001so we will start with awards and recognition good evening this evening it is an honor for us to recognize two staff members with a distinguished service and excellence in education awards these special people go above and beyond each day in our schools and across the district with monica skilling sunrise point elementary para 2 which is navigators please come forward with your principal jamie p muller oh you brought the fan club we're excited to recognize monica with a distinguished service award monica has been with the district for 11 years jamie tell us what is so special about her don't make me cry i won't make you cry well i think it's a testament of all the people who are here from sunrise point to support monica but her colleagues said it best i asked everyone to
002send me a few words about her and i want to share what they said because they said it better than i could one of them is when miss monica is in my classroom my whole day just flows so much better she knows just what my students need and they all love working with her she brings a special energy into the classroom that is unmatched i'm happy that i'm not i'd only call get to call her miss monica my co-worker but also my friend another one she loves her kids and it is so obvious in her smiles and gestures towards them she wants them to learn and keeps them on track academically she never weakens or gives in when she knows they can do the work she is always kind and they know how much she
003loves them her sense of humor adds to the joy she gives these children and last npe miss monica will jump in the game and play for the team who is not scor scoring quite so many points they cheer when she jumps in to help she plays long enough to get the team tied up and then makes her exit i love her enthusiasm for my class she truly is a ray of sunshine in every room and she truly is everywhere i go when i see miss monica i laugh i smile i want to give her a hug because all the kids give her hugs she's just truly a great member of our spe family so i got her this little sign that says simply bless because we are very blessed to have you [Applause] monica we're
004so appreciative of the work that you do with our students and every single one of our paraprofessionals we could not do our jobs without you and i agree this is huge testament just the the fact that you have all of your colleagues here and i think you have some family members here too right my husband i'm glad you're here and is there anything you want to say i just want to say thank you for supporting me oh thank you congratulations now with jeff wadaha please come forward he is the technology teacher at prairie star middle please come forward with your principal eric grimble and we are excited to recognize jeff with an excellence in education award this is his 29th year in the district so eric please tell us why jeff is so special well
005i i'll say first of all we didn't quite bring the crowd that sunrise point brought but last week it's a prairie star feeder so we can create it for both however we had a little get together as a staff in the library hallway last thursday which we do when we want to celebrate people for various reasons on the staff for various things that they've done and so we called a meeting and the best part is jeff i mean he knew about tonight he just didn't know this was about him so we had a lot of fun talking about some other things that had gone on in the building and then i had to get my notes out which i didn't bring tonight because i'd rather just tell you that jeff is of all the staff
006at prairie prairie star which is full of great teachers he's the most conscientious hard-working caring and committed staff member and i could go on and on with more superlatives but nobody invests more in kids than jeff does and he's had i've tried to help him and he knows he needs to dial back just how much he pours into the school he was a first guy there before the custodian jeff had his own alarm code he was getting to the building so early and then there'd be a saturday or sunday where he'd be up there getting some work done and he's found some good balance there we're proud of him for that but that just is a testament to how much jeff pours into public education to the kids of prairie star and we're very proud
007of you jeff and well done thank you thank you for all you do jeff i've been in your classroom several times and you always are doing these engaging exciting lessons i think with kids and um you know with technology kids are at all different levels but you always seem to um find that that niche that those kids need and we're so appreciative of all that you've done and all that you do and i am glad you found some balance good job there eric that you've helped him um but is there anything you want to say first off i'd like to thank my wife kelly who's here today really appreciate kelly's love and support throughout the years i couldn't still be teaching without her i'd like to thank thank him for coming today thank you very
008much kim kim is a staff member and she has a sign hey you have a you have a parent here i am a former parent so ad parent as well so he jeff taught both of my kids so you do have parent representation thank you yeah that is true i also would like to thank the staff of prairie star elementary school i was there five years the staff of lakewood elementary i was there a couple years as fifth grade teachers both schools and of course all my colleagues at prairie star middle school without their support i it would be hard to do what i do so thank you to everyone really appreciate it way to go wadaha [Applause] congratulations blue valley is known for having the very best educators and staff around and it was
009an honor to highlight a couple of ours for tonight this concludes recognitions for tonight for those of you that were looking for a way to sneak out of here now would be a good time or you're also welcome to stay for the remainder of the meeting if you'd like okay reports from board advisory committees um i will start us off with the diversity equity and inclusion committee uh the diversity equity inclusion committee met for the first time on thursday september 1st i welcomed everybody to the meeting followed by some introductions and then i turned it over to mr scott roberts who's the executive director for school administration who is going to help facilitate this committee along with kelly wessel this year the committee spent some time brainstorming information they wanted to receive from the district
010regarding the work that's being done around dei and there's a whole list of topics that we will bring them some information on and then the last part of the meeting was spent really looking at ideas or initiatives activities that we could initiate support or engage the committee very much wanted to be an action orientation group to help facilitate something and some ideas that came up was the development of age appropriate reading lists of dei topics for parents to utilize at home we already have a multicultural festival but how can we help to reinvigorate that and make sure that the word gets out student-led professional learning for staff we talked about engaging our diverse parent groups why are some of them not engaged and how could we help them to get engaged the next meeting of
011this committee is on thursday october 6th in this room next up is kyle hayden and i think he's got a couple of he's going to do both the cni meeting and the finance and operations good evening the curriculum instruction board advisory committee met on september 7th committee members completed introductions and reviewed the purpose and the function of the team a presentation conducted by dr eric pinswick and dr steve hinauer provided committee members with an understanding of staffing trends in blue valley as well as certified staffing hurdles at the district state and national level adam wade director of assessment accountability provided an overview of the assessments the district annually administers at each school level and the rationale for these tools relative to informing parents and patrons about student academic growth and achievement dr collier provided an
012overview of growth measures and measurable outcomes associated with the district's priority goal areas for 20 20 22 23 school year in the areas of math literacy mental health the high school experience attraction and retention of staff the committee will meet again at district office on october 12th we'll roll right into finance and operations the finance and operations board advisory committee met on september 8th in the district office high plains room the committee received a report on the proposed bond 2020 2023 timeline in the project list with estimated costs jeremy mcfadden executive director of finance reviewed a 20-year history of blue valley bonds and bond referendums and associated historical mill levees and the projections for future bond mill levees dan carney director of safety and security and brian daly chief information officer introduced a new security
013system to the committee called crisis alert by strategics more information about this purchase is scheduled for this evening jason gillum director of business operations presented the bids and contracts which on which is on the consent agenda for board approval this evening the next committee meeting is scheduled for october 6th at 7 30 am in the district high plains room and i believe christy mcnerlin is going to give the report on our newly formed board advisory communications committee good evening again the communications board advisory committee convened for the first time on september 6th at 7 30 a.m after introductions board president patrick hurley provided an overview of the committee's purpose which includes learning about and identifying opportunities for the board to communicate and engage with the community i gave members a peek inside the first day
014of school excitement and a back-to-school video that was shared through various blue valley communication channels the committee previewed the bond 2020 update video created by the communications team in collaboration with jake slobodnik in facilities and the purpose of the videos to show that projects were completed as prom as promised after patrons approved the bond in 2020 the video will debut later this evening during um one of our updates so looking forward i was able to share strategic plan goals that will be an area of focus for the district during the 22-23 school year that will also be related to the communication work that will be done in the future and future topics of discussion the meeting concluded with the opportunity for all of our community members to make suggestions for future topics and ideas for
015discussion the next communications board advisory committee meeting scheduled for tuesday october 4th in the board conference room at district office and that concludes our reports for this evening the next item is reports from board members and the superintendent on items not included on the agenda jody okay so tom can't steal all the good information ah i say uh if he's listening so it's been a busy couple weeks with having school started i'm really excited about the energy that we have rolling kids are excited staff appears to be excited our administrative team are top of the game so it's it's really exciting to see what a normal year looks like because i have not yet as with our superintendent been through a normal uh year as a board member so um that's really exciting uh the
016blue valley ed foundation breakfast uh was a few weeks ago um absolutely fantastic experience and thank you fellow board members for for chipping in together and and getting a table um i really appreciate that um i think it really shows uh kind of what kind of board we are and how we support our district so thank you all i appreciate that um i was able to um attend um i was in topeka two weeks ago um representing our district as region 11 vice president um for um the kansas association of school boards um we talked about various topics coming up and some of the struggles that some of the districts have and so that's always a good conversation to have um i was also in pratt uh kansas and uh the fort learned school district
017this last week learning about how they do things and connecting with other board members superintendents administrators from across the state had absolutely great time and the hospitality that those in both of those school districts had shown all of us was absolutely tremendous so i'm really proud to be part of a state that puts such um a great emphasis on their public schools and really care about their kids so that was a lot of fun other than that i was also part of the curriculum committee as well as the um equity or inclusion committee um and i i think dr merrigan and i think was kyle uh covered uh those committees really well but i did want to say a special thank you to the students that were able to attend um that's been kind of
018a focus at least for me is is having we've we've had student representation but but life gets busy and so we've decided to kind of upper game a little bit and maybe add a few more spots for students to have their voice heard on these board advisory committees and and uh they were present and it uh so we had some great dialogue so a big shout out for that so thank you i think that's it katie how'd it feel to go first yeah it was it was exciting it was exciting um i don't have much different than jody but the blue valley ed foundation breakfast was excellent um loved all the kids coming in and singing and obviously we can't do that so um super glad they find very talented young people to come and
019entertain us um i did want to know very proud of how blue valley northwest handled that incident that happened as well as like wolf springs and is it harmony going through the water i mean yeah so we're on it um there's so much work that goes into keeping everything going and with wolf springs everybody's working non-stop overnight so very thankful that everyone was you know ready to act and keep all our kids safe so um i think that's it thank you jan any comments um i was also at the kansas association of school boards meeting as a legislative subcommittee and got a chance to meet with other school districts around the state and listen to concerns they have as we look ahead to the coming legislative session be able to learn the priorities of the
020kasb and see how they mesh with us piggyback a little bit on what katie said about the blue valley education foundation breakfast first time i'd ever had red velvet pancakes and they were perfectly round it was i'm glad that somebody was there to try it before i was but they were excellent and i'm excited about uh susan tieterman coming in as uh the new head of the foundation she's uh she stepped right into it with that uh outstanding uh program and the community support continues to be amazing thank you jan gina so with tom being gone also i get to announce the sports stuff right so um you know fall sports have started which is um super fun off to a great start but um we got notice that tyler kincaid from blue valley southwest
021was named the national coach of the year by the american baseball coaches association so that's a huge deal so congratulations to tyler for that and blue valley ed foundation breakfast was great but rally in the valley i think happened since our last board meeting too and what a cool event that was my first rally in the valley to attend and i think it was the first one since covid right so and your first one solo right so your first one also i mean it was just such a great event it's just so much energy in the room and um so very grateful that this school year has just started off on such a great note jim um just a couple of of notes um the it's it's kind of refreshing that it's um that we're
022doing boring things like talking about budgets and um mill levies well it's exciting for those of us and from the finance world but yeah yes uh i'll come up with some other sat words that we can share later but um in terms of uh so there's not going to be i don't think there's going to be a lot of budget conversation tonight but but there there are some uh you know some challenging budget issues that uh that this board will talk about either in finance committee or at our workshops over the course of october uh november december and will lead to discussions about a bond vote in january so i think what i would say is i would encourage any members of the public to contact any of us either on the board or administration
023in the finance department if they've got questions or concerns around it but there are a lot of you know meaty topics that derive from a growing district geographically in terms of just the expansion of the geographic footprint where people live drops in enrollment that occur during covet and then the rebound and what that financially means for the district and then just a really um crazy inflationary time frame where you know everything from paper to to gasoline for the vehicles to just labor rates um are seeing rises that we haven't had in this economy and you know you know for 40 years so those are all interesting challenging topics and so um i think the the team is super engaged to to try to to work through those and um look forward to working with the
024administration on that dr marion i do so will you pull up my powerpoint there we go thanks um so since the last time we met you guys have referenced a couple of these but the first thing is uh we had rally in the valley i think that was the friday after the last time we met and that's a big uh kind of pep rally of sorts to get us started we highlighted the work that the district is doing the goals we have around literacy around math around the high school experience the mental health of our students and staff and how are we going to attract and retain the best employees that we can we also highlighted people who had been here for a number of years we have people who have been here for over
02530 years and so it was important for us to highlight all of that work then a couple of students stella whittle placed fourth in the kansas city superstar competition that's a kind of an american idol type thing that's held over at the jewish community center and stella is blue valley northwest student we also had the first day of school obviously that was an exciting day as we welcomed back close to 23 000 students from early childhood all the way through our 18 to 21 year old program with special education and our official count day is next week and so we'll have an official account at that time some more students two blue valley students from blue valley high school were named a national hispanic and a national african-american recognition award and those come out of
026the psat the national merit qualifying test that students take during their junior year so we're proud of aiden and brianna for receiving those awards some alumni we have a caps film student mickey bennett who really discovered that love while she was at caps and you can see that she has gone on to do some major work for hbo as well as some other work around um the film that she's done out in hollywood so we congratulate her i think i'll put this in every time is that we are still looking for a staff member so if anybody out there who is listening to this uh wants a part-time job full-time job we can probably hook you up our district website and we are very flexible so if you can just do it a couple hours
027a day a couple days a week we would find something that that fits your skill set we also honored our homegrown heroes during the blue valley head foundation breakfast and our students are so musically talented we could just stand up there for hours and listen to our students and there's a couple of them highlighted up there but again such talent we had 180 middle and high school coaches and sponsors these are the head coaches and sponsors who took part in mental health first aid training and it was the largest mental health first aid training uh conducted in the state of kansas johnson county mental health worked with us on this this is a the same training that some of our fathers club members have done um from the community uh it was an a long
028day for they packed it in for our coaches and sponsors um but so proud of them for uh being interested in that um staff uh ashford collins who's an assistant principal at valley park elementary we got word that he got an alumni award from mid-american nazarene university where he was an athlete there so we congratulate ashford the blue valley west jaguars were notified that they are performing arts school of excellence so this is one of 17 schools in the state of kansas to receive this and you can see all of the different things that go into that so we congratulate blue valley west for recognition again our arts programs across the district are very strong just last friday i think eric kessler who teaches over at caps was notified that he is a master teacher
029by the kansas association of biology teachers so he's done eric has been here for a long time was at blue valley north back when i was there uh moved to caps once it opened has done lots of work around the district takes students on outdoor excursions all the time um he really likes snakes if you ever around him you can talk to him about snakes and then some students blue valley high junior noor hidari has made it to the top 30 worldwide for the breakthrough junior challenge sponsored by khan academy and national geographic so we are proud of noor for that accomplishment and then here is tyler kinkade which gina just referenced he was the national coach of the year so lots of exciting things happening as gina mentioned our sports and activities have started
030our performing arts have started so lots of busy times at both middle and high schools our elementaries are gearing up for programs as well so really good things happening and that's it thank you dr american as everybody has mentioned today dr merrigan and my colleagues there's a lot of stuff going on there's a lot of things happening in the district and you know we're off to a good start not without um things occurring that have to be processed and responded to like with springs but uh everybody's working diligently and working hard to to get those situations uh back on track um those kinds of things happen throughout the year um and uh the important thing is is is that we're off to a good start this year so i want to thank dr merrigan and
031the staff and the teachers for making this such a such a good start this year and certainly my colleagues for all the contributions and the hard work that they're doing right now in connection with all the things that are going on um the uh to have a motion to approve the agenda for the september 12 2022 regular board of education meeting i moved that the board of education approved the agenda for the september 12 2022 regular board of education meeting as published second is it a motion by jody second by jim any discussion seeing no discussion all in favor raise your right hand all opposed same sign motion passes six zero i don't have a motion to approve the consent agenda is published i move that the board of education approved the consent agenda for
032the september 12 2022 regular board of education meeting as published is our second second second motion by jean ii by katie any discussion scene none all in favor raise your right hand all opposed same sign motion passes six zero move on to new business so we so that is the 2022 2023 legal maximum budget and estimated tax rate the building needs assessment and state assessments review was provided to and evaluated by usd 229 board of education it was used in the approval of the usd 229 budget for the fy 2022-2023 in determining the authority of the local budget local option budget cost of living extraordinary growth special liability and capital outlay mill levees do i have a motion i i move that the board of education approve the 2023 2022 2023 legal maximum budget and
033estimated tax rate is published is there a second motion by jody second by jan it's a real call vote no discussion okay is there a discussion can um i you know i support the budget that's been presented but i i think that i would encourage our um i would encourage the these building needs assessments that there be more emphasis i i think there can be more narrative that all the schools each of the schools can present in future years because i think those could be really helpful in terms of the board of being able to to weigh in on on some of those you know maybe thematic topics so because i think there are some good good good things that came out of those building needs assessments but i think it was uneven and you
034know some of the some of the schools provided not that much information and then some provided quite a bit so those would be my only say caveats or recommendations for the future but in terms of the the overall budget i think it's a sensible uh i think it's a sensible budget i think it it in it endeavors to increase operating funds where we can towards classroom instruction and they're you know in a budget that is primarily operating budget that's primarily driven by personnel that's a good thing because it allows us at least some additional ability to hire teachers and you know hopefully reduce class sizes over to you know over time i think there's a lot of hard things we've got to look at but so those are just a couple highlights from the from
035the budget that i would uh point out any other comments um i would just like to kind of piggyback on what jim said a little bit um so people who are listening may not understand what this assessment um was about tanya would you mind just kind of talking just through quickly what that was what that was kind of new for us you know yeah there's um legislatively we were required to do a needs assessment um the ksde gave us more formal guidance this year uh in the past it we've done one but it has been very informal and we were asked to be more formal about it we support that and so we utilized the information we had from ksde and we absolutely agree with jim that we can work with our schools next year
036to get a more uniform approach to it we can give them some exemplars of what we're looking for but we we did this came about at the time of year where our principals and building leadership teams were actually meeting to talk about exactly what this is which is the uh state assessment results their data in other data in their school and what they can do to improve and we tried to make this form as easy as possible for them but we've already talked today about plans for this next spring how we're going to start much earlier and put a process in place so thank you any other comments you know the the um just kind of piggybacking on that there are some interesting things that are seemingly that the legislature was thinking about when they
037put this requirement in place which is also i think primarily driven by uh performance you know assessments which is uh you know everybody's trying to look for objective ways to measure performance and but if you if you look at some of the commentary in the building needs assessments so the individual schools completed these there are things that i would what i would say are indirectly impact uh performance but we all know just that in our hearts that if you've got disruptive a disruptive classroom that it's harder to teach harder to communicate information and those were some some themes uh that that you you saw in that and you know some of that is probably coveted responses some of it is just changes in yeah attendance attendances so there are there are some themes there that
038that are um that are interesting i think that uh that there'll be probably a you know consistent focus this year both at the board level but at the administration and at the school level um so from from that perspective i think they are helpful i don't know if all there's a lot of paper that you have to push but um but at least some of the meat that's in there is i think valuable any other comments i know our staff has worked very very hard in these budgets i know they do an excellent job putting them together and so i want to thank them for their hard work and going through this so diligently it's a big process um but nonetheless i think the the budgets are absolutely solid and and they've done a really
039great job so thank you do i have a motion or do i have all in favor raise your right hand all opposed same sign motion passes 6-0 summer 2022 construction update jake good evening thank you very much for having me it's been two years and nine months since our patrons passed the 2020 bond uh we've got a video that we're going to show there should be some sound coming in but what you're going to see is not only a lot of hard work but it's an incredible support from our community and from you all because there is a lot of amazing work that you're going to see in this video and then i'll touch a little bit on what we're what we did last summer so you can see a little bit of that in
040detail hopefully we can get that video fired up and say technology doesn't happen or video day and these are all bond funds that we're using yeah so everything in this video is bond funds and everything i'll show you that we did this summer were funded through the bond except for one project that i'll talk about and these are gymnasiums that were built over the summer right yep yep if we want to skip the video and maybe come back to it i could narrate but jake faber has a much better voice and he did the voiceover for this and it was incredible so what'd we do this summer well let's look at the whole calendar and in two years and nine months everything you see in gray has been completed 29 work packages in two years
041and nine months three work packages left it's incredible about how much was spent you'll see that at the last slide about 106 million dollars in construction hard construction costs to date on all those projects so this summer we completed a new gymnasium at blue valley northwest it's a 15 000 square foot facility it'll house all of our student body and it serves as an icc 500 storm shelter for the entire building and that's bigger than the current that's bigger than their current their current gymnasium that they have today cannot house their entire student body so this was a big push we've got to be able to we can't turn people away at the door when they come to support our students we renovated seven elementary schools that's the most we've ever done it's a complete
042undertaking we take everything out of all the classrooms we basically take down all the interior walls and we created flexible learning environments at indian valley leawood lakewood liberty view oak hill stillwell and valley park we have two left wolf springs and timber creek next year out of all the elementary schools in blue valley thumb turn locks we're just continuing to improve our safety district wide and we renovated all of our thumb turns at our classrooms sorry our door hardware our classrooms to add thumb turns laminated glass this year we focused on harmony and prairie star caps and hilltop as well as all seven elementary schools that we did the flexible learning environments at flooring at four schools blue valley high blue valley southwest liquid middle and sunset ridge a lot of polished concrete and walk-off
043carpet resinous flooring not the most glamorous but extremely invaluable to our maintenance department and the longevity of our buildings theater improvements at aubrey bend blue valley middle lakewood middle oxford middle blue valley northwest blue valley southwest this is a primarily to improve lighting and to improve the safety of all the rigging and the components that our students utilize every day last bond project we completed this year it's an incredible transformation of two of our media centers at oxford and pleasant ridge i can tell you our students are just thrilled about this space we've had high school students come back to see what these look like the amazing projects and i can tell you that the staff and they love it just as much as the students and then one project this is a capital outlay
044project so this was not funded in the bond but this is a project we've been working on for some time now this is our new logistics center it's a little over 51 000 square feet it'll house all of our district-wide shipping receiving distribution printing services rit group will utilize this space to get all the computers and ipads get those ready and then send those out to our buildings i mean that this is a huge benefit to our district and it'll be complete in january so we've still got a little bit of work left so like i said 29 work packages in the last two years nine months three work packages remaining jim you mentioned earlier we've seen unprecedented escalation happy to say that we are still under budget and these numbers include all construction costs
045to date and the current estimates that we have for the three work packages remaining we're tight but we weren't sure we were going to get it all done in budget so we haven't had to cut scope we've worked really diligently to make sure that we're executing everything that we've promised our patrons and we're looking really good right now maybe just want to say thank you thank you all for your support [Laughter] yeah can we try that video one more time because that's way better than i am showing you what we've done [Music] as blue valley is nearing the end of the 2020 bond schedule we wanted to provide an update on the investment approved by patrons to reinvest reinforce and reimagine and much has been accomplished as the 2020 bond included shorter timelines three to
046four years so current students could really experience the benefits a large part of reinvesting in our schools focused on updating and upgrading current spaces with the construction of additional gyms at our three oldest high schools blue valley northwest blue valley north and blue valley high now especially at blue valley northwest and blue valley high they can actually fit their entire school student body in the gym so the assemblies will be better more space for our dance teams our drill teams our flag cores our freshman teams that typically are practicing a little bit later now they'll be able to get done and get home and spend more time at home blue valley high also received additions in the form of a new performing arts space and 12 new flex classrooms on the southeast end of the
047school eliminating the need for mobiles pleasant ridge and oxford middle schools also receive significant upgrades to their library and media centers the students are so excited we have students who come running in the library just to see we had high school students coming back in this last week just to see the remodel now we have clear zones we have a checkout zone and we have casual work areas we have a reading room where kids can go in when they just want to read we have a huge instructional space so that kids aren't on top of each other when i'm giving instruction without the parent and district support we would not have this library when it comes to reinforcing our schools safety is always the district's number one priority and with the 2020 bond we were
048able to make each classroom safer and more secure starting at the entrance if you feel like there's some kind of threat in your building the last thing you want to be doing is step out into the hallway so one of the things that we did we decided to switch all classroom door locks in the district over to interior thumb turn locks not only that but they would have an indicator on them that would tell you from clear across the classroom whether that door was locked or unlocked additionally the bond allowed us to upgrade badge readers improve existing fire alarms and significantly upgrade security cameras across the district and as we re-imagine the future of our district an important part of the bond was outfitting all of our remaining elementary schools with new flexible learning environments
049focused on versatile spaces and natural light we are so excited to have flexible learning environments or what we call fles this can be in any grade it involves them working on projects together sometimes that's around project-based learning sometimes that's around centers literacy centers it could be that they're just exploring and building together teachers are able to open their doors between classrooms and they're able to co-teach they love it so whenever my coworkers and i get to open up our doors they automatically get super excited because they know that we're gonna do some co-teaching together and then that they're gonna get into get into groups with not just our classroom but their classroom as well we also do group work with the pod doors and so whenever i open those up it's just an extension of
050the classroom they have more places to work elementary 24 which is set to open for the 2023-24 school year was one of bond 2020 signature projects to address growth for families in the southern portion of our district from a numbers standpoint this bond impacted students and staff in every school program and building across the district as we were able to replace 150 security cameras replaced 6 000 macbooks 6 000 chromebooks and 5000 ipads 113 hvac rooftop mechanical units were also replaced while blue valley repaved 235 000 square feet of pavement with an additional 210 000 square footage of flooring being replaced throughout various buildings and these are just some of the many ways we've been working to reinvest reinforce and reimagine education in blue valley schools none of this would have been possible without support
051from you our district's parents families and community members thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you [Music] i don't know about you but i get chills every time i watch that i mean we don't spend a lot of time looking back at what we've done we spend so much time looking forward this was awesome um kudos to our communications team for putting that together we've done a lot of work we're not done we've got a lot of work ahead of us and again thank you for your support and thank you to our patrons for their support yeah the video was fantastic um so is that going to be posted on our website somewhere so our patrons can enjoy that at their plan built leisure it so yes we want
052to share that with everybody that'll watch it it was a great job you're going to see it in every committee you go to just fyi excellent you might see me a lot too in all those committees so great hey uh quickly what are the last three uh projects great question i should have said that so one of those projects is the fles at wolf springs and timber creek one we'll have a significant renovation at our blue valley academy and our gear program and then we're going to go into all of our fax rooms as part of cte improvements at all of our middle schools and create kitchens sewing rooms for today in the future so fantastic projects coming up next year thank you jake yeah thank you next item is the centrics presentation there okay
053um all right nothing's happening over here there we go oh you gotta point it at them okay all right rookie um so just to to start this uh short conversation about the the crisis alert uh program i thought i would talk just for a second about um this layered approach business we are always trying in blue valley when it comes to safety and security to lower our risk and the the object of the of of this that we can never reach is to get to zero risk and we do that by layering in different different things whether they be security systems physical security systems infrastructural changes like jake talked about with the locks whether they be procedural things that a certain protocol that we follow we try to layer these things in always with an
054eye towards minimizing risk making things safer and safer and safer for students staff and visitors to our schools we know we can never get to zero but we're going to get as close as we can to zero now when we're approached with um which i'm approached by email at least every day by someone trying to sell us something in the in the arena of safety and security one of the questions that i always like to ask myself as i look at it right up front is will this effectively solve a problem that we have because many things address problems that don't exist or we certainly don't have so will it will it do that if we adopt it will it create new problems for us solve this one start others we don't want that either
055how will it impact the culture some of those some of those questions that we we try to ask before i uh drop down and send them over into the junk email um so along comes uh this centegic's i guess i better advance here while i'm talking along comes this uh centigious company with this security system called crisis alert and i said this a few times but right away when i heard about it i guess we heard about it from olathe through the superintendent's meeting and i took a quick look at it and and immediately just kind of instinctively went on the attack trying to find things wrong with it trying to find the achilles heel you know and and i guess i've just developed this skepticism about all these things because there's just so much
056of it coming at me all the time and the more i looked at it the more interested i i became in it and thought wow this is this is really really unique and these are some of the things that make it unique the rapid response that it will bring about the staff empowerment prevention and mitigation these are some of the things that make it unique but before we talk about that i thought it would be worth um showing this video oh wrong way okay and you guys if you should kind of get in the nuts and bolts of the program you are the first line of defense in the safety and security of our students and staff with the syntegic crisis alert platform you now have the ability to notify the appropriate responders immediately in
057the event of any crisis or emergency the crisis alert badge you have been given is the core of the solution and should be worn at all times wear your badge above the waist either clip to your lapel or on a lanyard it is important that you do not leave the badge unattended or accessible to students hang keys flash drives or other items glue or attach other badges to your crisis alert badge puncture bend or damage the badge your crisis alert badge will work anywhere on the school campus both inside and outside it will also work if you are on a campus at another school in your district with just a click of the button located on the crisis alert badge you have the ability to trigger the crisis alert platform your badge can initiate two
058types of alerts staff alert which is an urgent request for help needed and campus-wide emergency lockdown the most common alert is the staff alert which requests the immediate attention of responders such as in a medical emergency or a fight to activate simply click the button on your crisis alert badge three times the badge will vibrate briefly then stop letting you know the signal has been received and help is on the way while you attend to the problem at hand responders such as the principal nurse and resource officer are notified of your location and can quickly come to your aid the second and more serious alert is the campus-wide emergency lockdown such as in the case of an active shooter situation to activate keep clicking the button until your badge vibrates for a prolonged period all
059computer screens in the school will display a lockdown alert with important instructions you will know that lockdown is initiated because the strobes in each classroom and throughout the school start flashing and a pre-recorded lockdown announcement is played over the intercom this is a lockdown alert immediately lock your doors turn off the lights stay out of sight now you can focus on your students and proceed with your school's lockdown procedures and be confident knowing help is on the way the crisis alert platform also sent your alerts to a centralized desktop interface in the district head office where all schools are monitored using the same desktop interface or a smartphone the district office can initiate emergency protocols remotely appropriate to the situation your new crisis alert badge by centegics is key to keeping your school safe it
060is important to wear it and keep it accessible at all times if you lose or misplace your badge please let your administrator know immediately remember there are two types of alerts the staff alert for when urgent help is needed is three clicks to trigger a campus-wide emergency just continue clicking until the school is in lockdown ensuring the safety of students is one of the most important parts of your job the crisis alert platform and crisis alert badge by syntegix give you the peace of mind to know that with the simple click of a button help is on its way so in every mass school shooting in the country we've we've learned through research that there have been communication failures okay and just to kind of clarify that the i'm not talking about the uh sending
061out messages to parents about reunification or sending out information about what has occurred i'm talking about at the moment just before and at the moment of the crisis itself the ability to communicate to the right people in the building because these these things happen so quickly and oftentimes there's communication failures and i understand in uvalde from the preliminary report that was put out by the house the texas house that they had a system that was to that they activated to notify teachers in the building to lock down but it was it was wi-fi based and there were teachers who didn't have their phones with them and they were teachers who didn't have their wi-fi turned on and so the the communication was kind of hit-and-miss which is pretty concerning so um i thought before i
062just and this is a really short discussion this part so i just want wondered if brian might just explain that or brent we've got brent from syntegics here who came all the way from the smoky mountains to be with us this is awesome but will you kind of one of you guys talk about why this is so reliable versus that so real quick um this product we love of course we love to tell we have 99.9 uptime with our own blue valley infrastructure but so much happens on our own wireless on a day-to-day basis in regard to instruction this particular product runs on its own independent bluetooth mesh network so it does not rely on our wi-fi or access points inside our classrooms or our overall infrastructure in the building so running independently we're able
063to keep that separate easy to troubleshoot issues easy to identify it's easy for strategics to be able to monitor all the beacons badges the gateways everything involved in the classroom without worrying about being integrated into our network so having that reliability of a separate mesh bluetooth network and the way that operates is a is very good situation for us to have especially when you're dealing with a life safety or safety and security type of a product this um this slide was was basically put here to to say that we did do our due diligence and researching and talking to districts particularly in the southeastern part of the united states because that's where that's kind of where strategics this this product is growing from but i talked to officials with districts that were two three four
064years into the program and these are some of the things i i learned that they were thrilled with the response times to minor emergencies and major emergencies but they were thrilled imagine you're a teacher a student collapses in your room you push that button three times and we know that who the teacher is and is precisely where they are in the building and help starts coming your way and then you can use some of our other layered security measures to clarify what's happening you can pick up the portable radio and call the office and say i just want to let you know i have a student that's passed out or something to help clarify and and kind of focus the need that you have in that particular area so the support from the company for
065those districts all across the board said had been outstanding and immediate when when they're called upon the training is very succinct you just watched it for all staff members every employee in the district would have one of these uh badges um so that was just to let you know that we we didn't rely just on these great people but we we went and checked up on him yes just want to go now oh there we go where you've got one person that presses the button what happens when eight others press it i mean is that registered somewhere um this would be a great brent question yeah and and what would be the expected response at that point or say it's 12 right so yeah so actually what it's going to do is it's going to
066show all of those people in that sector that are pressing the button so it'll tell you even more so that you've got a major type of emergency or incident that you need to deal with there and it's going to track them for for one minute so it's going to show if if that's moving and they're moving with that incident it's going to show them moving throughout the building and if it were if something were to i mean you could have three different kinds of things happening in in i mean we've got at least what 50 buildings of some nature or the other where we have staff or kids in it so in those buildings you could have several different things going on at the same time right and is there a way to identify you
067know is it a water main break or a fire or you know just something in it you know a fight with with a couple kids or is there actually you know a shooter or something that might be going on at the same time yeah so the difference it from the staff alert standpoint is it's going to notify whoever that you wanted to notify in that building be it a principal assistant principal sro school nurse versus when you put it in lockdown you're going to have the lights are going the strobes are going to go off it's going to take over the intercom system as well as notify the police department if you want to the exact location so that's what's going to differentiate those two and and that's part of the training process that will
068go in to help you develop as far as saying okay when do you want teachers to use this under what circumstances be it a staff alert or for a major incident like a lockdown and so it's programmable in a variety of situations yes sir and actually you have the ability to uh put schools on lockdown or lock out weather alerts remotely as well so dan or your superintendent or whoever you can be off-site and through a phone app you can actually put that school down in a different whatever type of category it might be the strobe lights are colored so in the event of a lockdown it would be red versus maybe you want it to be flashing green if it was a weather alert so you have different types of ways that you can
069program it or set it up so that kind of leads into this slide which is that sure we would develop those district and building protocols so the timeline is is that we're bringing this to you tonight and we're bringing it to you tonight asking you to take possible action on this so that we can begin all of the installation and the development of those district and and building protocols and we would do that throughout the course of the rest of the semester our goal would be to implement this in january when we come back from our winter holiday we would train all staff immediately and look to implement it if we approve this tonight we would begin installation after school hours so not while students are in session or school is in session to get
070all of that equipment installed in our buildings but much of that protocol we would work with strategics as a district to develop and we would start really kind of small and tight and we really right now the goal is for lockdown you know we we want everybody in the building if we have to lock down for example the situation we had at blue valley northwest i know it was after school but even then you know david sharpe or whoever in the main office could have taken their badge hit it multiple times the entire building could have been locked down we would have been notified dan could have then said you need to lock down cottonwood point because it's right across the street or right across the parking lot we could immediately do that and then
071start working on what the actual issue is but once a teacher sees that they know i need to get behind closed doors i need to protect myself and my students um so it just just so everyone knows who's listening to we talked about this a lot earlier today at boardworkshop and so we did grill um all the individuals up here kind of about how the system worked how how they you know plan to maybe um incorporate the substitutes and and all of that so you know we covered a lot of questions i just want to say i appreciate dan's layered approach to safety and security because you know that that i think is going to be the best option out there so all these different things we have the the thumb turn locks this um
072different procedures showing your id when you get you know when you want to enter a building all of this stuff helps so i really appreciate that um i did one image and one thing so can you read it reiterate again where the funding comes from jeremy i know it's bond but i if do you want to get pretty specific let's get brain let's bring jeremy up let's bring jeremy whether we get specific or not i'll keep the short of planned expenditures from the 2020 bond safety and security allocation of funding so it would be bond funded paid up front for the full five five-year period thanks jeremy um i have a question too so i know that we often do drills for our kiddos um i assume we're gonna do drills with this as well
073so the kids are familiar with what happens if we have an accidental lockdown how do we reverse out of that um and now i i know from checking with some of these other districts and i think brent would agree that that has happened first of all the staff alert has accidentally been set off um the three button push and it's kind of interesting because when you actually hold the the card in your hand and you push the button it's kind of deliberate it's a deliberate push so it's kind of interesting that it happens but it does happen i think it happens um fairly infrequently especially with the the uh lockdown lights out that it requires eight pushes of the button minimum and and then beyond that it will actually set it off when i did
074a little bit of research on it uh there was a district that told me that someone had a fight going on and got so nervous that she started pushing the button and she put the whole building in a lockdown in which case their lockdown drill was done for that month you know for that semester or whatever however many times they do it but of course immediately after they discover that it really isn't that kind of a of a situation then then you just back right off of it maybe you turn it into a lock and teach situation and the principal explains to the school what transpired but thank goodness we got to do a drill is that about what's happened with most places yeah and and the other thing uh brian asked me to cover
075this and i forgot this morning is that we can we can make our own uh recording for that announcement the announcement doesn't have to sound like you are in a lockdown everybody be scared uh it can be a familiar voice it could be something that's you know a little friendlier but with enough urgency in it to make sure that it happens quickly um there is one other thing i'd like to say do you have another question because i have something i want to tell you go ahead let me let me say before i forget i know i'm gonna walk out here and forget this and i kick myself i mentioned it this morning so at the the parkland um the parkland shooting uh in 2018 there was a young man named chris mckenna and he
076was a student and he was on the first floor of that building 12 that was attacked by that shooter he asked to go to the restroom that particular day and he went out and got into the hallway and realized the restroom doors were locked and when i read about that i heard they were locking them because of vaping going on in the bathrooms so he goes down the hall and steps into the stairwell and the shooter is in the stairwell loading the rifle and the shooter says to him you better get out of here it's going to get messy and he ran out the door and he found a coach on a on a golf cart now the coaches in the at parkland you might remember were called security monitors they were unarmed security monitors
077okay just imagine if at that moment that coach had been able to reach down to that badge and push that button eight times and just keep pushing it until he hears the whole place going into a lockdown imagine i think there's little doubt that lives would have been saved that day if he'd been able to do that because that was one of the biggest problems there was that no one knew what was going on and and these buildings were not going into a lockdown and especially building 12 of course so i just wanted to tell you that before before we went on because i didn't want to forget it i think it's really um i don't know it's really eye-opening to think about it that way anyway other questions um and i apologize i was
078gone this morning so i didn't get to hear you guys getting grilled um my other question was you know this is i'm in favor of this already just because i realized the um safety and security it gives everybody who's concerned and i guess my question is to uh data wise are you guys able to utilize data from this to further predict things or are we not in that area yet or just curious yes so the uh the data it'll capture are is it's it's all the data that's live that what that happens we don't have any kind of predictive models that we leave that up to the school districts but it's going to give you detailed data as far as what types of events that they were if they were medical what whatever as far
079as staff alerts and then obviously with lockdown alerts they could be for various reasons but yes the data is there for you there's a lot of data there's several data tools within the solution to help you analyze those those types of reports but as far as predictive data we leave that up to the districts okay um there uh one thing that that i was wondering are two two uh small pieces so the the strobe light is something that synthetics that installs in every single room in the in the entire district yes and and they're wireless thank goodness because they're going everywhere right and and that's that's a particularly particularly gratifying to me because i know that high schools especially get very noisy and if you remember back your high school days being in the cafeteria
080and on the noise level and then you think you heard an announcement coming over the pa but you got bits and pieces of it this solves that problem because that that light going off tells you exactly what you need to know so i really like that about it okay and then the the mesh network is developed and installed by strategics as well yes including like um the basement where people go to hide and you're just out of the way places yes every room so and there's no i mean i'm you guys been around for a little while so you've in the testing phase you walk to every nook and cranny of the building right okay okay so to clarify that jim it's it's every corner of the campus correct not just it's the outside as
081well the playground the fields the school grounds right so it's every room and right yeah parking lots playground football field anything else thank you okay thank you so we are asking for you to consider this as a action item this evening so i have a proposed motion if anybody'd like to make it i move that the board of education approved the centrics program as presented second motion by jody second sorry by katie any discussion so i'm i just will state some reasons why i support this um the overarching cost to try to break it down because 2 million or 1.8 million dollars sounds like a lot of money and there's a lot of money but um so a couple things about strategics that we learned from researching it is the company's been around for a
082number of years they've deployed deployed these systems and a lot of school districts including olathe but you're also in other industries right so hospitals and other any kind of big campuses etcetera that have these kind of security concerns yeah the cost includes the hardware which would be these strobes and the badges and the software associated with managing or monitoring it and then support for the duration of the five-year contract is there any other kind of big bells and whistles that i'm forgetting that are part of that the batteries for badges batteries for badges exclusive okay so that amounts to about 7 800 per year per per building so that to me seems like a reasonable cost per building per year yeah and to me that seems like a reasonable cost related to managing a lot
083of big buildings um and then i think there's also it's favorably the accounting treatment of it is is favorable it's it's deemed to be a 100 a capital expenditure as opposed to an operating expense which is gives us some flexibility but from a budget perspective um and i had one other point but i can't remember what it was but anyway there i think there are a number of reasons that that uh that make a lot of sense i think it's prudent oh the other final point was is that the there there are some additional costs that we otherwise will necessarily incur with other aspects of our communication systems and pa systems etc if we didn't have something of this nature so um that would that we that would make you know we would have to
084spend it we would spend over a long longer period of time so i think for for all those reasons that it's um a smart prudent expenditure um finally we talked about it this morning but the the um the payment would be split in two one at the initiation of the contract and two upon successful implementation of the of the system and you know at the end of the christmas break it sounds like so so for those reasons i support it any other comments all in favor raise your right hand all opposed same sign motion passes 6-0 next item on the agenda is appointed board member delegate and alternate to the kansas association school board's delegate assembly to have a motion i move that the board of education appoints jody deeds as board member delegate and
085jan kessinger as board member delegate alternate to the kansas association of school board's delegate assembly is there a second second motion by genus second by jim any discussion scene on all in favor raise your right hand all opposed same sign motion passes six zero okay so now we move on to appointment of uh patrons to board advisory committees do i have a motion all right student activities is first and with tom gone i'll take care of that one i move that the board of education appoint the following patrons to a new two-year term on the student activities board advisory committee wes ingram of the northeast area benjamin steitz of the northeast area and kimberly grass dieter gross detour thank you of the northwest area there a second second motion by gina second by jan we'll
086get to jan tonight any discussion i'm seeing no discussion all in favor raise your right hand all opposed same sign motion passes six zero do i have another motion for wellness health and wellness i move that the board of education appoint the following patrons to a new two-year term on the health and wellness board advisory committee joanna bramlett at large and jennifer van gundy of the northwest area drop a second second motion by katy second by jody any discussion seeing no discussion all in favor raise your right hand all opposed same sign motion passes 6-0 do i have a motion for curriculum instruction i move that the board of education appoint the following patrons to a new two-year term on the curriculum and instruction board advisory committee kyle golidge of the northeast area abby shaw
087of the northeast area heather king of the northeast area jacqueline stanley of the northwest area kristen marciniak of the northwest area shelly roletter of the south area todd mccarthy of the south area jessica tevelli of the northeast area and daniel dooley of the northwest area motion by katie second by jody any discussion see no discussion all in favor raise your right hand all opposed same sign motion passes 6-0 do i have a facilities or facility planning can we um we have a reappointment appointment i'm going to move that the board of education reappoint the following patron to a second two-year term of the curriculum instruction board advisory committee long of the northwest area and i apologize i apologize that i that i did not pronounce that correctly is there a second motion by jody seconded
088by katie any discussion scene none of the discussion all in favor raise your right hand all opposed same sign motion passes six zero now let's go on to facilities planning motion i move that the board of education appoint the following patrons to a new two-year term on the facility planning board advisory committee kevin nunnerly in the south area and carrie williams from the northwest area do you have a second second a motion by jans second by jim any discussion seeing none in the uh everybody raise your right hand in favor all opposed same sign motion passes six zero let's go on to number five diversity equity and inclusion committee to have a motion i move that the board of education appoint the following patron to new two-year term on the diversity equity inclusion board advisory
089committee richard nobles of the northeast area have a second uh motion by jody second by gina any discussion see none um all in favor raise your right hand all post same sign motion passes six zero do i have a communications motion i move that the board of education appoint the following patron to a new two-year term on the communications board advisory committee cindy ratcliffe of the northwest area second second uh motion by gina second by katie any discussion seeing none all in favor raise your right hand all opposed same sign motion passes six zero okay so now we have a next agenda item is an amend the commencement date for the north east district commissioner blue valley recreation commissioner of the northeast district so this is on the agenda tonight the purpose of the amendment
090is so that the new commissioner would not be required to vote on the budget in august as they're not familiar with it so bvrc changed their start dates for their commissioners and we didn't get that communicated effectively okay so do i have a motion i move that the move make sure i get the right one i move to amend the term dates of blue valley wreck commissioner mike lewis of the northeast district to commence on september 1 2022 instead of august 8th 2022 and expire on august 31 2026 instead of august 7th 2026. is there a second second motion by jim second by jody any discussion see none all in favor raise your right hand all opposed same sign motion passes 6-0 we have an appointment of a blue valley recreation commissioner do i have
091a motion i move that the board of education appoint thomas mcbride of the northwest district as the northwest commissioner for the blue valley recreation commission for a term of four years beginning september 21st 2022 and expiring september 20th 2026. a second motion by katy second by jim any discussion c9 all in favor raise your right hand all the opposed same sign motion passes six zero um do i have a motion to adjourn motion by jan is there a second second second by jody any discussion or objection all in favor was your right hand follow both same sign motion passes six zero jim was gonna have to discuss not everything