Blue Valley Board of Education Meeting 10-11-2021

001hey carrie we have the uh stream going if you want to send a test message over okay i'll send that now just give me one moment sure thing okay i sent a test message so you should see it up i don't know 10 or 15 seconds i think you can feel that um make actually i don't want to know appreciate it good evening everyone we're going to have the pledge of allegiance officer reindell is going to lead us thank you of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all good evening month of october is recognized as national principals month and as we typically start board meetings we like to do that with recognitions i think there's no other way

002to do that and we have a special couple special groups here today that we want to recognize it's a time for us to celebrate the hard work and dedication of our principles we're honored to have with us representatives from our team of 65 principals so with the following principles please come forward tyson ostrowski blue valley north scott bacon blue valley high diana tate aubry ben middle stacy sperry prairie star elementary laura lehu cedar hills elementary deborah kelly blue river elementary kindleber hilltop early childhood all right so again we couldn't fit every principal here so this is a group that's really just representing their um colleagues so thank you for being here um you know student learning safety and school culture are among the key responsibilities of our principles and no matter the challenges our school

003administrators have been there leading the way for our students and our staff and families they work hand in hand with our families and in their staffs to create caring and inclusive environments where students want to learn and i think we could uh we'd be remiss if we didn't talk about what a difficult time it's been lately and especially their day-to-day work and i know dr merrigan you wanted to talk a little bit about what it's really like for them every day when they come to work so i haven't been a school principal actually in the building for over 10 years but just with all of the things that are happening this year let's think about what a principal's day looks like so first of all they meet buses um so buses are late because we've

004had a shortage of drivers and so they're working to make sure kids are okay when they get there and they say it's okay if you're late you just go to class they're notifying families if it's late going home but even maybe before they're meeting buses they're working on subs and subs have been another uh shortage this year so they're frantically trying to figure out if they don't have a sub for a classroom how are they going to cover that then there we've been working really hard to get paraprofessionals in our building and so they're short those in some buildings so are in some classrooms so they're scrambling trying to make sure every student's needs are met they're working with teachers working with plc's with our great teachers making sure that they have what they need

005they're talking to students who are struggling or maybe who had a little bit of a challenge and they're trying to reset them and that goes on throughout the day so there are just so many challenges and this representative group every single one of our building administrators are absolute rock stars and we could not function within our buildings without them and i'm so proud uh that we are recognizing them this month and we should be recognizing them every single day um but they're amazing and we thank you for all that you guys do every day congratulations and thank you casey's gonna take a quick pick all right thanks for all you do so dr dr merrigan mentioned that uh they were a bunch of rock stars and they are not the only rock stars in the

006house tonight um this week we're also want to recognize um national school lunch week and we're happy to be joined by several of blue valley's food and nutrition services staff in the schools and again they are here also representing a very large job group because it takes so many for our students to be fed so would please would you please come forward kathy dietz blue valley north high manager george johnson oxford middle school manager ellie para overland trail elementary manager joanne blakely supervisor leslie belt supervisor and charles rathbun the director so these people yes thank you these people along with our entire food service staff across the district are truly unsung heroes you know they help guarantee blue valley students have nutritious meals and are ready to learn this week we honor the commitment and

007dedication of our food service staff who have gone above and beyond to continue providing meals to students despite many challenges your love and dedication for what you do and those you serve here in blue valley are no noteworthy and absolutely extraordinary dr merrigan so this is another group of unsung heroes um we have not been uh fully staffed in our food service programs either this year and so many of these people have had to jump in at various stages i'm sure our supervisors our managers have had to do uh go above and beyond to make sure that kids are fed every day so i don't know if any of you have gone out to a restaurant lately but if you have you'll notice on the door that the hours are reduced or they'll make sure

008they tell you they have limited quantities and and we can't do that we can't say we're just going to serve from 11 to 12 today and you you can't come through we have to serve our normal meals they have continued to provide high quality nutritious meals for our kids and they truly are unsung heroes and charles as the director we want to thank you for all that you do i don't know if you wanted to say anything about this group you know this is an awesome week you know we've gone through a lot over the last 19 months but before that this team that represents just a small group of our team have always done an awesome job the last 19 months i can't thank you enough for all you guys have done it's uh

009unbelievable actually so thank you it's awesome thank you no casey's gonna take a picture thank you so much okay we have um a couple more recognitions and i just wanted to let um folks know that there's usually an opportunity after recognitions are done where if you'd like to escape and watch whatever's on monday night tv you're welcome to do so or we would also invite you to stay for the rest of the board meeting but i didn't want it to be awkward for you as you're thinking how can i slip out of here our next two people being recognized it's for the distinguished service and excellence in education award and these are awards that we do every month and these special people go above and beyond each day in our school so first up would

010regina alberton please come forward with matt brooks regina elderton we're excited to recognize regina one of our custodians with a distinguished service award regina has been with the district for 27 and a half years that's amazing matt you know very well how our custodians play an important role in creating a safe and clean and functional environment for our teachers and students so tell us a little bit about regina yes well as you can hear she's been here 27 and a half years and i'm sure maybe some of the principals sitting in here have had the opportunity to have her come through your school you know when i got here a little over 11 years ago um she was the day custodian at valley not valley park oak hill yes sorry about that oak hill elementary

011school you know doing a wonderful job there taking care of the kids during the day and you know then she has a change of life and she's like well i'd like to go evenings so then blue valley north was blessed with her cleaning skills on evenings and you know regina's done a number of other things for us behind the scenes and you know for 27 and a half years i'm sure she's done more behind the scenes stuff but in the summertime she's helped us lead summertime crews that like to work the evening hours some people like to stay on their regular schedule work five days a week as opposed to go to 410s in the summertime and regina has been one of those troopers who likes to do that and has helped us clean a

012number of buildings throughout the district in the summertime so regina you know just highly appreciate your 27 and a half years and obviously we're looking forward to more and is there anything you'd like to say just thank you and yeah i just try and do my best and i want to make everybody's buildings look good so it's just always been my thing just try and treat everybody you know as if they're family you know thank you appreciate it so regina custodians is another area where we haven't been fully staffed and you all have had to do lots with fewer people and so um thank you for all that you do because you are an integral part of our buildings um you helped to make blue valley north function and being in a big high school

013like that it takes all of us so thank you so much for all you do thank you you know i know you also have family here and i know you can't do what you do without your family so would you wave if you're part of her family there we go we're gonna get a picture all right congratulations okay for our final recognition would um lori farrington please come forward with your principal stacy sperry [Applause] we're excited to recognize lori farrington special education teacher at prairie star elementary with an excellence in education award this year is lori's 17th year in the district and we're proud that our special education educators continue to create an atmosphere where their students can lead healthy balanced lives of physical social and emotional well-being being stacy please tell us why she's

014so deserving of this award there are so many words that i could share about laurie she's tremendous in all ways i think one of the most wonderful attributes about lori is that she sees the best in kids and then makes them believe those things about themselves she's a calm fierce advocate and she's just she makes you a better educator and person so to know her still love her and she is truly amazing at what she does that's amazing thank you oh my goodness i don't know what this is thank you so much and um thank you to my family who is watching from home but also a shout out to the pse family who you know everything we do is a team effort so um i really appreciate it and i'm not going to cry

015lori you know it's very fitting that we have a special educator up here because your job is challenging every teacher's job is challenging but every single day you work to really help our most vulnerable students to make sure that they feel successful and loved and appreciated and and do well at school so thank you for all that you do and we're very proud of you and very glad that we could make this recognition today all right we're going to take a picture all right blue valley is known for having some of the very best of the best staff members and thank you for those that we were able to recognize tonight congratulations and thank you to everyone this would be the opportunity if you wanted to sneak out to do so and those that are

016staying might be able to find a better seat and spread out a little all right we are going to move on and have our open forum part of the evening um i want to say welcome to those who are in attendance to address the board or listen to the listen during open forum 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 a three-minute limit per speaker after the 60 minutes the board will close open forum and will proceed with its agenda items for the evening whether you plan to

017speak or just listen we're glad you're here because we do care about the opinions and concerns of 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 discussion to relevant business of the board tonight discussion of matters related to a specific student or employee is not allowed instead comments should be submitted in writing to the superintendent please remember to limit your comments to three minutes and avoid repeating the concerns of a previous speaker if you have a question that requires a response someone will

018follow up with you at a later time on behalf of the board i welcome you and appreciate your interest in blue valley as we strive to provide the best education possible for our students when your name is called please introduce yourself before beginning your remarks as a reminder we ask that all remarks are limited to three minutes and we will get started with melissa jenner good evening dr merrigan and members of the board my name is melissa jenner i'm an area physician and i'm here today as a private citizen i'm just here again to thank you for keeping our kids safely in school blue valley schools have continued to show that we have the right formula and solutions to keep our kids safely in person in the last month we've had five homecoming dances many

019many football games band concerts and many other events and we've not had one large outbreak in that time or even since the eight weeks that school has started and that's an absolute testament to the mitigation strategies that you've chosen to implement in our schools um our kids are again thriving personally my my daughter has been able to go to her first homecoming dance um her first tailgate party and her first high school football game things that i didn't think she was at all interested in but man was she ready to go and she had a great time um so um i also know that you know we've implemented we've listened to our patrons and our families and they've implemented a testing through the schools so that you're able to go and get test results quickly

020if you are sick or if your family is sick that's absolutely fantastic i know personally we had a symbol a couple weeks ago and it took us several days to get test results back and i'm so glad that now we have that opportunity to have them quickly here through the partnership with blue valley schools so i really appreciate that um i also know that you guys will be talking today a little bit about the test to stay or learn learn and test or i don't know the exact words but but that's a great program as well and i'm interested to hear more about that um so again um i hope that our vaccination rates will continue to rise and that our numbers will continue to stay low if we stay this course we have to

021remember to stay vigilant if you look at the dashboard our case transmission remains high throughout the community but really as a physician i'm finally really beginning to see that small light at the end of the tunnel and that makes me that makes me hopeful um and so i just want to make sure that you all know how how thankful i am that my kids are able to be and all the kids are able to be safely in the schools and are remaining healthy throughout the school year so thank you so much thank you next is sloane heller oh um wendy connolly hi i'm wendy connolly and first i just want to say i am delighted to see for the first time an audience completely filled with maths on um i am going to remove mine

022and i'm not here to speak about math tonight actually i'm here tonight because i want to thank blue valley schools for repeatedly proving me wrong i am the proud parent of a transgender student after a move that took us away from our feeder schools a year of virtual learning and with two pfizer jabs in their arm i sent my courageous colorful and wildly creative teenager off to their sophomore year at blue valley southwest and to be honest i was afraid of how the world of high school might treat them and that for them this could be a truly soul-crushing experience i was afraid the transition to school would be difficult to navigate for an lgbt youth but blue valley proved me wrong incredible guidance counselor miss dixon set up a meeting to talk through concerns

023and questions and made it ferociously clear that she would have my kids back i was afraid that my teen would be bullied by peers and struggle to fit in but blue valley proved me wrong not a single student this year has ridiculed teased or bullied them and within the first two days of school they had friends in every single class i was afraid that teachers might slowly chip away at their identity dismiss their reality or shame them but blue valley schools proved me wrong every single teacher asked about pronouns and pulled my kid aside to let them know that they were safe supportive and trustworthy allies over and over again this year blue valley has met my fears for my kids safety mental health and fundamental need for belonging with reassurances that transgendered and other

024lgbtq youth are beloved members of the blue valley community so thank you blue valley blue valley southwest high school for welcoming my team exactly as they were created by god in all her infinite and ineffable wisdom and thank you blue valley leaders for setting a tone that moves beyond mere tolerance because none of us like to just be tolerated to one of being truly accepted with unconditional love thank you again for proving me wrong thank you that was amazing i'm like a little emotional right now so thank you um next we have jeff nessl [Music] hard act to follow thank you very much my name is jeff nessel and i have a son at blue valley north i want to take this time again to thank the board the six members of the board i

025should say who use science and data to approve the vast requirement for blue valley schools the six of you not only showed intelligence and courage but your actions have kept my son and who knows how many others in school uninterrupted this semester i was hoping to make this statement short and light with one shout out maybe to the board and perhaps a story about my sons and my trip to the rock and roll hall of fame earlier this month how is it that abba is in there but not warren zivan and matahubal i don't understand that but this is not the time for that discussion i was also going to use this time to compliment the people on the other side of the mask and vaccination debate who continue to passionately argue their case even

026though they have no reputable scientific facts or data to support their argument it is it weren't so dangerous you would have to admire their anti-science aggression combining with their lack of knowledge and facts to fuel their political argument kudos to them though unfortunately my feel-good nature for this statement was shared by an email i received from a mother of a transgender child this mother referenced the comments of a anti-mass candidate for a seat on this board who would talk about a mother talking about her transgender child that a town hall was guilty of quote child abuse and that this is another exact quote from this person there are no eight-year-old transgender kids the stupidity of that statement is only matched by its underlying cruelty and hatred i have had numerous discussions with this candidate on

027his facebook page and although we disagree on almost every issue facing the district i applaud his willingness to engage with voters which unfortunately other people on his slate refuse to do however his comments regarding transgender youth students and their parents being abusers along with this insistence that the board of education your board is banning books which can't be true because still available in the library is very disappointing such as nine and incorrect comments said specifically to appeal to a certain constituency can only drive a bigger wedge in our community thank you thank you next um mindy maines thank you my name is mindy maynes and i really appreciate you giving me the opportunity to speak tonight um like several before me i wanted to really tell you how much i appreciate you enforcing your mask

028mandates at school also not only for all the kids but also for the teachers who have dedicated their lives to them and also for all of our health care workers who have worked beyond their capabilities and and strength just because they are they're so dedicated to what they do i also wanted to support all your efforts to teach accurate history i went to schools throughout the united states growing up and i can say that pretty much every textbook in every state did a great job of talking about how great our country is which it truly is we didn't do as well about owning mistakes we've made i'm a restorative justice specialist working in a different school district and i'd have to say the magic occurs when i see high school students who are trying to

029make excuses for their own bad behavior the place where suddenly all those walls come down is when an adult says you know i really made a mistake and i want to apologize to you whether it's a teacher an administrator a parent it is suddenly it is magical for that student to get to hear an adult say we made a mistake and here's what we want to do to help rectify that i think when we're teaching history we got to have that same moment and one thing i'm interested in knowing is i'd like to see what kind of textbooks we currently have and what your plans are going forward what state you're getting them from as some states definitely have a more accurate portrayal of history than others so that is something that i would like

030to get information back on and i really applaud all your efforts to make that as strong and honest a curriculum as is possible thank you thank you next is corinne geisler geisler sorry no it's okay [Music] all right say it for me correctly corrine geisler geisler so my second one was yes yes hi my name is corinne geisler um and the first thing i'd like to do is i would like to thank wendy for your statement and it's just very moving and it makes me very happy to be a blue valley parent i am the parent of two students at cottonwood point elementary school and i just wanted to take a few minutes of your time to thank the board the district administrators teachers and staff for all of your hard work in this lesson

031ideal year i would like to thank other parents in the district nothing about the past two years has been easy but we are getting through it together my kids so far this year they come home excited every single day to tell me about what they did and what they learned their teachers are doing an amazing job building those connections that make learning easy at the beginning of the year every now and then i would check in with them i would ask hey how's everybody doing with the masks in class and i finally had to stop asking when my fourth grader just sighed and rolled her eyes and said mom we've been doing this for almost two years we're used to it it's fine things are different but that doesn't mean they have to be worse

032my husband and i had a great time sitting out on our porch the other night listening to blue valley northwest high school homecoming they had their dance outside in front of the courtyard and we could hear the cheering and the singing all the way across antioch or all the way across schweitzer at our house you know it was a good time and it was a unique memory that the students the teachers and other staff members put a lot of creativity and thought in to create for those students this hard work is paying off our district's covered numbers continue to decline it's a relief to all parents and i know our greater community i'm here this evening to ask that we don't take our foot off the gas now i understand that we all want our

033lives to get back to whatever we think normal was for us but just because our numbers are good right now it's because we have the mitigation strategies in place vaccinations for younger kids are around the corner let's please keep doing what we know works what we've proven works and we can get there together thank you very much thank you next is dave and jarroll thank you my name is david cheryl and i'm a resident of leawood thank you dr merrigan and members of the board for having all of us here it's truly an honor to hear all the recognitions and the stories so i'm the father of a student at blue valley high along with two other graduates from boulevard high school we also have a fourth child who will be at blue valley high

034school in a few years but tonight i'm here to express my sincere appreciation for the recent and still ongoing building improvements at blue valley high school thanks to the 2020 bond which the school board proposed to resident patrons in which we patrons voted overwhelmingly to improve to approve our high school facilities got much needed and overdue updates with student learning and safety in mind we have more classrooms we have awesome flexible learning spaces particularly the various schools throughout the district we have new facilities for sports performing arts and activities and we also have important security upgrades that are being made to the schools so to everyone who made the 2020 bond reality a sincere thank you from the bottom of our hearts we're honored to be part of this learning and parent community you saw

035it here tonight and i'm speaking not just for blue valley high school but for schools throughout the district i'm very grateful that our school facilities will be much better equipped for all of our students in the years to come so thank you again to our school board and our learning community thank you david uh next is sylvia williams no sorry you told me um next is rhoda amen uh hello my name is rita i'm a senior at blue valley north just one of the few representatives up north today blue valley north was named the number one high school in the state of kansas this year now you might be wondering what is she going to talk about it's literally the best high school in the state although the title sounds great like many other schools

036nationwide north needs some improvements starting off with our library in the past two years both of north north's library part has terminated along with their positions library paras are a backbone to the library as they help run the library while that's why well the librarians teach the library staff members are what keep those students going earlier this year my grandmother passed away while i kept a big smile on my face to disguise my pain the only person who saw through it was miss cornelius blue valley north librarian who was watching tonight on the live stream while she's a librarian and wasn't one of those terminated we lost a few greats the district had promised that determination of the positions was purely financial reasons that that they would have no effects on the students there were

037in fact effects on the students the hours of the library were 6 30 am to 4 pm and are now 7 30 am to 3 15 pm middle schools have lost all of their paras over the last two years leaving only the librarian with just a librarian they must close and lock the library when they go use the restroom something that was not a problem just two years ago at north the library was used as a safe resource for students after school to do their homework get tutored by upperclassmen and to simply wait for their parents daily students are being forced to wait until four o'clock due to the bus driver shortage the library would have been a great resource for those students instead they have to wait outside or in other parts of the

038school with zero staff supervision there is a problem that would that is a problem that would have been solved had the library staff remain the same another effect is that there is an increase in stolen items in the library with staff being cut short and sometimes having only one librarian run the whole place it's easy for students to take things from the library without being seen the loss of items in the library only adds to the financial strain of the district the district should find other means of saving money than terminating some of the lowest paid staff members now i'm not here to be tone deaf i recognize that there is a fiscal shortage in the district and decisions made by the board are not taken lightly but to take away some of the most

039important people in a school for students is not the best choice the librarian staff are built-in therapists will give you a great book recommendation and that book might change your life and most of all there are some of the kindest people with the founder of advice ready to flow although i do not stand before you tonight with a tight solution i implore you i implore you to figure out ways to keep one of the best student resources my solution is to keep this uh to export a surplus of managers other districts in the in the area with far larger amounts of students would have fewer managers in blue valley if blue valley employee employs a similar student manager ratio as a shiny valley would be saving millions of dollars that could go to things like

040libraries and increasing other resources for students the termination of library paras only saved the district a couple hundred thousand a small number compared to the amount the district could save a library is the basis of knowledge and at no point should it be closed during the day and students should have access to it before and after school in a time where students are struggling academically and emotionally emotionally the library is the one resource that addresses birth for every student thank you ron next is cindy holscher okay um sally joshua marilyn poskin hi good evening i'm marilyn poskin and i'm here to express gratitude extraordinary gratitude for outstanding public schools and for the blue valley district in particular and i'm going to do so from three different roles that i hold one is as a state

041legislature slater i represent house district 20 and i can tell you that world-class public schools are the foundation for so many measurements that we use across the state for success and as we have noted before the last couple of years have been very difficult and i will tell you that as a legislator i'm so grateful that with the foundation that we have of our outstanding public schools we have been able to have record capital investment in 2020 in our state and that is because our employers and various businesses recognize the value of our outstanding public schools so we broke the record for capital investment in the state of kansas in as well in 2021 we just broke into the top 20 states to do business in for the first time in history so thank you

042from my role as a legislator for the outstanding work that you do at blue valley public schools the second role that i'm going to speak about is my role as a higher education professional for over 20 years and i currently have a small business advising college admissions advising our students in college admissions and i will tell you that i'm extraordinarily grateful that blue valley school district graduates 70 percent or more of their students who are eligible for merit scholarships at the university of kansas that makes my job really easy because you know as college admissions advisors we advise students to you know have various levels of selectivity that they're looking at in their plan so it's wonderful that most of my clients already know that they qualify for a merit scholarship at the university of

043kansas as well there's this little piece of paper called the high school profile and a lot of people aren't really aware of what this is and what it does but the registrars at our high schools when our students apply to college they send these out with the transcripts now a lot of the students that i work with are looking at very selective colleges and i will tell you that most people in those admissions offices understand the value of a blue valley education and this is the proof and for the schools that are maybe outside of that normal range of the high selectivity they read this and they know that they can take our students and that they will benefit greatly from their college education and last but not least and i only left myself 32

044seconds for this as a patron my blended family has seven children we have 90 years of k-12 education experience 62 of which are right here in johnson county so i would like to thank the librarians who fired their imagination the administrations if you are fast at math and you saw that we should have 91 years one of my children skipped a grade the administrators made that outstanding i have a child who had an iep for severe apraxia of speech he went on to get an engineering degree from dartmouth and swam in the college level our specialist teacher including sue thacker at harmony elementary is the one common denominator of all seven of my children thank you very much thank you next is free hashafi okay edwin jenner we didn't have a sitter okay greg williams

045uh greg williams a patron of blue valley a parent of a prairie star fifth grader and i really have nothing to add to what everybody else said i just want to thank the seven board members for volunteering to serve we really appreciate you serving as a volunteer on this board it's very important that you do and we appreciate it thank you thank you holly skelton hi my name is holly skelton and i'm a clinical pharmacist but i'm also the mother of three children my oldest goes to elementary school in blue valley and my younger two will be at that same elementary school shortly but i had three main things i wanted to talk about tonight number one thank you thank you to you guys thank you to the administrators principals teachers support staff paraprofessionals custodial

046services transportation services and anyone else i probably forgot for making this entire season work and short staffed no less to make sure that our children are their academic emotional health social media needs are met i know i have a hard time expressing my gratitude um because we've all like all parents all people have been in survival mode for several months now um especially like working parents and people dealing with like health things and other things like that it's hard to like take time out to thank everyone that really should be thanked but i did want to come tonight and just express my gratitude to everyone and show our appreciation and i know i don't speak for every blue valley parent but everyone i personally know feels the same way we all feel so grateful for

047the hard work uncomfortable situations and difficult decisions that you all have had to make and other people have had to enforce to make this work we actually had our daughter choose the virtual option last year and we actually had a lot of negative comments from people about it that wasn't our experience we had a positive experience with it and while it wasn't perfect it did what it needed to do to ensure that she needed it served us for what she needed at the time and very beneficial for her and i think that she learned some really long-term life skills that she wouldn't have gotten any other way probably until she's way older just self you know time management things like that and i know a lot of us virtual parents felt the same way we

048had a lot of anxiety about what this year was going to bring and what that meant for our children that we all made the made a lot of sacrifices to keep them home last year and all of us were relieved to see how things are going this year our children are happy they're healthy they're in school we you know knock on what i haven't we haven't had to do anything it's been great so just really want to show our appreciation for that and definitely run out uh short on time so go quickly on these other two but um the other thing is i just have a growing concern for people who and i probably have more questions than answers that seem very vocal about like what happens in our school board and what happens in

049our communities that don't actually live here or have students that go to blue valley or have had students that go to blue valley so um just as a you know just to bring that up to the board is it's really important that the board represents and listens to parents educators and professionals on education thank you thank you next is brad uretsky i don't think brad's here and rupaul gupta hi my name is rupal gupta i'm a general pediatrician i'm here as a private citizen and i've been a resident of leawood kansas now for the past five years and i'm really just so excited to get to be here i work all the time and it's not often i get to come and just give my thanks to you guys so i really do appreciate the

050work that you all do my kids are 7 10 and they attend mission trail elementary school one day they're going to go to blue valley north and i hope that all of those paras are back um to help support them and they've really been thrilled to return for in-person education this year and i'm really just here to say thank you thank you for listening to medical professionals and to the wise words of all of the public health officials that we have locally and nationally thank you for putting together policy and operational procedures and schools that maximize our kids ability to find community and mentorship with their teachers to be present with one another while and to learn while mitigating the risks of this global pandemic and really thank you for providing my children with an

051extraordinary and invigorating educational experience that fosters their inclusion addresses their educational needs and keeps them healthy and you know as i've as i've been listening to people here today i i think back to my days as uh one of the few people of color in my elementary school which was back east where i thought nothing i i never thought i would live in kansas one day and here i am and i love it and um i i i i would have you know back then i had i had teachers who would tell me something different about my history than what i knew they would tell me different things about my religion and tell me i was wrong because of what i was saying and it's such um it's i never would have expected to see

052to see the world the way it is today with inclusiveness with with presenting of history in a balanced way that that tells the that aims to tell the whole story you know um a place where people can be included as they are and you don't have to feel different or apart because of you know what you believe or who you love or how you identify so i mean you know really thank you um thank you also to teachers um and our principals who are now enjoying their homes thank goodness for expecting the highest of our kids for engaging in tough conversations to make sure that they become citizens of integrity and amid this worst of times you've really made our families experience a very rewarding one i see my kids growing in spirit and mind

053every day and you know this has been a very tough year and a half but we're making progress i i really want us to continue common sense measures like masking and social distancing through which we have prevented widespread outbreaks breaks of covid19 and really allowed our kids to move forward so let's get through this next period making sure that we retain masking and safety procedures support our kids make sure that they get immunized safely against covid and we continue to collaborate as a community and i really appreciate you all and thank you for enabling the education of our next generation making this the best time for our family thank you as a former new yorker i agree with you i love kansas as well that wraps up our open forum for tonight on behalf of

054the 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 district administration took notes during open forum and we will follow up as needed with participants um next up we're gonna oh oh we need a we need a break we have a five-minute break that we need to take right now all right everyone we're gonna call the meeting to order now do i have a motion sorry that the board of education approved the agenda for the october 11th regular board of education meeting as published second motion by stacy second by tom all those in favor oh and amy amy is um on audio so that's 7-0 okay yeah oh that's good i asked you i

055know sorry now we'll have reports from your good board advisory committees so i'll start us off with the diversity equity and inclusion committee the diversity equity and inclusion committee met last thursday on october 7th we first started out with some feedback on our esser funds that we are doing with various committees and groups throughout that we have in blue valley so the committee did that and then the second part of the meeting was an update on how district the district develops curriculum so kelly ott and jennifer luczynski were there and they talked about board of education policies 4000 which articulates how we write curriculum and 4 600 which is how we select resources they also answered questions from the committee the committee as you could imagine had questions about how equity and diversity is integrated

056into the curriculum they also had questions about how our teachers go about delivering that curriculum in a fair and unbiased manner it was great participation and feedback the next meeting of this committee is on thursday november 4th at 4 pm via zoom next up i think dr collier is going to give the curriculum an instruction the curriculum board advisory committee met on september 8th that evening began with kellyat reviewing the purpose of the committee and next a back-to-school report was provided to the committee similar to the report that the board of education received at your september board of education meeting kellyanne explained the professional strategies that academic services teachers and building leaders are emphasizing to ensure learning acceleration as a result of understanding the effects on covet 19 on student learning and development these strategies

057are referred to the core four internally and emphasize the following culture and climate professional learning communities data or formative assessments and an interventionist mindset adam wade director of academic achievement and accountability reviewed student performance with the committee he emphasized acadian's data and map data he will revisit the committee with results for this from this school year our next meeting is october 13th thank you next up uh mark schmidt with the health and well-being committee good evening the health and well-being committee met on september 22nd via zoom the meeting was called the order at 4 pm after a welcome and introduction for our first meeting we discussed the purpose of the committee and talked about the scope including counseling social work health services parents as teachers and special education next we talked we talked to all

058of the members and asked what they would like to hear about this year or what they would like to learn more about and participate we had a great conversation and some of the topics included mental health supports for staff nurses and administrators hosting a panel discussion to hear the students perspective on creating healthy school environments the impact of having greenery within each school a student perspective on covid 19 and procedures supporting students friends in crisis and how and whether vaping continues to be an issue or not you know some a lot of things kind of get overshadowed through coven it was also suggested that we we take a look and talk about mental health as it relates to the heavy load of ap courses some of our kids are taking in high school and a

059couple of suggestions were made that i'm sure we'll be able to bring forward to some other committees as well following this discussion we talked about a cover 19 update which you all have received several times but we talked about how that response was going the impact of quarantine and then what we can do to make sure that students are transitioning safely and also with their well-being in mind the meeting concluded at 5 32 and our next meeting is november 3rd at 4pm via zoom thank you dr schmidt kyle hayden is going to give two reports of facility and operations and student activities good evening the finance and operations board advisory committee met on october 7th via zoom along with i along with the board representatives provided a general district update on a number of items

060including the november board of education elections the nearing end of the first quarter and the continued staffing and supply chain shortages director of accounting and payroll nathan mull and jonathan nybarger vice president with alan gibbs and hulick presented the district's financial statements for last year a report is going to be presented to the board later this evening nathan wall presented a summary of the district's investments as of september 30th i provided an update on the use of esser covet federal relief funds and the committee went through a thought exchange exercise to give us feedback director of finance jenny daniel presented the bond tax compliance checklist summary for fiscal year 21. that's on the consent agenda for tonight jake slobodnick director of facilities and operations and jason gilliam director of business operations presented the monthly bids

061and contracts the next meeting is scheduled for thursday november 4th the student activities committee met on september 23rd via zoom the primary purpose for the student activities committee meeting was to discuss a focus for this school year given that it was the first meeting the board of education representatives for the committee shared the history and the past initiatives that have the committee has worked on the committee then broke into small groups to discuss topics for the committee's consideration each small group then shared the discussion topics with the entire group administrators provided athletic and activity updates for the high schools and middle schools followed by an update from the blue valley recreation commission the next meeting is scheduled for october 21st and that concludes our committee reports next we have reports from board members and superintendent

062from items not included on the agenda tom i have nothing matter vice president okay jody i do have something um i just want to give a big shout out to our our bands here in blue valley they're absolutely amazing everybody in this room understands that but um was able to go to the blue valley district marching showcase a few weeks ago and absolutely blown away um so the talent that we have in this district and in so many different areas and and this includes band i'm it was absolutely amazing so just a big shout out there mike just a very quick item uh i don't know how many of you know that steve basinger the executive excuse me the ex-executive director of blue valley wreck retired on september 17th after 13 years steve spent 35

063years in parks and recreation stuff and was blue valley rec's longest standing executive director and the first believe it or not to retire and not go to another job so if you get a chance drop steve a line i'm sure he has absolutely nothing to do except play golf and pickleball stacy uh yeah just real quick um i had my recaps all written out from all my board advisory committees but i forgot that we do the wonderful recap so i don't have to bore you all with that uh suffice it to say it is a pleasure to sit in on dei sac health and well-being and hear from our patrons and get the sense that we're worried about normal issues and we're tackling some things it's starting to feel like things are calming down that

064we're getting some real work done which is super exciting for me i love those meetings i'd love to hear what the patrons have to say and so thank you for all of you that are involved in that i also have to give my monthly thank you to our incredible staff um i really feel like i don't say that enough um and they are doing a tremendous job with our kids every day so just a simple thank you um for that and then the last thing i would just suggest that everyone don't forget to vote next month we have important elections coming up and it's not just the board of education which obviously i'm super interested in but there's city council races mayor races jccc so anyway just pay attention to that and make sure you

065take the opportunity to get out and vote thank you and i believe early voting starts october 23rd at hilltop is one of the locations so patrick okay i will go um i have a couple things um first uh homecomings it's so fun to see normal my son's a sophomore and so they didn't really have a homecoming last year and so essentially he's like a freshman at homecoming so it was just so exciting to see them get to live through some normal high school memories and um that light at the end of the tunnel is there by all of these normal activities that we're starting to see take place so and i think i know we have southwest this coming weekend um and the rest of them have already taken place did all of them take

066place outside no west did not do that west didn't okay but all they all went so well i've heard nothing but terrific things and so it's just it's great to hear that kind of stuff um i also want to say congratulations we had a record number of national merit semi-finalists 58 of our students in blue valley and that's always very exciting that is a huge honor um and a very difficult feat to uh to achieve so um we look forward to seeing their successes um i also wanted to just say on october 28th i believe i am attending the ka oh no it's not october 28th well anyway in the next couple weeks i'm attending the kasb um well i have a high school task force the graduation requirement task force that i'm still on

067we've had two more meetings since my last time we've broken into subgroups to try and pin down some ideas so that we can get something on paper to have more conversations with the community and there will be things coming out to get public feedback we want all stakeholders to have a say in what these changes may or may not look like for our kansas graduation requirements so stay tuned with that and then i will also attend the ksb legislative assembly meeting at the ksb convention which is november 7th i believe so i'll be doing that and that is it i have a couple of things too first of all this is national physical therapy month and we do have some physical therapists within our district so we want to shout out to those individuals who

068provide great services for our students next week is also national school bus safety week and one of the days is school bus driver day but we know we have a great partnership with durham we've had some challenges just like every other entity across the united states finding bus drivers but but we really value and cherish the bus drivers that we have they're the the first first thing that many of our students see in the morning first person and they provide really positive experiences so thank you to durham and to our bus drivers for all that they do um as michelle mentioned we have 58 national merit semifinalists that began last october when they took the psat and that begins this wednesday for the current junior class so this wednesday is a national testing day for

069psat so all across the country that is when the psat is given it is a testing day in blue valley so our high school students will be testing for the most part either doing a psat or a practice a ct um and then they will be have an early release on wednesday for high school only that i just wanted to give a shout out and to tell our high school students good luck and that we're thinking of them they're ready for this and um it'll be a good day for them i also want to say kudos to our high school teachers and administrators for homecoming activities i think that many of them have started some new traditions which is pretty exciting i also want to thank our elementary and middle schools who have done activities

070as well from carnivals and outdoor activities to plays and sports at middle school plays are just getting started as well i'm pretty excited this saturday i'm going to clue at blue valley north so i can report on that next month we also um this is the end of the first quarter friday um friday is a no school or no student a contact day we have our teachers involved in professional learning and wrapping up the first quarter but we would be remiss if we didn't thank um our entire community our students our parents our teachers our administrators our librarians our parents our nurses every single person who is in our schools because we have had a very successful first quarter and it's because we have all worked together on that i'm getting ready to hit every

071one of our buildings 38 buildings between tomorrow and december 15th so i'm very excited that you know mr mitchell you always ask me if i get to do my normal job that is my normal job and i am pretty excited to start that a little tour tomorrow and see the great things firsthand that are happening within our building okay now yeah why don't you do it again just okay in case all right so um i moved that the board of education approved the agenda for the october 11th regular board of education meeting is published second all right motion by stacy oh everyone all those motion by stacy i'm sorry second by tom all those in favor raise your right hand or say aye thank you uh that's 7-0 okay next we have to approve the

072consent agenda i move that the board of education approve the consent agenda for the october 11th regular board of education meeting as published second motion by tom uh second by jody all those in favor raise your right hand or say aye aye okay that passes seven zero we have new business okay uh we have our annual audit report for 2021. this is exciting stuff guys so making the way to the podium is nathan who's going to start us off nathan you don't have to take that hey that was not facetious i was an auditor in my previous life so i was you can look it up i worked for pricewaterhouse new york city so and then i became a teacher because that wasn't for me but it's still exciting so thank you well good evening

073um so i'm just going to introduce um jonathan nyberger with um alan gibbs and hulick but i did want to take a quick second in the spirit of tonight kind of being a lot about appreciation i wanted to acknowledge all the hard work of our finance and operations team but especially specifically the accounting payroll and budgeting team over the last three months have worked very closely with our auditors helping getting them the documents and information they need to complete their audit so i just wanted to acknowledge our teams for all their hard work so i'll let jonathan speak to the audit report thank you nathan good evening i'm jonathan nybarger and was the officer in charge of the 2021 audit this year i'll briefly go through the audit and the financial statements and then answer

074any questions you may have in front of you i believe you should have a financial statement that also has a couple loose pages i'm first going to go through the financial statements and then address the other letters that are included in the financial statements pages 1 and 2 are the auditor's report the auditor's report includes standards that we use for the audit and most importantly the opinion that we issued the opinion can be found on the second page in the first paragraph we issued an unmodified opinion which is the highest and best opinion the district can receive and i feel like that speaks very highly on the financial management of the school district also in the auditor's report right below our opinion was an emphasis of matter paragraph that was due to a couple of

075items that are included in the district's financial statements this year the first was the district's required implementation of governmental accounting standards board number 84 fiduciary activities the implementation of the standard replaced agency funds that were previously reported in the district's financial statements and required the district to evaluate those funds on how they should be classified going forward under the new standards requirements as part of this evaluation the district also evaluated other funds and reclassified some of their existing funds as well so as such in the financial statements you'll see now a combining general fund schedule that includes several funds that qualify as general funds as well as some reclassification of those agency funds to non-major special revenue funds as well other than this reorganization to the district's financial statements there were no major changes to

076the district's financial statements um from past years the other part that i wanted to point out was towards the end of the financial statements um and is the um kind of last section of the audit and it's it regarding the schedule of expenditures of federal awards because the district expended more than 750 000 in federal expenditures during the year you're required to receive a special audit of over those expenses this year we audited the elementary school sorry elementary and secondary school emergency relief grant the trial nutrition cluster grants and the coronavirus relief fund grant that came through the county and i'm happy to report as part of our audits of all of these grants we did not have any findings that we noted so then separate from the financial statements we issued our governance letter

077which is our letter to all of you to keep you informed about significant matters of the audit um towards the bottom of the first page there's it knows the adoption of the gatsby 84 by the district which i already talked about relating into our emphasis of matter paragraph on the second page it discusses some of the significant estimates that the district includes as part of their financial statements which are the net pension liability allowances on receivables compensated absences and other post-employment benefit liabilities and then we also noted that we did not are not aware of any uncorrected misstatements in the district's financial statements so in conclusion i would like to thank all of the district staff that we work with this year i always like to mention that an audit is a huge undertaking for

078all district staff that we work with and so we appreciate all their help and it seems like they do a great job for the district so thank you for your time this evening and i'm available for any questions you may have i know i asked how many years have you done this for us you were with the previous firm i i was with the previous audit firm um so at agh we've had this audit now um for two years and i i'd left for in between year and then over the course of being there for about 11 years i've worked on the audit probably a decent portion of those years thank you any other questions thank you for your work and it is a huge undertaking for our staff um i know that when the

079auditors come sometimes the staff are a little like oh gosh now there's we have to pull documents and but um your work is very appreciated as well so thank you very much and i'm sure our staff was very nice to you because that's why i wasn't into the whole audit thing my the staff were not very pleased when i when an auditor would walk in so i didn't like that all right thank you thank you all right next um we will have the covet prevention update all right uh dr schmidt is going to lead us through this discussion um around the mitigation measures that we have in place as well as our dashboard numbers uh as we've been doing at the previous monthly meetings we're starting off with just a look at what our cova

080data looks like i'm very pleased to report to the board and also to our community that our numbers have continued to drop off uh just even this last week our numbers were cut in half from 32 cases down to 16. i think this is a good time just to stop and and recognize all the work that is going on throughout the district it's our principals our nurses our teachers everybody that has a hand in making sure that the prevention method methodology is followed i think it's really showing and it's paying dividends to our community and where you really see that is in all the activities that were talked about earlier tonight um in addition to this positive news as you might expect are quarantine that data has also dropped that's improved so we're down this

081last time we had 70 students that were quarantined at some point during this last week we've talked multiple times about how do we get kids keep kids in school and then also return them to school as quickly as possible that is truly our goal and while the recognizing who has coveted and then also doing some quarantines is part of those efforts we want to figure out how do we get kids back quicker and part of that can be testing strategies that have been put forward by the kansas department of health and environment and also ksde the first area way of testing that helps prevent the spread is our teachers have an opportunity every thursday to voluntarily test and to see whether or not you know that just to see if they are asymptomatic and also

082positive as you can see for three consecutive weeks we we had two total cases that were positive and so that was very very good news on october 7th we started something new a driving clinic that we'll talk about here in a minute and all numbers were combined in addition we wanted to make sure that our staff members had an opportunity in order to see if the sniffles they have are related to the common cold allergies or covet and so we started a new system and and eric panzwick dr punzwick was a major driving force in getting this up and going through a partnership with mod right now you can drop off uh staff can pick up a kit utilize the kit drop off the specimen at two different locations one very close to district office

083and another one over at the mod headquarters and within 12 to 16 hours they will have their results and so that allows people to safely come to school or come to work and provide services to our kids something brand new since the last month is we also started a driving clinic with mod mod mod is sponsoring it we are providing space this driving clinic is modeled after one that was opened up over at shawnee mission to start with and i believe they are expanding it to other districts as well but it operates monday through friday 8 am to 3 30. it's open to any student or students immediate family member or staff member or their immediate family member so we wanted to make sure that that not only our employees safe and their families safe

084but our kids and their families as well and all you need to do is call make an appointment and they will get you in uh very soon we should be able to do those scheduling online that will make the process even work quicker the test results are emailed to the parents and also our employee and then also to our wellness team within 12 to 16 hours in the first week or in the first week we had 153 tests given with two positives keep in mind that's without advertising we finally sent out a parent notice right at the end of the week because we wanted to have kind of a slow start to make sure we were set ready to go coming soon this is where we get back to school quicker the kansas health department

085and and kansas department of education have really been talking to us about a testing strategy of uh tests to stay and learn and what this would do is allow our students who might have been exposed been a close contact to a positive case of covid to by doing daily testing they would be able to come back to school and to benefit from their education during that time that they would otherwise be quarantined at home and the health department i've got the seal of approval from johnson county health department that this is safe it virtually eliminates the need to do to go back and remove somebody i mean they're not going to be positive because we're also using the state-of-the-art pcr testing and so that's going to be a very positive addition i believe to our

086district now you'll notice that it says november 1st is our start date uh unfortunately because it's very timely and students would need to go to the clinic after school and then get the results before school the next day mod labs needs to increase the number of staff members that they have uh working in the lab to make sure to process all of those tests and then secondly in order to expand the hours of our driving clinic and as you can see our new hours at the driving clinic starting november 1st would be 8 am to 6 pm that gives several hours after school in order to get in for testing friday would would end at 3 30 because we don't have school saturday and then on sunday we'll have 10 to 2 o'clock testing available

087everything else is the same i would welcome your questions or discussion i have a quick question um so can you take me through a little bit let's say my student has been exposed just a quick little synopsis of how this test to stay thing works so let's say that if your child is exposed at school what will happen is the school district will share that information with johnson county health department the health department will then respond back and let us know whether or not the student needs to be quarantined and excluded from school we share that information with the parents we have the student go home if the parents would choose and it is a choice to participate in this return just or test to stay and learn then what they would do is they

088go to the driving clinic or really to any any lab that that has the pcr testing and give us you know give their specimen and it would be tested and as long as they had it did not detect virus which is a negative result they would be allowed to come to school the next day they would do that each day during that seven day period and if all is is good if there's not a positive result they would not have to miss any school whatsoever what happens if on day four my kiddo it comes back as a positive what do you do well in that case the student because any any student that's positive with a communicable disease would need to be excluded just like you know you're sick we did talk to the health

089department whether we would need to go back two days or not like we do currently and they said no because it would be only that short time period between when the test was given and then when the new positive was given so they'll be we'll report that information will still report to the health department uh the information that they request which might include the student you know was the student unmasked with any other students but it should we really expect that not to have much impact at all as far as the spread goes or not no impact based on what the johnson county said dr schmidt a couple of clarifications one is if a student has been exposed and they're participating in this test to stay lunch we would have to make um exceptions for

090them am i correct that they would they would have to sit um we would have to provide a space for them where they're not within six feet of somebody else because our expectation would be that they would be masked uh the entire time they were within six feet of anybody else yes i apologize for glossing over that there are some additional safety measures students would have to be masked um in order to be in the building and then also our principals will work with them to have a safe place to have a distanced lunch other questions other questions for dr schmidt um well one back in august we had um our conversation about masks in schools and we said that we would review this quarterly at least and um so i entertain a discussion uh

091or continued questions for dr schmidt or dr american about how things are going with the masks and um any enlightenment as to when maybe we can change course so um i will just start by saying that um i've been very pleased with the numbers that we've seen it's obvious that this is keeping kids in their seats in school and that is the number one objective right now i do still worry though that there's no end game and i am curious your thoughts on how djoko health is feeling about our community numbers coming down and if there's been any inkling as to when there is a true light at the end of the tunnel um while i would love to say that i have you know an exact number of things no you don't things come

092but i do not um i would say that there's a couple of factors that are still that are still on hold i think you know vaccinations have not started yet for uh students that are five you know five to 11 and then also vaccination of their younger siblings you know that that might still be in early childhood or not i don't know if that would be something they're holding out for or not but we still have a sizable chunk of our population that that has not had the opportunity to be vaccinated i imagine that's one of the steps i i would also expect that they would want to see um a lower level you know the low level of spread just kind of what we've been seeing i would say they're very encouraged about what

093they're seeing across the community overall there still have been some hot spots within johnson county that that they've expressed concern over but they've tried to address that as quickly as possible i agree with you that at some point we'll need to have a kind of an end game of okay when when does this make sense from a health and well wellness stance to to move to the next step we're making some great strides towards normalcy but i i also know that we have a lot of community members that would like to see that go another step or two right um dr holstein when she was here i asked her at that time if this were our numbers in late may early june would we be having this conversation about masking and she if i heard

094her correctly she said probably not like they were they were thinking things were going really well and we were on our way to having a normal school year um so i'm i'm wondering if it's worth it to have her come back maybe in a month or two or next month or i don't know what anyone is open to but as the numbers do improve i think it would make our community feel better to hear someone from the health department maybe kind of give the we're getting their thumbs up kind of thing that's my thinking um because i i want the masks to go away we can absolutely invite dr holschy back okay but i also understand that we are trying to keep kids in school and kids aren't vaccinated yet i think they're saying november

095first november possible target date november is a big day yeah so we'll see if that happens but hopefully it will does anyone else have any comments or questions or discussion well i just wanted to say i mean i i think you know at least personally um and from what i'm hearing is you know nobody likes this right so um that's i don't see many people now you know i it it was nice today when it was chilly out i didn't have to wear scarf because you know my face was covered but but nobody really likes this so um i just want to make for sure that and i love this concept and i know you guys have really worked hard on this test to stay and learn i think this is adding another level to

096keep the goal of keeping kids in seats and keeping face-to-face learning going and and i absolutely love this next step and it's it to me this is the right step to take right now um and uh you know so we can kind of continue to work you know down this road does anybody know when this will we don't know nobody nobody knows you know how this is going to work we coming into winter months people are going to be outside less maybe i you know who knows but i really appreciate all the work that's gone into thinking kind of i want to say outside of the box a little bit and doing something a little bit farther than what maybe your normal job would normally entail and so i think this test to stay and

097learn program is is a great concept to be able to implement i think also you know i was praising earlier internal staff i think johnson county health department and also the kansas health department this is really done in collaboration with them and with their blessing you know from a public health perspective so that gives me a lot more confidence about moving forward with this as we head into winter months and people start i mean there's already been a fall funk cold going around amongst people that was not coveted and so this testing even just for the teachers every thursday or any time with the drive up clinic for any immediate family of students or teachers that will really help people feel more confident okay this is something that i need to stay home for or

098this is just the normal cold that we get every year and that that really is my biggest i hate the masks yes everybody hates the masks but we do we do want to know that there is some sort of plan for when this is going to be um back to normal um we always got colds we always got sick and we didn't cancel school or make people stay home and so we need to get back to that point at some point but no i mean like a cold and it's not saying sick no i don't mean if you have a fever or the flu of course not but i'm just saying you know if you have the sniffles i don't want to be freaking out that i have covered with the testing will help with

099that and at some point we need to feel like we're making a shift somewhere so we're headed there i don't think me personally that i'm ready to say ta-da we're done at this point at all and i think most of you maybe feel the same way yeah michelle i would concur with what you and jody have both said i i'm not i feel right now like we've got a really good mitigation strategy in place um and i'm not ready to mess with it yet i would love to have elizabeth holschoo come back and speak to us i'm not sure when the timing is on that but you know before we would make any change and decisions on how we're operating i would really look to have somebody from the county come to speak to us

100and provide some support and guidance for you know when is a safe time to make that transition um and um yeah i agree with what you're saying thank you anyone um amy does do you have anything you want to add or ask dr schmidt no i don't think i have anything additional i would uh be supportive like stacy said okay so since we're not changing anything we don't have to vote on anything or we're just going to keep it the same for now um we will invite somebody from the health department to come in in november and and have that discussion november 8th i think is when we meet and that would be probably a good time yeah i think that would be great thank you thank you and i think that would make our

101community feel better hearing from what their thoughts are so all right what's next next we have a review of policy 464610 so um my it guys over there if you guys want to pull up policy 4600 that would be great so on the screen now is board of education policy 4600. this has been around uh for quite a while and this is uh you know routinely we review policies we're not proposing any change to the policy but i thought it was important for for us to spend a little bit time talking about it and for the community to understand that there is policy around the selection of our learning resources so policy 4600 those of us in the who have worked in curriculum know this well this talks about how we go about selecting quality

102learning resources for our students this would include textbooks but it also includes library acquisitions ancillary materials that that are used in the classroom any other resources used for formal or informal teaching so it includes not only the large textbook adoptions that we do where we adopt a new math series or new reading series but it also would include those things that a teacher would choose to use um in addition to maybe some of the um core materials that we have done there talks here about how you go about doing that so first of all it has to tie to the curriculum we have another policy that talks about how you write that curriculum so any resource that a teacher uses or that the district purchases has to tie to the curriculum it also talks about

103the quality of the resource looking at favorable reviews looking at making sure it's a reputable source making sure that you have a number of different voices and representation within there and then it talks about a conflict of interest so those are all the the the different things that go into the selection of a resource um our policies are are on our district website that's the other thing that i would say um for anybody who's at home looking the other policy that we have here is policy 4610 4610 talks about the challenges to those learning resources so you know we we do have this policy that talks about how you select a learning resource anything from a large textbook series to a library book to an online subscription to a um just a poem maybe that

104a teacher uses in their classroom and they're i believe that we have people who do great work and and to follow that policy but what this does is that it allows if a mistake has been made that it allows us to self-correct and so that's what this talks about is there's a well-defined board-approved process if there's something that somebody within the community whether it's a staff member whether it's a parent or honestly whether it's a student who feels that we have erred in some way on a resource that we have selected it walks you through the process of how you would challenge that there are two types of individuals with this policy a directly affected person and an indirectly affected person and it defines out what those are it defines out what a learning resource

105is um there are multiple levels that involve committees at a bill starts at a building level uh then it can be appealed to a district level a level and then finally to the board of education um on those committees are staff members librarians but also on those committees our parents and at the high school level there would be students involved um so there is a well-defined process uh and i i have followed this process it has been a while um since i had to lead one of these but i have been a part of this process and it's a very good process it's very thorough uh it involves um really i believe all aspects of our community as we go through this so in addition to this there are also guidelines um to all of

106these policies which also can be found online there's there's links right there very easy to find so we just wanted to talk a little bit about those two policies and i'm open to questions or anything the board would like to talk about um quick questions so how long does that process take approximately well it depends on what the what it is that you're reviewing for example if you are reviewing a library book or a novel of some sort you have to give a committee time to read that novel so you have to you have to find the people first of all you have to give them time to read the novel because that would be the expectation of the committee is that you read the entire resource or if it's a online subscription that you

107spend multiple much time you know going through all of those different resources but no more than 30 days is what we say but we would try and do that in a shorter amount of time but we would want to make sure we gave people time to um thoroughly go through the resource i think can we just clarify that is for any type of material in any building i mean it could be a library book it could be a poem that's quoted in class time it could be a magazine that's you know available for kids to read so it's anything is open for review by you know the you know definition of the policy by the affected individuals to submit or i mean we're not just talking about you know curriculum books in the classroom that

108are being taught class wide by the teacher is that true yeah i'm reading exactly how we define it here in the sorry in the policy learning resources are defined as textbooks library acquisitions and ancillary materials for classroom use and any other resources used for formal or informal teaching and learning purposes okay any other questions all right um i think next we have to appoint um patrons to board advisory committees i believe we have one i move that the board of education appoints luke samuel of the northeast district to a new two-year term on the student activities board advisory committee as a blue ballet high school representative okay motion by tom second by stacy all those in favor raise your right hand or say aye aye okay that passes seven zero and i believe that that

109is what's going on yeah so we need a motion to adjourn i move that the october 11 regular board of education meeting be adjourned motion by mike second by stacy all those in favor raise your right hand or say aye hi all right that passes 7-0 thank you guys happy birthday kyle hayden michelle benjamin corey moan we have a few birthdays here michelle no yeah yep like i said they aren't as fun anymore thank you okay