001hi everyone we're going to stand for the pledge of allegiance officer reindel is going to lead us thank you okay we're gonna get started we have um open forum first no recognitions first sorry right this is really the best part of the meeting because we have so many outstanding students and staff to be honored tonight this evening it is an honor to celebrate and recognize some of the extraordinary achievements of our students and staff have earned can tory hamilton will creamer leah dutton and kathy perry's please come forward [Applause] blue valley high school's business team was named 2021 kansas state champions at the business professionals of america competition a first for any blue valley school bpa is the nation's leading student organization for students pursuing careers in various business fields blue valley high's business team
002is led by business instructor kathy perrys who has been with the district for 19 years helping students pursue their interests in business at the national level of epa last spring blue valley high school's business team brought home a total of 16 top 10 awards and one national championship team will yes absolutely [Applause] will creamer torrey hamilton and leah dutton brought home that national first place finish in the presentation management team this is yet another indicator that our students are being well prepared for their futures let's give them a round of applause for representing blue valley across the state and across the nation [Applause] all right we're going to have a picture taken that's okay hubby can get a picture too congratulations that's outstanding [Applause] all right with tara asher district coordinating nurse please come forward
003[Applause] tonight we want to recognize a special employee tara asher who has been by our side from day one of kova's impact on our district i'm going to turn it over to dr miragan to share a little bit more about why we chose to recognize her tonight so tara i can remember distinctly back to about february of and we met back there in that little conference room and you explained to us kind of what covid was and and what you knew about it and you had been in contact with the health department already and then you met with our administrative team and you gave us all your cell phone number and i think you were called over and over and over and over again and then you let our nurses through a really trying couple
004of years and you continue to lead our nurses and um we just cannot thank you enough for everything that you have done and you're here today representing everybody in our health services team every single one of our school nurses blue valley is blessed to have a school nurse in every single building in our district and you know as a high school administrator i knew how important they were especially if they had to be gone and you couldn't you didn't have a sub but now it is doubly important in coba that we have those individuals there to support us and our students and our families so thank you for all that you do thank you to our nurses and our health services team for all that they do we really appreciate you [Applause] congratulations tara this
005evening it's also an honor to recognize two staff members with distinguished service and excellence in education awards these people go above and beyond each day in our schools and across the district would colleen please come forward with kendall burr [Applause] colleen cutter is an early childhood paraprofessional at the hilltop learning center and we're so excited to recognize her with the distinguished service award colleen has been with the district for 12 years kendall you know very well how important our pairs are to the learning experience of many of our children so tell us a little bit about colleen thank you um and colleen is probably the thing that says the most about why she's deserving of this is she hates this right now standing here and receiving this recognition when we talk about the great things
006that she does in the classroom i think she's a little dumbfounded and thinks well just isn't that what you're supposed to do so colleen i think um like so many of our para educators i think what makes colleen so special is how just day after day that what she gives to kids what she gives to her team some of the um rising above and beyond she started her tenure with the early childhood program at stanley and then last year made a move over to hilltop and through as lots of us went through court through teachers being quarantined through a teacher and a whole class being quarantined helping out wherever we needed her and colleen always had a smile and just a steady calmness that helped the rest of us and the rest of her team
007feel so calm and this year she started the year again we're all used to surprises i guess at this point but she started the year learning that her teacher had a surgery right before school started so she spent the first two weeks of the school year with various substitutes coming and going and colleen really was the glue that held that classroom together and i think her the students in the classroom had no idea that anything was unusual or different because colleen made school an awesome place for them so again like so many of our para educators colleen is really special just every day day to day what she gives to our students and gives to our staff and colleen i do think you exemplify you're here today representing the early childhood center but also every
008single one of our para educators for all that they do and we we couldn't exist without all of you in our classroom so from the district thank you for all that you do do you would you like to say anything i will thank my husband because he puts up with me when i'm very tired when i get home and i truly um i couldn't do my job without there's a huge team and everybody works so hard and particularly in early childhood it is a challenging job it is a super fun job but it takes all of us and i appreciate this but it's truly a team effort and i had so much support in the past couple years so thanks to everyone congratulations we're going to take a picture and shout out to colleen's husband
009we we appreciate you congratulations now would catherine meehan please come forward with your principal kristen venable [Applause] we're excited to recognize catherine meehan choir teacher at indian valley elementary with an excellence in education award this school year is catherine's fifth year in the district so um kristen please tell us why catherine is so special to the district well catherine is an amazing music teacher she's so engaging and fun students are active they're on instruments they are creating they've made their own musicals it's been so fun but more importantly she is a great teacher of students and she cares about each of our kids deeply she's extremely inclusive we have a couple center-based programs in our school and those kids are just as much a part of her music class as any other kid she gets
010to know each kid it's amazing to me how well she knows our kids in a 30 minute music period but she does and she always takes on some of our struggling students spends her extra time getting to know them talking with them and helping them feel like they really belong at our school so i couldn't be more appreciative that she is a part of our indian valley community and i'm just thankful that i got to hire her as a teacher here and you know it's very fitting that this happens to be national arts and education week and that we are representing or uh honoring one of our very own music teachers so thank you for all that you do i know it is it was challenge for our specials teachers over the last year we
011took your rooms in order to serve lunch in some cases and you were on a cart for a while moving around but again i i can't reiterate what kristin just said is that you really looked out for the needs of your kids and worked hard to make those connections so thank you for all that you do now i i think you have somebody here with you too and do you want to say anything well first i'd like to thank kristen for making and helping me be the teacher i am i really she is so welcoming and her door is always open when i need to talk or need and have questions or need advice but i really i learned so much from the students and i would not be up here without them they teach
012me something new every single day and i think they make me the best teacher i can be so thank you to them and thank you to my boyfriend for being here on his birthday happy birthday congratulations we're going to take a picture you know blue valley is known for having the very best education all around so let's give all of our honorees a round of applause [Applause] one thing i might add is um typically those who are here for recognitions only are looking for a way to sneak out so of course you are welcome to stay if you'd like but if you were looking for that opportunity it would be now others are welcome to find a new seat if they would like welcome um we're going to start the open forum part of our
013evening i'm going to say welcome to those who are intended to address the board or 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 after the 60 minutes the board will close open form and will proceed with its agenda items for the evening whether you plan to speak or just listen we are glad that you are here because we do care about the opinions and concerns of our patrons if you do not have an opportunity to address the board
014during 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 constructive and positive experience when discussing board items with the board when making remarks please be civil and use respectful language please limit discussion to the 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 questions that require a response someone will follow 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 very best
015education possible for our students when your name is called introduce yourself please before beginning your remarks as a reminder we ask that all remarks are limited to three minutes so let's get started we have melissa jenner i practiced this time good evening board members and dr merrigan my name is melissa jenner i'm a mom of four and a physician and i'm here speaking as a private citizen i'm here to thank you for your hard work and all the effort and thought you put into the education health and safety of our kids here in blue valley now that we're almost a full month into the school year we've proven in our own schools that masking works many schools both in our local community and nationally that chose to ignore the science were quickly overwhelmed forced to
016close forced to interrupt students learning and regroup most of them coming back with universal mandatory masking but that didn't happen in blue valley because this board did what needed to be done to keep all our students teachers and staff safe my three oldest are so happy to be in person again this year my oldest two are thrilled to see their friends and do the activities that they love including being in band again and for my oldest daughter and this is a gulp for me her first homecoming dance my four-year-old is particularly tickled by the fact that he gets to ride the bus to early childhood every single day he also wanted to tell everyone that he really loves his book bag like the big kids i share these things with you so that you'll know
017that by keeping our kids masks and safe you're letting them just be kids they're having a normal childhood we're getting to enjoy and participate in the things that we missed last year and they are thriving and because i know that you're keeping them and all of our other students safe myself and the other parents in blue valley can continue to work and support our families and our community so thank you thank you for making the choice that was right and safe even if it isn't popular with everyone i know how hard that can be i hope that the board continues to follow the advice of trusted medical experts and scientists throughout the remainder of this school year as we navigate this pandemic we must continue to work together as a community to keep our kids
018safely in school again thank you so much for all of your hard work and dedication to our kids and i wish you a wonderful start to the fall season thank you [Applause] thank you melissa next up is wendy connolly hi i'm wendy i have a middle schooler and a high schooler here in blue valley and i don't even have prepared remarks i just wanted to say from the bottom of my heart as a parent thank you so much for protecting our kids this year thanks thank you next is sally joshua hello everyone i'm sally gersha a parent of two blue valley students and i wanted to thank our school district administration the teachers staff and our board for a great start to the school year navigating the return to school in the time of covid
019with a newly diagnosed diabetic was supposed to be difficult but the team at prairie star elementary has been exceptional my son's classroom teacher mrs annie purcell our school nurse lori griffin and our principal stacy sperry have done a wonderful job helping ensure his safety at school in so many ways they have also kindly but firmly enforce the masking requirements such that all students understand the how important it is to keep each other safe thank you for continuing to follow the best advice from our medical professionals and i hope that future votes taken by the board show unanimous support for this very clearly beneficial requirement to keep our kids in school as we await both vaccination for our younger students and a decrease in community transmission thank you thank you sally next is heather king hello
020and good evening heather king i am here tonight to simply say thank you thank you for keeping the kids staff sports and activities running because of that all those parents can work and not have to worry about loss of wages one day of missed work can exponentially affect so many others community spirit is high watching and cheering on our kids teachers and other staff are safe thank you for doing our part to keep the hospitalizations low to assist the healthcare workers that are trying so hard to do what they can we signed up to take care of sick and dying people but never at this level and never wear a behavior and ethics would be questioned thank you for looking at other communities and seeing what has and has not worked for masking and general
021safety for our schools we are in school and healthy and i am proud of the example that this district has set thank you for looking at the reputable and proven science in a time where you can get on the internet and find any article to back up anything you want you all know the difference thank you for standing up for our entire blue valley community even when faced with hard decisions and backlash the staff and students are watching and learning from all of your examples you are the decision makers you are faced with the hard decisions that could cost someone a life or even loss of quality of life you got us where we are today with a very successful start to the school year please keep doing what we are doing in schools for
022the health and safety of all one decision one vote can affect so many people thank you thank you heather next is andrew vanderlaan good evening dr merrigan and the members of the board thank you so much for the opportunity uh i'm andrew vanderlaan i'm not here tonight as a candidate just as a patron and as a father i have three kids in the district one in high school one in middle school one in elementary school and yes that means three drop-offs and three pickups and yes we are still working out how to do that but that's actually one of the things that i'm here to say thank you about that we are back to those kinds of normal concerns and not the pandemic concerns that we've all had all of my kids were in virtual
023education last year and i cannot tell you there are no words to describe how happy they are to be back in the building back with their teachers back with their friends and i really want to start by saying thank you to all of you for your leadership for adopting commonsense policies that are backed by medical professionals i want to say thank you to the district administrators and the building administrators who have figured out how to implement those policies thank you to the teachers and the building staff who have been helped shepherd students through the day and make those policies effective and the lunchroom staff and the paraprofessionals thanks to the custodians who continue to do the deep cleaning that's required for mitigation of cobit all of those people working together and most of all the
02422 000 plus students who are doing the hard work of following these policies and putting up with the inconvenience of masking but they're all doing something really important which is allowing this district to get back to what it does best which is outstanding education for all students thank you so much for all you're doing appreciate it thank you andrew next is jeff nessel thank you my name is jeff nessl and i live in leawood first off i want to take this opportunity to thank the six members of the board who courageously and with common sense voted for the match requirement of blue valley schools thank you again for your vote i also want to discuss what i saw last month when i was here i saw anti-mass protesters gather under a sign promoting a radio
025talk show host and station that propagated the lie that no child was killed at sandy hook i thought it was odd that these people who claim they only care about children's freedom and safety would align themselves with such a lunatic fringe group but then it really got weird as dylan's saying the circus was in town apparently it's coming from iowa now the anti-massacres are led by a failed reality show contestant who doesn't even live in our state let alone our district she's only in charge because the previous fearless leader another out-of-stater found leading a revolt online too difficult by taking college courses and the person who probably pushed him onto that throne the father according to news reports perhaps profited as the pandemic continued and what did this leaders anti-mass group brian cleary say in
026a court document from this past february quote my personal opinion is the more protection the better anything we can do as a country or community to stop the spread is really a good idea perhaps you forgot the ad unless it affects my bottom line as one who's been subjected to numerous yard signs illegally placed by this group i have one question who's paying for all this who's paying for the signs and the trump minion who is now spearheading this effort are the funds coming from the sworn enemy of public education in kansas kpi i don't know the answer that question i hope someone takes to heart the classic line follow the money one final thought people in the anti-mass movement are claiming that both cleary who was forced out as ceo of a nursing staff
027company he founded and a candidate for this board who dropped out of the race but is still on the ballot are the real victims here i'm sorry but you don't get the claim victimhood when your actions and statements at least those not made under an open court do more harm than good to greater society as an example you don't get to murder your parents and then ask for mercy from the court because you have an orphan just remember when you see all the signs and all the out-of-state spokespeople ask the leaders of this grassroots movement who's paying for all this follow the money thank you [Applause] thank you jeff next um we're gonna have edward kenneth king hello my name is edward king i have a family that lives here in the blue valley district
028i would just like to take this opportunity to thank the members of the board for making the decision to enforce masking in the schools as most of the children especially in the k-6 group cannot get vaccinated at this point this is our best and most reasonable recourse to prevent the spread of coven 19 not just amongst our schools but also protecting the faculty of the schools and the family members at home from this disease in the johnson county area we still have not hit the required vaccination rate that we initially thought we would need to prefer to provide herd immunity and now with the spread of delta they're saying that number may be even higher and there is no consensus yet on how much but at the moment we only hit a 66 vaccination rate
029in johnson county with initial doses and only 60 percent of the community is fully vaccinated this time so until we get to the point where we have enough vaccination to provide herd immunity and keep our members of our community safe it is important that we do mask in school and i do wish again to thank the ford for making that decision and hope that you do continue to enforce this decision until such time as we can safely go to school without masks thank you thank you edward uh next is joanna finkel hi my name is dr joanna finkel and i'm a practicing physician here in the metro area i'm also a mother of three children in the blue valley schools and i wanted to take the opportunity to thank you the blue valley board members
030for last month's decision to institute universal masking in our schools in today's heated and polarized environment these decisions are not easy for those in leadership and i wanted to commend you for choosing the path that keeps our children and teachers in school which is one one of the only things that everyone seems to agree on we want our kids in school we've now had nearly a month of school in many places across the country not all school districts chose the same masking path as blue valley and now we have real world data to evaluate who fares better districts with universal masking or districts without universal masking here in blue valley there have not been widespread covet outbreaks instead we have had minimal interruption to our learning environment elsewhere in districts across the country with optional
031masking we have seen the opposite outcomes schools shut down and students and teachers out sick with covet some requiring hospitalization and others even dying the most extreme examples include the states of florida and texas covet is rampant in these mass optional settings which have harmed students faculty and staff and cause a number of school closures besides the threat of illness these kids are not in school learning did blue valley make the right decision should we continue to have mask requirements the answer is simple and clear yes the right decision has been made by our board and masking should continue we've seen what happens without the requirement all over the country we don't want to see it here i applaud you for following our public health experts recommendations and continuing to do so thank you for
032your time thank you dr frankel next is carrie rifle thank you so much for the time to speak tonight the cdc recommends universal indoor masking of all students age two and older and i believe by following the cdc blue valley is trying to do the right thing for our students and staff however there are two major issues with the cdc's guidance that deserve a closer look their own data does not support masking students a large cdc study published in may found that the covid19 infection rate in schools requiring students to wear masks was not statistically significant compared with schools where mass use was optional this study was the largest of its kind and examined various mitigation efforts in georgia schools it found that improved ventilation like opening windows did help but most notably required student
033masking was found not to have a statistically significant benefit in other words it could not be said to be effective additionally in another 17 studies cited by the cdc and its k-12 masking guidance not one of them looked at student mask use in isolation from other mitigation measures or against a control some even demonstrated that no student masking correlated with low transmission so why the discrepancy in the cdc's guidance that brings me to the second issue we learned earlier this year through emails obtained through a four-year request that the aft influenced the cdc and suggested language that was adopted nearly verbatim for the agency's school reopening guidance in february it's not too surprising then that soon after another foia request revealed further coordination between the cdc and the teachers unions regarding mass guidance you'll remember
034the cdc announced on may 13th that fully vaccinated americans could stop wearing masks indoors and outside however according to the emails obtained union leadership in the cdc had extensive contact almost immediately after that announcement emails revealed that on may 14 the presidents of the nea and aft spoke with the cdc chief of staff ironically the very next day on may 15 the cdc updated its masking guidance to indicate that all people should wear a mask at school regardless of vaccination status unfortunately the debate to mask or not has become heated and very hateful we've learned health institutions can in fact be influenced by outside bias and doctors do fall on both sides of the argument the reality is the downsides of masking children are real children a childhood is a crucial period when humans develop
035cultural language and social skills by seeing each other's faces it's integral to fostering children's growth and well-being orders force people to do things against their will and promote bullying and intolerance each side deserves equal respect and a voice our school district is fractured after the last 18 months we're all just trying to do our best does masking students make a difference the cdc's own data says no so then why are we letting this rip our community apart this message is not anti-masks they can still be worn if chosen but it's time to let parents weigh the risk-benefit ratio for their own families thank you so much thank you carrie all right next we have faria good evening good evening everyone um my name is dr faria shafi i'm a blue valley parent and my address
036is on file i'm speaking here today as a private citizen only i know that we don't really like to throw titles around in this room but i am a board-certified internist who has been practicing internal medicine for over 20 years my other titles that i hold your are being a mother a wife a daughter a sister an educator a loyal friend a neighbor and a community member today in all those capacities i'm here to thank you for allowing all my loved ones to be a little safer for our children to experience some degree of norm listening to the roar of the football field last week and the music of the marching band felt surreal after two years it was a melody to my ears your support of the mask mandate in schools is allowing our
037children to have a homecoming participate in clubs and many other activities which otherwise would not have been possible i am not here to compare our school district to others because we are the best as i was reminded last year last time we are the leaders but we know that the other school districts that chose to be mask optional ended up shutting down within days of opening we are still going strong and with your ongoing support of the mitigation strategies in place our children will hopefully have a near normal year i want to thank you from the bottom of my heart for keeping our teachers and our staff safe as a community they know that we see them we hear them and we know that they matter as a physician i thank you for not contributing
038to the burden being placed on our health care system i thank you for not contributing to the moral injury that healthcare workers are experiencing there is no joy in seeing young otherwise healthy patients come in for their hospital follow-ups not accompanied by their loved ones but being accompanied by wheelchairs walkers canes and oxygen tanks breathless and tired weeks after getting out of the hospital and asking me doc can i get my shot now i'm sorry i didn't listen to you according to the american academy of pediatrics over 243 000 cases of covid were added this past week the second highest number of childhood cases in a week since the pandemic began children have represented 28.9 of all newly diagnosed cases during this time we are not out of the woods september is national suicide awareness
039month let this be a reminder that our children's mental health and wellness is our biggest priority and keeping them our schools engaged with their peers and in activities that allow their growth and development is an important part of that thank you so much for your leadership we really appreciate it from the bottom of our hearts thank you thank you dr uh next is brad uretsky good evening my name is brad uretsky i'm here as a private citizen and i want to thank the board members and dr merrigan for giving us this opportunity to talk to you and and give you what the community is thinking i've had the opportunity uh to know a good number of you on the board for a number of years most of whom i had the good fortune of meeting
040because we both shared a common interest in making blue valley the best school district that we could and making sure that our kids and the teachers in that district got everything that they could out of out of the education system i also want to thank the members of the board who had the courage and the fortitude to take the steps at the last meeting necessary to ensure that our blue valley students remain in school and the board's vote in favor of requiring masking has done just that it kept our students in school the boards vote in favor of masking also kept all the bv kids safer even though students whose parents refuse and reject science common sense and reality all in the name of blind devotion to a nonsensical ideology of purported freedom yet those
041same people ignore trivialize and belittle those who want nothing more than students teachers and administrators to have the freedom to attend blue valley schools without unnecessarily putting their health at risk as this board is well aware the least intrusive means to accomplish keeping kids in school is requiring masking masking of k through 12. and to that end i would ask that each of you ignore the noise and the static that is being created by the vocal minority to ignore the sideshow that's right outside selling t-shirts and to vote in favor of continued masking until we get through this pandemic the statics is pervasive we even have a board member candidate for the next round that spoke at an anti-mass rally in august jim mcmullan the numbers show that the masking order in blue valley is
042doing what it is supposed to do the transmissions in school-age children are not happening in blue valley schools but instead are occurring in outside our communities where people aren't taking the same precautions that blue valley schools are so please for the benefit of our children our teachers and administrators in blue valley vote in favor of continuing to prep them with required masking in grades k through 12. the steps you took last month are working now and it's not time to dial it back it's time to push forward thank you for your time thank you brad next is greg williams hello i'm board members dr morgan thanks for having for giving this opportunity i'm greg williams i've got a fifth grader prairie star she's enjoying the first three three and a half weeks of school she
043loves her teacher everything is going well thanks to you and the policy of universal universal masking it's working we obviously have i think the numbers about 25 000 teachers staff and and and kids and there's only been 144 cases spread out over all these buildings that is an incredible number there's an incredible percentage low we got to keep it going continuity of the school year is is vitally important and universal masking is what is going to give us the continuity of the school year so thank you [Applause] thank you greg next is matt couch hi there just wanted to say that i do think it was fitting that we started off the night with the awards and recognition because in the end that's really why we're here is to do what we think is best
044for our children our school district our community um a famous theoretical physicist richard fireman once said i'd rather have questions that can't be answered than answers that can't be questioned i want you to think about that for a second because this is where we are right now we have answers that we're asking as parents that can't be questioned and i think that's wrong i mean what's happened here in blue valley now is we built a glass house for our teachers our administrators and the superintendent on down to everybody built on a foundation of answers that can't be questioned and that doesn't serve anybody we've got some very simple questions why are we in masks so that says right on the box that they don't work we're getting millions of dollars in code relief funds but
045we can't find an extra dollar for our teachers that are i mean we think doctors and nurses are on the front lines of this crisis our teachers have to be somewhere ahead of that line on beyond the front lines because when someone says i don't feel good or i need i could maybe go to the nurse where do the teachers fall in that they need some help too and they haven't been listened to last year they're not listened to this year we have all kinds of questions we have these palatial new schools that in some cases haven't opened yet or half empty because we don't have the students to attend them i mean that's another question that we can't ask where's all this money going what's it for i mean i've heard someone say when
046we get to the end of this thing we'll all look back we'll have the answers we'll figure out what we did right what we did wrong the problem is we never look back we just don't some other crisis will come up we'll move forward and say yeah it was just too crazy of a time we didn't know we i wish we could have done better but we all do the best we can that's why i'm sitting here today with four four children in our school district i'm doing the best that i can i think it's important for my children to be in school without a mask on i just do and i've heard doctors i've heard nurses say oh it's unanimous it's been proven they work well i'd like to question that any science any
047any leap forward in science and technology that's been made in this country since inception has been made by someone that said i'm not sure that's right or what if we tried it this way maybe it would work now in my sb 40 hearing last may i said to the board or whoever was there i said i guarantee you will be in mass this year and everyone said you're crazy you don't know that and i knew it was right and at that time my wife and i said we're going to start a movement to fight this now we didn't start this on our own but we've met other like-minded people and we're going to change the situation once and for all at the ballot box thank you next is jenny vittar she's not here okay um
048emily iretsky hi um good evening dr american and board members thanks so much for letting us come and um really i know we're all echoing this but um a lot of us are here to thank you because this was such a dicey situation at the beginning of the year i didn't say my name huh my name is emily uretsky my children attend leewood middle school in blue valley north i'm here just as a private citizen i want to thank you for keeping my kids safe by requiring mass in the classroom because i didn't know if that was going to be the case when we sent them back in august not only do i feel safe sending them to school but they feel safe in their classrooms which was a big worry for them at ages
04912 and 14. i haven't seen my kids this happy in 18 months when school was called off as last march or now two marches ago they were pretty excited but after three weeks they realized that school at home is not that fun i have a 12 year old seventh grader who says school is great when he gets home from school every day and he doesn't like anything this is a testament to how wonderful our schools are and how great our teachers and our administrators are i'd like to thank dr merrigan for her leadership the teachers and administrators at all blue valley schools but especially at blue valley north and leeward middle school they have somehow managed to make learning in a pandemic normal for my children my son has said quote i don't care if
050i have to wear a mask as long as i don't have to do school at home with you mom that i'm not a homeschooler a good one my kids can now be in clubs participate in sports and be with their friends at school again please continue to mandate masks in our schools look at the data and the surrounding districts that did not mandate masks this is the only way our kids will stay in school uninterrupted which is my only goal to keep our kids in school uninterrupted the continuity is needed not just for my kids but for all students across all grade levels and learning abilities thank you very much thank you emily next is sylvia williams first i want to thank thank you for the math requirements you set for the blue valley school
051district last meeting all blue valley children are safe and in person i think we need to remember that our children are resilient and asking them to wear a mask is easy as long as it leads to them being at school in person and most importantly with all their friends i also wanted to share that i do understand that these decisions are so so so so hard i had to break a promise this last week as a girl scout leader of fifth graders i had to cancel their overnight on the plaza in december they had been saving cookie money since kindergarten many of them have never seen the plaza lights and it was something they really wanted to share together while very disappointed our girls understand that it is the right decision due to the delta
052variant they want everyone to stay healthy and safe they put that first lastly i want to say that i've always been proud to be a blue valley parent as a community we have always shown love kindness and support for our schools neighborhoods and most importantly each other as parents we've shared urban air birthday parties as miserable as we were t-ball games and school picnics let's make sure that we don't let the stress of this pandemic changes please try to respect local health directives and most importantly let's be kind to our school staff blue valley administrators and blue valley board our our culture and actions is what truly makes blue valley the number one school district in kansas thank you [Applause] thank you sylvia next is deanna lusher hello i'm dina lesher i own pediatric connections
053which is the private outpatient clinic for occupational and speech therapy here in the area my team treats many students in the blue valley school district we are the area experts in nervous system development and provide services for children with autism adhd and a multitude of other diagnoses we all agree that keeping kids safe is our number one priority this also includes keeping their mental health safe i'm here to present a different perspective of safety for you just to consider my team is well versed in dr steven porgis's polyvagal theory tbri which is trust-based relational interventions and other protocols that teach social connection and felt safety purchases theory identifies the vagus nerve as the safety gauge for our nervous system and the key driver of our emotional regulation social connection and fear responses when we are
054in our restful safe state we are better able to self-regulate sustained attention and calm down after a stressful experience like this this capacity to regulate our emotional response and behavior helps nurture and support healthy relationships and allows us to respond appropriately to our interpersonal stressors and demands this theory explains how this has to do with the part of the vagal nerve literally connecting to your facial muscles associated with expression vocal communication social behavior through its activation of the muscles in the face and in the neck including those that influence facial expression like smiling and vocal resonance all that to say how important it is to see the whole picture of facial expression we cannot discount the long-term effects of kids missing this part of connection we get signals of safety by reading the whole face
055we have an amazing nervous system that will protect us and our survival states kick in when they need to however we are never meant to live in states of survival for long periods of time fear lodges in the amygdala and into the limbic system which is the most primal areas of the brain this is where our fight flight and freeze responses come from being in a hyper-vigilant state increases stress hormones which has many damaging effects on the body we see kids that have difficulty with sleep appetite transitions social connections anxiety shutdown and depression i wish i had time to review the rise in mental health issues in the last 18 months but we know we can't bubble up our life there is always risk everything we do in our activities of daily living has a
056calculated risk and benefit allowing mass choice is not a reckless risk long-term effects of being in a state of survival will take its toll on our ability to function as healthy adaptable children and adults our nervous systems beg for connection and safety we're not created to have a spirit of fearfulness but we were created to have a spirit of power love and discipline thank you thank you dina next is sheila albers good evening blue valley board of education and dr merrigan i'm here this evening for just two reasons first is to thank you the last 18 months has been difficult for our entire community navigating a global pandemic is a challenge and none of us were really prepared for it my family is personally very grateful to the entire blue valley school district teachers and
057administrators for keeping my kids safe and also trying to normalize a difficult situation both of my boys have had a an amazing start to the school year they are so happy maybe me more happy than they are but we're all super happy that they are back in school with their teachers and with their friends this is really due to your work to teachers works work and their administrators thank you and you're not hearing that enough the second reason is because i want to keep this positive momentum going one way to ensure that is to keep the mask mandate in place my husband myself and my 15 year old are all fully vaccinated my 11 year old turns 12 this week and i kind of teased him and i said hey you're getting an extra present
058this year and he looked at me and his eyes lit up and i went you're getting a vaccine and then he looked at me and he did what every middle schooler does and he rolled his eyes and uh but then i he smiled and he goes no mom i i get it i get it that that's what we need to do both my boys have been perfectly fine wearing masks at school because they understand the greater issue of public health and when i was looking for someone who kind of put this in perspective i read in the new york times today that the leon county florida circuit court judge john cooper explains it using two supreme court cases individual rights are limited by their impact on the by the right of others for example he
059said adults have the right to drink alcohol but not to drive drunk because that endangers others there is a right to free speech but not to harass or threaten other people or yell fire in a crowded theater in that same vein he said schools can reasonably argue that maskless students endanger the health of other students and teachers wearing a mask is a small inconvenience for the priceless protection of our children's health i urge you to keep the mask mandate in place so that all of our students can learn in person in a safe and healthy environment thank you sheila next is jim mcmullen hi there um thanks for having me my name is jim mcmullen i'm a blue valley parent i think i'm the 20th person to address masking in schools and it's clear that
060the the issue is very divisive in our community you know passions are inflamed my passions are inflamed i think everybody here is passionate or inflamed but i'd like to suggest a different path forward the crux of the issue here is every family's assessment of risk and we all assess risks differently but we have one school district to cover our entire community the discussion however in my view has unfortunately been dominated by concerns around physical health only but there are other legitimate non-medical concerns about masking the children of our community for two full years psychological developmental social emotional educational i don't under i don't know what under what formula but the only consideration that should be considered is medical and physical health um how does one arrive at the conclusion that for instance every six or
061seven-year-old that goes to school in this district you know that's three thousand kids um who's never experienced schooling unmasked is just fine which i've heard six or seven times here tonight that all the kids are just fine they're not all just fine but who's better to make that decision my view it's the parents a mass optional policy is not as some outlier in the western world the european cdc does not recommend masking for younger students it's specifically on its website says in primary schools the use of face mask is recommended for teachers and other adults when physical distancing cannot be guaranteed but it is not recommended for students not surprisingly then many of the countries of europe do not require masking of children in schools the following countries england wales norway sweden denmark switzerland do
062not require masking the following three countries ireland holland and austria only require masking of secondary students but only when they're moving through the hallways when they get to their class and they sit down at their desks they're allowed to remove their masks in johnson county we have a vaccination rate that's at or above the vaccination rates of many of those countries and many of those countries have um you know more more conservative views on vaccinating children under the age of 16. so i would suggest that the district at least look at as a path forward in policy like holland or ireland that allows children thank you jim thank you all right next we have cindy hoelser thank you good evening i'm senator cindy holscher i have the honor of serving a large part of the
063blue valley area in my senate district i thank you for allowing us to speak tonight i want to thank each and every member of this board along with dr merrigan for your service and dedication to our award-winning school district additionally thank you so much for making the tough decisions that have helped protect our students teachers and staff during this very challenging year obviously when it comes to covid there continues to be a lot of noise from opponents of science with the rallying cry that personal freedoms are being lost yet it strikes me that our nation our state and this very district have found success by working together making sacrifices in the time of need and listening to experts it is painful to now see the current struggle in those areas i want to share with
064you an excerpt of an article from the atlantic by former governor arnold schwarzenegger the former governor wrote this and i quote our country began with a willingness to make personal sacrifices for the collective good it's right there in the closing line of the declaration of independence we mutually pledge to each other our lives our fortunes and our secret honor however he continues some people want to create an alternative america where we have no responsibility to one another that america has never existed they may tell you that what we are doing to fight the war against coronavirus is unprecedented in arnold's words quote those people are not being honest with you because they're making money from your anger those words rang true right here in blue valley late last week as it was revealed that certain
065individuals who have vocally opposed the wearing of masks and other mitigation factors are directly profiting from the prolonging of this pandemic because of their efforts and misinformation this virus has continued to spread and inflict sickness and death if we are to ever get through this we must pay attention to science and facts not the people making the most noise interestingly some of those same people came to topeka last year to oppose the slowing of the virus and efforts we were trying to put in place i never once thought to ask these conferees if they owned or had ties to a business that would profit from covet i mean who would do that who would risk the lives of our citizens the health of our children to make profit that type of thing just wasn't on
066my radar sadly now it is i urge this board to continue to adhere to the constitution which gives us rights as well as responsibilities and of those responsibilities of paramount upon importance is our duty to protect one another i implore you to continue to be the strong leaders you are listening to the experts and make a difference in keeping our children and population safe thank you that wraps up 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 please know that the board and district administration took notes during open forum and we will follow up as needed with participants we're going to take a small break right now and reconvene in probably about five minutes
067so and that's when we'll continue with the business part of our meeting all right we're gonna get started now with the business part of our meeting can i have a motion nope call the beating door gotta call a meeting to order and we receive reports from board advisors oh okay let's get done getting okay meaning to order and we will receive reports from board members first advisor board advisory committees first so i'll i'll start us off with the diversity equity and inclusion committee the diversity equity and inclusion committee met for the first time on september 2nd this was the first meeting of the year for the committee so we welcomed them back they also had not met since we had presented to the board of education in june so we reviewed we had sent them
068that information that presentation and invited them to tune in but we went through that and answered any questions for them we then transitioned into reviewing the role of the board advisory committees uh including the definition which is up on the website and then the final activity was for them to spend some time uh brainstorming what is it that they wanted to hear about from the district and they came up with a list of they wanted to hear from the human resources department and hiring updates regarding diverse staff they wanted to hear about curriculum and instruction development they wanted to hear about hear from the counselors specifically about mental health supports for diverse students they also wanted to hear from some of our students who are a part of diversity clubs and assemblies as well as
069sponsors in those organizations and then finally any multicultural festive festivals or other activities within the district and then they also wanted an update regarding the recommendations that they had made the next meeting is on october 7th so i think katie collier has the curriculum and instruction committee good evening the curriculum and instruction board advisory committee met on september 8th that evening i provided a presentation on return to school and our concept of accelerating learning in this presentation we talked about the mindset of recovery and accelerating learning in addition to what the district is doing to provide for healthy environments as students return to school additionally kelly ott provided a presentation on our internal strategies to support learning she addressed professional learning communities formative assessment culture and climate and an intervention interventionist mindset which our teachers
070and administrators are utilizing to again assist in accelerating student learning dr adam wade provided a presentation regarding student data and achievement thank you and kyle hayden will give the finance and operations committee report the finance and operations board advisory committee met on thursday september 9th via zoom i provided a general district update on the start of the new school year and an update on the classified staffing situation jenny daniel director of finance presented a more in-depth view of this year's budget she walked the committee through the code 99 and the state budget document and 25 different funds that make up that document jenny specifically focused on the last three columns of the code document which captures a total of 381.4 million dollars the mill rate on those certain funds and then how much tax revenue
071is generated from those mill rates jake slobodnick director facilities and operations provided an update on summer construction he's going to you'll receive that report here later jake and jason gillum director of business operations present the bids and contracts on the consent agenda for board consideration the next meeting is scheduled for thursday october 7th that concludes our committee reports great now we will receive reports from board members patrick do you have anything you'd like to share okay stacy um i would just simply like to take an opportunity as i like to every month to thank our amazing community and staff it is super exciting to hear the events that are happening the sense of normalcy that seems to be returning for the majority of our students and i am so incredibly appreciative of the administration here
072and in all of the buildings support staff i know we are struggling right now with hiring and filling some spots but i would encourage anybody out there looking for a position to join us in blue valley we are doing great things here and we would love to have you and working with kids all day there's probably nothing better so just again a thank you to our entire community for helping us in providing the best education possible for all of our kids in blue valley thank you stacy very well said mike do you have anything okay tom i wanted to uh we had a great blue valley ed foundation event a couple weeks ago so i wanted to um note great job by joy cindy and lisa i know they had a 310 000 uh dollar
073goal and they raised 350 000 which i believe is an all-time record i seems like yesterday when that breakfast was raised and i say this every time you know 70 80 000 so it's quite the uh quite amount of money i know that i checked with joy today i was in i'm curious to know how big that endowment is now or the restricted account it's almost at three million dollars and so it was only just not too far long ago it was you know three or four hundred thousand dollars so it was three million dollars in that restricted accounting endowment is very impressive um she told me also 200 000 in profit in fiscal year 20 and 21 and they 100 invested 100 of that for 5 000 each for each of the schools which
074is wonderful 375 000 to the williams science center and then the last three years done 67 500 to the career in tech and partners at johnson county community college so that foundation continues to do great work and super proud it was a great event and and big attendance and a lot of fun and just piggybacking on some stuff stacy just said or a lot of our patrons it's been great to see our kids in school and it's been great to see them out of student school spirit at events and activities has been just they cannot wait to be around each other and just miss each other and it's just been a lot of fun to go to watch and i've been to several football games and soccer and other things as well and it's been
075it's been a blast seeing all that and it's been a great start to the fall so that's all i got last but not least maybe oh well almost last um let's see here uh attended the pto president's meeting um which was absolutely fantastic we all know what a powerhouse uh our ptos are and so really um an awesome um meeting to go to i really enjoy it i enjoy all the um sharp people involved and and um just innovative and you know creative with with how they've handled this this last year and in supporting our our staff and all so that that's a lot of fun um i did want to piggyback on the um the ed foundation just a little bit and they're kicking off a women's giving circle um which is really exciting
076so if anyone's interested in and knowing a little bit more about the blue valley ed foundation's women's giving circle program that we're kicking off the inaugural year here um reach out to joy at the ed foundation it's really exciting i think we can do a lot of great things through that so uh let's see here oh was able to attend the kansas can success tour uh uh it was my first one that i've attended uh so it was a it was uh really exciting to to see where where we've been and and what's coming um what the plans are down the road and i think we had pretty good attendance i think we had people from blue valley and shawnee mission for sure and so it was great to meet um just a bunch of
077different people at that event so uh yeah i think that is it okay i was just i was gonna talk about the the six oh it's fine it's fine you said it all great the success tour with dr watson and the purpose there was they were gathering information and input from us in the audience to accumulate all that data and use it in the high school graduation requirement task force and kind of the overall view and vision for moving forward in kansas and so it was really neat to see how they're gathering that i'm really interested to see the results across all of kansas they went to what like 50 something was it they just finished uh last thursday i believe but it's been going on like for months like a couple of months july
078so yeah so they've they've hit a lot of areas of kansas pretty much every area of kansas and so it'll be neat to see all the information come together um and see if what our vision will look like and so i am on that task force so i will keep you guys posted uh we meet every two weeks and um it's been very interesting so far still just kind of in that information gathering stage so if anything comes up i'll keep you posted so that's it for me i have a couple of updates um one this is i think you heard me mention during the recognitions that this is national arts and education week uh so a big thank you to all of our art music teachers in the district and for everything that they
079do both in the classroom and with our students outside of the classroom because that's such a strong strong component for blue valley we have award-winning programs every year and it's been really great to see those be out in full force this year as well as our sports september is also suicide prevention month and one of the things that had came out of some tragic suicides within our district and across johnson county i think it was three years ago with zero reasons why and so zero reasons why is a group led by students with the help of the johnson county mental health and they continue to do great things you see lots of things with them on social media two of those amazing students from blue valley are going to be my first guest on my
080first podcast this this year we're taping that later this week and that'll be out next week um so we just wanted to give a shout out on that and to thank them for all that they do around mental health and suicide prevention um you stacy also talked about the number of open positions we have in our district so if you are looking to be a substitute teacher you are looking to be a paraprofessional and work with our students every day you're looking to work in food service you want to work in custodians or grounds we likely have a position for you and we are willing to be very flexible so if you have kiddos and you need to get them to school first before you can come in don't let that hinder you make sure
081you you apply and reach out because we would love to have you working with our amazing students i also want to thank the ed foundation for all of their work that was very very well done and then finally just to to thank everybody to thank our students to thank our staff thank our administrators thank our entire community because we have had a great start to the school year every single building i am in kids are happy staff is happy everybody says to me it feels really pretty normal right now so we're having some normal problems buses being on time some of those things but i'll take those those problems any day so thank you i just wanted to add one thing i just wanted to also give a shout out and a thank you to
082all of our first responders police fire medical um just thank you you guys are incredibly important to us and um we appreciate everything so thank you very much um now we will um get a motion to approve the agenda i move that i'm sorry this is stacey i moved that the board of education approved the agenda for the september 13th regular board of education meeting as published motion by stacy um second by tom all those in favor raise your right hand motion passes 6-0 thank you now we need a motion to approve the consent agenda i move that the board of education approved the consent agenda for the september 13th regular board of education meeting as published okay motion by jody second by stacy all those in favor okay that motion passes six zero okay
083now we move on to new business and i think we have our return to school report mark dr schmidt is making his way up here and i think he's going to start off this presentation um with giving you a little bit of an update about uh some of our uh numbers around covid and uh what we're doing and what we're seeing thank you very much um you want to turn the bike on thank you very much before i start um i have to say i'm very heartened and encouraged by the number of folks who have said this year started off feeling normal or more normal um i i want you to know how thankful i am to all of the building administrators the school nurses the teachers and the families you know our parents and
084our kids that have worked incredibly hard to make it feel normal as we take a look at some of the data and i know many of you keep an eye on this because it goes up on our dashboard every friday we collect the data every wednesday so that we can get it ready to go and publish it every friday but if you start to wonder why it feels so normal for a school district with 22 000 kids and another four thousand adults um our numbers of positive covet cases are relatively low and i i know from the experience of some other districts that that wouldn't happen if not for the incredible hard work of the folks that are out there and the collaboration and cooperation of our community and so we are so thankful for
085that that we're able to have kids in person and move forward i know i heard several board members say last time our primary goal is to keep students in their seats to keep in person and as we're four weeks in i'm very pleased to say i think we're being relatively successful at that now these are the positive cases we also have some students that have been excluded from school out of a out of precaution and when the health department has said that was appropriate and these numbers have also been relatively low in comparison once again each one of these families it's not done lightly it's done you know as we work with the health department and we try to make sure it's only students that need to stay home for the safety of themselves and
086others so i think that has a lot to do with that sense of normalcy the next section i had is just to kind of update us on some of the things that we have going on within our community in regards to testing this year we haven't offered any testing that's through the school district unlike the previous year where we had tests that we could you know give to staff members and they could do once a week and so forth uh through a lot of the efforts of dr pinswick we are going to start doing testing for all of our staff members who want to do it every thursday again so that's going to be an extra layer of security a little more safety more peace of mind for staff members to make sure that they
087are in good health and they're not inadvertently spreading covet to any any of their students or other colleagues so we're excited with that another area that we're working on is we've heard from our parents and our staff members sometimes they struggle to get an appointment for a test quickly it sometimes takes 24 hours to make the appointment and then once they have the test it's another 24 to 72 hours to get the test results back so we are exploring ways or trying to find some ways that we can make those tests those pcr tests more accessible to our students to our families and to our staff members we're not ready to announce anything at this point but we just want to make sure the board's aware that we're looking into that for the good of
088our community so dr schmidt just as a clarification voluntary testing for staff begins this thursday and would commence every thursday they do that in their own building and it's they don't have to make an appointment ahead of time they just show up in their designated spot they do that test drop it in the bin and then they'll get results absolutely yes we'll have a courier that comes around and picks up the uh specimens every week uh and then typically they get the results back in about 10 hours so it's not extra work for our nurses our nurses are not administering them yeah any anything that we're talking about with testing or the next slide we're always thinking about what do we do so to make sure we're not adding more work to our nurses or
089more work to our building staff okay any other questions about testing or the cova data all right next kyle could you uh one more okay the next is vaccination um we've received lots of questions about vaccinations for two different groups one is when are we going to be able to vaccinate our kids you know five through 11 years old and i think jody you you asked me that question last time and i gave you my best guess i think as we get further down the road we're hearing with more certainty where things are going to roll out right now we expect for those vaccines to be available on emergency basis sometime not in september september is when they would submit the data but then the following month sometime another question we have is will the
090school district provide those vaccines or will we be administering them to the community at this point we believe that those vaccines you can get them almost anywhere in our community through pharmacies through your personal doctor we know that there's going to be some community sites and so we do not anticipate doing that and another reason goes back to that idea of you know is it going to be more work for nurses and from what we understand if we would do any kind of vaccination groups it would be our nurses that would need to do that and we were very very reluctant to add anything more to our school nurses so just just so you're aware of kind of where we're thinking at this point another group that we are frequently asked about is how about
091staff members there's a third vaccine a booster shot that's going to become available and will we provide those we see this and once again i've worked with dr pinswick we see that as more of a function kind of like the flu vaccine you know every year we offer the opportunity for our staff members to get the flu vaccine in their buildings and we think we can offer that same opportunity to our staff members and so that would be sometime before the end of this year the dates are still up in the air and also we're still working through some logistics but that is currently our plan and with that now we're on questions thank you so much thank you dr schmidt next is the cons oh yeah the construction update i think jake is here
092to do that for us i am good evening a lot to celebrate today first i gotta say it's my eight year anniversary in blue valley today so thank you thank you it's great to be here um honestly really more to celebrate on the design and construction side we had maybe the busiest summer i've ever been a part of i feel like a broken record i've said that before up here but truly we've done a lot of work this is our roadmap you've seen this before this everything in gray is what we've completed to date and that's a lot of work this is all capital outlay all bond projects everything at the top is bond the few projects at the bottom are capital outlay just as a friendly reminder everything that's funded here is funded through
093those dollars bond and capital that can be used for teacher salaries general operating expenses utilities things of that nature with that i'm going to jump right in lots to get through here and i'll try to keep it somewhat brief you've seen this project before but you haven't seen it with pictures of students in there and so i wanted to show this because this is the first week of school we took out those mobiles we built 12 classrooms we added three flexible spaces this is the first week of school and those kids are using that space and it's incredible and we've heard everybody talk about today it feels really normal this feels better than normal and so this is why we do what we do and we're just excited to see our projects really get used
094like this hey jay can you remind us again how long the mobiles have been at blue valley high i'm just going to say forever because i honestly i don't know that answer but i think they've been here for a really long time 1999 1999 so 22 years wow so it's great to see those gone great to see that space utilized we built a gym at blue valley north this is an auxiliary gym it'll seat 425 people roughly it's 10 000 square feet more than just a gym it's a storm shelter for the entire building so it provides that space for our extracurricular activities but also a safe space for all of our students and staff at blue valley north we built a stadium this might be one of the more challenging projects we've ever undertaken
095it really came down to the wire but those photos are from the very first football game at this stadium between the two home teams blue valley west and blue valley southwest and it was an incredible night this is a capital outlay project we built a new grandstand bleachers locker rooms concessions restrooms and replaced the turf to make sure that it was safe so a really amazing project it was awesome i got to be there be on the field it was it was a really cool experience uh just to interject i was also there watching the band it was incredible it was absolutely fantastic my wife played the tuba in high school in college so i followed the tuba play around took a picture and she was ecstatic [Laughter] we built a practice field at blue
096valley northwest now this completed last spring but you haven't seen photos of it this replaces a natural grass field with artificial turf and it's an awesome improvement for blue valley northwest uh we talked about the classroom edition but we're not done and so we've got a project underway really two projects on the on the west side of the building at blue valley high we're building a new performing arts edition and a new competition gym those projects are well underway in our bond projects and those will be completed later this spring we added on to our list of completed flexible learning environments at all of our elementary schools we did six more this summer cedar hill sunset ridge mission trail overland trail morse and stanley and i've said it before but i've probably never received more
097emails at the end of a summer than i have this summer from principals and teachers just saying thank you this is amazing we're so excited we really had no idea what we were getting but this is better than we expected so this is a awesome number of projects maybe less glamorous to look at but equally as important we went through and updated a lot of our middle schools with new door hardware and laminated glass that's a first phase of a two phase project and we'll complete phase two at middle schools throughout the school year into the winter and that'll get us to all of our high schools and middle schools complete lots of roofing work we replaced 24 units on the roof mechanical wise that brings our total over the last two years to about
09875 mechanical units that we've replaced that have reached the end of their useful life that's really good to provide high indoor air quality for all of our buildings lots of flooring work we did a remove vct that has to be waxed and cleaned and put in or actually just polish the concrete that was existing this is a great project and we also replaced a number of kitchen cooler and freezers district wide special ed improvements we work with dr schmidt we identified a number of special ed projects and implemented all those again this is a bond project that we implemented theater project i had a number of our sites safety and lighting improvements rigging improvements we're not done we'll continue this effort into even more schools next summer and then lastly elementary 24. this project is
099wrapping up really pretty soon this is the interior of that project these are actual photos this would be a 67 000 square foot 575 student elementary school it's coming along really nicely and we're excited to get this one wrapped up we're not done we've got a long list of projects coming up while we're building all those projects we're designing all of these that you see here in front of you so another busy summer coming up we'll start the northwest gym edition here soon and we'll be opening bids on our new logistics center as well in the very near future so a lot of great things happening in blue valley i'm honored to be a part of it i want to thank our patrons for their support of the bond and thank you all for your
100support as well thank you thank you very exciting um i wanted to take a second in my rambling thank you for the first responders i don't remember if i said thank you to our active military and veterans so i wanted to make sure that i said that so that aside thank you we will um now we have to appoint a board member delegate and alternate for the kansas association of school boards i'll explain what this is real quick the board needs to appoint members uh one to serve as the kasb kansas association of school boards delegate and one to serve as an alternate and they'll be um voting uh on the legislative positions and nominating um the president or and the president-elect that's been nominated and um so tonight we need to uh have a
101delegate and an alternate so do i have a motion for someone to step up and do that i would move that the board of education appoints jodie dietz as the board member delegate and mike seitz as the board member delegate alternate to the kansas association of school boards delegate assembly thank you do i have a second second thank you motion by stacy second by tom all those in favor yes [Laughter] thank you yes you vote thank you very much jody and mike for volunteering to do that we appreciate it very much um okay have um we need to make appointments to patrons for avoided board advisory committees sorry i moved well first of all i want to thank jake i don't know if we did we thank him on the way out oh did you
102okay so just a double thank you to jake and his all his team's work and kyle thank you very much um i'm with the board of education point shannon warden of the south area to be to a new two-year term on the student activities board advisory committee as a blue valley southwest high school representative second thank you tom uh motioned by tom second by jody all those in favor raise your right hand that passes 6-0 i move that the board of education appoints sarah unren of the south area to a new two-year term on the student activities board advisory committee as a blue valley high school representative second motion by stacy second by tom all those in favor motion passes 6-0 i believe is that it for the evening so can i have a motion
103to adjourn i move that the september 13th regular board of education meeting be adjourned thank you all those in favor of that passes oh i motioned by tom second by stacy all that lives in favor six zero of passes thank you have a good evening everyone oh kyle hayden has a birthday coming up yay happy birthday you