001the allegiance for young artists and writers identifies teenagers across the country with exceptional artistic and literal literary talent and brings their remarkable work to a national audience through the scholastic art and writing awards ellie's piece named reflection contemplation was awarded a national silver medal while liam's peace drum major was awarded a national gold medal let's give these students um an in addition to the one who couldn't be here a round of applause for their outstanding achievement [Applause] congratulations all right now this one um is it's pretty outstanding um you know academic excellence has been a cornerstone of blue valley's foundation for more than 50 years and is characterized by students achieving at unprecedented levels in december we celebrated 20 juniors throughout the district who scored a perfect 36 on the a.c.t yeah pretty amazing today
002we celebrate and add eight more to that list who tested in december february or march if you're here tonight as we know a lot of them are very busy and had activities but if you're here tonight would you please come forward any of our perfect acts and tanya if you wouldn't mind handing them the mic i'd like for them to introduce themselves i wasn't sure who was going to be able to make it we'd like to know who you are i'm gianna and what school do you go to blue valley high i'm rebecca and i'm from blue valley west congratulations that is absolutely amazing we're going to take a picture first and we have another student who has also earned a perfect a.c.t and i would like for her to come forward tell us your
003name and where you're from hi um i'm lisa i go to west we're going to take a picture and we are so proud of you an absolutely amazing outstanding achievement that very few students achieve so our next recognition um aiden shaw would you please come forward participation in high school activities and athletics is a valuable part of the overall high school experience tonight it is an honor to recognize one student athlete in the district who performed at such a high level this past season he was awarded for it would aiden shaw let's please give him a round for a round of applause for his achievement which he's from blue valley high school and he was named the 22 darina award winner congratulations now a little bit more about that award it's presented to the most
004outstanding high school basketball player in the greater kansas city area and he becomes just the third blue valley student athlete in the ward's history to be presented this honor the last blue valley student athlete to win the award was christian braun in 2019 and now college basketball national champion so congratulations aiden on this absolutely amazing accomplishment i know your family is here with you tonight would you please stand and be recognized because we know it takes a lot of support from the home all right thank you very much and congratulations on your achievement all right so we have two more recognitions we want to do this evening it's also an honor to recognize two staff members with a distinguished service and excellence in education awards these people go above and beyond each day in our
005schools and across the district would kyle renge please come forward kyle is the system analyst for information technology services and mike gott is his supervisor so we're excited to recognize kyle with a distinguished service award kyle has been with the district for five years and he's a familiar face at these board meetings because he's always making sure um that the technical part of running a board meeting goes smoothly so all the streaming that you see happens so that you can watch it from home but also the things that go on here from the mics so absolutely incredible but i know that's not the only reason he's up here today mike what else would you like to say about kyle when kyle joined the team he already possessed an extensive knowledge and a very strong skill
006set he's done nothing but enhanced both of those since he's been here um he's made a number of uh extraordinary contributions to the team and to blue valley in general uh he was instrumental in the upgrades that you've seen in the boardroom over the last couple of years and it's a pleasure to see him recognized for his contributions and i'm incredibly pleased and proud to have him as part of our team and kyle is there anything you want to say no well i you know i couldn't let you be up here without saying something because you have personally helped me when i'm in a jam i know the board members you have helped them with their technology and the thing that really strikes me about you is you always say yes you never say i'm
007too busy i can't help you uh you always say yes and you're willing to help you are the the tech person on our campus here at do and and i know my colleagues over here would join me in saying uh thank you for um all that you do to to support us and make sure that we can do our work [Applause] i know you might have family here do you have family here my mom and my aunt are here oh please stand we're so proud of him thank you and congratulations now back to work [Laughter] all right now it's time for our excellence in education award taylor mcbee please come forward with your principal melissa hanson [Applause] we are excited to recognize taylor mcmee special education teacher at overland trail elementary with the excellence in
008education award this school year is her second in the district so melissa tell us why taylor is so special well we think taylor is very special she is finishing her first year as a special education teacher at irvine trail elementary she shows up to work each day with a smile on her face and ready to tackle whatever the day might bring she is optimistic she is resilient and she is eager to make sure that each student has their best day because she invests in developing trusted relationships with her students the results in her classroom are just amazing and taylor we are so proud of your ambition and the commitment you make to the students and staff at ote thank you for all you do thank you and taylor you have some family here right yes
009i do oh okay that way um i have my mom my dad my boyfriend and i have some school family here too so oh well we want to thank your school family and your family uh for sharing you with us and um it you know you work with some of our students who who need the most help and um we can't thank you enough for all that you're doing to support them and make sure that they have awesome school experiences all right congratulations did you get a picture okay we're good thank you all right and that brings us to a close blue valley is known for having the very best educators and staff around and it was an honor to highlight a few of our best i just want to make sure did anybody come
010later that maybe wasn't here before that got missed and wasn't recognized because i know we had a few okay i just wanted to make sure we had the opportunity to recognize them if they showed up late thank you um i'm not sure oh yeah we have students that visit as part of a class so that's pr are you rockhurst kids get a wave i think so so they'll be in after recognitions and we usually have to sign off to make sure they stayed for the whole meeting [Laughter] but anyway if you were not here for the regular board of education meeting now would be a good time for you to leave you're welcome to find a better seat if you're here and want to stay for the whole thing that's great too but now is
011the break and then we'll begin the regular board of education meeting here in just a minute okay oh okay we're going to start the open forum welcome to those who are in attendance to address the board and listen during open forum provides a time for individuals to address the board in an effort to ensure an orderly efficient effective and dignified meeting open forum will be provided for up to 60 minutes in an effort to give as many individuals an opportunity to speak as possible during the 60-minute open forum the board will enforce the three-minute per speaker after 60 minutes the board will close open form and proceed with its agenda items for the evening whether you plan to speak or just listen we are glad you're here because we care about the opinions and concerns
012of our patrons if you do not have an opportunity to address the board during the meeting you may address the board by email communication i have a few reminders about open forum that will help our speakers to have a constructive and positive experience when discussing items with the board when making remarks please be civil and use respectful language please limit the discussion to the relevant business of the board tonight discussion of matters related to a specific student or employee are not allowed instead comments should be submitted and writing to the superintendent please remember to limit your comments to three minutes and avoid repeating concerns of a previous speaker if you have any questions that require response someone will follow up with you at a later time on behalf of the board i welcome you and
013appreciate your interest in blue valley as we strive to provide the very best education possible to our students when your name is called introduce yourself before beginning your remarks as a reminder i ask that all marks are limited to three minutes and please no interruptions and let's get started edwin junior okay melissa well good evening my name is melissa jenner um and i'm a mom of three soon to be four uh here in the blue valley school district our preschooler just got screened in and he's gonna be pier next year so we're very excited about that um i'm here just as a mom today um i've spoken here before um as a physician um and so i always have to say that these are my own thoughts um and not the thoughts of any organization
014but i'm just here as a mom and a patron of blue valley today i've not attended a meeting in a few months um but as i watched the last school board meeting i was really struck by how angry a small group of parents were about a few books so i was already quite familiar with the books in question um and i started to think why are some people so afraid of our children being exposed to diversity and thought i personally want my kids to ask questions and to read from a variety of authors even authors whom i don't agree with personally because diversity and thought leads our children to ask questions asking questions leads to robust and engaging conversations and opportunities for learning and in learning our children have the opportunity to become the person
015they were truly meant to be not the person i wanted them to be not the person that someone um not the child that is someone who does something because of what we demand of them but children who are fostering learning and discussion for the next generation that's why i'm here today and i'm thankful for the five board members uh who also value diversity and thought families and cultures when we listen to others even those we don't disagree with we have the opportunity to learn and grow so thank you to the five of you for letting our children have that opportunity too thank you [Applause] thank you melissa corinne kessler lisa mcmahon i'm here to speak about the hypocrisy five board members stripped the vp of his title and are trying to get him recalled because
016he personally doesn't conform to their views let's elaborate on the board's views from when i've witnessed thus far you're grooming you're pushing child pornography in the schools the same five voted to keep genderqueer and fun home in our libraries in violation of policy 4600. no wonder we have students publishing articles and school newspapers on hooking up you promote hatred in the schools by choosing books like the hate u give which is anti-white anti-cop and poet x which is anti-religion to be discussed in english now you want the children to reject their own bodies you have a diversity council but allow no diversity of thought here's an excerpt from a speech that a student gave at a high school diversity assembly to the whole student body at the very least is a violation of board policy
0174535.2 i want to fight for my people no not for this country i pledge no alleged allegiance to a flag that's blue that symbols tears red that's dripping with blood for whites like the white robes of the 1860s white knights of the 1970s and white knight nazis of the 2020s ain't it funny how the same colors that are supposed to represent freedom are the ones flashed in your rear view mirror like a warning about what is to be taken away i want to fight for my people which means i will never leave this country to go kill other brown people for a country that abuses black people every day he ended his speech with his fist in the air declaring he wants to be a revolutionary bravo well done you've turned out the hate you
018give personified i know his viewpoints are aimed at conservatives from the names we've been called here it's obvious that this young man hasn't been taught the truth so i would like to rebut the white robes of the 1860s the republican party led by abe lincoln was founded to stop slavery no republicans were ever owned a slave despite opposition from the other party republicans championed the 14th 15th 19th amendments as well as the civil rights act of 1964 in the national voting rights act of 1965 calling for the equal treatment of black people including the right to vote there was 39 republicans not eight democrats the white knights of the 1970s the kkk was the militant arm of the democratic party much like blm and antifa today the white nazis of the 2020s and nazis is
019the person that wants totalitarianism and demands conformance you know the people that deny free speech and push for mandates conservatives are the exact opposite it calls for limited government putting the power in the hands of the people what i would like to say to him i know you believe you're being a revolutionary i get that it's only because they've deceived you you aren't going against the grain you are the grain look up free thinkers like candace oh and she'll tell you all about it and look into the origins of margaret singer and planned parenthood be um a revolutionary for the most oppressed the unborn for the left says they don't even exist even though we have clear images they do and they call us the science deniers thank you lisa next speaker is jeffrey nessl
020jeff nessl and my son will graduate about one week hopefully just when i thought i was out they pulled me back in i've used that al pacino line from godfather 3 on numerous occasions to why i'm again dressing this board and then i wondered who are they who am i referring to well they include a member of this board who tried to use his fellow board members as a shield for his homophobic and transphobic hateful remarks but thankfully five of you didn't provide him cover and in fact stripped him of a title and when he asked to defend he was asked to defend the indefensible he had the gall to play the victim card and use a passage from the crucible for his reasoning the crucible a play that is an allegory about mccarthyism in
021the 1950s in which lies were destroyed by unfounded and baseless accusations a thought lost on other members of my they the peanut gallery that showed up on thursday cheering the misuse of arthur miller's work and showing their complete lack of understanding both of the play and of irony as they shouted vile and disgusting untruths at members of this board with no basis whatsoever in fact why i don't know what i do know is i did something i have never done in a public meeting which is tell someone will you please just shut up as they continue to shout vulgar epitaphs i remember trying to speak not proud of that but i wonder what joey had to say but the today i really want to talk about are these students especially those with special needs who
022perhaps won't get the same opportunities my son did opportunities which in the last few months have led to him getting almost a 4.0 gpa being elected by his peers to prom king and absolutely killing it on stage at the last ability showcase i think some of you can verify that um this is the same child i used to pick up from elementary school who stood alone barely spoke and had no friends how did he flourish obviously it starts with him my wife and i will take some credit but he also had incredible teachers and administrators trained to work with children like my son now with the state legislature cutting funding for special needs a squid game for money is pitting parent against parent as districts and priorities are being redrawn and the kids are the
023losers this is happening for a variety of reasons but at least the board was always there to fight for the kids and be a voice of sanity but that's not the case anymore because you have been pulled into some ridiculous battles on the backs of 22 000 students that are in my opinion being used as a ladder for political gain and a personal agenda by those who don't give a crap about these kids but their only concern being how they can leverage their bigoted beliefs for higher office it has nothing to do with helping children it takes away from the board as they are forced to deal with the minutia of these quote unquote moral dilemmas it's not right and it needs to stop thank you jeff emily uretsky [Applause] there we go okay hi
024my name is emily uretsky and i'm here to talk about special ed i have two kids in the district my ninth grader has an iep for dyslexia my daughter's dyslexia and learning challenges have been long stressful and fraught with tears but i'm here tonight to tell you that her experience at blue valley north has been absolutely outstanding her success is the product of her outstanding teachers specifically her special education resource teacher i'd name her but i know we're not supposed to use names while i'm eternally grateful to a perpetually i'm sorry well eternally grateful i'm perpetually worried about our district's ability to attract and retain these quality teachers what happens when they continue to turn over and leave the district i worry about the huge caseload our special education teachers have to take on will
025that drive them away from the profession additionally i worry about the number of paraprofessionals who won't return next year currently they are stretched covering different classrooms and subjects during just one high school period this can't be good for students learning it's clear the legislature will not fully fund the state's special education needs and each district will be left to cover the shortfall i implore you to cover these costs and add even more teachers in paris to the special ed program not only will this keep teachers in paris in the district as their caseload lightens it will attract grad it will attract graduates from education school as they funnel into the pipeline of qualified teachers i also wanted to thank the five board members who took action last week at this special meeting i'll remind you
026that you can still publicly censor this board member i'm wearing a shirt today that says why be racist sexist homophobic or transphobic when you can simply be quiet it's sage advice and i'm so sorry for what the audience put you through last week thank you [Applause] thank you emily the next speaker is wendy conley hi my name is wendy connolly and i have two kids in the blue valley schools and one of them actually is here with me tonight he wanted to tag along i just wanted to say i was at that last meeting and i recognized what was going on in the audience the insults that were hurled at you guys the vile names the things that you were called i'm really sorry that that happened it's so unacceptable and i just want to
027thank the five members of the board who stood up for my kid and for so many other lgbtq kids in our community and said you belong here in blue valley and mostly i'm here tonight to fill a seat uh and to show some of the decorum and dignity that sadly was missing at the last meeting so that you all can get on with business tonight so i want to thank you amy i want to thank you gina i want to thank you patrick thank you jody and thank you tom and also dr merrigan thank you so much for making an effort this week to show up at the gsa clubs i know the kids really appreciated that so thank you all and all means all thank you wendy riley long is our next speaker hello
028my name is riley long and i'm a teacher at leewood middle school i'm a product of blue valley graduating from blue valley northwest in 2007. growing up in blue valley was a great experience but it was a bubble i had teachers who supported me in a great foundation to set me up for success later in life after high school i completed my bachelor's degree at ku and i'm currently working on my master's at pitt state when i was in high school i started noticing that i was different from my friends i never felt like i fit in and lacked confidence in myself i couldn't exactly identify what made me different but it made me feel at a loss and isolated later in life i came out as gay and now identify as transgender coming out
029as trans was the first time i ever felt like my life made sense luckily my family was supportive and i have been able to continuously succeed since coming out as trans i've met a lot of people who don't understand i've been bullied and called names for being who i am the lack of education and willingness to get to know trans people leads people to fear this fear should not dictate a school district we need clear policies created so that trans students and staff in this district are protected ignoring us and not including us in these policies is even worse than bullying for two years i have worked at leawood and been afraid of letting people know who i am i work with amazing people but i know that not everyone may understand me i desperately
030want to be my authentic self but the opinions of others and the lack of support from the district makes me worry about exposing my true identity being trans isn't something you learn from a curriculum or a book it's how you were born your gender ideology is a fake narrative used to justify discrimination keep telling yourself you're helping kids when all you're doing is hurting them in 2020 the trevor project reported that percent of transgender non-binary youth considered suicide who can blame them when political activists are writing policies against them and we aren't even allowed to say the word gay in schools is is it going to take a student committing suicide for this district to change for those of you who don't understand i challenge you to get to know a trans person grab a
031cup of coffee speak with a parent of a transgender student open your heart and protect these students we'll be trans with or without your support be the one to make change and support all students in blue valley and leave the bullies and hate behind thank you riley sahar parmar is the next sorry about that how do you pronounce it please uh hello i'm sahej parmar i'm a student at blue valley north high school in overland park kansas uh over these past months i've become increasingly concerned with the board's departure from issues that affect the material conditions of kansans and to in cultural world politics this brings me to the conservative campaign against critical race theory as a high school student who's taken ap classes on european and american history i can with full confidence say
032that high level legal theory is not part of the course curriculum the word has been so overused it's become a dog whistle for any institution or instruction on race in the classroom critical race theory is not a blanket term to be used with instruction on america's sordid history of racism and discrimination crt is a cross-disciplinary intellectual and social movement of civil rights scholars and activists who seek to examine the intersection of race society and law in the united states you most certainly would not receive instructions on crt if you were a high school student additionally the past few years have been extremely difficult for our teachers who've had to juggle students online or in person to receiving harassment from their own community one of my favorite teachers actually left this year due to harassment she
033had faced however i can proudly say that our teachers have been at the forefront of the pandemic and have worked tirelessly to ensure that we receive the best possible education despite all the challenges me being here delivering this speech is all the proof you should need so i must say it's extremely disappointing to see that our board is being so callous with policy that would directly affect their lives we should be focused on attracting and retaining teachers and unfortunately the mo seems to be the exact opposite spreading vitriol and hatred not only to those who have worked during the hardest during the pandemic but to minority groups as well this brings me to my last point which is the sudden surge of legislation not just in this board but around the country targeting lgbtq plus
034youth from the don't say gay bill to the kansas senate recently passing a ban to transgender women from competing it's disgusting and morally reprehensible that lgbtq plus rights are under attack once again in our state and in our board continuously introducing anti-lgbtq bills and pushing homophobic rhetoric will lead to bullying in schools and declining in the well-being of lgbtq youth lgbt youth and especially trans youth have a high suicide rate because of the legislation and rhetoric pushed by this board this authorization of our queer youth is abhorrent and will only lead to more of them committing suicide and it's on us as allies to protect them but more importantly it's on the people in power the people in the senate and also the people on this board to protect lgbtq youth thank you thank you
035sage sloan heller from taylor hello my name is ephrain taylor and it is not often that i come up here to thank the board but um after the last board meeting i would like to thank the five of you um for taking a stand against transphobia and racism recently we've seen a lot of people complain about censorship yet try to ban books mainly from black or people of color or lgbtq people um regardless of whether you guys try to ban these books your children are still going to be gay they're still going to be trans and that's okay you say that trans ideology is harmful and i could tell you all of the medical and psychological institutions that say that that's completely false but you don't care because it's not really about being right to
036you you really just want to be a bigot at the last board meeting we won and we will continue to win these fights and off the cuff i'm glad that some people really liked my speech this new generation is revolutionary everything that you fear will happen we will be proud to be black we will be proud to be gay we will be proud to be trans we will continue to fight for our right to choose at our schools where we lead walkouts on the streets there will be protests we are revolutionary and our school our state our country our world will change whether you like it or not thank you from griffin connolly hello my name is griffin connolly and i am a student at blue valley schools i just want to say thank you
037for choosing students over bigots thank you griffin rupaul gupata bill mcmahon has prepared a statement but he's unable to be here for health reasons so someone's read someone else's statement earlier didn't they the first speaker you can email it to us okay but we can allow the disabled to speak i didn't believe i mean the point is is was he signing up to speak or was he he was but he had a health issue this weekend and was in the hospital so he gave me his statement just let her read it in the past there's people with covet who aren't here who are on your list for at home as long as as long as it's a statement it should be hard and she can read it it's a statement so you need to be
038signed up and you need to be here or otherwise you can email it to us okay if that's your decision i'll have him email it thank you i appreciate that sheila alberts jenny cox justin weaver this may be a mistake irina weaver it was a mistake i would like to comment on some statements made last during the last meeting first one was how divided our community is and the second was that this board promised to eliminate distractions and focus on education so first this community was divided by race in may 2020 parents received an email from blue valley south district expressed its support for blm without waiting for more facts to emerge then we were divided by public private schools school affiliations you started to push for eliminating tax credits and vouchers for private schools
039that's who is your competition later you divided our kids by mask no mask wearing the school board mandated mask for younger students which was a total violation of their constitutional rates recently you voted for keeping sexually explicit books at our school libraries libraries new division edit dan cohen from channel 41 and sarah reader from the kansas city star have divided us our community even further with this one-sided hit pieces from april 20th and 21st suggestion that if people disagree with you that means they hate you reader wrote macmillan's statements directly target and isolate valued members of our community her opinion divided us cohen suggested that we have a hateful climate in blue valley such outrageous thought divided us another quote from the article by sarah written ritter at the blue valley school board meeting a
040longtime teacher said that schools are facing a crisis it's not how race is taught in schools or what library books are on the shelves it is ongoing teacher shortage well i would add reader forgot to mention that teacher also said it's not even about covet however i would like to add some facts to reflect on here's the news newspapers headlined lockdowns lockdown drove 60 000 children in the uk to clinical depression german network investigation findings the prevalence in a quote the prevalence of depression and anxiety symptoms during covet 19 have doubled compared with prepending estimates and moderator analysis revealed that prevalence rates were higher when collected later in the pandemic in older adolescents and in girls i hope that some of the current board members remember how many parents ask you to let student back
041to school in 2020 including the parents who lost their child to suicide however you did not budge yet recently you acted swiftly to the petition for removal of jim mcmullan so you stripped him of the vp title that is why we don't trust you and that is that one of the reasons why we are divided president of the american federation thank you um lisa if you would like your husband's uh statement read at the june meeting we can you can present it and we can have our reader read it if you'd like okay jenny cox my friend's daughter was a sophomore at blue valley west in 2018. one day my friend noticed cuts on her daughter's legs through the rips and her jeans later that night my friend and her husband asked their daughter to
042put on shorts after waiting 20 minutes for her daughter to come out of the bathroom my friend saw cuts all down her legs and all down her daughter's legs and arms my friend broke down although her daughter couldn't say exactly why she was cutting she confessed it had been going on for a while her daughter desperately wanted and was willing to get help she enrolled in an intensive outpatient treatment center during this time at school they were and still are weaving social emotional learning state standards in school subjects scl in summary is an educational method that claims to foster social and emotional skills within social curricula however some staff use this to relentlessly focus on feelings your feelings depend on you but not what happens to you not on you but on what happens to
043you and what and what is happening out in the world this locus of external control became so strong for my friend's daughter to handle if that is how feelings work then what can i do to change my life what is the point her daughter began turning away from church where she was raised she began questioning everything and my friend knows that teens in high school are often self-discovering normal behavior however during this time one of the things her daughter was questioning was her sexual attraction my friend's daughter became dependent on her best friend another girl this girl was also having mental health issues her friendship became more and they started dating my friend knew this was not who her daughter really was school counselors wanted to affirm her daughter my friend knew the focus needed
044to be on anxiety and depression issues she knew that these two girls were experiencing codependency they also were not mentally well enough to be in a relationship the daughter gave my friend a lot of pushback had a lot of resentment toward her but my friend persisted she loved her daughter so much and that didn't change when her daughter had this relationship about six months after about six months her daughter and her friend had a falling out my friend's daughter healed from depression started dating boys and still does she no longer identifies as gay and most importantly she does not blame her mom for affirming or fostering the time in her life when she had a relationship with a girl more and more schools are affirming the children's feeling is fact soon as soon as a
045teenager has a feeling must validate and affirm them if you feel this way you must be this way there's no room for cognitive growth of the brain what they think about big what they think about big ideas here in the world can greatly change from month to month vacillating between mature and immature thought often teens having these feelings are going through anxiety depression and other mental illnesses other mental health issues these need to be addressed first my friend wanted her story to be shared so that parents going through the situation can have hope for their children we don't need our schools affirming fostering encouraging and in some cases manipulating these ideas parents can find alternative ways thank you thank you jenny julie cat hi my name is julie cott i'm becoming increasingly concerned with the
046rapid spread of hate in our school system it seems that differences among people are being used as the reason for hate however a person who disagrees with someone or the way they choose to live does not mean they hate them there are several there are civil ways to disagree and still respect why can't we all just agree that we do not agree on all topics but we can be kind to each other anyway what makes this country so great is that we are also different with different ancestry we all have immigrants in our families that brought them here with different cultures and beliefs we are still considered the melting pot and i know personally many people have risked their lives to flee to america i have friends and acquaintances from many countries with many different
047beliefs and upbringings very diverse in every way i appreciate them all the one thing they all say to me is that they left their countries because they did not have our particular freedoms we can't force other people to think exactly alike and i'm sure that isn't what anyone of us truly want but it seems like it's happening right in our schools i have two children in their 20s one of them active duty military and they both graduated from olathe schools when my children were in grade school in nebraska i was active in pta which is parent teachers association as well as the city-wide pta the one thing i remember most is that parents teachers and educators work together for the good of the kids even when disagreeing on personal viewpoints there is still respect and
048admiration for individuality no one was forcing their views on others or taking theirs away but somehow this seems to have changed there are students who are allowed to openly verbalize their hatred for this country when there are other countries that would enjoy our freedoms and not take them for granted these students also openly verbalize their hatred toward their own school and toward their own classmates not only is this hatred infectious but it has been proven to lead to other things such as depression suicide bullying and even sadly school shootings there is a claim to stop hate and bv but even on their petitions they speak words of extreme hatred we all need to come together to spread kindness here's a few of my favorite quotes for everyone kind words can be short and easy to
049speak but their echoes are truly endless that's by mother teresa words are truly the image of the soul and the dalai lama says be kind whenever possible it is always possible love is the only force capable of transforming an enemy to a friend that's by martin luther king jr as well as a few others darkness cannot drive out darkness only light can do that hate cannot drive out hate only love can do that we must learn to live together it says brothers or perish together as fools i have decided to stick to love hate is too great of a burden to bear thank you julie next speaker is jason anderson next speaker is brook lou are you guys ready okay hi my name is brooke liu i have three kids with interstate and i have
050spoke at several board meetings as a mom and a health care provider i want to thank the board veterans for letting me speak tonight first of all i would like to address the new math curriculum that has been presented i'm not sure what role scl has to do with math i have seen sample problems now this is from a school district in missouri lincoln county r-3 um where it says x equals y minus 1 y equals negative 4x plus 21. trying to support her son as a single mother she worked as a pimp prostitute and a parenthesis negative 3 or comma negative 2 bookie b parentheses 9 comma 10 drug dealer or c parentheses 4 comma 5 nightclub dancer now i'm not saying that blue valley will see any of these problems but i hope
051not because they're not appropriate um i believe um like i don't want you know i wouldn't want my parent or my children seeing these kind of math problems the second point over the past two years we have seen a lot of division in our school district that's been very apparent as of this evening it's you know became apparent over the masks the vaccines the curriculum keeping explicit pornography pornographic books on the shelves it's been apparent that two there are two completely different viewpoints amongst the parents the teachers the school board members and the administrators and in the end all we want is what is best for our children but we as parents have the rights to know what is going on in the schools whether it's the curriculum to social activities to sports and we
052must be able to bridge the division amongst the blue valley community so therefore my third point is is i think katie bowers will do just that she will provide by the blue valley rules and policies while bridging together the blue valley school board members the administrators and the blue valley community as a whole i nominate katie bowers to be the vice president of the blue valley board for the current term thank you for letting me speak thank you brooke that wraps up our open forum for tonight on behalf of the board of education i'd like to thank our participants we appreciate that each of you took the time to share your thoughts with us please know that the board and the district administration took the notes during the open forum and will follow up as
053needed with participants so we're going to take a five minute break for our closed captioner which is a very new thing to do okay um ladies and gentlemen i'd appreciate it if you would uh take your seats that's what i just said i just guessed that we thought they were students from rockers oh yeah i think we're going to resume our meeting um we've got some guests here from uh leadership overland park appreciate you coming tonight we're going to call the meeting to order we're going to receive reports from board advisory committees we will start with health and well-being with dr schmidt yeah i'm pretty sure they're not going to broadcast this the health and well-being board advisory committee met on april 6th during this meeting we brought in a health services group that talked
054about how the school nurses serve our students that are staff during this time we we talked about the varying roles that nurses have it's not just band-aids and it's not just covid we're also serving a lot of kids with significant health needs that would not be able to be at school if not for the presence of a school nurse in fact they they identified 870 students with severe health conditions that they serve in addition to 9 000 students with known health conditions and all the rest that just have things that come up during the day as you all know as parents following this discussion and also a question answer period for the panel we moved on to talking about ideas for improving the committee we talked about adding some more student voices to the group
055so we're going to have two representatives from each high school going forward and then we spent the rest of the time brainstorming what topics that the committee wanted to explore for next school year the meeting concluded at 5 35 and our next one is september 14th 2022 next year thank you very much curriculum and instruction from dr collier the curriculum and instruction board advisory committee met on april 13th jennifer lizinski greeted the committee and reviewed the agenda for the evening that evening christie rottinghaus our k-12 literacy coordinator and colleen zinc our district dyslexia coordinator shared a presentation on the new elementary resources for teaching using the structured literacy approach during their presentation christine colleen led the committee through examples of learning activities our students engage in for each of the four areas of structured literacy
056additionally that evening jennifer lizinski provided the committee an overview of the cycle of curriculum writing and revision in blue valley and the timeline for the process this past school year well it's almost a past school year a couple more days she explained that sharing the documents with the committee is part of the process for gathering feedback on the drafts prior to use a board of education approving those documents the feedback was due back from committee members by may 1st prior to presentation of that material to you this evening the next meeting is this week may 11th via zoo uh student activities uh kyle hayden the student activities committee met on april 14th for the final time the school year the purpose of this meeting included an update on mental health first aid for coaches and
057sponsors potential topics for next year and the recognition of their seniors matt ortman shared information he received from students involving the need for mental health support he further advised that funding was secured and training is scheduled for getting all coaches and sponsors in middle and high school trained high school middle school administrators provided activity and athletic updates along with the blue valley rec yes the finance and operations board advisory committee excuse me met on may 5th the meeting began with the general district update for myself patrick curley and amy teissling jeremy mcfadden director of finance and bond advisor dave varderberry reviewed the results of the sale of the series 22 2022 a competitive bonds dr mark schmidt assistant superintendent of special education and jeremy mcfadden presented on blue valley special education program and shared the
058budget expenditures dedicated to meeting the program requirements director of business operations jason gillum presented the bids and contracts the next finance and operations advisory committee meeting is scheduled for june 9th and that concludes our committee reports the next item on the agenda are receive reports from board members and superintendent uh amy i do not have anything today but thank you thank you amy gina i don't have anything either thank you okay thank you gina jim no i don't have anything okay thank you jim tom yeah blow through some good news real quick so we're about to graduate close to 2000 seniors eighteen hundred probably eighteen hundred to two thousand here in a couple weeks so excited about that um great time of the year um we had a record for national merit semifinals was it
05956 54 54 national merit semifinalist and then obviously i well beyond what i thought we had a total of 28 perfect acts that's going to be close to a blue valley record um saw the blue valley high one what finished third at state speech state champs and narration and poetry if you didn't get a chance to watch will jones run the 400 meter dash last friday night at shawnee mission north relay is the fastest time in kansas history second fastest time nationally this year at 46.2 it's spectacular to watch i saw that we have an 8th grade first time ever an all-district track meet so that includes all the eighth graders the boys and girls and i think it's a great thing because all them competing against each other and good luck to all our
060teams coming up in all the leagues and regionals and states and uh and those type of things and then also wrapped up a lot of school plays and musicals that i know a lot of board members were at as we traded notes you were at all of them i think jody so um that's all i got all good news thank you tom jody um yeah so um i do want to do a shout out to um the caps network um that you know we kind of we started here in blue valley and it's now spun off into some really great things um and giving um some really great options um across the country but but they just reached 80 new affiliates and tom and i are part of that um committee board and so that's
061really exciting for them and and they're just taking off there's so much opportunity there to to serve students and giving students options out there so it's really exciting to to see that growth i had the opportunity to go to topeka was that last week or the week before i can't even remember and network with other school boards and superintendents and administrators and just hear about great things going on throughout the state of kansas and um share what we're doing the great things that we're doing here so that's that's always been a lot of fun i was also able to network a little bit with uh with uh my legislator and i always enjoy my my my discussions with uh with him so um i want to give a shout out to the ability showcase went
062to was that last week mark is that right it was absolutely fantastic um the um the the amazing talents and and um skill set that our students have i i was i was absolutely blown away it was it was wonderful and i saw patrick there and i saw gina there so um that was really exciting and a huge shout out to um night of lights blue valley foundations big shindig um it was packed i volunteered at a table and it was absolutely packed with people and it's so nice to see community events in in southern johnson county uh we don't we don't necessarily see a lot of that so it was really exciting to uh to see it watch adults and and kiddos enjoying themselves and and just to be a part of that so
063i think that's all i have thank you jody katie yes hello um so i first off just wanted to thank um dr collier dr schmidt and kyle and actually that entire section of people over there um it has been a very very busy past couple months with hiring as well just all the work you do i don't think the general public realizes how hard you guys work and how many hours you guys are putting in so thank you because i know that our district runs better because of you guys so um i did attend the health and well-being meeting and i wanted to share something really cool that i don't think anybody knows that our nurses can do so they actually um can monitor a student's insulin from an ipad and if they detect that
064they need a dose of insulin they can walk up near them like and the student may not even know and they can walk up near them with the ipad and tell their little machine to give them insulin and the student can just go about their day continue learning there's no learning loss they're not having to run back and forth just to check levels all the time so i thought that was pretty amazing that we have that kind of technology and nurses that are you know well-versed in um diabetic care so and then lastly we just attended the retiree reception which was very neat as you know bittersweet because they're leaving but pretty sweet to get them all together and thank them and i just want to thank everyone who set that up that was uh
065very cool nice food classy music so good to see everybody that's it thank you katie dr um yeah so for my updates usually i just haven't written down a piece of paper and i quickly am trying to go through it so i'm going to do something a little bit more formal um so i have this little presentation and i promise i'll go quick and it will live in board doc so people can go back and and look at it but i'm going to share some really positive things that have happened oops maybe does not seem to be working so you can just advance it for me um go ahead first one is three blue valley seniors were named semifinalists for a u.s presidential scholar award this is a big deal they select two students from
066each state for that and so we had several students who were in the first round and now we have three who are semi-finalists and we'll find out in before graduation if they made that go ahead blue valley north student scarlett jones uh tonight is having her work performed at the coterie theater how cool is that um that that she is doing that next one um i don't know if you saw this on the news but this high school contemporary acapella group uh won a national or an international award and many of the students not all of them but many of them on there are blue valley students and so we want to congratulate them we think that was pretty cool pleasant ridge middle school is the regional science bowl champions you're going to see a
067theme here go ahead to the next one pleasant ridge middle school is also the science olympiad team that won the state championship um and their nationals will be held virtually in just a few days and so we're sending them good luck we saw aidan shaw today so he was here and he is the darina award winner blue valley high schools were named the top ten high schools in kansas all five of them made that list this is a newsweek list that goes out and they look at a number of different factors and honestly that's not just our high schools that should be celebrating that that is all of our schools because that doesn't just happen when they magically walk in in ninth grade that's our elementary or middle and our high schools um the next
068one uh 54 blue valley seniors were named national merit that's a district record uh for us finalists last week was uh national educator appreciation week so we have 1888 certified staff members and we 73 percent of them have a master's degree or higher so almost three-fourths of our staff have advanced degrees so we want to shout out to our educators some more cap students caps innovate students um tyler and jackson placed first in a high school division and were selected best of show in the casey invention convention um another capp student a bioscience student was selected as the 2022 kansas stockholm junior water prize winner and i got a chance to talk to her wow she she's got a bright future and that was pretty exciting um we have so this wednesday is school nurse
069appreciation day and we have 40 nurses so katie you know give a shout out to our nurses and what they do but we have 40 nurses and those are our ends in our district so every one of our schools has at least a nurse and then we also have 13 nurse para educators who support some of our students with special needs here's two blue valley high students this just happened i think this weekend um were acacia 6a state speech and drama champions uh blue valley west um reshub maybe and ma hika in poetry and then this is what tom was referring to just a minute ago so will jones recorded the fastest time in the 400 in kansas state history this past friday and um the time is 46.29 and it's the second fastest time
070in the country so that's impressive very impressive and then we had bpa business professionals of america we had a national leadership conference these are students who made it to nationals and so there you have a host of students from our different high schools and that's it so um just some some really exciting good things happening within the district uh and we just wanted to showcase those thank you dr american i appreciate all my colleagues uh going through some of the things that are going on i've been to several of them the my abilities showcase was really an outstanding show of all the kids artwork and their performances and so just to name a few but ultimately graduation's coming up and we look forward to that and certainly celebrating that with our seniors and their families
071over the next couple weeks and ultimately hopefully every child had a very successful school year and we want to encourage that going forward we appreciate all our parents support and support from the communities and commitment to the district and the kids you know please reach out to your teachers and thank them for their efforts this year and our administrators obviously our staff over there on the side there they make sure everything goes well and the information is presented effectively and efficiently and so i want to thank each and every one of them for what they've done over the last school year and i know things have been interesting at times but they hang in there and sometimes the meetings are long but everybody's done an outstanding job and appreciate everything you do for the district
072despite some of the sacrifices for your families and spending nights here all in all we appreciate uh everybody here in the audience tonight and making their comments and and providing a civil uh environment for presenting your views to the board now we're going to proceed with the board's um meeting and so you know approve the agenda for the may 9th regular board of education meetings published do i have a motion patrick i would just like to address one item as a possible change to the agenda um item d elect board of education vice president so just with the conversation that has occurred i would say in the last couple months with the new board members in particular about the timing of of leadership elections and the fact that as a new board member coming on
073board getting sworn in and then having to choose board leadership that the timing is not great and so as opposed to this item being an action tonight i would like to propose a change so that item d is informational only and that would give us a chance to talk about that before make moving forward with um an action is that a motion i can certainly make it emotion it would have to be emotion okay um so i move that the board of education amend the published agenda for the may 9th 2022 regular board of education meeting in the following way uh change new business item d to informational only and add and only yes is there a second and just from workshop this morning there was some conversation about adding an item as well related
074to the board of education communications committee and adding that as an actionable business item just because we felt like we were at a point now that we could go ahead and approve that committee so i could certainly expand my motion to include both items so are you going to expand your motion i can would you like me to reread it or can i just stick an and at the end once you reread it please okay i move that the board of education amend the published agenda for the may 9 2022 regular board of education meeting in the following way change new business item d to informational only and add an actionable new business item e approval of board of education commit communications committee is there a second i'll second is there a discussion from anybody
075i have a question so i thought that we added it to the agenda because board policy stated that we had to vote on it didn't melissa advise us of that well there's a board policy that um states that essentially at the next regular board meeting a vacancies should be filled in one in either the offices so don't so there is a policy that um would would suggest that we need to do that tonight okay and i didn't i did talk to melissa just from a legality's perspective and she felt like if we wanted to press pause on that and just have this conversation um and possibly address it that she felt like we were gonna be okay um but that was her take on it just because i had the same question as well then
076could we could we do that any other discussion on the motion jim um i'm not i'm not in favor of amending the agenda as it relates to the vice president position i would just prefer to move forward with with that i'm okay in adding you know an actionable new business item for approval of a board of education's communications committee any other comments i mean i think the motion includes both at the moment but um okay any other comments policy states resignation from vice president right yeah specifically there that does use the word resignation but it would contemplate basically a vacancy the spirit of it would be focused on filling a vacancy anybody else have any other comments i would just comment that i think patrick you and i have even discussed that you've reviewed the
077duties of the vice president and that um i think just practically we will be okay for long enough to at least have this mean i mean the duties are basically to uh step in when the president is unavailable um you know i you know personally i think uh you know i think the board should go ahead and fill the vacancy as provided by the policy i think the point amy was making back in january the conversation was a couple of new board members said you know we just came on the board we don't know everybody correct we just started which is true we talked about it a little bit today i think we used to nominate president and vice president in july we switched to january per a kansas statute that we had to do
078there right that statute no longer it's still there it's still there it's still there but it allowed you to um you just have to have a policy in place that says you're going to do it in january or excuse me in july okay so we'd we we you would need to change our policy to do in july to go back the way we used to in july get bored members of time to know each other figure out who the best leadership group would be i'm just piggybacking on some conversation we had in january when we were going through this a little bit okay okay anybody have any other comments i'm just thinking about the future for the july thing so sure um any other comments seeing no comments all in favor of um amy's motion
079moving to amend the agenda raise your right hand i think this is just a motion to change the agenda so do it so it changed so to change so all in favor of changing the published agenda or the changing the board of education to amend the published agenda for may 9th on the regular board of education meeting in the following week change new business item d to information only and add an action item new business item e approval to the board of communications committee all those in favor of that motion raise your right hand paul opposed uh three in favor for opposed motion fails do i have a motion to approve the agenda for the may 9th regular board of education meetings published i moved to the board of education uh board of education approved
080the amended agenda for the may 9th 2022 regular board of education meeting it'd have to be the original one so just that we lost the board of education uh communications committee as part of that so we would have to go through that process to get that added as well correct so do i have a motion to [Music] approve the agenda for the may 9th board of education meeting is published so well you gotta mend something first if you want to add the communications piece to it okay um so i just how about a state of m emotion i move that the board of education amend the published agenda for the may 9th 2022 regular board of education meeting in the following way had an actionable new business item e approval of a boe communications committee
081is there a second second is there any discussion on the board of education communications committee well just to reiterate we talked about exactly what that means earlier workshop and so what what we're looking at is is creating a board advisory committee similar to our cni and and all of our other committees that we have that that bring together community patrons students and and um staff um in in with a focus on communication um and kind of looking at where we can do better potentially um christy is there anything you want to like um kind yeah i'm just i'm just trying to do that so people understand why this is important to us it was important to all of us i think this morning so any other comments on the motion to amend the agenda to
082add an actionable new business item e approval of board of education communications committee scene none all in favor raiser uh all the favor raise your right hand all uh pose raise your right hand any abstentions did you did you vote jim okay so motion passes 7-0 for the agenda right yeah i moved the board of education approved the amended agenda for the may 9th 2022 regular board of education meeting is there a second second um motion by tom second by jim any discussion seeing none all those in favor of the motion to amend the may 9th regular board of education agenda meeting to add an actionable new business item of the approval of the board of education committee raise your right hand all in favor is right hand all opposed are you opposing amy no
083no okay that was just a lingering hand sorry um motion passes uh 7-0 okay now we have the consent agenda is there anybody who would like to have anything removed from the consent agenda um we had some discussion this morning on purchasing memo which i had opportunity to talk with patrick and i think i understand the process by which a lot of those expenditures get you know discussed and vetted through the finance committee um so i think i'm you know i don't have any concerns about most of those i would like to pull the panorama expenditure and have a separate discussion and a separate vote on that okay so we're going to pull off so we're going to pull off the panorama contract and move that to new business um item will be now okay
084do i have a motion to approve the consent agenda i move that the board of education for the consent agenda for the may 9th regular board of education meeting has modified that motion motion by jam is there a second second by katie any discussion on the consent items before we vote okay all in favor raise your right hand to approve the consent agenda all opposed motion passes 7-0 okay we're on a new business we have the drug and alcohol committee update please kellyat and emily demo are making their way up kelly here's the clicker but i don't know if it'll work for you thank you good evening i have with me today emily demo she is our district coordinator of student support services she's a lot of things in our district and one of the
085things one of her main duties is to write and manage and work with folks across our district and our community around our drug and alcohol grant from the atf so i'm going to let her speak actually i'm going to let you have that and i'll be paired hi good evening maybe having the same issue so the alcohol tax fund grant we are funded yearly we apply for the grant yearly and and thus far we have received the grant yearly weaving obviously the blue valley school district so this grant is through the kansas drug and alcoholism council of johnson county and which is a program of the united community services of johnson county um so this grant helps our drug and alcohol committee which again is funded by the alcohol tax fund grant to use kansas
086communities that care data to really dig into what our students are reporting and use that data to plan for the needs of students and families within our school district so really without that funding our district wouldn't be able to as easily make intentional programming choices and decisions based on that yearly kansas community the communities that care data so our primary purpose in our drug and alcohol prevention work that we do within all of our schools is really for prevention and education for our students but also to intervene and support students when they may be at risk or when there's an infraction that happens within the school setting that revolves around drugs alcohol vaping something of that sort um so again the funds from the atf grant allow us to support students 5th through 12th grade
087across the district and expose them to different prevention education and early intervention resources and curriculum so overall the grant supports many things but our blue valley drug and alcohol committee we meet five a minimum of five times yearly and that committee is made up of representatives from all of our middle schools all of our high schools and our blue valley academy and myself and so the grant funds the stipends for that staff for those staff members who participate on that committee and staff members who are a part of that committee to receive their stipend they do extra work outside of their school day so they research they read articles they watch movies and they read books we typically do a book study every year related to drug and alcohol information so they're well informed so
088we know what's going on you know in the community going on across the country to help best support our students that grant also funds assessment vouchers for students who again may have an infraction within the school setting related to drugs and alcohol or who a member of the school team or family may be concerned that there's some substance use happening so those drug and alcohol vouchers are paid for out of the atf grant they cost per drug and alcohol assessment and that is no cost to families who receive that assessment so we contract with either clinical associates first call or johnson county mental health adolescent center for treatment to receive those or for students to go and receive those assessments and then additionally the grant pays for our district's subscription to a program called signs
089of suicide which we use 6th through 12th grade and it supports prevention of suicide within our schools and it's just a consistent program that our students are familiar with and we're able to use this grant because there is a connection between substance use and suicide risk and then just wanted to talk for a second about our spring event that we just had and both jody and patrick were in attendance at the event so thanks again for coming to that we had an event our drug and alcohol committee as a part of the grant we are neces we have to do a yearly event so our spring event this year was on april 13th and our primary speaker was libby davis who is a johnson county parent whose son died of an accidental overdose of fentanyl
090in august and so she spoke to the group of individuals who attended our event really about the increasing trends of fentanyl use within our johnson county community the greater kansas city community and nationwide um and it's timely that i'm speaking of this tonight because actually tomorrow on may 10th is national fentanyl awareness day um so just i think that's an important thing to highlight because again and libby highlighted this and her um in her communication to us during this event that really this this is an increasing need and concern within our johnson county community um so after libby spoke we had a panel of individuals speak libby was on the panel we had an emergency room physician from children's mercy we had a representative from first call who again we use for our drug and
091alcohol assessment vouchers as well as our substance use sobriety groups within all of our high schools kids tlc johnson county mental health adolescent center for treatment and then a representative from our school district as well and we just spoke and had an opportunity for staff or for anybody in the audience to ask questions and hopefully get some good information and resources to take back to their own families and then just to have that information again specifically related to fentanyl but substance use in general and what those trends look like for adolescents currently thank you i would say we're very thankful for the grant as it gives us additional funds and also connects us with partners in the community to help with drug and alcohol prevention so if you have any questions we'll happily entertain them
092jody well i was just i'm going to say i think you know patrick and i after we attended the event we were just so struck by the exponential rise in fentanyl poisoning and deaths over the last even year i i used to you know work in the corrections field and there were certain you know hot drugs you know at the time and that was a number of years ago this is this is a big deal um this is this is the first time use could kill you and so i know our conversations were about you know this is this is putting out a warning uh to our our parents and our kids um that this is going to affect our community drastically and and you know we're trying i appreciate you guys coming here because
093we're trying to sound this warning now um before it's too late yeah i want to thank emily for the presentation it's really good i mean fentanyl i think one of the slides if i remember right is 76 percent of overdose debt overdose dose deaths in kansas are from fentanyl and so that's pretty extraordinary and in such a small amount certainly fentanyl there's a lot of other drugs that we're having to deal with i'm sure in our schools i'm sure vaping is a big issue but in terms of the committee what are the what are the resources that are available for parents that that if they run into one of these situations what's what's the best thing for them to do not only the first time they find out but ongoing sure that's a great question
094um the first thing i would suggest that they do is talk with one of their school mental health professionals so school counselors school psychologists school social workers and those individuals can help have a conversation with the family and help guide them towards resources that we have in our community we're really lucky in our community that we have johnson county mental health adolescent center for treatment again we can recommend that students go in and get a free assessment through them but families can also choose to do that on their own first call is another really great it's a it's a non-profit organization within our community and so families can contact them and first call they can help kind of talk through and do sort of an assessment and help families okay so maybe they can't provide
095some resources or support for the family's specific situation but they can give some suggestions to whom else may be able to do that in the community so i think those are kind of three really kind of high level good resources that families can start can be really overwhelming certainly maybe their medical provider as well but you know school we have they have access to their school providers every single day so that's a that's an easy you know have a conversation with those people and we can help get them connected to any community resources that they might need okay anybody else jody it's just me again um so um just just to kind of reiterate what this mill valley mom um told us is that you know her son it was a group of four friends
096her son was one of them they split the pill they thought i don't know xanax or something percocet percocet thank you um and uh they they split the pills in half so her son and the friends all ingested half of a very small pill and they all were hospitalized her son didn't make it it's so toxic and it's you know this is this is people are manufacturing this there's no way you know there's no regulation knowing how much you're getting um the other thing is vaping you can get this through the vaping uh you know devices also so um what you thought maybe was was not as toxic some parents maybe thought that that that it could be in there so it this is a big deal and and kevin coofelt who's the the clinical
097director of um johnson county mental health adolescent or act um he shared that in the before eight months ago the most common reason that that kids were seeking treatment at act was for marijuana use and then in the past eight months when they pulled that data it's actually fentanyl um is the primary drug of use and so i think that's just an important fact to highlight that he just shared at a meeting i was at recently with him just because those are those are students that are you know in our community those are johnson county students that they're supporting um and so you know to jody's point with the the the intensity of you know maybe someone's purposefully taking this maybe they're not it's just important to know that um it's a significant thing that
098is occurring within our community for our students so i'm i'm sure that your presentation that the event went into detail i'm just wondering um for parents whether you're seeing age use drop in the in the last year meaning you know younger kids accessing this and two whether you're seeing a mark a difference between uh boys and girls and and the usage there um just speaking to the data that libby shared and that kevin has shared um yes the the the first onset of use is definitely decreasing and it's decreased over time and and recently it's about 11. um so that's that's significant um and in terms of boys versus girls i haven't seen any data to to represent that but so so if i'm just interested in finding out more about the committee when does
099it meet i don't not if i want to be on the committee but if i just want to watch or learn or it's a staff meeting yeah yes yes it's a staff meeting yes so it's comprised of various school mental health professionals um who meet um throughout the school year during the school day um but certainly you know i'd be happy to talk to you about the committee and each school has a representative each middle school in high school and then we host the community events as well okay perfect thank you emily thank you kelly thank you okay the next item is the literacy update so jennifer luzinski our director of curriculum and instruction is making her way and will be giving the literacy update tonight which is one of the five things that the
100board charged us was working on a couple of months ago thank you jennifer good evening i'm happy to be here to as we near the last few weeks of the school year to give you an update on the work we've done in the area of literacy this year so i'll hit on some highlights and my presentation tonight is organized in the the big components of a k-12 literacy plan the key work we would do and i'll highlight the work we've done in terms of how it pertains to some of the policies of the state of kansas which stem from the state task force on dyslexia but certainly influence our literacy work with students k through 12. so this first policy is under the umbrella of professional learning and this is one that by august 31st
101of this school year all districts were required to provide specific training to teachers in the area of literacy excuse me dyslexia identifying students who are at risk and ways that we would intervene to support all students so is this working or you're doing it okay next slide please that's awesome so i will highlight for you i'm just some of the professional learning that we held this year for staff and i want to start out by appreciating that our district administrators our building principals felt very strongly when they saw this policy that said that we need to have some educators in certain licensures areas participate in this six hours of professional learning and our building leaders said no we need every certified teacher to participate in this and so we did half of that last spring
102and then we finished that with our staff this august and so we were able to to get everybody across that six hour uh line of professional learning at a minimum and then certainly have offered much more to other educators in blue valley so highlighting a few things we've worked with our secondary ela teachers twice this year november 1st and march 21st and then we were out at buildings working with small groups of teachers to teach them about universal screening and then we were able to recoup a professional learning day that was uh canceled with elementary teachers this march and we enjoyed having many of our elementary teachers with us this summer to learn about some new resources they had for instruction so another professional learning opportunity i want to highlight is letters and letters stands
103for language essentials for teachers of reading and spelling so now you know why we just call it letters this is a a robust deep highly regarded professional learning opportunity that thanks to a partnership with the state department of education we are able to provide to teachers in grades kindergarten through third teachers of students who are english language learners reading specialists instructional coaches and special education teachers who work with students of age in kindergarten through third grade this is an optional opportunity that we've been able to make available to teachers this year and the reason it is an optional opportunity is this is a really deep and thorough professional learning it is a two-year commitment for a participant to be a part of this and letters uh tells teachers up front you should pro you should
104be prepared that you will spend over two years a hundred hours on the learning of this course there is reading there are trainings that teachers attend there are quizzes there are tests i'm participating in the first cohort and i would say it is very comparable to to a college course but the quality is outstanding it is very well aligned to structured literacy it is based on the science of reading and we hear extremely positive feedback from those who have jumped on board and are in our first two cohorts so we're very excited about offering that training to our staff a couple more notes about professional learning thanks to some of our literacy team that we have here within blue valley you heard mention i think of dr collier earlier of colleen zinc christy rottinghaus in
105addition we partner with stacy kate's a dyslexia consultant and then i want to recognize abigail crane who is works as our 612 literacy team because of them we've been able to really get with some specific interventionist groups k through 12 to do some very tailored training so colleen zinc has done a lot of work with teachers in structured literacy the multi-sensory approach resource teachers reading specialists she partners with with teachers and teams one on one is they need some support and then certainly she and stacy and christy have trained teachers on how to give universal screeners and they have worked very closely with some of our resource teacher and speech and language pathologists in addition our district continues to provide training in the wilson reading system at all levels for our resource teachers so moving
106on let's take a look at what the state says about our screening of students for risk of reading difficulties including dyslexia so every school district accredited in the state of kansas is required to screen students at the elementary level next slide please we actually were ahead of the curve there our system identified that need and was ready to implement that screener and so we fully implemented it in the 2021 school year although we had piloted it two years prior and then had given it to all of our kindergarten and first grade students in the 1920 school year but we were interrupted in the spring so the key to a universal screener what separates it from other assessments is it is meant to be very brief easy to train people to administer and easy to administer
107and it is not an assessment that will do a deep dive diagnostic on a student i think of it as that toothpick we put in the cake to see if it's done yet or maybe that that just very general physical we would go to annually it's meant to alert us that there could be cause for concern or no that cake's not quite done and so once we have done that universal screener then we have identified at the district we have diagnostic assessments that help us to take a deeper look if necessary and we are also have progress monitoring assessments we can use to measure the effectiveness of supports that we're giving to students at the elementary level with the reading specialists we have really worked hard on analyzing assessment data and working with our teachers
108to use that data for very specific interventions at the secondary level we implemented the universal screener this year and it's important to note that part of the state policy says that students in grades 6 through 12 will be screened if a nationally normed measure of reading comprehension so at middle school think of the map if that assessment shows that that student is not at grade level reading comprehension so reading comprehension is really the successful outcome of skilled reading so at sixth grade and above if a student is demonstrating grade level comprehension on an assessment such as the map then for that window that student is is done with assessment and we'll look at them again two other times that year at high school because we don't give the map assessment at high school we use
109a um it's the reading inventory from houghton mifflin that we use it's a nationally norm to measure to look at our high school kids in year one of implementation at middle school and high school we needed to do a lot of upfront professional learning with those teams we started with what's the purpose of a screening assessment this is really a new type of assessment for our secondary teachers we went out and worked with teams on how to administer and then what what do i do with the data how do i what is it telling me and what do i do with it and that really is our growth area for continued professional learning for next year taking a look at curriculum and instruction this is the official go year that the state has deemed that
110structured literacy is the approach for the teaching of reading in kansas we had been participating and participating in professional learning for teachers for several years ramping up to this but this is really the year for implementation and at the elementary level the the real work and i think some of you have been out and seen teachers you can do the next slide please in our new instructional resources from the 95 percent group and this is really the the resources teachers are using for the teaching of phonics and word recognition spelling morphology a lot of the pieces that are necessary for skilled reading and i want to give a shout out to our elementary teachers because this was a heavy lift this is not the way these educators were trained to teach as undergraduates and this
111really required them to implement a new approach which means strategically abandoning some practices that were pretty deep in muscle memory and then implementing this new resource in a way that is shows a lot of fidelity to structured literacy so it's very multi-sensory it's very explicit it is very systematic but we again we recognize those teachers and we're hearing and seeing some really positive gains for students already this year we are especially pleased with this resource i want to mention at elementary because it gives us an alignment what a student would get in classroom instruction is very aligned to what they might get if they work with a reading specialist and even if they receive specially designed instruction through special education so for those students that means that the terminology is aligned it means that the
112the gestures that they would use it the visuals they would use all align and so they can have this seamlessness of learning experience throughout their day which is very supportive of lasting learning so at the secondary level 6 through 12 um our focus in uh our in instruction with this group of educators next year is really taking that analysis of the screening data and looking at it and and understanding what is what am i what is this telling me that this student needs and how will i in my core instruction provide what that student needs to further their own learning many times by the time a student is in middle school or high school they are very proficient in word recognition they've gotten the basics of phonics down pretty well and so the work at
113secondary really looks like for many of our students deep work in vocabulary deep work and morphology building background knowledge semantics and syntax that will help them to keep that steady growth in their skills as a reader moving forward if we look at reading intervention we can see that it is one of the policies that we use structured literacy to have the data and the instructional techniques to to intervene with students early especially if they're exhibiting reading difficulties such as dyslexia and that is such an important goal we always want to provide that early intervention for students as soon as possible and so at the elementary level this is where we're really working to meld together the data we get from the universal screening plus the data we get from our new instructional resource to help
114teachers to make very timely decisions and deliver supports or just boosts of instruction to students right within the core classroom and then reading specialists certainly can provide additional interventions for students when the data would indicate we need more intensity we will continue throughout the year next year to work on professional learning for those teachers and when data says this what's the right move to make but we want to celebrate that even from the beginning of the year to winter we see using our universal screener acadience data that in many instances we're seeing gains for our students and i i these are not the only gains but i highlighted a few of the different ones for you so for example in first grade in the fall this is district data our first graders were wwr stands
115for whole words red we're at about um 68 percent were at or above benchmark and you can see in the winter so december january that moved up 10 percent to 78 of students reaching or being well above the benchmark for that window if we look at the green boxes that's our fourth graders and that orf stands for oral reading fluency and so in the fall of our fourth graders were at or above the what the benchmark would be for oral reading fluency so that is fluent accurate reading within a particular period of time and you can see in the winter that grew from 76 percent at benchmark to 86 at benchmark or above so certainly we celebrate the growth but that means those students who were not at level have hopped up and are now
116on track to to meet future benchmarks so we look forward to bringing much more data of this sort um this is uh again that followed winter window is a little bit narrow but certainly we work hard to analyze the subtest to understand what needs to be added what needs to be tweaked in instructions so that we can meet the needs and and help all readers to grow forward at the secondary level we have the established reading strategies course both middle and high school for students who are in need of additional literacy learning we can work with students on particular areas of need within the resources that we have and we continue to work with our educators on professional learning that will really help us dial in to that solid core instruction and meeting the needs
117of individual students as readers and writers and speakers and listeners in in classroom instruction so next year we'll continue to work with them through professional learning around implementing their screening data to drive results for students so that's a quick update relatively quick but i'm happy to entertain questions can can you address just what aspect in terms of middle and and middle school and high school in terms of grammar instruction is that part of the so in the uh when we look at structured literacy grammar instruction would fall most heavily under the syntax strand that's where that would take place was that when you were saying syntax and morphology whether it fell under under those or whether it was something outside of what you're doing it falls in there okay so then um also always areas
118of concern in the past for me um have been the um the volume of reading and writing that's done at both the middle and high school level and then also the depth or the the difficulty like i look at our ninth and tenth grade reading you know books and half of them i think have no business being in ninth and tenth grade they could be moved down to like sixth and seventh grade and um so i'm just meaning there's not enough advanced reading and enough volume of advanced reading and not enough volume of advanced of just long long form writing and i'm just wondering how you guys are thinking about that because i know i know it's part of what you've been working on sure absolutely so step one i think was really important for
119us this year and that is doing that reading inventory on every student and what we gain from that is a student's lexile score and so we can dig into that lexile score so if i look at my class roster third hour of this group of students i now can see the the span of of where these students are and i can start to work with students to to really match them or encourage them or assign them works with following board policy of course but that are going to be commensurate with their current reading level to to challenge them and encourage them to develop so that that is really one i think first step that came from administering that reading inventory because it gave us the opportunity to dial in a little deeper and look at
120students so so prior course grade you might see a b and well that's great that student was successful but this gets a little more specific at that individual student level because to your point we are looking for students from start of ninth grade year to end of ninth grade year to grow in lexile as readers i just want to reiterate what jennifer said about our teachers and our our district leadership team who put this all together this has been a mountain of work by everybody and our teachers have embraced it even during this hard year they knew it was best for kids and they embraced it so shout out to jennifer and kelly and your team from district office for for setting this up um but also to our teachers for uh doing the hard
121work during a especially hard year because they knew it was what was best for kids okay legislative update um sorry legislative update i'll just sit here since the clicker doesn't work anyway um so this is just a brief brief update go ahead just as a reminder this was the calendar for the legislative um in topeka uh they had their first veto session april 25th through the 29th and i say veto session number one because they save some days to go back if they need to go ahead as a reminder here are the board adopted priorities fund special education at the statutory amount apply at-risk funding enhance student mental health and eliminate tax credits and vouchers so i'm just going to highlight just a couple of bills the first one the budget bill and ccr is
122conference committee report for house bill 2567 because remember the house and the senate had differing bills so in this this is the school budget bill they funded the bs app as base state aid per pupil as outlined earlier that's what they're supposed to do they did not add any additional funding to special education remember we had asked for that they did put some money into to make up for the property tax exemption at homes from twenty to forty thousand so that that was helpful to us go ahead and we're still on the same budget bill they did fund a state dyslexia coordinator from the state general fund sgf estate general fund before they were going to have a dyslexia coordinator but schools were going to be assessed for that so the state is going to
123fund that safe and secure schools grant funding to remain at 5 million they had an online math program will be paid for out of state funds this is for schools who have students who are not successfully being successful in math and so they had had a couple of different programs in there and they had originally said we were going to pay for it but the state is going to pay for that and then 13 million was added removing the federal impact aid from the local foundation aid calculation and then this was the policy part they delayed the open enrollment start date to the 24-25 school year so that open enrollment remember is that students or boards of education would set policies and we would be required to utilize those policies to take in students from
124outside of our boundaries if we had room um go back real quick this is awaiting action by the governor unless she signed it today because i haven't seen the news or done anything all day online but that is awaiting action by the governor the second bill it was a sub for senate bill 34 prohibited state and local officials from mandating masks and other public health measures aimed at mitigating the spread of infectious and contagious diseases that also had something in there about vaccines i believe and that is also awaiting action by the governor and then finally this is just one we've talked about this one before so this is the conference committee report for senate bill 58 the parent bill of rights that was vetoed by the governor it did have an override in the
125senate but it did not have an override in the house so my understanding is that bill is not moving forward this session and then of course there's information on our district website so that's where we're at right now from topeka any questions okay the next agenda item is election of the board of education price president so do you go ahead that's gonna say do you want anna to come up and let us know anna's our board clerk let us know who has been nominated because that you have a process in place the nominees for board of education vice president are amy tysley jody dietz and tom mitchell i would like to pull my name off consideration okay are there any additions or deletions to this list of nominees tom has removed his name i'd like
126to add katie bowers as the nominee okay your seat there's a ballot i'd like to i'd like to pull my name off as well okay so the the two nominees are jodie dietz and katie bowers there's at your seat there's a ballot form please fill out your name on the first line labeled board voter's name the second line labeled board of education price vice president nomination please write the name of your nomination for the role of vice board of education vice president the ballots will then be collected and read out loud and tallied the nominee receiving the most ballot nominations will be the board of education vice president thank you the clerk will then collect and read and report each ballot patrick hurley for katie bowers jodie dietz for jody deeds tom mitchell for jodie
127dietz katie bowers for katie bowers jim mcmullen for katie bowers gina knapp for katie bowers amy teisling for jody deeds thank you very much the new vice president is katie bowers congratulations um do you need to take a break to give your son a call okay the next agenda item is the board of education communication committee the communication committee was something that we've discussed several times about the idea of having more interaction with our public and how we can receive input and and and have additional communication with him christy do you have any more you'd like to add to that okay anybody else have any uh comments on that okay do i have a motion i approve sorry i i move that the board of education approve the establishment of communication committee is that document
128entered into it is not okay i guess i would say in accordance with the document that we circulated and reviewed this morning in uh the board workshop and that's a board advisory committee board advisory committee okay is there a second second second by gina is there any discussion about that okay all in favor raise your right hand uh all opposed same sign motion passes 7-0 the next agenda item is the was that the contract panorama the panoramic contract um the panoramic contract was on the consent agenda it was brought off uh for us to have an initial conversation uh about that contract jim did you have any comments you wanted to make on that contract um sure the the um i would say that the my main cons i got two main concerns around it
129um and part of this is admittedly that i don't have a full i don't have a full grasp of what the district is doing social emotional learning um but you know i've been said i've been kind of outspoken in the past really my mind really hasn't been changed that the social emotional learning is a significant emphasis by our district and i understand some of its state you know guided is inappropriate and so that's my that's my number one objection my number two objection is i don't underst i i don't know and i would like to understand better um exactly how the data that is gathered is used um and i'd like to ensure that you know parents throughout the district really understand that that data is being collected and that the results of those surveys
130um you know how they're being used and in the manner in which they're being used so those are my those are my concerns i'm not saying i necessarily would if i knew if i if i feel like i was better educated about it that i that i wouldn't support it but at this point in time i don't maybe you know and i doubt through this maybe through this conversation we you know we could but that's why i asked to pull it off the agenda or off the consent agenda in any other comments katie um dr collier really answered a lot of my questions today even if i just bounced any more back to her so i want to say i understand why we collect the data i know it's for ks the kansas state requirements
131and so we're fulfilling a requirement there so i totally understand that piece i do think that i mean and you have to opt in and i think the figures they gave us there wasn't a lot of people um opting in but enough but i went back and looked at kind of the disclaimer and i don't think parents understand that there are unique identifiers so that your child could be potentially um tied to that survey so that's a little concerning um again i understand why we're doing it um but i think we need to do the open transparency hey your your child's id number is tied to this study um but i also think too that our district is um capable of probably doing our own surveys as well instead of having to batch out to
132another person part of our requirement is that we do a research based uh approach and a survey that we put together ourselves would not be research based okay that's why that's a part of this another thing i i do want to reiterate what you what katie said here which was that you have to opt in so nobody would take this unless they opt in and this contract meets one of our the state requirements for accreditation right um and so with without this we could potentially face loss of accreditation correct yeah um any any other questions jeff i have a question how many years have we been doing panorama i'm sorry dr collier thank you it was piloted in 1819 and five schools and then uh we moved it across the district in 1920. okay any
133other questions okay when i went to the website just looking at panoramas playing around with it at the bottom it says like join us for to find out how to get easter funds or something is that something we're doing sorry not you sir are we pay paying for it using s or funds no i like do we use it to get s or funds oh no so we okay we get a certain amount of esser funds from the state and we would have to allocate that four panel panorama would be an allowable expense for that i don't know if we're using sr funds or not yeah okay any other questions i'll move before approval of the panorama contract as presented in the consent agenda is there a second motion by tom second by amy any
134discussion seeing none all those in favor of approving the contract raise your right hand all opposed motion passes five two do i have a motion for a german so moved motion by tom is there a second second by jody any discussion scene none all in favor raise your right hand ocean passes 7-0 thank you very much you