her leadership uh course and appreciate that time and effort I know that took a lot of time I think it was also involved a lot of driving yes and so the drive-in itself is is worth noting um you know we we had a lot of events come on this past Veterans Day and I want to thank all the staff and the kids and the teachers and our veterans for their service I know that's a real big part of the school district's day on Veterans Day we've we've got a bond presentation that's available online we have a number of Bond presentations that are being given throughout the district if you haven't seen one I would encourage you to
022either attend or watch the online video and by all means the vote is in January so I would ask that you to take a take your right to go to a vote vote in that initiative otherwise we're ready to proceed with the agenda so that's the approval of the November 14th regular Board of Education agenda before approving that agenda we want to make a I want to introduce an amendment that will move the board of education's February board workshop and meeting from February 13th to February 6th the due to a conflict do I have any uh comment or a motion I move that the Board of Education amend the regular Board of Education meeting agenda for November 14th to add action item 4E modify the meeting date for the February Board of Education workshop and
023regular meeting a motion by Jody second by Tom is there any discussion for moving the board of education's February meeting from the 13th to the 6th see none all in favor raise your right hand all opposed same side motion carries 7-0 uh now we're going to move on to the consent agenda but we got one more okay do I have a motion to approve the amended agenda I move that the Board of Education approved the agenda as amended is there a second motion by Jody second by Jan uh any discussion I've seen no discussion all in favor raise your right hand all opposed same sign motion passes 7-0 okay now we're going to move on to the consent agenda um the uh Jim is there something that you want to discuss on the consent agenda
024are we ready to proceed with emotion uh no I would request the following two contracts be removed for approval on the consent agenda and add it to new business as follows Apple Inc for purchase of iPads and cases for elementary school 24. and number two CDW G for Acer Chromebooks for elementary school 24. do we need a we need a motion for that just well I think they automatically just moved to Newbury so we're going to pull those two items off for consideration separately um let's move forward with do I have a motion to approve the remaining percentage in items I moved the Board of Education approve the consent agenda as modified okay is there a second wait a second uh motion by Jim second by Katie any discussion seeing no discussion all in favor
025raise your right hand to approve the consent agendas modified all post same sign the consent agenda motion passes 7-0 now we'll take up the contract for Apple Inc for the purchase of iPads now start with what's on here High School course okay so the men are going to move on to new business that is the 2324 High School course proposals so Kelly up is coming up to the microphone she is going and they're going to pull her presentation up she's going to present to you high school course proposals for the next school year no action is taken on these this evening this is the first read of these so I'll turn it to Kelly okay I'm gonna turn back hang on okay as Dr Mary again um uh said tonight is an information piece we
026have a a process that happens every year I'm here with five proposals for changes or additions to the course guide for 23 24 so we're looking at next fall it's part of an annual process you'll you'll see me up here every year about this time it begins in September when teachers or teams of teachers make proposals those proposals then go to our high school administrators for review Once they pass through that committee they have been shared now with the Board of Ed um Christina advisory committee two times and I'm here tonight with you with the proposals as they stand again no action tonight but they will reappear in the December agenda where you'll take action so I'm gonna run through these and I'll just pause after each one if you have questions the first one
027is an addition so taking the class A symphonic marching bad band and making a second course called symphonic marking Band percussion um this change is uh requested by our high school band directors um they'd like to add the option because it will more closely align to what is really happening currently they're doing kind of a mini class inside of a band class and they'd like for the students transcripts to reflect the focus on percussion during the time so um they also they consider this will continue to be nested so it won't be a separate class but they'd like for the students to have percussion on their transcripts quick quick question because I know we talked about this in cni did you find out why they said 11th and 12th and nine it should be 9
028through 12. I don't think it hasn't been changed this isn't the updated one oh okay great thanks so it will be 9 through 12. thank you Jody I don't know why it's not the one this one this is a change currently um we have a course titled Advanced web design it has low enrollment teachers believe that this is a very beneficial course but It suffers from a couple of of things one and they feel there's too many prerequisites and there's lots of students that come to us with really deep skill in the area of of coding and computer science that they would like to be able to access this course and they'd like to update the curriculum so that it allows for more student choice and project more projects based on student interest um the
029this proposal also the name of the course special special Topics in computer science aligns with ksde CT pathway courses so that would be a change in title and a little bit on the curricular side to have a more of a project-based focus questions we think that's going to increase the enrollment by 50 200 I don't know that okay no yeah right now um Advanced web design you have to take a think a series of three courses to be able to access advanced web design that's a lot for a kid they may they may know a lot of things in those first two and teachers get a real handle on kids skill in that first class and they'd like to move kids to a higher deeper level quicker that that is the reason honors chemistry this
030is an interesting one um so it's a it's a prerequisite change and teachers and administrators asked for the change to um add teacher recommendation to honors chemistry there had been several situations where students you can see it's kind of there's this concurrent enrollment piece they claim that there are lots of students who may be enrolled in concurrently in algebra honors Algebra 2 be doing well and honors chemistry step down in math and go just to Algebra 2 and it and they've been taking those kids out of honors chemistry and the teachers like they're doing great why would we remove them so what this does is allows students to take a class on teacher recommendation or stay in the class on recommendation again it's another change that allows kids to access more advanced levels based on
031their current skill and knowledge base the next three are at are two are ads and they are part of our fire science program which I need to put a Shameless plug in Overland Park just hired our first kid out of they uh he still has a few things to do and they actually made a position to hire him so we're super excited about that um anyway back to the business at hand um we're adding or we'd like to add a course named medical terminology um there's been some changes in the pathway sorry Medical Technology our terminology has been added there's been some changes to the KSD pathway and in consultation with opfd um we think this will be a great course for students clearly learning a lot of Greek and Latin and right um at
032the perfect time and there's a fire science program not only is it terminology but it's also how do medical professionals communicate in the workplace so is it am I correct in the understanding that unless you're in the fire program you cannot take this class correct or no right okay and then the last ad is Introduction to EMS or Emergency Medical Services Again part of the fire science is a it's a natural outflow of the fire science build and an adjustment based on ksde's Pathways you can see the course that course description there and it really is based on kst changes those are the changes as they stand today just quickly can you just remind us because for those people who are listening ksde oh sorry Kansas Department of Education right so they give us the
033Kansas Department of Education has um Career and Technical education Pathways and occasionally they make changes at the state and when they make changes that the state we adjust our programming when we're in line and can tick some boxes in those areas we receive additional funding based on enrollment in those areas good and then the the last slide I have here is just a process slide so you can see where we are with that light blue shaded uh piece um coming up in December and we'll continue to get feedback from various sources if you have feedback um feel free to share that with me it'll be actionable item on the board's agenda in December and then spring we will update or revise or create curriculum and then that new curriculum the the documents actually will be
034on your Docket in May that's what I have any final questions pretty easy group this year so thanks thank you okay now we have a review potential names for elementary 24. so uh Dr Gretchen Anderson is here who is going to be the principal of Elementary School number 24 and she is going to walk you through the process that they've used and give you the information regarding the top names for elementary that were presented and then your future action on that thank you Dr American good evening everyone and I appreciate the opportunity to be here to shine the spotlight on ES 24 for you I have a couple of goals we hope to accomplish tonight and number one I'm just going to give you an overview of es24's progress I'm going to share with you
035A visual representation of our community's hopes and dreams I get to introduce you to the amazing es24 parent advisory committee and then the most important and probably to me the most exciting task at hand is to present three name options for your consideration for our elementary school all right opening preparations for ES 24 continue to evolve all of the Departments within our school district remain active in preparing for our opening August 16 2023. bids in ordering continue to move forward and we have ordered a couple of furniture for key areas like the office we've ordered the library Furniture as well as the furniture for the cafe so the cafe tables I'm excited to report that our office furniture should be assembled in January so hopefully I'll get to move out at that time we're currently
036putting together proposals for your consideration for furniture in classrooms maker spaces as well as our collaboration areas then um the next part of that slide is our naming process which I'm going to spend some time sharing with you tonight the process that the pack and I have gone through in order to land on these three named choices so our Learning Community has been working together in conjunction our pack has been working together in conjunction with our entire Community for this naming process and then last but not least on that slide we are still set for hiring to begin in January and it'll of course will last throughout next semester all right so the visioning committee for es24 began back in 2018 and the vision the execution of the vision and bringing it alive continues to
037evolve our school exists to provide students to serve students in a safe respectful loving and inclusive place founded on three foundational pillars connectedness community and educational excellence and I've been very honored to have the task to work very closely with es 24's families over the last couple of months and one of the things that I've asked them is to share with me the dreams the hopes what they want from their school community so I'm excited to unveil A visual representation of what they've shared with me you can see there are some prominent themes that have emerged safe loving joyful fun innovated family respectful happy all the things one would want in an elementary school now I'm excited to introduce you to the parent advisory committee whose primary role is to truly build the foundation of
038our school family by establishing expectations identifying our community's hopes and dreams obviously we're working to provide you with some name options after we're named we'll work on mascot selection we're working in our Blue Valley Southwest feeder right now to create a PTO or a PTA and then most importantly engage our community and build excitement as we prepare to open the in early September the communications department and I worked to outreach to our community inviting stakeholder involvement so we randomly selected 12 members from our community to serve on the PAC the parent advisory committee the group is comprised of eight moms and four dads who all bring various diverse backgrounds areas of expertise and work experiences to the table they do have a common goal and that is to create a strong sense of school family
039they're an incredibly positive and thoughtful group of people who are deeply committed to education just like all of you and they're very focused upon ensuring that es 24 is deeply rooted inside of our community we've met twice thus far once in September as well as October whoops I'm sorry about that and we're set to meet this Thursday for our November meeting during our September meeting we really focused upon building relationships within our team and establishing a sense of trust and then I'm Jake sabladnik it came over and provided us more information about our building Design Elements the structure of the building unique aspects of our campus as well as safety elements and then the committee has also began working like I mentioned with our feeder to form a PTO which we will be able to
040actively begin that process once we're named and finally we spent the bulk of our time working together to provide these name options to you and it's been exciting it's really been a time where things are coming together and we're starting to make connections and unify our school family okay so the naming process is certainly a multi-pronged experience the first task at hand was to familiarize all the stakeholders with the blue valley Board of Education policy 2275 essentially the policy says that schools in Blue Valley need to have significant reference to their name schools cannot be named after a person or group or subdivision and in the past the board has asked us to refrain from naming a school with a similar name to others in our area not just Blue Valley but other neighboring districts
041so in September the es24 parent advisory committee came together to review this policy as well as the naming process and procedures we discussed Blue Valley examples and Trends we shared campus feature information and we heard from the research subcommittee who shared information about historical and geographical information in our area all right again this was a multi-pronged task at hand so bear with me I'll try to get through all of these phases so phase one was launched in September and in September we wanted to Garner as much Community input as we could so we asked our students our parents our community members to submit name options we received 56 names I thought maybe we'd receive more but 56 is a great starting point and then phase two the pack had the task of sorting those names
042into two categories viable options non-viable options based upon the criteria established in board policy 2275 so once we received our viable name list each pack member voted independently and privately on 10 to move forward just 10 names so then we had this more shrunk down version of of the 56 original that went to the viable options and then the 10. so then most importantly this was my favorite part of this entire process is phase four we came together in the October meeting and we went through a collaborative protocol that really elicited great dialogue discussion and individual input and we were able to whittle down the names to seven options then independently privately on their own each Pac member ranked those seven options First Choice second choice all the way to seventh choice okay so on
043behalf of the es 24 parent advisory committee I'm honored and excited for the new business agenda item at hand which is the presentation of names these names will be presented in alphabetical order and they all received comparable votes within our committee hmm oh she's leaving there okay so option one is Aspen Grove and if you haven't been on our campus yet there are 39 Prairie Gold Aspen trees all across our campus which is why of the top seven name choices for where Aspens so just wanted to give you that information so the abbreviation for Aspen grow would be a GE Prairie Gold Aspens have been planted all across the campus which is a native species to Kansas es 24 was designed to bring nature inside and learning outside a Grove of trees with little to
044no underbrush as an ideal Gathering Place in a symbolic with families both of which are a fitting reference for an elementary school family option two Aspen View Ave would be the abbreviation again Prairie Gold Aspens um in every window inside of the building has a view of an aspen tree on campus inside the building pods have green ceiling structures meant to look like tree branches additionally there are other elements like the wooden ceiling that bring nature inside last I present Woodland Trails wte the campus is surrounded by wooded area and there are a number of trees planted on the campus the building's brick pattern is designed to look like a forest and there are internal structures like wooden elements and ceiling beams meant to look like trees geographically there are three trails that run near
045our school Oregon Santa Fe and California are there questions about any of those options all right well then the excitement will begin because at our next board meeting you will officially name our school and we're so excited for that um after that's done again we'll work on selection of the mascot and that will be a community involved situation will officially form our PTO and then continue to build our school family thank you thank you Dr Anderson that's a lot of work so in December that will be a new business item and you all will have to wrestle with the name we have to vote for one of them yeah you can't we can't have three names okay any discussion on the on the names okay we'll move on to the bond 23 update Kyle Hayden
046is going to give us just an update on where we're at with our bond 23 2023 presentations I don't have a fancy PowerPoint to show you so you're just gonna have to listen to me talk a little bit I do have a nice video though so not that you guys haven't seen that dozens of times but um so we just there's a handout that is going around and and quite honestly this update is really meant for the audience here today and then also for people that are tuning in um because you guys have have kind of heard this repeatedly I do want to give you a little bit of an update as far as just the presentations uh to date as of this evening we've given 71 presentations and we have 14 more scheduled over
047the course the next couple weeks so by and large by the end of this week there's only like two to three presentations left that come right after the Thanksgiving holiday so there may be others that appear because we've allowed people to still request if they want to and we'll be more than happy to go out there and present um on this handout for those who are tuning in or here this is kind of a general overview on the first page of what this is about and we're going to show you a video that really kind of reiterates a lot of those key points on the back side there's some q a FAQ stuff that will help maybe clarify some questions that you may have really good information on our website so this QR code at
048the bottom is a good place to go and we continue to update that routinely I meet every week with Christy mcnerlin her Communications team Casey's part of that also and we look at the feedback we receive because people have an opportunity to go on and give feedback through Google form so we collect that information we talk about that and we try to determine what other information or different information do we need to put out there to Target what questions maybe appear so um um some key dates I want to go over before we show the video the notice of the election has just gone to our Johnson County election office and they'll be submitting that to the Secretary of State's office in the next week or two in December we hope to have approval from
049the Secretary of State's office usually that's you know it's just a comments measure rubber stamp really of what needs to happen in December we then have to publish it twice in our local paper so that will happen the last two weeks of December reminder of people to register to vote by January 1st if you register for vote by January 1st you would automatically receive a ballot to your mailbox if you read are registered to vote for the election that just happened you're good so you don't have to re-register you're solid there if you don't register before January 1st you can still vote if you were to register by January 10th but you'd have to go to the Johnson County election office to make that happen election day is with ballots are due back on January
05031st they go on or out around January 11th it could trickle into first system people I say this at every presentation I get if you're like our family mail sometimes sits on countertops for a while and so I would encourage you to to be thinking about that to put a calendar reminder in your phone something to alert you to the fact that hey a ballot should be coming to my mailbox sometime on or around January 11th or during that week um that's about all I have I'm going to show the video which we just did another iteration of that rolled out today so we like I said we continue to modify that and provide information based on feedback so Kyle you want to roll them when we think about education we think about students learning
051in the classroom performing on the stage and playing on the field but we don't often think about where that occurs what goes into creating or rejuvenating those learning environments ooh Valley has an opportunity to invest in facilities safety and Technology across the district with Bond 2023 [Music] generally speaking Blue Valley has access to three types of funds operating Bond and capital Outlet the bond fund provides for the district's long-term investment strategies for facilities safety and technology and it's important to note that these funds cannot be co-mingled meaning bond funds cannot be used to pay for operating or Capital outlay expenses when it comes to facilities Bond 2023 would allow Blue Valley to build new buildings and expand existing structures to better serve the needs of our students we talk about facilities we're talking about taking
052care of our existing assets but also expanding on what we have today to capture our growth even in the southern district looking at Aubry band at over 800 students we've got to build another middle school so we can reduce their student population it's important in middle school that students get what they need but due to our large enrollment size we've had to be very creative with our instructional spaces so we've had to really work as a school Community to best meet our students needs an additional Middle School would provide sustained spaces for teachers and students in their day another exciting part about this bond is additional multi-purpose spaces at middle schools our participation numbers are just through the roof right now with whether it's volleyball basketball or performing arts and we just need additional rehearsal
053spaces we need additional practice spaces when our middle schools have six basketball teams they don't have to practice again at six o'clock in the morning and these additional spaces will allow more people to get involved and still be able to do it in a timely manner and the last Bond three of our high schools got a brand new gym and so this will add a third gym to both Blue Valley southwest and blue Valley West High School and additionally it'll add a Performing Arts base for Blue Valley North through increased enrollment and just needing Equity amongst all the high schools North is getting that extra performing art space as well in the Northeast District we've seen growth and several of our elementary schools and we've handled that through temporary mobile installations it's time to get
054rid of those mobiles to take care of our students and our staff in those facilities to have all of our students Under One Roof would be such a major Improvement right now we have a classroom in the basement and then we have two mobiles that we have students outside so when you've got students who need to go to the bathroom or go to specials or it's raining or any type of safety concern it's an extra step to have to think through how are we going to get our friends from the mobiles back inside so it would really impact us in a positive way you know CTE is an opportunity to expand upon the things that students learn in their core classes as well and some of those reading and writing skills additionally though it's just
055a great spot for the critical thinking aspects of a of a student's education it's all of our business and computer courses family and consumer Sciences industrial Tech journalism digital media those are the courses right now that fall under the Blue Valley umbrella CTE you're talking physical environment those standards evolve as industry evolves we have to create spaces that can give us an Avenue to teach those standards to our students and a lot of our discussion with those folks in these certain industries are you know what is taking place in Industry what does it look like out there so that we can try and mirror some of that here while we have those students so that again they're getting that relevant learning experience in the courses that we offer what most people don't know is that
056our facilities are reaching the age of 29 years old on average so we have to continue to invest in our aging facilities because if we don't we have significant failures in our mechanical systems and our roofing systems and in our doors and windows and when those things fail we cause disruptions to our learning environments which impacts our students and staff significantly [Music] Bond 2023 would also provide funds to ensure the safety and security of students and staff in every building in Blue Valley we also talk about like layering different security measures into place to minimize risk of school violence the risk is here we can bring it down further and further and further and we don't ever stop trying to do that so that might be something physical a physical security system so we know
057that it's important that when we say our buildings are secure that they are we want our card access system to be robust we want our intercom system to be robust so that our buildings are truly secure in Blue Valley safety is our number one priority timely efficient communication is really important for school safety and our current systems are analog systems it's time for us to update those systems and find more efficient and effective communication foreign improvements would also be covered by Bond 2023 funds allowing for replacement and refurbishing of student and classroom technology what's difficult is that the technology you know will die out and we spend more time than really kind of troubleshooting because we're trying to you know reconnect and find this and find that and so as teachers we have to like
058just figure it out but as the technology ages we we're going to find the same thing and things aren't going to work and so it you know that would be definitely a challenge technology refresh is in pretty quick Cycles these days days and our devices we want to make sure kids have the most up-to-date devices and are using things that are used out in the real world so refreshing devices is key to continuing to provide the best education possible for our kiddos in Blue Valley [Music] projects in the 2023 Bond would generally be completed over three years these targeted projects meet needs across the district and impact each and every one of our 22 000 students being good stewards is a responsibility we take seriously in Blue Valley our strong history of refinancing and prepaying
059debt to save taxpayers money is enabled this to be a no tax rate increase bond to invest in facilities safety and technology for 2022 the Blue Valley Board of Education approved a four mil decrease to the overall budget mill rate this brought down the mill rate to 54 Mills which is the lowest it's been in over 20 years that coupled with the AAA Bond rating from Moody's the district is in a great position to offer a no tax bond issue in front of Voters I can't imagine anything more important to a community than their schools you know whether you have children or not your schools that's what people move to your community for and our children are our future of course and we want them to be well educated and they're going to be our
060leaders so I can't imagine any investment better than in our future and that's really what schools are all about Blue Valley Schools is the Cornerstone of economic development in this area for businesses like ours it not only helps us prepare the talent of the future but attract the talent of today as when folks are choosing whether or not to relocate to accept one of our positions often top of mind is the quality of a school district [Music] thank you [Music] so a couple shout outs here first of all our Communications Department makes all this information that video handouts all the stuff on our web page so they're fantastic very talented team we have also executive cabinet has really shared the workload on a lot of these presentations so I appreciate all their efforts on that
061one and sorry for you guys stepping up and attending meetings too that's been that sends a good message so thank you for that I just want to add that um Kyle and Jan and Jody last Tuesday went to the Overland Park Chambers executive board and the Overland Park chamber has endorsed this Bond and really positive comments um Everybody in the room Business Leaders from you know Overland Park area were really um they got it they understood you know how important that is I know I ask you this almost every time but can you talk a little bit about you know why we just did this a couple years ago um why is it kind of a shorter time frame because I as a parent I I unders I like the answer and because you know
062I so I like the way you put that so would you mind just mentioning kind of talking about that a little bit Yeah a very intentional move a decision that was made back in 2019 as we were preparing for the 2020 Bond initiative um to shorten the the duration of the timeline in which projects would be done um and the idea behind that as we carry that forward now is we're able to perform the projects so that people who vote for this now see the results of that as quickly as possible and they're more more importantly that the students get to benefit from those improvements whether it's the purchase of Technology modifications to a building a new school all those different things safety enhancements and you know I'm proud to say that we've been able
063to deliver on that this time around you know after three years we're very near the completion of all of our projects with just a few modifications left this coming summer and so the intent on this would be do exactly the same thing we'll hit the ground running if successful you know we'd be hiring firms to help us with these projects in beginning in February and then we'd be off and running with the design of the project so that we can start construction by summer of 24. so Kyle so the the main difference between this Bond and the last Bond initiative is roughly the same amount of money except for building another Middle School is that about right yeah uh very very similar you know the same themes are exist there where we're building a new
064school last time was elementary 24 this time would be middle school 11 that would alleviate the the pressure that's on Aubrey Ben with their enrollment right now for to provide a second Middle School in the Blue Valley Southwest feeder which they're the only feeder system that doesn't have that second school and obviously it's a middle school it's at least twice the size it's going to cost you more money so you know the difference last time with a 28 million dollar Elementary School this is going to be a 70 million dollar Middle School um but you still have the other other things you know the asset preservation the safety improvements the technology improvements are very very similar once again as far as the allocations and the buckets of where we're headed so and um if if
065assuming that the bond initiative passes when would that middle school be open approximately we'd be targeting August of 2026 okay there's yeah that doesn't get constructed without this Bond so and there'd have to be some other measure taken to help with what's happening at Opry Bend Middle School with over 800 kids and growing just a couple of comments we've talked about it in the past but it's especially on the the 70 million dollar number for the Manu Middle School is kind of our best guess because our contractors aren't um I guess probably driven by the inflationary environment they're not giving us projections but um we've we've one of the things that gives me comfort in this process of you know proving such a big chunk of you know going out to the market and issuing
066bonds such a large amount is that um seems to me that we're more likely to see some deflationary pressure than we do inflationary pressure in the future and construction and the way we do our bidding you might just go into that to capture those savings you know what we do because we've had some successes in that recently yeah so um you know we have used the cons construction management at risk process so we have higher construction firms that um instead of hard bidding and having a general contractor we hire a large firm to help us in that process we feel like through that design collaboration with the architectural team and the engineering team that they're strong collaboration they are able to team and and kind of push things along and maintain uh the goals and
067what we want to achieve with educational Spaces by also controlling costs um and so there's just a ongoing you know long-term process basically that they're designing their um looking at the construction costs checking in with their trade partners and the relationships they have with those those trade partners and providing estimates along the way so that by the time we get to bid day they know you know usually they'll have several trade Partners per trade so whether it's electrical whether it's the masonry work whether it's the roofing whatever that may be they're gonna have a pretty good indication of who's interested and what those numbers are going to be and so um that would be the same process we use this time so you know we've we've managed the budget very very well we've stayed within
068our budget on every single project in fact we have leftover funds quite honestly with with uh and we're very near the end so and much of that is due to the model quite honestly and it's a tribute also to our team you know Jake and um and his team of You Know Dan Drake and Chad luck lucard is is likert is is really good so they just um it works for us and and because of that we have confidence in the numbers we have associated with this Bond and as we proceed we we think that will be on target again so calm when we went to the uh three-year model in 19 that was one of the pieces that is important to our success in being able to accomplish the the build out of what
069that Bond initiative was for in that three-year period time correct I mean it's a team effort but my point is that was one of the big changes we made um and going forward it was um that initiative that it puts us back here today right yeah absolutely it's you know they just they just have the ability um to just do more in a shorter period of time and and um you know we've hired two larger firms construction management firms it doesn't always have to be a large construction management firm but they have a lot of experience in doing a large quantity of work and have a lot of buying power and relationships to make those things happen so any other questions okay ready to move on to policy 5470 review yeah so um but prior
070to the start of the school year we may decided to make a change with how we with accepting forms of payment and there's board policy aligned with that that we didn't notice at the time but we uncovered here recently that clearly states all of the different forms of payment and the one we discontinued was acceptance of e-checks and the rationale behind not accepting e-checks anymore is because there was a process processing fees associated with that that was costing us thousands of dollars along with manpower to have to manage that so whether it was you know processing Food Service payments or processing fees those types of things were just is very inefficient for us quite honestly so we recommend striking that as a form of payment people can still pay through debit or credit card they
071can pay cash or write a check in person if needed so or put it in an envelope like I do with my kids and they take it any questions so this first read of this policy it'll be up for 30 days for anybody to comment on it and then it would be actionable in the December meeting okay okay now we're ready to move on to the um foreign the Apple Inc modify the meeting date it's right it's 4E right there move to modify the meeting date for the January Board of Education Workshop meeting I thought where I did that no you have to vote on it you modified the agenda now okay to vote on whether you want to do that so do I have a motion to modify the February workshop and the regular
072meeting date from February 13th to February 6th I move that the Board of Education moved the February Board of Education workshop and regular meeting from 5 30 PM February 13 2023 to 5 30 PM February 6 2023. second motion by Katie second by Jody any discussion seen not all in favor raise your right hand all opposed same sign motion passes 7-0 just as an FYI we will start communicating that out now so that people have plenty of advanced notice thank you okay let's move to the technology contracts for elementary school number four which were originally on the consent agenda so the first one is the Apple Inc for the purchase of iPads and cases that are required for opening Elementary School 24 is there any motion okay I moved to the Board of Education approved
073the contract with Apple Inc for the purchase of iPads and cases required for elementary school 24. is there a second second motion by Tom second by Jody any discussion on yeah I have the approval so I ask that these people and just have a conversation around it I really would prefer that we just uh table these contracts for a couple of weeks until the board has had some time to evaluate whether we want to maintain a a one-to-one device usage in our elementary schools you know across the district so this would be applicable to all elementary schools nuts but there's none of this from from my perspective that's specific to elementary school 24 we should end up doing the same thing for elementary school 24 that we do for all of our elementary schools but
074um you know I think there are some some important reasons for us to consider changing the use of technology in our elementary schools um number one I think there's considerable research on the superior outcomes from learning using pen and paper pencil and paper you know handwriting use of Technology even if it's you know well controlled takes away from that um it seems to me that there's scant evidence that the use of devices heavily in elementary schools leads to learning games in fact our you know across this is across the country it's not specific to Blue Valley you know performance metrics are are lower now than they were five and ten years ago in number three most most of us would recognize that our children are over connected there's just too much screen time it's a
075fight for all parents and most parents it's uh you know I've got five kids so I told my fifth kid you know unfortunately you're the fifth one so we we screwed up with some of the other ones and so you know you get to you know you get a flip phone until you're 18. but um I mean the point is is that I I'm I would discourage use of something that that is a massive Addiction in our in in our schools it becomes a massive addiction for a long a large chunk of our our you know our society and then you know finally it's just this is expensive these are expensive purchases and they are they become um you know you have to replace we have to replenish them every three four five years like
076you know for all elementary schools and in Blue Valley it's a four plus million dollar purchase when they're replenished if you were replenish everyone at the exact same time I know we don't do that but the point is that it's you know it's called a million bucks a year that we're going to spend on device purchases just for elementary schools so those would be my reasons I'm not suggesting that we it it uh you know the rest of the board disagrees with me and and we really go through and think about it thoughtfully um you know I'll I understand but I I think we it would behoove us to table it and have a thoughtful discussion which we we started but this morning but um you know a thoughtful discussion Administration could weigh in Etc
077so those are my those are my comments anybody else any comments you know this is one of those things that uh years ago the board did a lot of consideration staff did a lot of consideration many of the districts around us were putting in one-to-one programs but they didn't do the research they didn't spend the time training the staff and determining what was the best approach you know how to put these things together and I certainly understand Jim's concerns about the purchase but in my mind this is similar to to a calculator as opposed to a cell phone in the sense that you know these are tools that are integrated throughout the entire District all schools and so I think this is an important contract for elementary school number 24 because they need these uh
078tools and equipment because it's integrated into the curriculum it's integrated into the training many of the staff are already utilizing this technology and so I think to to stop this in mid-stream would be a mistake and so for that reason I think it's important that this contract moved forward along with with the one after this because they're both centrally focused on supplying Elementary 24 with the needed equipment so that they can get off the ground and running and be successful from the start um so back in the day let's say 10 years ago Dr Murray and I'm looking at Gretchen Anderson over there you don't have to respond but principal at Oak Hill now the new principal at Aspen Trails is that where we're headed back in the day I remember PTO PTA with my
079iPads 10 folks here 10 of these elementary schools I remember chipping in and then all of them had different apps different folks teaching them no consistency in the district because it was just going to happen with the ptos and ptas is that something we're trying to obviously avoid whether it's Elementary School 24 or other schools as well right so the district embarked on a technology study and they really worked with teachers with parents with students at middle and high school around what technology would enhance learning within the classroom and um Jim and I've had this discussion I don't disagree with him that we never would want to sit a kid in front of a computer all day long and that's all they do but we did have ptos who we had some Elementary buildings that
080were more than one to one quite honestly we had other Elementary buildings that had very little technology because their ptos couldn't raise that money we had problems um I'm looking at Brian back there because they they wanted to buy different things and then once you bought it we expected our I.T Department to upgrade it and to take care of it so what this does is it ensures that we're Equitable across the district that our curriculum team for example they just wrote new math curriculum so they can incorporate some of those technology assets where appropriate in there we know that every student has the same device nobody has to bring anything from home in fact I would say you don't need to bring anything from home because we're going to supply it if you need it
081at school the other thing I would say about this purchase now the problem with tabling it is that because of the timeline for purchasing if we table it it won't be here for the start of school so Elementary 24 would have to start without that and so I think it's important that that we continue to do our due diligence students which we're doing we talked about that this morning we're surveying our teachers and finding out right now kind of what they're doing and where they're using it and what we need to enhance and refresh but for next school year Elementary 24 needs I believe needs these resources I would just like to say too and I think we had some great discussions this morning honestly in Workshop but Equity is really important and so I
082know you guys both touched on that you know all of our students need to have the same opportunities with the same stuff right the the other thing that I wanted to um um bring up and I think I just lost it take comment um equity shoot I'm sure it was something really important otherwise I wouldn't have forgotten yeah I know right I'm thinking of the snow I think it's snowing out right now so um but um just um oh uh although we've met I think all of us uh board members have been touring with Dr marrigan this fall um and looking in at all levels elementary middle and high schools and you know I haven't seen a lot of usage at least in the schools and the tours that I've been on um I'm not
083seeing kids just sitting there you know on their devices the whole time the very few times I've seen it used it was very intentional project-based stuff kids are in their groups doing project-based work with their with the device to to use as a resource or a tool so um I haven't you know seen um and and Gemini you know we I I was one of those moms that you know my kiddo could get you know half an hour of computer time a day and a half an hour of TV time a day so um we definitely you know watched um how much technology my kids used especially in elementary school and even in middle school so but anyhow I just wanted to throw those few ideas out there yeah I've I've been to a number
084of elementary schools and I've seen less usage than I did last year I mean last year I did go to one school where it was recess it was a cold day and 90 of the kids grabbed the iPad or whatever the device and they played on it during the recess while we were touring the school so those are the concerns that that I would have as as a parent I think the district and the administration are really thoughtful they understand that this is a concern and that you know I mean it's kind of it's not like we any of us were coming up in school when there was much technology I did coding in sixth grade but you know it was like on a Dos based you know green screen right and um it was
085in the computer room so it's a different world in terms of what our kids are facing and and you know I've made my point but you know that's the so I made my point so any other comments questions discussion all in favor raise your right hand all opposed same sign ocean pass passes six one do I have another motion I moved the Board of Education approve the contract with CDW Dash G for Acer Chromebooks for elementary school 24. motion by Tom is there a second by Jody uh any discussion beyond what we just went through any other comments on this particular contract again these are Chromebooks for elementary 24. all in favor raise your right hand all oppose same sign motion passes [Laughter] okay motion passes six one um do we have any other motion
086for the night I moved to the November 14 2022 regular Board of Education meeting be adjourned motion by Thomas our second by Katie any discussion all in favor raise your right hand all opposed same sign motion passes seven zero thank you all and have a good evening and then have a Happy Thanksgiving