001[Music] [Laughter] [Music] [Laughter] [Music] [Laughter] [Music] [Laughter] [Music] [Laughter] [Music] [Laughter] [Music] [Laughter] [Music] [Laughter] [Music] [Laughter] [Music] [Laughter] [Music] [Laughter] [Music] [Laughter] [Music] today I just want to talk about how business is really everywhere there are two ways to become a teacher there's the direct path straight out of college and then there's the indirect path the one where the trajectory of your career changes dramatically Kristen morvi has an extensive background in marketing management she once worked for some big local names the Bengals Kroger and Prof good evening everyone and welcome to the January 11th 2024 meeting of the boom County Board of Education I will now call this meeting to order uh we are expecting our Cooper High School uh Wind Ensemble for our national anthem shortly they are still in route I'm not
002sure what the problem is with traffic between here and there traffic in Florence is never bad at rush hour so I'm not sure what's going on with that hopefully they're just driving carefully so and working on their uh homework assignments verbally on their drivein so we are going to go ahead and move on with our meeting um but once the students arrive we will stop and allow them to uh play our national anthem so um please let the record show that all board members are present and and now we will kick off our meeting with our students from Thorn wild Elementary School who will be leading us in our pledge to the flag if you will all stand some extra time we can do our kindness absolutely legance to the flag of the United States
003of americais andice for all iedge to choose kindness because kindness is the key to life I treat people the way I want to be treated I do the right thing and be kind throughout my life I choose [Applause] kind for all students that was excellent and we do have some certificates of appreciation for you taking the time to come and lead us in not only our pledge of of Allegiance but your kindness pledge what a great way to start our meeting let's give our thornal students another round of applause for those of you standing we have added some extra chairs if you would like to sit if you are sitting next to some Empty Chairs would you please raise your hand to identify those spots if anyone wants to not be obvious at all to
004come up and walk and have a seat we don't want you standing if you don't want to okay all right thank you all I appreciate that um at this point I'll turn the meeting over to our superintendent Mr Turner for our good news news items thank you madam chair our first good news item of the evening this month the Boon County School District joins 170 other public school districts across the Commonwealth of Kentucky to celebrate January as Schoolboard recognition month school board members spend countless hours of unpaid time working to provide the best possible education for our students they also serve as the corporate board of directors uh for our communities one of our communities larger employers celebrating Schoolboard recognition month is one way to say thank you to each of our school board members
005tonight we have Boon County judge executive Gary Moore who will now present a proclamation do I have to use the mic no okay talk loud so uh I would prefer not to use the mic but I uh am here tonight to issue a proclamation hate having my Bo to you uh because I'm presenting it to the school board this is something we do annually uh to recognize those that serve our community around here in boom County through various ways of service and this elected School Board is one of those where we recognize you know the County Commissioners and I work hard to build a great Community a great County we're working on things like roads Parks making sure people have safe and clean drinking water the list goes on of the things we do to
006build a great Community one thing we don't have the authority to do is impact the educational system uh with the school system we're blessed here in boom County to have Walton Verona a board of education and school district and the boom County Board of Education and boom County School District I have four children that are products graduate of Boom County Schools uh they all are successful they all have great jobs and opportunities to be able to provide for their family I have three grandchildren currently in boom County School System so I'm speaking tonight not only as the judge executive but also as a parent and a grandparent of uh the products of the work that the board of education does so across the country uh this uh week and month we celebrate School Board appreciation
007month and I'm just going to read it I know you have a busy agenda tonight I also have the opportunity to swear in our new board members when they're elected and when you read their oath of office and what they commit to do through their election it's quite honorous it's it's a a huge responsibility and the responsibilities that they swear to uh are something that I would suggest each and everyone read the oath of office of a Schoolboard member so tonight I'm not going to read the whole thing but I want to recognize Carolyn henkins Wolf Dr Maria Brown Jesse parks Cindy young Karen bird and student representative Yousef saai s s i got close I was here when you were sworn in by the way great night I want to recognize them for their
008service to our community from tonight's agenda I can already see they have some tough decisions to make tonight but we know that each and every month or each and every meeting that they participate in they're doing their best they're trying to do what's right for the boom County school system and we need to keep that in mind we might not always agree but we can recognize that they are doing their best and they are working together to serve our County our families and more importantly the students of the boom County School System so I Gary W Moore County judge executive do hereby proclaim the month of uh January School Board recognition month and I encourage all to take note I'd like to present this to your chair and we can make copies that's the chair
009right over there all right chair chair B temporarily yes thank you would all the board members go around to take a [Applause] picture yes all right all right very nice all right here first thank you all right oh we have basket I can't take credit for the gifts but it's all right yeah appreciate you coming thank you yes sir I do want to say while they're going back to their seats this will probably be my last Schoolboard meeting that I will attend while Matt Turner is the superintendent yeah so while while Matt Turner is your superintendent so this probably my final opportunity before a school board uh the cooperation that Mr Turner has given with the county and with the leadership of the community I'm sh I'm shocked around the Commonwealth when I find that
010the judge executive or the mayor and the superintendent don't talk to one another that they don't communicate that they don't cooperate that's not the case in BO County we pride ourselves in the cooperation and the collaboration Mr Turner and I have had phone calls once to twice a month uh during his tenure I can say the same with Randy Poe saying the same with Brian blavic uh the cooperation that they've given to me and the County Commissioners and others has been amazing we're going to miss you Mr Turner but we want to thank you also for your service uh [Applause] congratulations everyone would please stand for the [Music] la the [Music] thank you very much students that was fantastic we appreciate you being here uh we will have our board members come around and congratulate
011each of you and give you a certificate and share our thanks for you taking the time uh from your very busy schedule with students and that was a wonderful rendition of the national anthem let's give them one more round of applause thank you very much the Cooper High School Wind Ensemble [Applause] our next item of good news is congratulations to Boon County High School business teacher Kristen morvi Mrs morick is part of the Career and Technical education program providing Pathways for students in their postsecondary opportunities principal Stacy black shares that Mrs morvi made a major transition to education after an extensive career in the business world and has provided her students so much more than just her working knowledge of corporate life as you'll see in this short video today I just want to talk
012about how business is really everywhere there are two ways to become a teacher there's the direct path straight out of college and then there's the indirect path the one where the trajectory of your career changes dramatically Kristen morvi has an extensive background in marketing management she once worked for some big local names the Bengals Kroger and Peretti van Mel just to name a few I loved Corporate America and I hope that I can encourage my students to go into business and that they will maybe be change agents for better ways of running business um more work life balance more work ethics and things like that um because you don't always have that in Corporate America Kristen has been a teacher now for 4 years teaching business Market marketing marketing principles and Retail marketing at BO
013County High School she hasn't looked back because she's found her calling her style of teaching makes her classes fun and interesting and her students adore her I'm able to um understand cuz I'm also going to be going into marketing and finance when I go into college so this class is really helping me to get out and understand what I'm going to be dealing with she's amazing she's helped me through a lot everything that like goes on at home I able to go to her and talk to her about things she's honestly my number one supporter and without her I probably wouldn't have gotten through as far as I've gotten through with high school having that outside perspective and choosing to be a teacher later on the live I think gives her a different perspective and
014so I think each day that she comes in here she truly is just like passionate about it I do love teaching and it I'm I'm really proud um there is a lot of times in my career where I was not happiest because it was really hard and I'm now I'm I'm just so happy and I think mostly business taught me and what I try to teach the kids is that is be a problem solver be resourceful you know if you go to your manager and say this is a problem that I see on your help go to your manager and say this is the problem here's the solution that I see and give me your feedback she Embraces kind of that collaborative Spirit Embraces feedback to improve her instruction Megan Stefan is an instructional coach
015at boom County High School as a new teacher Mrs morvi was in Miss Stefan's mentorship program she is a force of nature like you can hear her before you see her she is just this positive force in this building I've I've not seen anything like her before in the way she just loves our students and our school and our staff Kristen doesn't just teach she volunteers for so many other things dance coach fbaa coach she's a member of the sbdm council and she takes bus Duty in the morning and in the afternoon really just to connect to kids she is all about connection so she's connected to our building but she's connected to our kids and to our staff very quickly she buys purses that are Rebel blue and jackets that are Rebel blue like
016her accessories are you know they they reflect the things she values I do have a thing for school spirit um I love I mean everybody looks good and County blue right so when you go down to bus Duty um Kristen's down there with three girls and they're they're doing like a line man together the bell rings and it's time to go take your exams she's going down the hallway and she's high-fiving kids saying try your best on exam day you know let's get this let's get that a and that's just her every single day I really try to encourage them to take you know all classes all math classes business classes history all those things you will use in some capacity in your career Mrs morvi admits she sometimes likes to challenge the status quo
017but respectfully maybe it's just because of you know my experience in business that always seem to kind of be what helps Innovation and and and make things change and so um Miss Black is always open to my ideas within the business class she's able to make it fun while students are engaged and giving us opportunities to you know do group work and making sure everyone's comfortable this is more of exce her extracurriculars as a welcome extension of the job several of her students are in dance and SBA with her as their coach I love future Business Leaders of America because it is directly related to the content that I teach um and fbaa is kind of like a Shark Tank Episode if you will a lot of our kiddos will do different events and they
018get up on stage and um Pitch an idea or they pitch a product or a service or um a digital application or something um and they compete first year of FB I think coming out of Co kids weren't really involved in activities I think they had I think she told me six members and now they have 49 members so she seeks kids out in class you know she wants to give students opportunities to to lead and I think that that's part of like her gift the gift Kristen morvi gets in return is a new fulfilling career where she uses her talents from her former career to motivate her professional peers and her students a better friend a better wife a better mom um being in this career and just helping build this community um I
019just hope to inspire other teachers and um encourage them that it is so worth it congratulations Miss mik I'm so happy for you and I can't wait for you to win more prestigious Awards like this one love you congratulations Miss morvi I'm happy for you and deserve the best congratulations Kristen I'm so proud of you and I'm so glad that you're part of our team here at Bo and I hope you have many more years to come Kristen thank you thank you for all that you do um for being County High School especially for the kids you know we wouldn't be the same if you weren't here um many many kids are given opportunities because they have you to support and um encourage them to do so so again well deserved and um I look
020forward to many more years of having you here at B County High School ladies and gentlemen this is chist [Applause] mck really fun to do a video all day and then you don't see it until you see it you notice I wore black not but anyway I don't know this is just such an honor um I just look out in the audience and I see my friends and my family and like I have to call Miss bowl is actually the first time I ever St class stupped in a class room was at Valley Shannon and she gave the opportunity to be a longterm sub and I was there for like three months and then I went to the next sub job on Monday and um at with Dr hickey over at ra Jones and then
021the next day literally was a shutdown on Co so I was a long-term sub during Co and then you know when I came back I'm like hey it's can only go up from here you know it's it's hard but it's I love it and you know a lot of my Kidd has we talk about salaries and things in business like why on Earth would you leave a six figure salary to come teach but this is this is why I just I love our kiddos so much especially Boon kids and yes everybody looks good in Boon County blue but just thank thank you all that I've see so many people out there that have given me the opportunity to help change um education and I just hope that I can be an inspiration especially to the
022young teachers um and uh I just just thank you all this is so unexpected and um just I told Megan stepan all the time that I love Boon so much that I hope that they bury me on the football field and that's the truth so anyway thank you so much [Applause] con our next good news item the Boon County Education Foundation is awarding many Innovation grants to the following teachers from the Boon County Schools based on the projects listed in their application on behalf of the foundation and the students that we serve thank you for your demonstrated commitment to the educational process in the Boon County School District I'll read some names of our staff to come forward to be recognized or do you want to read those say if you were absolutely um my
023name is Brian Cobb and I'm with the boom County Education Foundation so thank you for having me um for those of you who don't know the Education Foundation is a we're an independent nonprofit our mission is simple it's to raise funds to provide Innovative uh educational opportunities for uh for students in boom County Schools um that wouldn't otherwise be possible so we do this in a couple of ways um we we partner with with Community businesses um to provide those funds um we also have two main fundraisers that we we launch every year so our our first fundraiser or actually our second fundraiser is in December it's our bourbon raffle so that just concluded um our next um event is coming up in March it'll be Friday March 15th um it is our night at
024the races it's a really fun event we just created an event just to for teachers Educators the community just to come out and have fun it's a Turfway racetrack um silent auction uh drinks appetizers and in horse racing so so if you uh uh want any more information on our foundation uh or our events please visit BCF ky.org um or just Google the boom County Education Foundation so the funds that we raise um we give those um we inject those back into the uh 100% of those funds go back into the boom County Schools classrooms and we do that through minig grants so Educators teachers administrators in the schools they will apply for our grants so when we talk about these Educators that are applying for these grants these are Educators that are going way
025above and beyond what they're expected to do so the names we're going to read tonight they're looking for um opportunities outside um of their classroom to provide even more value in their classroom so they're introducing kids to Career paths that they these kids may have not ever had any um experience with so they may spark something within a child that launches them on a career path where they're really successful um we also deal with mental health um programs so we we do a lot of good in in Boon County Schools um so I'm going to go ahead and without further Ado I'm going to read names of uh the individuals and programs so um from Cooper High School um kayin Knight for laser cutter for the C CTE Department you want to come on up
026[Applause] maybe hold your applause until I'm done with the first batch get your certificate uh Barrett Bradshaw R High School engineering maker space um TJ Pelfrey also from riy high school uh TSA drone course how cool is that um Camper's Middle School Sarah list adaptive stem class Shannon McDonald for for elll transition devices Camp burn uh Katherine Murray I think you're here to accept it on Shannon's behalf Connor Middle School Karen enderly outdoor Student Center also from Conor Middle School Kelly King for the practice living room enhancement oerman Middle School Jennifer Davis understanding water pollution Jones Middle School um Evan acres and Brooklyn steel um so if we can have you all centered maybe in here we're going to oh the Giant we're going to do we're going to take two pictures um so come
027on in the middle pleas H all like and oh she's not here yes she is who oh she is oh okay Ginger Ginger mclan yes oh come on up sorry I didn't know you were here us got you thank you all right elementary schools Burlington Elementary Allison Ober for Sphero bolt robotics Hollands preschool Shere at or sh yeah Sheree Adams uh fine motor kindergarten Readiness erbach Elementary Sarah shreen hoofer science of reading resources and materials uh Florence Elementary Stacy Welden uh student created elll Library uh accepting on her behalf principal Ryan bur Kelly Elementary Kelly hok for 3D printing okay uh yeah okay Dana from Collins Elementary for the Collins coffee cart Long Branch Elementary Amanda Leatherman cating with Litt Regina Melvin drums alive Long Branch Elementary liia blue presentation from Tara Brown Long Branch
028Elementary man Elementary Heather man fine motor skills excellence and kindergarteners also from man Katie hayth differentiated instruction New Haven Elementary Melissa Huff Appalachian inspired basket weaving also from New Haven Shannon K for Tiger Tales new Point Elementary acria Watson and Abby uh for can't you can't put us down northp Elementary Trisha Ober enhanced student support stem upgrade ochan Elementary uh Kendall big for the maker space in the library Sarah author also from aan character building literacy Steeple Chase Elementary Jal wood for the first Lego League explore Club Sport Club Stevens Elementary uh Schuler tamula for enhancing calming supports and also from Stevens last but not least Melissa Clark for bring science alive is there anybody yes what's that Lauren win Lauren winra wh from man for Ready Set Reed is there anybody else who is
029here on behalf of their Grant okay what's your name Melissa for good rid Elementary okay Melissa One World many cultures experience so we can try to squeeze in here the best we can is that everybody down if we can get tall kids in [Laughter] back no [Laughter] Sor got thank you thank you con thank thank you very much to our Boon County Education Foundation members and certainly we would like to ask any of you interested to please help with the Boon County Education Foundation they would certainly welcome your assistance and it would be a very valuable and very fulfilling thing our next good news item each year the Kentucky directors of pupil Personnel sponsor a High attendance day competition this year September 20th was the designated High attendance day Statewide to emphasize that consistent attendance
030in school is very essential for their success for Student Success on the high attention Day High attendance day excuse me ky's Public elementary middle and high schools compete in a small school or large school categories six winners are determined Statewide the school in each category with the highest percentage attendance for September 20th receives a prize of $500 congratulations goes to North Point Elementary School and principal Kelly Smith for winning this year's High attendance day they won the High attendance day with an attendance rate of 99.02% [Applause] fantastic [Music] she one more good news item the Kentucky Association of school administrators just announced their 2024 cohort for Kentucky women in education leadership or coell Jones Middle School principal Stacy Park and school choice and transition coordinator Katie park parks excuse me are among 27 accomplished School
031leaders carefully selected through a rigorous application process process that evaluates them against a specific leadership criteria quell says that each new member brings a wealth of educational experiences unique talents and a commitment to ensure the children of Kentucky receive a world-class education congratulations go to stady Stacy and Katie for being named to the Quil cohort congratulations ladies great job [Music] C as our board members return to their seats I want to yield our time now to uh Schoolboard student Spotlight uh Yousef SII for his presentation to the board thank you Mr Turner uh good night everybody uh I hope you all have had a wonderful winter break I know that I certainly enjoyed it it was really really relaxing and I hope you guys are all back to the school grind and you know finishing
032all those classes strong uh tonight I want to report about what we as a superintendent student advisory council did yesterday which is quite a quick turnaround but what we did yesterday was incredibly phenomenal and without further Ado I present Miss Hannah angle to present about what she did hello everyone so I'm Hannah I go to R high school I'm a senior there and I have now been the chairperson of our deib committee at our ssac for two years so yesterday we decided to start off with a Icebreaker scenario where we discussed how we have so many differences but at the end of the day we are all just human we have a heart and we're all here on this Earth just trying to make it to the end so we started out by all of
033us standing up and then we would go and find another person in the room that has something in common with us so for example I play soccer so I went and found another soccer player and then on the end you kind of link up with another person that has something in common with you so my partner was trying to find another person who had something in common with her while I was trying to find someone who had something in common with me and then at the end of it we all were joined together we all found something that we all had in common and then we moved over to kind of an open discussion so if you see we have a little slideshow here we just kind of discussed this so we started out with
034what deib even is so for those of you who don't know it stands for diversity Equity inclusion and belonging and then we discussed what that meant to us so all of the deib members discussed kind of how that has impacted them then we um discussed the book definition of culture and we moved on to what we are trying to transition to in what our personal culture is so not just what our ethnicity and race are but the things that we like the food that we eat the things that we celebrate so not just the fact that I am a white woman but also the fact that my family we celebrate St Patrick's Day more than we celebrate a lot of other holidays then we moved on to the same exact conversation for diversity textbook definition
035discussed what our personal diversity is so the fact that I all the clubs and organizations that I do that's part of my personal diversity and then we discussed the ways that we celebrate this so our students had a lot of impactful um thoughts that they kind of brought to the table so one of our high schoolers dis discussed how Deb is kind of the order that you go in so you look for the diversity you find how you can reach Equity you find how you can take that equity and make everyone feel included and you find how you can take that inclusion make everyone have a personal sense of belonging and then we had another student an elementary student actually who said perspective changes diversity so what he meant by that was like for me
036because of all the clubs and organizations that I'm involved in someone might see me as just an SSC member but I might have a teammate who only sees me as a soccer player or I might have another club member who sees me as as an NHS member so we kind of discussed how depending on what person you are you're going to see diversity different from each point of view and then we discussed we kind of had like a little call of action call to action where each student we sat in silence for 3 minutes I timed it and then we discussed after those three minutes we discussed three things that we can take back to our school so I actually had multiple students come up to me and ask for my number for my email
037so that we can discuss different things that they would like to do in the schools um and I don't know that's just was something that was really exciting for me um possibly the most exciting event that we had we did like a we called it a person personal cultural potluck so everyone brought in something from their personal culture that has impacted them so pictures up here Yousef actually brought in those what are they called Venezuelan Aras arabas all right I'm I'm so sorry I know I butchered that um and then we had another student bring in African RS it's called um Joff I was like I know Joff um and these were delicious by the way if you're interested try them um but we also had other simple things like chocolate chip cookies or chips
038that PE that are people's favorite chips and when I tell you everyone was going up for seconds and thirds I mean it like this was possibly the most exciting thing that I've seen in ssac for a while um oh oh I um for me uh I'm so sorry um but our final little activity we did we called we called it the paper mirr so we started off with I'm just going to flip this around we started off with a blank piece of paper and everyone got to pick just a marker they picked they wanted and they wrote on one side the things that they see themselves what when they look at the mirror what they reflect back onto themselves some students chose to draw a picture some students listed some adjectives it was it was
039exactly what a person thinks as when they see themselves and then we flipped it to the other side and we went around and you met up with another friend and they wrote something that you reflect onto them so on one hand you have this piece of paper that is exactly what you think of yourself and then you flip it over and you see all these things that people think of you and obviously they're all positive um but it was crazy to see the difference between people's two sides like some PE you would notice that a lot of the students wrote more like negative connotations on their side and then you would flip it over and you would see these beautiful just kind words that people see of their students and it was just really cool
040for all of us to go through and see how we're all a diverse group but at the end of the day we all are here in Boon County and we're here to celebrate what makes us Boon County Schools [Applause] thank you Hannah awesome [Applause] [Music] job thank you very much Hannah for reporting on that I can personally confirm this is one of the best secc meetings we've had in a while so Hannah don't worry I'm pretty sure everyone agrees on that I've been in since middle school I'm sorry it's okay um it was really an incredible experience uh I really think Hannah and Her Di committ committee for planning it all and especially for all the other members who brought in their personal cultural Foods doesn't have to be their ethnicity their race their religion
041it could be their their family life uh the different holidays they celebrate and it was truly an incredible emergence into other people's lives that you really don't get to see on a day-to-day basis um and that was you know just incredible experience I want to say that again uh following my uh beginning of the memb of the month initiative that I did last month I want to celebrate Mr Austin Reed from boom County high schools and Mrs Lucy Howard from gray middle school and I really just want to appreciate their time and dedication to ssac I saw them yesterday Lucy was talking and initiating conversations and having such thoughtful discussions that I was super impressed by her especially as a middle school student and Austin he was the only representative from Boon County high school
042but he certainly did his part he was the one who sacrificed his time to make sure everyone was seated and everyone got food and you know I really appreciate both of them for all the work they done so if you can com on up it's to celebrate them thank you [Applause] and just to wrap things up around here I do want to uh not announce but amplify the fact that we're having a boom County Mental Health Summit February 23rd and 24th of next month obviously um I we've here at we've been really trying to encourage many of the high school students particularly to attend as it is will be a incredible experience for them to kind of delve into one of the greatest plagues of Our Generation and I really encourage all of you to
043spread the word uh high school students are free so that's a great benefit right there uh we're trying to get students to present there from each individual High School a shout out to Mr Wilson back there for spreading the word at Cooper once I told him it was incredible and I've already got many people who signed up and are ready to go and so I thank you all for listening and headed back to Mr Turner thank you very much Yousef great job as usual really appreciate your work with our students and thank you very much Hannah no apology needed don't sorry it was because there was food there I promise Madam chair that concludes the good news thank you very much thank you Mr Mr Turner and thank you students and congratulations again to all
044the staff members awarded the grants through our Education Foundation for Mrs morvi and her break the mold uh award Mrs Young and I had the pleasure of being able to sit at a table with her during our Council of councils uh strategizing session and seeing that she was chosen for this recognition was no surprise after spending a couple of evenings with her uh you could just tell that she's very passionate about what she does and Boon County High School is very fortunate to have her um at this point um I'm going to be turning the move uh meeting back over to um Mr Turner for election of our uh board officers for 2024 I want to uh thank the board for allowing me the honor and privilege of serving through this past year um it
045it is uh a little bit different role and responsibility when you serve as chair um and even though I've done this multiple times it's always a challenging experience to try to keep up with um all of the Robert's Rules of orders and making sure that everyone has a voice and Hannah you are always included and you will always belong regardless honesty is refreshing we we we need more honesty and we need more of the thorn wild kindness pledge so thank you Mr Fuller for that um so with no further Ado Mr Turner thank you madam chair and I appreciate your service as well nominations are now open for the office of chairperson for 2024 so we'll take a motion I would like I would motion to nominate Jesse parks for board chair I'll second so
046wa a motion Was Made By Carolyn wolf second seconded by Karen bird to nominate Jesse Parks as chairperson for the year 2024 by acclamation and close nominations at this time all in favor say I I I I any nay passes I will pass the G passes by a vote of 5 to zero [Applause] board member Parks uh thank you well we got to do the uh nominations for the board Vice chair and they are now open I nominate Dr Maria Brown for vice chair I will second motion was made by Mr is Wolf to nominate Dr Brown and that was seconded by Karen bird for the 2024 Vice Chair by acclamation and closed and to close nominations all in favor for I well looks like you're the vice chair congratulations and with that we will
047move to item seven the superintendent report Mr Charter thank you Mr chair I would like to bring forward Dr deweer he will uh present on behalf of our academic wing of our school district good evening everybody I think at your tables you have a copy of the new strategic plan brochure we're going to start this evening with a uh strategic Plan update and if you'll turn to page 13 we're going to give you an update on objective 4B under operations and resource optim optimization Bo County Schools will eliminate redundancy in purchasing of services Andor programs in order to reduce costs and increase Financial Resources it's that first strategy there that I wanted to talk about this evening collaborate with learning Support Services to determine which programs are most effective and eliminate duplicat so a few
048meetings ago I think I reported uh that we've created a new process for the schools to submit their purchases their purchase requests for curriculum we are underway with that the principles have a due date of February 1st to have that list compiled these are all new purchases that will give us a chance in LSS to sit down and take a look across all 27 programs all 27 buildings to see what redundancies might be there where we can maybe bulk some of the purchases to get better prices this is something we haven't done before we haven't had this process and the opportunity really arose through Senate bill one now that it is the superintendent's responsibility to choose curriculum and not the site based councils it kind of opens the door for his office his staff to
049make that happen so we'll continue to give you updates as we go through the timeline for that but as I said the first deadline is February 1st and the principles are working hard at that right now so more on that later the second goal we only do three goals tonight the second goal we're going to look at is goal one world class education 1B on page 10 so if you want to turn to page 10 and it's the final bullet the final strategies under 1B ensure that diverse populations of students are provided the unique support required to be successful in the classroom our Spotlight tonight is our diverse populations of specialed students we wanted to highlight the work that our special ed coordinators do and to do that I'm going to call for director Jody
050Hall to come to the front oh Vanessa's gonna gr to start us off okay good evening I'm Vanessa gonick and I'm one of the special education coordinators in the district uh and we are happy to come to you and take a few minutes of your time to talk about our wonderful work with uh students with disabilities special education teachers and uh admin teams uh before we get started we'd like to say thank you for your service as board members I know you have a lot of late night meetings committee meetings traveling all over the state to get your hours for your training um all so that students in boom County can have world class education so we're truly grateful for that um one of the biggest parts of our job starts in the summer after
051school is out and before school begins in the fall we spend a lot of time developing trainings that are specific to special education teachers who support those students with disabilities parent Educators and admin teams we also maintain a website that has um a plethora of resources that we use throughout the year with our admin teams and our special education teachers to help those students with disabilities um I want to say just a couple of things and then U my colleagues are going to talk um I also have had in I've had more than three decades in special education so I've had the opportunity to teach and work in schools in Campbell County and in Kenton County before coming to Boone County I also had several years at in a regional position where I have the
052opportunity to provide a lot of support and training in the 17 districts throughout Northern Kentucky so believe me when I tell you that there is not a district in this region that supports their special education teams and teachers like boom County does so thank you for that and I'll turn it [Applause] over hello my name is Gabe patfield I'm also one of the special education coordinators in the district um as a special education coordinator I do a variety of things every day um one of the biggest things we focus on is individual support for students with disabilities um that may look like working with teachers to write really compliant IEPs collecting and analyzing data um oftentimes as a special education coordinator excuse me we're the first stop um for students with disabilities with behavioral needs
053so we will write plans with teachers to help support those students um and then for some of those more intense or um severe behaviors we pull in our autism and behavior Specialists I'll let Nicole Bishop talk about that hi I'm Nicole Bishop I am one of two autism and behavior coordinators for the district and um like Gabe said this is just a little part of what we do but we receive student referrals um from our coordinators and from our superintendents and sometimes by means of Community Partners kind of reaching out um but we work with students that are displaying their very escalated behaviors um and we work with the school teams to collect and analyze student behavioral data we look at those to do functional Behavior Analysis and develop and execute behavior intervention plans we
054also not only collaborate with school teams we work really closely with families and Community Partners to make sure that services are in place for our kids with very intense behavioral needs which can be challenging sometimes we also develop and train on evidence-based practices and all things autism and behavior we actually have a training that's coming up Tuesday night in this room for understanding autism for our Community Partners and for parents at 630 so it's my Shameless plug my name is Maddie Chelli I'm one of the special education coordinators here um one of the thing our one of the things our team does is we also organize and guide professional learning sessions for all of our school teams on a monthly basis um our professional learning communities focus on four things that are typically on our
055agenda which are um our district initiative we focus on helping schools meet State compliance uh for special education processes uh we do student data analysis to help uh improve student income outcomes and then uh we work on specific School needs based on our school teams and what they need from um and our district initiative is formulated based on our needs assessment to effectively support our students and what they need um and then this year our district initiative centers around uh student Behavior and last year it was on improving executive functioning skills for our students in our district and then on top of that our district also our department also organizes professional learning communities exclusively for our special classroom teachers to make sure that they feel supported and supporting our most um severe students um and
056then just making sure that all of our students in Boon County receive AC an exceptional education hi I'm Kelly Smith and I'm one of the coordinators um my wonderful colleagues have talked about how we help support teams to grow students academic and behaviorally but another really important aspect of our job is to make sure that we're supporting students for what happens when they walk outside of our doors so there is an aspect of our jobs to help teams support kids postsecondary um there's lots of ways that we do this uh one of the most common ways is developing a really strong relationship between a student's individual learning plan and their IEP to make sure that we're focused on goals of what the student wants to achieve when they walk outside of our doors um we
057work with Employment Specialist and really unique programs like project search which provides transition uh education and learning in a real business setting um so making sure that we focus on all aspects of our most unique Learners is super important to our entire team I will close them Mountain saying I figured you'd want to hear from them versus me over and over again but hopefully that gives you a glimpse of the different supports that we try to offer buildings I also had reached out to principles to ask them for input because I thought I would share a couple of them but there was such an overwhelming response that's what you have um and so I gave them all directly to you from the principles um so you can read those um when you want and um
058they were not at all hesitant to share their input about um the special education coordinators and the behavior and autism supports that are in their building so um please take time to read those because I think it speaks to um their work and then also another just a reminder that the unified um Champion School Special Olympics National Banner award is January 19th at Riyal high school for them and so um just one more reminder about that that and the autism night thanks for listening and thank you again for your service such a strong team we're so fortunate to have them the last item tonight is on page 12 um objective 3B boom County Schools will increase that's not the one sorry 3C boom County Schools will improve internal and external communication systems when a family
059moves into Boon County the First Communication System the encounter is the enrollment system and to talk about some improvements that Jeremy Bo has been working on is Jeremy Boer he's our assistant director assistant DPP for the district come on up Jeremy well good evening I'm Jeremy Bo as he said um of the one of the four largest districts in the state of Kentucky we are the only one current ly that does not do online registration so I was tasked with um with this um Endeavor and tonight I'm going to explain a little bit about what is online registration and how it's going to be um effective for us so first off we need online registration there's five really big reasons why you want to go online registration so what it is is every year um
060as a parent of a Boone County student every year my student on the first days of school gets a whole packet and plethora of things for parents to sign you have to sign off on a media release and all the different things that you get so instead of having that paper online registration will allow parents to be able to have all that instant access to the information and to sign off digitally so with those with that being said um the five things that online registration can do for us was one it saves time and it's convenient instead of we uh the parents having to wait on uh paper packets to get home they could go right online from the convenience of their house and sign off on all the first beginning of the year stuff
061as well as as new parents to our district um the accuracy no longer do our registrars at each school have to be able to tell if it's a z or an s or or whatever El other type of letters the third thing is is eco-friendly um we're saving a lot of paper that our district is currently using and it conserves resources also the speed currently right now if I'm um if I'm registering for our district and I have I I'm requesting El services or Transportation our regist has to put that in Infinite Campus and then that's either faxed or sent some way to that department and it's very slow process and then lastly it increases security obviously we've probably all been a part of it if I leave papers on my desk all the time
062if Johnny signs up for something and um that paper's left on a desk obviously if it's on the computer it's instant security as opposed to papers laying around so this is our I'm just going to go through this really quick Chad if you'll click on that website for me real quick um so with kindergarten registration coming on um if you can go to that other tab Chad and then we can go to that and then the other tab up top there please yes there we go so this will be the website uh once February 14th um opens up we will have this website live it's a website that I've created and it tells you two different types of students first we have students that are new um that are coming constantly into our district um
063from now until May and then you also have kindergarten registration uh which will open up February 14th with that parents will be directed to this website which they will have a plethora of information um to guide them through online direction or online registration what it is how to do it Etc there's even a quick video uh that Infinite Campus produces that parents can watch to see if they're brand new from um Paduka Tillman high school they come to Boone County and don't even know what a Burlington city is much less what school to go to they can click and find out where to go and then how to contact the schools so that all information is there secondly you will have two links one the step one link will take you to what Chad's going
064to go to here in just a second uh that will be for all kindergarten registrations that are starting February 14th and then any new student um to our district the second one all of our families currently have access that are in enrolled already have access to parent portal um if they are incoming Stu or if they already have a student they will click the second link for returning families so I'm going to let Chad go to the other side where you just were Chad not yeah so this is as you saw there was an intro uh to online registration the great thing that is and I've really expanded my Horizon on my communication the five largest languages that we have in Boone County are English French Spanish Arabic and Somali all five of these languages
065are currently translated on this online registration so no more do we have to scramble for a translator um if they speak one of those high five then I already have it translated and has been checked and verified for accuracy in all five languages so it's good to go for uh time sake I'm going to go through this quick the first thing that I like um and I Won't Go Back click on it because we don't have to see that part but uh the the green tabs at tops they're called pleats um the one thing that I like is that online registration is tied into our 911 addresses here in Boone County so if I go type in 101 Main Street Burlington then it's going to say hey you need to go to this school however
066if I go type in 101 Main Street of Walton it's going to say you're out of District this is not is what's needed so with this example um Chad if you'll click that edit review for me this student right here is zoned um as you can see the boundary school is zoned to larer riy high school with that being said that student will be registered to that and all of the people that are needed to be contacted for this if um you could see all the different um the information that we're going to collect from this that would typically be on a piece of paper if they need transportation the transportation directors um and coordinators will be notified in that area if they go to one of our C schools automatically the hip form is
067going to populate which means we'll have 100% participation whoever does the olr will have 100% participation on our hip form because that's embedded to our 11 C schools that are in there so the parents will will have to do that and then um all of our release agreements so all of those different forms that you fill out at the beginning of the year whether it's the media release or um you know perion to to administer medication it's all embedded and all tied on here um and like I said with one click it goes to all the different people um that need to be notified if it's a um like I said if if it's if you go to this Larry RI High School you wouldn't see the hip form on there because that's not a
068c school so that's one thing that I really like it only gives you the information that it uh pertains to that person and on February 14th all of our kindergarten which are new students and then all of our anybody else that moves into the district um from February 14th to June 30th will use what we have here and then once uh July 1 hits we wait till July 1st because that's when the uh the C the C schools the H the ones that have to do the HIIT forms that's when they're able to be processed once July 1st hits everybody in the district that's currently enrolled will be able to go on to their parent portal and update all of their information and it makes it real nice because every single year as a parent
069I don't have to go in and type in or write on a piece of paper Espen Bo check check check check check all I have to do is go on there everything is pre-populated with what's already in Infinite Campus if it's accurate I haven't moved I haven't changed my phone number I click save save save boom and it's good to go so I mean the speed the accuracy it's all it's all win-win so thank you yeah no question just thank you long time coming this has been a lot of work really appreciate that thank you all right Mr Cher for our operations report tonight we want to start off with uh adding our annual audits report from Barnes and denig uh Daniel Damonte is going to give that report to you he has supplied you
070with some information uh he is a 2009 graduate of Boom County high school and he is going to be presenting the information to you tonight so I'll turn it over to Daniel good evening uh my name is Daniel Damonte I'm Insurance manager with Barnes denig um you should have been provided a copy of the auditor's report I'll leave that to you to do some late night reading if you can't fall asleep um I'm going to go over this PowerPoint presentation this was presented to the finance and audit committee so I'm going to do kind of a high level uh for the sake of time but uh we've been uh the Auditors for uh the district for several years now and hope to continue to do so um we were engaged to conduct an audit of
071the June 30th 2023 financial statements which included a single audit uh compliance over major federal programs so that's the federal funds received by the district um some required Communications uh there's auditor and management responsibilities obviously as Auditors were to remain independent from the district uh so the responsibility of the financial statements are yours not us uh we do risk-based auditing to provide reasonable but not absolute Assurance we get um an understanding of internal controls but we do not provide Assurance over those and uh you can reference the engagement letter for some more details there uh the good news uh we issued an unmodified or clean uh opinion on both the financial statements and the major federal programs that is the best opinion you can get in both categories uh we we received excellent cooperation from
072uh Linda and the accounting team so appreciate her efforts uh with the audit um there's some significant accounting policies that are discussed in note one of the financial statements there was a new accounting standard um gby 96 um I won't go into detail with that but essentially we assess the impact of the uh new standard and it was very minimal and was not uh recorded on the financial statements um uh we were not aware of any matters related to fraud or illegal acts that require communication and there are other written communication and a management representation letter that could be made available to you um then uh audit adjustments here so I referenced uh gasby 96 the new accounting standard that was implemented in the current year um had a very small impact in the leases
073um that was implemented last last year still had a small impact so we've discussed with management and passed on the adjustment um while those may look like big numbers to you the uh overall impact is less than 1% of the total assets and liabilities of the of the district um the rest of the slides on the presentation are just trends of um financial information I won't go into uh great detail but overall assets uh increased uh compared to Prior year revenues were up uh received more state and federal funds and then uh some tax revenue increased um and then there's also some breakout of some expenses for the general and special Revenue funds that you can look at in there um if you do have questions about any of the information posted in the presentation
074uh Linda has my contact information and you can uh get her to give you that and then contact me and I'm happy to answer any questions thank you thank [Applause] you I just want to do a few updates um back in November if you remember we decided on what our snow day procedures would be I just want to remind everybody of that we have some pending weather that will be might be coming up this coming Monday colder weather as well the first three snow events that we have will be traditional snow days and then anything after that will be virtual learning or the Niti day so I just want to make sure everybody was aware of that and remind everybody of that that is on our website and I did send that out to principles
075yesterday um just want to give you a quick Transportation update we have added three new drivers which is very positive news um we have eight applications in the bank right now and we have a new a new training class starting on January 22nd so we've moved into a positive direction as we start the uh the Year back uh after winter break I also wanted to highlight our start team and people ask what is a start team I want you to think about if you're starting your car in the morning and you have to get it ready and warmed up and get all the frost of it frost off of it to get going think about doing that for 250 buses and we have a team of people that come in at 4:30 in the morning
076to get all the buses warmed up to get them ready to go to make them safe to go out and pick up the kids and I just wanted to highlight that group of people because that's a tremendous amount of work that they have to do and they'll have to be doing that they have been doing that pretty regular basis since we've had the cold weather and they will continue to do that for the next few days and probably the next few weeks so I want to thank Nick and Sean and his team for that and I also want to thank Nick and Sean who are over here uh for all their hard work in recruiting people and getting Transportation going in the right direction I would now invite U Miss best to give a construction
077update and a classified working group update followed by uh Eric ball for the HR update thank you welcome everybody um not a lot to update you on in construction so if you look at the time frame that we've had since our last board meeting up until now between winter break we haven't had a lot of action in construction World um we've had a couple few minor projects that took place over winter break to include some um finishing of the floor areas within new flooring at Ry in their office area as well as some minor lighting projects that took place across the district so not a lot of things that have happened um since our last meeting until now so obviously at our next meeting you can anticipate um as we move closer into spring thankfully
078um we'll start to see a lot of action taking place with construction for the classified task force as we talked about at that last meeting um we have finished up our classified task force with the culture and climate survey so the results from that survey have been shared with the board members they've been sent to individual building principles as well as department heads and along with the task force members so their task between now and next week we have our next meeting on January 18th they'll be going going through that data coming back to that meeting and prioritizing some areas that we want to work on with that task force once we have all of that that information will be shared out with all classified task member or all classified staff members so that they're
079able to see the things that we've prioritized taking the information that they shared through that survey we did have 488 survey responses this year which which is about 37% of our classified staff that was an increase over last year's survey which was about 400 12 if I remember correctly so that group is doing a great job of working identifying areas um that we can improve on and addressing concerns from our classified staff thank you Miss best I have a quick question for you my apologies for making you walk all the way back there once you you got the survey results uh from the people that responded and then you mentioned that you prioritize what and then you share the priorities with the classif ified staff yes how do you enact the priorities so that's something
080that we've challenged the classified task force the members of that group so we do have representation from all of our role groups par Educators custodians um Food Services the only area I don't have a rep on um right now but we are working with that so that's one of their tasks as a group they're looking through all of that data looking for the areas that we can look up for some actional actionable items to work on and that group's going to look at those priorities from the data results so it's not something I'm going to identify we're putting that charge on the role members of that group we have 16 people who sit on that classified task force I think for me I'm I I would really encourage the task force to make solid recommendations
081for administrators um whether they're building or District level I think sharing the priorities with classified staff is great but I think what we when we originally set up the the the task force it was to make real lasting impact with classified workers so they feel like they have a voice that they're valued um that because they are one of the most important cogs in this in this public school system um so I I encourage you to to try to make real things happen with whatever it is that they're recommending happen yes absolutely that that is definitely the primary goal of that group to make sure we have some action that can take place we'll be watching yes thank you thank you good evening uh real quick Staffing update I'll Echo what Miss best said not
082a whole lot of business days between our last board meeting and now um we've had a slight reduction in the number of vacancies but not any significant changes and I'll go through the list I typically go through every month uh we're looking for uh six six teachers six regular a teachers teachers two School psychologists three special ed teachers five par Educators five special education par Educators 13 custodians two staff support and five cafeteria workers and then Mr mcarter already uh uh discussed the transportation vacancies all right I'd just like to conclude our conclude our report by thanking Linda and her team with the work with the uh auditor and getting that work completed I know that's a big task she'll be giving the monthly financial report during the part of the consent agenda part of
083the meeting and the draft budget will be a new business item that all of you will be looking at as well so thank you Mr Turner thank you Mr mcarter and and lastly I would like to thank our board for allowing us the time to highlight the great work going on of our students and the great work going on with our employees very proud of all that they're doing some great work is is happening so just one or one or two few items here just to uh add to the list just on my own uh my own work as superintendent recently we had a Northern Kentucky superintendent con conference where we got together to collaborate and work on various different topics in education uh we recently had our budget committee and our district facilities committee
084meet uh and also this past Tuesday we had our monthly leadership meeting and we hosted Scott Harvey he's a retired law enforcement officer and a negotiator and is very skilled in training on communication stratey strategies and tactics for our leaders for our Educators uh for everyone within our district so really impactful training there uh and lastly we have an upcoming event our superintendent district and master program will be meeting with our facilities team uh here shortly so thank you very much for uh allowing me to present all of this great work to you Mr chair uh thank you Mr Turner that moves us to item eight audience of citizens portion of the meeting while the board recommends uh welcomes the opportunity to hear from the community and inform the board of your views on matters
085before the board please keep in mind the board agenda is set and by Statute the board can only discuss the items that are present on our agenda the board cannot legally nor would the board discuss an issue specific to an employee a student in respect to privacy pending litigation as well remember I'm sure you guys are all aware that these meetings are streamed on YouTube I heard they get a lot of views sometimes please be respectful in your comments if you have a concern that you'd like a response from the administration feel free to leave your information I think it's uh Eric Paul right yeah over there in the corner um as directed keep comments to two minutes two minutes please we this kind of run a little long here today um so that all
086that can speak all that may that want wish to speak may speak um and with that uh number one Shawn Maul sorry I'm short I'm gonna move this later this evening you will be asked to decide whether a children's story book should be removed from an elementary school doing so would remove this book from all students regardless of their opinions their family values or their beliefs so before a decision is made based on the values of one mom who filed a complaint I'd like to present the values of my family we believe in kindness we believe in equality and compassion Grace and acceptance we believe we are better as a whole when we help and care for those who need it we believe in offering our time and services to make the world around us
087a better place this means volunteering for things like the PTA and sitting on the sbdm of my daughter's school this means helping set up at all school events and being one of the last families to leave because we also help clean up we teach our daughter that if she ever sees anyone who needs help it is our responsibility to help them I have helped her pick up roken glass at a public park so no one got hurt she helps classmates who are struggling with reading she's collected donations for the animal shelter in the police station all because she wants to help because those are the values we instill in her so if she were the character in this book and came across someone under a spell who needed help in order to wake up she
088would help them not because they are a boy or a girl not because of some some age that is assumed but because it's a person who needs help we don't call doctors nurses or firefighters gays and lesbians or I can't believe I'm saying this pedopiles because they might put their mouth on someone by giving them CPR no one questions that consent is not needed age is not regarded if someone needs help they help period we have Good Samaritan laws and they quote give legal protection to people who give reasonable assistance to those who are or whom they believe to be injured ill in Peril or otherwise incapacitated wouldn't Rosie's actions in this book fall under that she was being a Good Samaritan helping someone who was incapacitated she was just helping I ask you to
089look at the hero in this story in the same way that we view the heroes in our community when they help people in need thank you thank you all right next couple would be soap wolf and Mandy wolf and then after that Shantel March if you don't already know me yet my name is Sophia Len wolf or more commonly known as soap I'm a freshman at the ignite Institute studying design and Engineering so why am I here today well I'm talking about the book ever endless ever after this book is honestly great in many different aspects it's reader interactive allowing the person reading to have control over the story and explore different Pathways with each decision I can even go into how much I like the structure the appearance the feeling and many other different
090parts of it that as a design student I can even appreciate so when me and my sister and I um me me my sister I can't speak today um where interview uh reviewing the book nothing seemed harmful to young readers the biggest concern my sister had when reading it was of Rosie the main character was dead when she was in her bed reading Little Red Riding Hood so yeah that was her takeaway this book is high quality and award-winning and I think any school that uh would want this book to be pushed out to students of any age we really shouldn't be uh the kind of District to remove a book because it has a small moment in that maybe some parents shake their heads at if we if we take away a book that
091refers to two characters kissing then what book is next parents have the right to choose what they don't and do want their kid to see but that doesn't mean they have the right to take away the content from all students that is just unfair so if you vote to ban the book from school libraries and possibly one similar what's really being done are you removing books that are supposedly showing kids harmful content or will the lack of diversity shown in libraries be the actual harm just think about that when you vote thank [Applause] you good evening hold on one second we have Mandy wolf my apologies sorry no that's my bad good evening my name is Mandy wolf I am in the fifth grade at North Point Elementary School where I've been elected as a
092student council member to represent the voice of our school the subject I wish to address this evening is the potential Banning of a fabulous children's book titled endlessly Ever After why would Boon County schools ever consider Banning a book by awardwinning creators Dan Santa and Lauren sender this book is described as transforming a crowd of classic Tales into an Ever Changing fascinating laugh out loud Choose Your Own Adventure picture book in which you may find a sleeping Maiden waste away in a sticky licorice cage discover the gold at the end of a wild goose chase or maybe just maybe save yourself and the day the fun picture book offers young readers the chance to create their own narratives out of the decisions they make each step of the way powerfully IND illustrating how a story
093is created and how it proceeds from beginning to middle to end both a teaching tool and an existing exciting Adventure in its own right this book is a great resource for learning storytelling not only do Amazon reviewers rate this book a 4.8 out of five but it also listed as a teachers pick teachers picks are based on feedback from hundreds of teachers to inspire a lifelong love for reading they represent diverse voices new Authors and kid kid favorite series why would we you ever consider Banning this book is it because Little Red Riding Hood kisses a princess is it because of the ages is it because the audience is ele school we are living in 2024 this is a time when the era of book Banning has long since passed the embarrass embracing diversity and
094inclusion are at the core of our value value system as the boom County Board of Education it is your duty to provide excellence in the education for all students the duty can only be accomplished with open minds and accepting Hearts thank you Chantel thank you girls for speaking I enjoyed that my name is Chantel March and I am the librarian at Long Branch Elementary School and this is my 18th year as a school librarian and my third at the boom County School in the Boon County school system and I also want to address the book challenge I ordered this book because it was nominated for a Kentucky bluegrass award for grades three through five I promoted it to those grade levels in the fall students were instantly engaged they were intrigued by the idea that
095they could interact with the story and direct the way it went determine the way it ended we also discussed those weeks or those days the other Choose Your Own Adventure books in our library and those books started circulating and students were reading this book is based on fairy tales that we are all familiar with fairy tales that have become part of our culture the pages in question are being made into something they're not the definition of being harmful to minors is not met in any way Within These pages I support the Kentucky bluegrass award program because it allows for student voice in the spring students will vote on what they think is the best book of the 10 n nominees in their grade band they get to choose the winner and I love that for
096them I love this book because it celebrates The Power of Choice it allows the reader to try different paths to see all the consequences the last two pages inform the reader that every day you choose so I'm speaking tonight to respectfully ask that you vote to keep the book in our school libraries and you protect my students right to choose whether or not they want to read this book and any others our school librarians have professionally chosen thank you all right uh next few is Jessica cersi uh Angie Ryder and Christina Smith hope I said their name right I have three kids in Boon of every Everybody um one of the one of the biggest jobs of parents is to help raise our children to become productive members of society who are self-disciplined self-aware empathetic
097adaptable positive rational generous and genuinely kind as parents it's our job to guide them along the path to these traits we teach them that actions have consequences that some paths lead to outcomes we would prefer to avoid but when they make mistakes as hard as it is for us to watch we pick them up dust them off tell them their loved and to try again this is how they grow into emotionally well regulated adults Neuroscience has shown a link between reading and empathy which is something that's hard to teach through words or even observable actions it must be experienced when we read we're experiencing life through someone else's eyes or shoes as the saying goes a child does not have to agree with a character to understand it that's empathy we know that we send
098our kids to school to learn Reading Writing and arithmetic the IQ enhancers but what many parents fail to realize is that their children are learning in tangible life skills through peer interaction which is enhanced by in fictional reading we as parents will naturally guide our children to follow our own moral and ethical code but we should teach them how to think not what what to think we must not fall into the Trap of limiting our child's emotional growth by limiting their experiences children would typically only see what we tell them to see instead we should try to see through their eyes not put adult interpretation on a child's fairy tale let us not block their experiences but rather give them the tools to navigate uncomfortable situations and learn actions and consequences within the safe borders
099of these fictional choose your path books any chance to learn and practice empathy through reading material about fictional characters historical figures even the bad guys and experiencing programs and events that cover hard topics make for children with better IQ and EQ this leads to those productive members of society that we all want to raise thank you and uh would would you say your name I I don't I just want to make sure I got the word order right okay got it thank you uh Mr Parks Christina Smith and Shannon Kay are yielding their time to me thank you we'll talk about that next month it's just two minutes each all right yeah okay I'm an elementary school librarian here to provide support to district principls teachers and officials who made The Logical and lawful decision
100to uphold the US Constitution and the First Amendment rights of Ky students to access information and ideas in their school library the harm to Miner's complaint involves a radical interpretation of one passage in a Kentucky Bluegrass Award nominee book endlessly Ever After the complaintant suggests that the content of this book will harm children harm in this context means deliberately inflict physical or mental damage it is highly offensive to me and my colleagues to be accused of deliberately inflicting damage on our students most of us spend hours outside the workday thinking about and worrying about our students the harmful to minor law targets obscene pornographic material that is sexually explicit in nature no reasonable person considers the material in this book pornographic it is worth reminding the audience that school officials consider the matter closed however
101the complaintant refuses to accept the decision and my short a lot of time I would like to highlight two major points first the spirit of this complaint is to unlawfully introduce government control over one of the few decisions a student has control over what to check out from the school library encouraging children to make decisions for which they are developmentally equipped is one of the best ways to nurture autonomy which is essential for psychological well-being the moms of Liberty and citizens defending Freedom groups claim to protect children but rather undermine the the success of the public school system by refusing to follow established practices of local Boards of education and school-based decision-making committees the names of these Freedom Fighters are laughable since their main goal is to restrict other people's freedoms and impose government control
102over private family decisions second neither sexual orientation nor pedophilic disorder are caused by reading the idea that a book could cause a child to become homosexual is based on a flawed understanding of causality just as reading a book about cooking won't turn someone into a chef reading a book about kissing someone of the same sex cannot alter one's innate sexual orientation or cause a person to become sexually attracted to Children contrary to belief teachers have no autonomy to select what they teach we do not cover gender identity sexual orientation or any other subjects that are considered controversial in schools we have a strict curriculum to cover in a short period of time and are observed by our school administration several times per year we do not get to choose what we teach it is chosen
103for us book bands are contradictory to the concept of democracy legal challenges could arise of a book band restricts students rights to access information and ideas which is guaranteed under the constitution in the court case Board of Education versus Pico the Supreme Court determined that students have First Amendment rights in the issue of local school school boards removing library books from school libraries the Supreme Court concluded that school officials may not exercise their discretion to remove books from a school library based on narrowly partisan or political grounds because doing so would amount to an official suppression of ideas school officials removal of books for the purpose of restricting access to the to the political ideas or social perspectives discussed in them when the action is motivated simply by the officials disapproval of the IDE ideas
104involved was a violation of the First Amendment proposals to ban books like this one are attempts to move educational institutions backwards in countries where book bands are common like North Korea China Russia Iran and Saudi Arabia people do not have the freedom to decide what to read preemptively removing a book from circulation before a student has read it is an intrusion of the government into a personal decision making it has no place in the United States no student has to check this book out your child doesn't have to read it you as a parent have the final say and what your child checks out or doesn't check out but parents of the other 20,000 students that attend Boon County Schools have the same right so don't tell me what my child can or can't read
105my children have the same rights and freedoms you do my choice as a parent is to allow full access to the information and ideas the experts in childhood development literacy and education believe are worthwhile to keep in our libraries thank you I think I had all right um moving right along um we got next we got Randy flowers and Deborah flowers hi I'm gonna speak for both of us because that's what I usually do in life and also Mr Payne has given me his time too so I'm sorry about that but all right just though everybody's not offended next month I might change that all right just be offend I'll get my speech in there just be aware hi I'm Debbie flowers and I'm running for Kentucky House of Representatives for District 60 um it
106was brought to my attention that a parent in my district is unhappy about a book in her in her child's School in the library this book is one of the Kentucky bluegrass award third to fifth grade nominees called endlessly Ever After by Laurel Snyder the book is incredibly entertaining and engaging for kids the book teaches children about critical thinking choices and consequences as well as the importance of good decision making so what's the big deal about this book due to the reference that was made by the complainant we must evaluate cabel 5 which discusses the potential harm to minors so it's imperative to ask are these words harmful to a child let's talk about it the book is one that creates a jump from Fairytale to fairy tale with a character named Rosie in each
107of these Adventures usually during a very exciting plot line Rosie is given the opportunity to choose one of two paths to take each of these paths are different and have their own set of consequences so I'm of the understanding that these issues lie with Pages 42 and 44 and that caused the parent to bring this book to the attention of the Schoolboard on these Pages Rosie has stumbled into the story of Sleeping Beauty and of course we know that Sleeping Beauty is in a castle and a trans like uh like sleep and the only way she can be awakened is by a kiss from a prince but instead Rosie popped into the fairy tale who knows she probably knew the story about Sleeping Beauty and knew Sleeping Beauty was um needed a kiss to awaken
108and not seeing Prince philli around she kissed the Sleeping Princess simply to break the spell now there are no pictures of her kissing the princess just the words written that Rosie kissed the princess and with that innocent and virtuous kiss the Sleeping Princess awoke I do not consider one person helping another as being harmful to minors however I understand and support any parents choice to allow or not allow their student to read or not read any material for any reason this goes hand inand with the First Amendment it is totally up to you as a parent to question if you want your child to read this book or not because ultimately no one wants to have their rights as a parent taken away and this parent was given the right to opt their child out
109of the story as well as others they declined to do so when which again they have the right to do they what they don't have the right to do is take away this book and the First Amendment rights of more than 20,000 other children and parents the majority of us want to encourage our children to read learn grow and appreciate diversity your children and my grandchildren deserve to have the types of books in the library like this especially endlessly Ever After so in closing let's return to the original question does this book harm minors absolutely not will infringing upon the rights of the students in our Commonwealth if this book is removed hurt miners absolutely yes thank you for your [Applause] time so then that would bring us to Joetta PR um and chrisy Watkins
110and then after that Julie Brown hi folks I'm Dr Joetta Pro I live in Hein um about a block away from Thorn wild Elementary I walk my dogs there every day and uh I spoke to you a couple months ago um more broadly when it wasn't a particular agenda item on um I was thinking tonight about Thorn wild and how in the before times before covid uh I had such fun one time um uh I see principal over there when I had the chance to uh come to career day and tell about my career as a psychologist and and and how fun that was with I think it was third graders if I remember right anyway um I just come to you today to say you know um people have different interpretations everyone can interpret
111based on their own experiences their own thoughts but um the the insinuation and interpretation that the complaintant in this particular situation has brought about uh this book just um really reflects about their perspective it to me it's not based on a a realistic interpretation of the statute I told you last time I used to be a policy director so you know I went read the statute thinking of these words I'm not going to read it aloud because it's very it's very blunt statute and nothing in that book which I ordered from Amazon and read uh nothing in that book uh matches this Statute in my opinion so I just invite you to please um not take this action which I think could set a precedent that would you know just end up being really uh
112chasing down a rabbit hole of any single person's insinuation taking away the rights of all other families and all other children in in Boon County in this award-winning and wonderful uh educational system we have here in boom County so thank you so I'm actually Julie Brown sorry I am chalk full of anxiety so I'm going to speed read so I promise you w take the full four minutes but um good evening uh thank you for the opportunity to speak with you I apologize for my very relaxed attire I'm just run over here from coaching my son's basketball practice but uh my name is Julie Brown and I am the very lucky mom to two beautiful boys uh one who is a kindergartener and the other a third grader at Long Branch Elementary I am also
113very fortunate to serve on the site-based decisionmaking council at Long Branch I come before you this evening as we are all now aware a recent book reconsideration request has now made its way um to you all for review I could spend my time with you this evening discussing um the ample care and attention that we as a Council took when we created or edited the book reconsideration request or when we actually got a request to reconsider a book um the time and attention that we took uh to consider the Merit of that book in the library but I'm not going to spend my time doing that um because I don't really think that's the issue and I want to be sure to say that I don't want my words to come across as an attempt
114to be demeaning because I do not think that that would create a path of understanding or a Liberation from ignorance I believe in parents rights and in Parents Choice and I believe that families are perfectly within their rights to have guiding principles that create a moral or ethical or religious beliefs how they want their families to see or understand the world around them I believe that these guiding principles should be discussed and reinforced at the dinner table or whenever that family has time together I believe that families should use those guiding principles to protect their children from whatever they deem harmful however I do not believe that those guiding principles should be imposed on any other family especially not in the public school system the culture at Long Branch is one that I am so
115so deeply grateful that my children and my niece are a part of a culture that is beautifully diverse and unique where all truly means all I believe that we as broader community members must work hard every day to balance our needs rights and desires with those of our fellow members to allow for the continual harmonious success of this community that means in some instances in some situations we may not be happy with an outcome the best solution is not to limit access for all if only a few take issue instead and as was the case with this book reconsideration request the right solution is to add stop gaps in this instance a block on the child's library account that would not allow them to check out this book or a book with related materials so
116that these this family's rights could be honored without infringing on any others I implore you to trust your Librarians and your media specialist and the for the great time and attention they take when choosing books for our kids that not only teach them but allow them to explore go on adventures Escape or just have fun I implore you to trust your principles and your site-based decision-making councils that they are working hard to make decisions that benefit the majority of their students and I implore you to allow this book to continue to remain at Long Branch and every other public school library thank you thank you all right let's see next few we got Amy Yates and Jeremy Yates oh too bad you have to talk now no I'm I'm kidding okay uh no problem um
117Antone did you did you want to speak or did she okay I know I call I didn't know if the yielding is messing me up see that's what I'm talking about they yield their time no I'm just right hey that's that's fair my name is um Antoine Smith Rouse I serve on the site based decision-making council at Long Branch um as the minority parent representative um I find it important to mention that I am the minority parent representative because that shows that our school as well as our district has diversity and needs uh minority parent Representatives because not every family looks the same I'm going to spend my time today not talking about the book because wow everyone has done such an amazing job but instead POS some questions to the board that I really
118think need to be considered um question um one if we can sidestep site-based decision- Mak councils then why are we taking our time and effort to have these policies in place um the complaint that was brought to the board is not the complaint that was brought to the site based decision-making Council once they got that decision they then sidestepped and decide to play ball somewhere else um additionally if this um book was um banned at Long Branch by the um book reconsideration committee we would then have in inac inadequacies what is at one school versus another had we banned this book the book would have never been brought up to Boon County School Board and therefore we would have a book at one school and not at another school I have children at four different
119schools in the Boon County um District which um two of which are at different elementary schools which mean I could have a child that have access to one book at one school and not at another so I really implore the board to think about what can they do to make sure that they streamline these policies um to make sure that we are not seeing um differences at our schools I also implore the board to think about the decision that they are making tonight because you all are possibly opening up a can of worms that to my understanding you all have full-time jobs and don't get paid very much to be here and you're likely going to need to be here 40 hours a week four days a week if you guys make the decision that
120opens this up to have Books banned based on that my family also as a same-sex family has a right to see our family representative in books that my children [Applause] read uh and by the way thanks for serving on the spdm that's that's where I came from before this this board and um they do some of the most important work in the district for sure all right if I I think I heard that Dave Payne yielded his time is that correct okay well would have been nice to hear from you see see the yielding you [Laughter] know all right um all right uh Jennifer eny and Amber Hoffman are next uh Jennifer Ensley that's me okay and then Amber Hoffman yeah okay hi good evening I'm Jennifer Ensley and I have been a 17-year employee
121of Boon County Schools I've held three different classified positions and I currently am in the finance department as the administrative assistant I also have a child that went K through 12 in Boon County so it's pretty safe to say that uh I'm a dedicated employee and uh have a vested interest in our organization so I'm speaking to you tonight after reading a letter that was written to the board by the bcca president Mr buffano this letter was brought to my attention by the classified task force they let me know that I could find it on Carolyn Wolf's Board of Education Facebook page in this letter Mr buffano makes statements about what's best for all classified employees and what all classified employees are going through through the bcca represents such a small percentage of classified employees
122around 20% that it makes it inaccurate to say all the purpose of his letter is to persuade the board to give the bcca bargaining rights Mr bufano states that there's an overabundance of disgruntled overworked employees in our district and the that he's inundated with complaints if that's true and honestly I have a hard time believing it um I do not see how bargain power will help this classified employees enjoy the benefit of the certified negotiations without having to pay a costly monthly fee as far as employees being overworked last year District leadership proposed utilizing an outside service to help with the shortage of custodians to lighten the burden on those employees Mr B buffano and who he represented were very opposed to this and that solution was shut down classified employees are paid hourly and
123are compensated for the hours that they put in as for changing climate at a location bargaining power is not going to change climate I ask you to please realize that the union does not represent the majority of the classified staff and they don't represent [Applause] me thank you and um Amber Hoffman and then after that would be Jenna van landingham hello again the board I feel like this has become like a broken record for me so let's just get into it um I could get up here and discuss how this call for the removal of books with an I quote intent to normalize a girl kissing another girl for sexual purposes will violate my child and um My First Amendment rights um I could get up here and discuss how pulling books out of school
124libraries based on assumptions and opinions and or religious beliefs will lead to very empty School libraries indeed um I could even get up here and just explain how lgbtq kids are and continue to be an extremely vulnerable group with the highest statistical suicide rates for Kentucky kids and how rep representation really matters but instead I want to discuss and focus on the fact that this book was brought before the principal a highly educated individual and before their elected sbdm um and the decision was made to keep endlessly Ever After on the Shelf um you have more important and more and significantly more urgent issues to focus on than whether or not girls kissing girls is pedophilia I implore you to take a firm stand on this trial against literature to make it known that in
125Boon County y'all really means all and you will continue to support all kids in our district um choosing a path that is the most permanent and harshest possible Avenue is not the answer in this circumstance thank you for your [Applause] time it's yeah thank you wait I think Eric said that he got here early and set up [Laughter] okay um good evening elected members of the board superintendent tner my name is Jenna van Lingham I'm a graduate of Boon County High School and my two children attend Urban backck Elementary School I'm here tonight to talk about the book and listly Ever After as we've heard from many other speakers the book has a same-sex kiss look I grew up in the 1980s and there were absolutely no examples of same-sex kisses or same sex crushes
126in the library books available to me as a child had they been available I might have discovered I was queer without having to get through my own internal homophobia first there are queer kids in all of Boon County schools and it is healthy for them to see themselves represented in the books available at their school libraries mostly I think the book is fun and my 10 year-old also enjoyed it I wouldn't want to rob anyone else of the joy of reading it but I do have a problem with this book the problem with this book is that the princess is not given she doesn't give consent to be kissed she's unconscious she can't possibly give consent does my problem with the book rise to the level where I think it's harmful to children no it's
127a fairy tale theme it's ubiquitous it's everywhere and I actually love it when I'm reading a book with my kids and I don't 100% agree with it because it gives me the opportunity to do two things it gives me a jumping off point to discuss different things with my kids like consent and it allows me to model critical thinking about literature endlessly ever after is not harmful to Children there is value in not agreeing with everything in a book we learn how to think critically about media and there is value to having books in our schools with a same-sex kiss it is healthy for queer kids to be able to see themselves reflected in the media at their schools thank you thank you all right Sherry we can't read your last name it look okay
128yep there it is and uh and then Beth Koy Cox I'm sorry and Sabra harp good evening I Rise once again seeking information as a classified employee regarding the need for classified employees to be recognized as a separate negotiating entity through the bcca after reading the letter drafted by Mr buffano I searched for more information and could only find a short video declaring his intent to ask for this action but nothing in the way of detailed information regarding what the negotiations would entail currently we receive whatever the bcea negotiates for certified and I worry that this would be lost as the bcca membership is much smaller in numbers after all there is power in numbers let me be clear I have been a classified employee with the district in different roles for 18 years I
129am not for nor against this request at this time but I do need more information about what is going to be negotiated on my behalf I'm very interested in making this District I work for a better functioning entity that Fosters High employee retention and new employee recruitment as well as addressing current employee concerns with workplace climate and culture which I feel the classified task force is currently sticking to to address I do appreciate the job Mr bufano has as an association president but at this time I have no information that there are issues other than climate and culture which Mr buffano currently has the power to address I feel that since the request to be separate from bcea will impact all classified employees I should not be required to be an association member to have
130information regarding this change I ask that the board not approve this request at this time but entertain further discussion that would include a forum of some sort of all classified employees with Mr bufano that would Foster transparency regarding the need for this change thank you hello hi uh I'm Beth Cox and Sabra harp is going to yield her time to me all right um as I said my name is Beth Cox I've been with the district for over 12 years in which I've held several classified positions overall 17 years in a school district District last year at the board meeting I and several others uh spoke about our concerns with the bcca pushing to be recognized as a official bargaining agent to represent all classified employees without any knowledge of this intent which was only
131shared with the members of the association once again no notification has been sent out from the bcca to non-members which would be affected by this request of being recognized at an official bargaining agent to provide information on how this would impact or benefit all classified employees still there is no mo information openly available to be found on more information about the bcca and intentions for employees without reaching out to the president directly currently the um BC CA only represents a small percentage of the classified of approximately 1300 employees without the knowledge being known to all classified employees of the goal the impact and the why how does this show equality respect and unity shouldn't we all have a voice I would like to also say um to the board member Carolyn wolf who posted on
132social media the letter that the bcca provided at the December 14th board meeting based on your posting that you as a board member are collaborating with and in support of the B CCA being recognized as a collective bargaining agreement or official bargaining agent and I quote I believe that we should answer the resp the requests by respectfully adding the bcca to our January agenda so that they H so they have an opportunity to engage in direct conversation with the entire Board of Education end quote after reading the letter how does this negativity of this letter reflect on the district for future potential employees um for recruiting and retention negativity negativity fuels negative outcomes instead of positive outcomes with all the conversations and interaction with employees across the district and my own personal experiences the administrators
133have been supportive and have positive responses the district administrators are listening to the classified staff and providing positive responses the classified task force group was formed by the administration through an application and a selection process collaboratively Union including the president of the bcca non-union members from different classified positions meet once a month with administrators Mr mcarter and Kim best to discuss concerns ideas work on Solutions with positive outcomes for not for not only for employee retention but also in recruitment to list a few examples I would like to say is a concern was brought up at one of our meetings was is a question about recent survey that was going to be sent out to our classified employees which Kim had already talked about the solution of an outcome came up with is we as
134the classified task force was given the opportunity to provide input on the questions going through them it was sent to us to preview before it was sent out and now we see the results coming in we're going to have input into that coming up next week another one was technology trainings for our employees were brought up at a meeting the outcome and solution came in a quick turnaround the administration worked to get a training day set up at Ralph rush for employees to attend now maybe it didn't work out for everyone and then that's going to be another opportunity one more concern was brought up about kios stations or computers for our employees who don't have the ability to have that at a location maybe a transportation lot that doesn't have that um opportunity to
135use a computer to check their emails look for other jobs within the district or having an opportunity to um look at their absences or things along those lines or looking in Google to do things in the classrooms or learning educational things um the outcome with that was is Kim best is working with the technology director to provide our employees with these um computer kios at all of our locations and that's going to take time to go through things so I appreciate the administration putting together the classified task force and this has been a very short time since the group has started and I look forward to what all can be accomplished in the future with this group and giving the opportunity for us all to have an opportunity to talk and be part of and
136I would like to in closing would recommend to the board not to move forward with recognizing the bcca as a collective bargain agent and they do not represent my voice thank you for your time [Applause] next is um looks like uh Tammy Henry and prati Renee prati maybe Prat am I saying that right okay sorry and then and then last but not least Tammy wieger hello my name is Tammy Henry and I have a son who is a senior at Cooper High School um I am here to uh to speak to you about the choosing of the graduation dates it was just announced last week that graduation is set for Cooper at NKU on Saturday June 1st this is also the same date as the Kentucky State track meet this same thing happened last year
137where Cooper had seniors going to the state track meet who had to make the decision whether to walk with their class and celebrate a milestone of graduation or to be a team player and participate at the state track meet I understand that scheduling conflicts are very difficult there are multiple schools that also use NKU in the tri-state area I didn't know if maybe it's possible to just just avoid the state track meet date because it is posted a year in advance every year or to maybe even suggest that Ohio or Indiana uses inku for that particular date this may not seem like a big deal but we push education and you know be a student and a scholar and they should be able to choose to walk and graduate with their class we also want
138to teach them the values of being a team player and a supportive athlete and they have worked really hard not just during the season but year round to reach the state level you have to qualify but but every school in Kentucky has students that qualify to attend the state level for the track meet there are teams of four for relays when one or two members of the relay is missing it jeopardizes the whole team recruiters come for other sports they look at games but for the the state track meet the or for track recruiters just come to the state meet and so just an eighth of a second off of a relay can cost them a place also cost them the look at a recruiter and cost them College scholarships and it's not just the
139seniors there are Juniors and sophomores on the relay team as well thank you thank [Applause] you please tell me good evening my name is Renee Pat I'm not as fancy as you were trying I'm a mother of a senior at Cooper High School and I'm here to share my disappointment in the decision to hold the Cooper High School graduation on the same day as the Kentucky State Track and Field meet for the second year in a row the track teams have many high performing student athletes who have done everything that we've encouraged over the years as a Boon County student they have worked hard in both Sport and academics and I understand the complications with scheduling venues and realize that our kids may have to make a difficult decision but I ask that leadership make
140every effort to reschedule the graduation this 2024 class missed their eighth grade graduation due to covid and should not have to miss either of these Milestone High School events if graduation cannot be rescheduled I would like to see an updated communication be sent out to all parents and students acknowledging and apologizing for this conflict I would like Cooper leadership to seek collaboration with parents and students on ideas for alternative graduation solutions for the impacted students and finally I would like Boon County to not schedule graduation on the state track meet date for future Years thank you for your time and [Applause] consideration hi I'm Tammy winegar this is the last name um I would like to Echo what Tammy and Renee just said um I'm very disappointed at the graduation date being said on the
141same date as this as the state track meet the second year in a row uh I understand that Cooper and riyle graduation are both on the same day Saturdays as the state track meet and we're also on the Saturday last year as the state track meet as well so this affects a lot of student athletes and this is also something that is basically the Pinnacle of their educational and their athletic careers they've worked years and years days and days of practice days and days of school and to get to their graduation and to also get to the state track meet and to make them have to choose is just agonizing to see all these seniors have to go through through well do I want to go to graduation and walk with my peers that I've
142been to school with for years and years uh they will never have that chance again to walk across that aisle and hear their name read it will never happen again and also on the flip side to be at the state track meet have a chance to win that state medal and also like as Tammy said you have to qualify so the chance to actually win a medal is very high for them and also they don't want to let their teammates down either so they will either not have any pictures at graduation or not have any pictures at the state track meet and to put them in that in that position is just it's just agonizing for the whole family and for the athletes involved and there's quite a few of them I don't know if
143you all realize but the track teams are pretty large and um I know last year that Cooper and riy I'm speaking for Cooper were on Saturday but if it could just be moved to Sunday Day this year so we don't have the same Saturday event and I'm not advocating for any school to be in this position but just so we don't have to deal with it again any school could it just be on a Sunday or any other day of the week besides Saturday thank you thank [Applause] you um that is the end of our list is there anyone else that would like a chance to speak all right see uh what we you say your name hello my name is Raymond brandberry and I'm a senior on the Cooper track and field team and
144I would also like to express my dismay that the state meet is being scheduled on the same day as the uh graduation I feel like I've spent my entire career of high school going through and dedicating myself to this Sport and it feels like to me miss the feels like it shouldn't be made a choice to miss the one culminating event of that and also the one culminating event of uh graduating those feel like both very important Milestones very important significant things to look back on and I feel like it is unfair to have us make a choice about which one we have to [Applause] attend and your name hi I'm uh I'm Malachi Beasley and I have been a member of my uh the Cooper track and field team for six years uh I'm
145a p vter and I uh I wanted to share what they were saying about how the uh graduation date is on the same day as the state meet and um you know I've never qualified for the state meet I'm not sure if I will this this year but um I've spent so long trying to and and after all of these years uh progressing throughout my career and I really I want to at least try and I brought it up to my mom and because she asked when my graduation date was and she was like who do I need to talk to who and I was like you don't have to worry about it um but I I realized how it affected my family and how all of my family wanted to come out to my
146graduation and uh I realized how that might affect other families everyone at the uh on the track and field team who might qualify for State at riy and anyone who might qualify for the track and field uh state meet at Cooper and I just wanted to express um how important it is uh that the state might be moved thank you thank [Applause] you all right we need that okay um thanks for everybody for coming and speaking we will move on to agenda item nine recommended action consent items a through R Mr Turner thank you Mr chair I recommend the board to approve the recommended action and consent agenda items a through r as presented with the treasure report by Mrs Linda Shield okay we began the month um with an adjusted cash balance of 98
147m81 th000 we had total revenues for the month 10, 345,000 and our expenditures were1 18,5 52,000 we had a net decrease in cash for the month of um 8,27 th000 leaving us with a cash balance of 90 million um um 594 th000 just a couple of highlights I wanted to mention for the month uh we collected 17 million in property taxes of that amount 410,000 is restricted for the building fund and we are showing that we've collected 93% of our uh budgeted tax collections to date uh we did collect a little over 2 million in occupational license taxes also we received our first um payment which referred to is the payment in Le of taxes from Churchill Downs uh we're all aware of the uh rebuild of Turfway Park um and they uh took out
148industrial revenue bonds um to do those Renovations where they will come they came off the tax roll and are making their tax payments in this manner um expenditures are trending very cons consistently to last year and if you're looking at the financial report at a glance you might see that Transportation expenses appear to be a bit higher than last year but that is um you have to factor out the purchase of buses and once you do that it is very consistent there were no Debt Service payments for the month and I've provided the uh usual reports comparative cash balances and the tax uh comparison I'd be happy to answer any questions you might have on that anyone have any questions discussion of any other of those items you need a motion first in a second
149to discuss my bad just read what out here I'm see do I have a motion to approve the consent agenda items a through r as do we need to have like a a boxing match to determine that one all right so we're going to go with wolf do I have a second age before Beauty care and age before all right do I have any do I have any discussion on the items on the consent agenda I only had one question I know um is the bg1 here reflective I know at the facilities meeting we mentioned that Long Branch will have two mobiles does this bg1 reflect both mobiles okay that's what I thought I was okay okay thank you anybody else um I have a just a brief question about um item R which is
150Lex lexit yeah and um the question is is as it relates to fees it looks to me to be if what depending on what services you use of Lexi but some of the translation services were fairly expensive um 20 cents per word so any explanation I mean how often do we use Lexa keed how much money do we actually spend on mman go ahead we're using it we' like to use it so that we can have some comparisons from the affordable languages that we use in Sila what's happening is we're spending quite a bit of money we're trying to be more efficient with how we we use the uh Services Lex has a much more uh uh it's got a larger group of languages that we can use and as we're growing we're not having
151the the response from the other services to get the languages that we need but it's not more expensive than the others so are we are proving it's not really a dollar am Mount it's based on how much we use the service um is there any idea what we've used in the translation of other companies we've probably spent over $335,000 already for translation and interpreting services so a document that's been trans trans ated uh let's say from English to Spanish is there another document after that or do we I mean how many do are there new documents all the time that we have to translate sometimes there are such as the code of conduct book that's new when we make changes every year um many of the when we change um anything with legislature or any
152of the rules change we have to retranslate y I'm obviously we need the translation service it just it strikes you as pretty high when you look at the fees uh per word per paragraph um and it's sort of a there's no real when I read through it there's no real cap for the board you know we could spend 10 grand or 50 Grand you know that kind of thing it's just U something to think about where in the budget this does this come from uh we had have a a budget just for translation and out of general fund and in my student services budget and what's that line item do you know off the top of your head total ,000 how much about 50,000 50,000 so we do have a budget set line item that
153would just be something we'd need to monitor as part of the evaluation one of the one of the issues we have to think about um and I hope that you do think about it as we we monitor we try to monitor but as we get new people come in as we have more uh opportunities to translate uh for example um letters to parents those kinds of things we had we really in order to provide Equitable communication we have to translate things uh of course we have we have to be able to speak to the parents of the students for sure no I totally agree absolutely any other discussion all right um all in favor please say yay yay how how are we spelling that y a y or y e a s uh any any
154any opposed all right motion passes all yes votes quick question Miss best yes did you turn the heat up or down I turned it down my request I want to put that out there by request I turned it down sorry yeah I can't win I can't can't all right okay Miss best consider that request made thank you very much we will move to agenda item 10 recommended action old business item superintendent search Services Mr Turner all right thank you Mr chair I recommend the board to approve a firm or entity for the superintendent search Services all right do I have a motion in support of a specific for uh firm or entity for the superintendent search Services any particular service we'll motion for that one and vote on it if anyone has any recommendations or
155ideas I can start that Mr chair I would like to make a recommendation to the board for a vote for the ferson and Jacobson's support search proposal received in January 2024 um I will say my concern with the response we had for Kaa was that they are currently engaged in a search and would have to find another consultant to work with us if they should so engage with us and the responses we received from Miss Adon so I think of the materials I received I'll start us off there I'll second yeah mcferson do I have a second we we did have a second Mr Wolf all right and any discussion on this I just want to note that I had the same concern that Dr Brown had when I saw that email from K so
156remind me what the cost was for mcferson something Page 37,900 Plus M any discussion all right hearing none all in favor of mcferson Jacobson say I I all oppos osed noos I I I have recused myself from this process as St in our December meeting so I am not voting because I can't so we have three eyes and uh one no and then one exstension just for the record would you please State the cost what's included what's not included and just for the record the cost proposal for Boone County Schools investment for the search is that what we need to read out loud okay the fee for conducting the superintendent search is 26,500 for phases 1 through five estimated expenses 11,400 advertising 30 days on aasa American Association of school administrators 30 days on top
157school jobs Ed week online 30 days of advertising on nabsc National Alliance of black school Educators six weeks of advertising on alas Association of Latino administrators and superintendents expenses may increase if additional advertising alternative advertising venues are chosen stakeholder meetings to consecutive days of in-person stakeholder Meetings online stakeholder input surveys final report delivered to the board by email and one hard copy per board member if requested the district requests additional if the district requests additional stakeholder input days there will be an additional fee negotiated between the district and the the consultants and additional expenses depending on the languages selected for the surveys there may be an additional fee charged for translating the results of the survey candidate reviews information video interviews of candidates five video interviews are included in the not to exceed amount criminal
158Financial credential verification background check for candidates chosen by the board for interviews four background checks are included in the not to exceed amount assist in scheduling and onsite visitation to the finalists home District at The District's request consultant travel travel EXP expenses for consultants for scheduled trips to the school district initial meeting with the board stakeholder meetings meeting to discuss the stakeholder input meeting to present candidates to the board consultant travel expenses can be reduced if the district requests online meetings and office expenses the total not to exceed amount including expenses is $37,900 expense interview expenses for the candidates are not included in this amount okay uh thank you I will say a comment about my personal vote of no uh we talked about it last month I just feel like the ksba would have
159been a more um financially um acceptable choice but I will say after doing some homework uh with some counties our side districts our size some some districts spend a whole bunch of money um you know doing this this um search and so I think even even though it you know it's 37,00 000 it's a very reasonable amount of money it turns out for this type of search so I I appreciate everyone in recommending it I will make a comment too that I know that includes that maximum expense includes consultant travel and in the Provo search that I was part of we did as much of our pre-training on Zoom as possible and that cut our expenses pretty substantially so to your to your benefit I think we may still be able to refine our expenses
160as much as we can and be as effici as possible in this world of Zoom or teams or whatever we need to make this as as small as we can while still getting the biggest bang for a buck all right mcferson it is all right we will move to agenda item 11 recommended action new business item Mr Turner thank you madam I'm Excuse me goodness Gra thank you m after going for a year with Madam chair I I apologize Mr chair uh it's past my bedtime actually being called a Madam isn't very complimentary either okay thank you I recommend the board to approve the recommended action new business item a the 2025 fiscal year draft budget as presented do I have a motion to approve the new business item a the 2025 fisical year draft
161budget as recommended Mo all right one at a time I think we did at the same time all right so who who's the first I I'll let Karen have it this time right right second C young we have any discussion on item a draft budget will we have a presentation of any information like we had in the budget committee or do we just need to kind of state those notes from the budget committee I have mine if needed some of them if I can read them go ahead Mrs Shield if you have description to assist the board now I I just at this point um this is the beginning of the process for the budget for the next school year and what we do at this point in time is we roll up um it
162reflects the current year budget for the most part we have Incorporated some changes uh you know that we're aware of um but it really the work on the budget is going to happen prospectively from this point and again this state doesn't even ask us to uh submit the draft budget to them they just want us to get started on it you know at this point or they want the board to be presented with a draft and then um the work begins beyond that if I may I'll share uh some from the memo here the draft budget is the initial estimate for next SCH School Year's budget based on historical data the budget committee uh is in the process of developing uh that plan from the draft and and will be submitted to the board again
163in May uh for their approval once additional information is added to that budget it has the consideration of the identified needs of various schools various departments will be given uh during this needs assessment process that will begin uh after the bo the board's ultimate approval of the draft budget also to point out just from our budget committee discussion um it's a standard process we use every year for the draft it's basically starting with our contingency as our beginning balance it's rolling up the budget based on uh Personnel assumptions removing one-time items from the budget taking those out so um that's basically the information we had from budget unless you want to add anything Mr Parks from your perspective from being in that meeting Tuesday um no you I mean you described it well it's a
164basically the beginnings of the next budget cycle and um trying to you know they I will say the the financial folks in bu County are I mean they have some of the best institutional knowledge as I like to say they they know everything when if you ever get a chance and you can have it go talk to them they're pretty remarkable folks any more discussion being that there is no further discussion we'll move forward with the vote all in favor please say I I any opposed oh I I vote I by the way um motion passes we all voted I let's see move on to agenda item 11 recommended new action new business Item B Mr Turner thank you Mr Parks I recommend the board to approve the recommended action new business Item B the
1652324 comprehensive District Improvement plan as presented do I have a motion to approve new business Item B C any discussion or presentation of Item B Dr D wer will share about the district Improvement plan yeah I just wanted to take a few minutes to highlight some of the high points or some of the things we've been emphasizing with this plan if you remember we started this process with the needs assessment back in September we went through a bunch of stakeholder groups to get input from Council of councils to teaching and learning committee to our principles um our LSS student services Etc from all of that we compiled three priorities and this year the state requires us upfront on the first page I think it's page two to list what those three priorities are we're focusing
166on reading comprehension we learned that six out of 10 of our students are proficient in Reading that's not high enough math is about the same we're focusing on math as our second one and our third one actually came from our student climate and culture survey where the students um agreement with the state statement students from the school respect each other's differences was less than 60% that was alarming to all of our stakeholder groups we really feel like we need to address that um I know that Mrs rman actually did an activity with Yousef and the the student advisory Council on looking at some Equity statements and trying to get some agreement and we included some of those statements in the priorities up front on page two as well and then we're also required to uh
167select three key core work processes that we're going to focus on in the plan so you'll see throughout the plan key work process to design and Del instruction emphasis on standards Clarity emphasis on aligning reading instruction you know that worked very well key core work process 5 design align and deliver support a lot of mention of our mtss structures that we're putting into place that's the support that we're going to focus on and then finally key core work process six establishing a learning culture and environment a big big emphasis on parent and family engagement that came up in all of our stakeholder groups that we need to do a better job of inviting parents and providing opportunities for them to take part in the teaching and learning their kids um so I can answer any
168questions you might have about the plan that are specific other than that that's that's kind of the summary thank you Mr D I just want to add that um the focus on the B system of educational ex Excellence those key core work processes that he just mentioned those are items that are research and statistically proven effective things for school districts schools to be using in classrooms to help assess teach uh kidss and everything that goes into learning in the classroom and the school level uh so it's really key just to pay attention to those items that he mentioned that we're focusing on just a few of those uh to make sure that that it's working at a high level within our district any other questions if I may ask a question absolutely Dr DWI um
169so previously in during this meeting you talked about the strategic planning of of the 20 23 to 28 school years and how does this correlate with this District Implement plan because I feel like we have a lot of plans there are a lot of PL I don't I I don't know how those actions all correlate or they need to correlate they do correlate it's an excellent question if you were we could provide a cross map actually if you were to look at world class education that's goal one for strategic plan a lot of what I just mentioned is in the same plan written almost exactly verbatim um the stakeholder engagement that's part of our I think that's goal three in our strategic plan that also that comes into to the family engagement they just spoke
170of so we were very careful to make sure that they coincide we don't want to do 15 different jobs we want it all to come together to for the benefit of the students good question that was what I was wondering thank you yeah excellent question all right any any further discussion no all in favor of approving the C sip CP I knew it was one of those acronyms education acronyms are man all in favor I I I any opposed motion passes all right we'll move on to agenda item 11 I'm in the right place here new business action item D yep M huh hey I'm I'm getting it we're we now see right okay we're on thank you by the way we will move to agenda item 11 recommended new business item C Mr Turner
171thank you Mr barks I recommend the board to approve the recommended action new business item C the 2324 comprehensive School Improvement plans as presented just a quick just wait wait got a motion we got to do the [Music] thing we have a motion to approve new item C second all right go ahead Dr discuss okay so just briefly this the the um process is the same for the schools one thing that I want to mention is eight of our schools are continuing with targeted school um Improvement their plans are added at the end of their school Improvement plans for those subgroups that did not perform well enough to come out of TSI status and there are a few principles left to answer any specific questions you might have about that process there was nothing brief
172about a 498 page C no I was the one who accidentally printed it thankfully I got a laser prin that would have been a run to Staples for more toner cartridges at my house any questions discussion no but just um appreciation to all of our schools for care and thought and Analysis and conversation and collaboration that goes into those School Improvement plans it's very evident that uh each of our buildings take their work very seriously so much appreciated to the leadership and the staff and I'll say that as although 498 pages is long it's really neat to see the focus of each school and see the commonalities and see their challenges and how they're going to overcome them and see I think it's interesting to give us some insight into how they're all approaching that
173so I appreciate that even if it was 400 being there's no further discussion we'll move forward with a vote all in favor please say say I I I motion passes all right we move to agenda item 11 thank you J uh recommended action new business item D Mr Turner thank you Mr Parks I recommend the board to approve the recommended action new business item D technology job description revisions as presented do I have a motion to approve new business item D technology job descriptions as recommended MO wolf and second young I think no don't do it don't do it any discussion on the topic or presentation yes thank you am my good go ahead Mr ball okay good um so we have a unique opportunity with our technology department through a pretty significant amount of
174natural attrition um to to do with any uh kind functional company does and in this case our our school district is to make needed changes um and obviously we have uh Miss Frank in here who you guys know very well from our technology department but in short um just doing some realignment to that technology department uh to do a couple of different things uh one to make sure we're supporting both our operational and our instructional side of the house and Technology it's really really important that our students continue to get the the resources from the structural side they need which is why that assistant director U position there is is recommended um and then obviously on the operational side you guys have heard over and over again the number of devices that we have throughout
175the district just making sure that on the operational side we have that support as well um and through the refinement of the uh director position um providing an opportunity for our classified employees over time to um to hold some of those uh types of positions um so that is the the adjustment that was made to the director position along with some refinement of those responsibilities so um I think we could kind of tag team this if there are any additional questions I try to put as much of the information as I could into that memo so that you guys will well prepared but again miss Frankin and I well I'll speak for myself I think she's uh willing as well to answer any questions you may have the the addition of the assistant director we're
176we're combining some positions yeah yeah thank you to create that I want to yes ma'am so there are two technology resource teacher positions uh that at the end of the school year um would those applications would not be given to technology again and would therefore uh result in one position the changes ultimately end up being approximately with without having the the salaries in front of us of the people who may hold those positions uh roughly $60,000 uh savings to the District through these actions and um just for further um clarification that was discussed in the budget committee as well and Dr deweer pointed out that um when those positions were created was back in the days when we had a lot of Technology it was just beginning and we had a lot of uh classrooms
177that teachers weren't familiar with it and we needed those resource teachers basically to to help teach the technology to those who had not experienced it yet and so as we have progressed since those days and every classroom runs on technology to a certain degree that particular need isn't as great because over the years everyone has become proficient at what they need so we don't necessarily need to teach them how to turn on their computer and do those kinds of things so any other discussion questions okay being that there are no further discuss discussion we'll move forward with the vote all in favor please say I I I any opposed motion passes all right we'll move on to agenda item 11 recommended new recommended action new business item e uh which is the krs1 15819 to
178appeal let's see yeah all right pursuant to KRS 15819 2 and board policy 8.23 the board of Boon the board of Boon County Education uh Boon County Board of Education will now hear a level two harmful to minor complaint a level one complaint has been submitted to the principal of Long Branch Elementary School on December 1st 20123 requesting the removal of the book endlessly Ever After from the long Branch library pursuant to krs1 58192 after review and investigation the principal concluded that the book was not harmful to miners as defined in statute level two of the resolution process permits the complaintant to address the school board so at this time Amy Yates we have the opportunity to share her complaint Miss Yates if you wish you may address the members of the boom County School
179Board this one if I'm up here shaking it's because it's freezing it's really it is C you're right um this is my first here so I appreciate uh you guys time uh so thank you for allowing me to speak to the board regarding this children's book first off I do want to say the reason I even knew about the book in LLY ever after is because my daughter did check it out of the school library she brought it home so we could read it together at bedtime while I was given the opportunity to put this book on a do not checkout lists for my daughter other parents are not aware that their children are reading this book most library books that are checked out at the school library are read at school without a parent
180knowing its contents so it's important to know that before we even look at the book so in the book endlessly ever after it does allow you to decide your path in different fairy tale scenarios with 8-year-old red writing Hood being the main character and you the reader choosing the path choosing I'm sorry her path so when we look at the passage in the book that is harmful it St so I'm going to I pulled the uh the passage um in which it's that I'm I'm wanting you to take a look at here so you wonder up a Winding Stair you scamper past the throne until you find a tiny room where sleeping like a stone a gentle Maiden Waits For You her eyes are sweetly shut her lips are waiting for a kiss and so
181you b B and what so it says now what Rosie and I do want to address that Rosie is Red Riding Hood are you really going to kiss some strange sleeping woman in a Frozen castle covered with roses seriously so yes life is an adventure turn to page 48 or no o of course not kissing for teenagers turn to page 36 so oh I apologize the next page on there if the reader chooses yes life is an adventure he or she is then directed to this passage oh my gosh you did it you kissed the princess Fair who softly stirs and yawn at you through endless Yarns of hair however if the reader chooses no oo of course not kissing's for teenagers he or she is then directed to this option instead this story is
182getting kind of odd You Think This Kiss can wait you're much too young for kissing you only just turned eight and once beyond the castle walls you've you find you've left your cake so you turn around and trot on home but with each step you take you wonder at that girl asleep inside her walls of stone and you and you will wonder all your days at what you might have done so on the harmful Dem Miner form Mrs Stan ball States the act of kissing is not inherently sexual and therefore she does not believe it falls under the definition she then states that Sleeping Beauty along with the other fairy tale referenced are widely accepted as children's t and are not regarded as sexual in any way finally she states this book is not patently
183offensive the prevailing standards regarding what is suitable for a minor is not defined by law nor is it explained in commentary to the stat statutes so when we look what is defined by the law we see in the statutes in Kentucky on obscene matters for miners so if you look at statues an obscene matter for miners statute 531 [Music] 1.010 as used in this chapter number one to distribute means to transfer possession of whether with or without consideration number two matter means any book magazine newspapers or other printed or written material any pictures or so on number three obscene means to the average person applying contemporary Community standards the predominant appeal of the matter taken as a whole is to prudent interest and sexual conduct and B the matter depicts or describes the sexual conduct
184in a p patently offensive way and the matter taken as a whole lacks serious literacy artistic political or scientific value and in number five I will not list everyone but you can see on the top sexual conduct in the statute means of masturbation homosexuality lesbianism and so on so you can see when we look at the statues in Kentucky it confirms that this is obscene matter with sexual conduct you can see in the book If the reader chooses yes they are led to allow an 8-year-old girl to kiss a grown woman the princess if the reader chooses no it makes it acceptable for teenagers and also shows Rosie fantasizing which she might have done with the princess finally when we look at the matter of the First Amendment consideration that if this book book was
185removed in all books on characters kissing should be removed I am thankful for the First Amendment to free speech in our nation but our nation always has laws to protect citizens including children from harm this is no different where we see this is a Rewritten form of a fairy tale not a normal one we grew up with this book is promoting sexual contact is defined by Statute 53110 and also proo promoting an advoca ating for a small child to kiss an adult which is pedophilia in definition pedophilia is sexual perversion in which children are the preferred sexual sub object so I ask you to protect our children against these harmful thoughts and actions thank you thank you Miss Yates um I was going to have Mr Turner read a definition of the harmful to minors
186um I'm not going to I think we were making you do that just because it is a little strange I'm going to go ahead and read it so this is a harmful to minor complaint the definition is from KRS 192 according to the state law harmful miners means materials programs or events that contain contain the exposure and an obscene manner of the unclothed or apparently unclothed human male or female genitals pubic area or btox or the female breast or visual depictions of sexual acts or simulations of sexual acts or explicit written descriptions of sexual acts taken as a whole appeal to the I'm not even sure what the word means puent sorry interest in sex or are patently offensive to prevailing standards regarding what is suit suitable for miners that's what the harmful to miners
187is board members prior to this meeting you were provided with several doc docents to review including the completed complaint resolution process form for levels one and two board policy 08.23 harmful to minors and the principles written response letters to the complaintant everybody got those right okay each of the board each board member has I'm told fully reviewed these materials as provided by both the complaintant and the district having reviewed this written information and heard the complaint's comments this evening which we appreciate you coming and and making those comments as it is your right to do it is now time for each board member to vote whether the subject of the complaint is harmful to miners as defined specifically by krs1 1581 192 will the board secretary please conduct a roll call vote on the following
188question do you find the book endlessly Ever After to be harmful to miners as defined specifically by krs1 58192 each board member should respond with a yes or a noard member Brown no member mer no member wolf no board member Young no board member pars no the majority of the the board has voted no the material in question is not harmful to Miners and therefore the book will remain this matter is now concluded Mr Turner will deliver a brief statement thank you I just want to reassure our district parents that we take the selection of books to included in our school libraries very very seriously we select books of the highest literary and artistic quality that enrich what is being taught in the school curriculum and support the personal and varied interest of our students
189parents if at any time you have questions or concerns about what your child is reading at school please reach out to your child's teacher or your school principal to start a conversation so that we may reach a common understanding of our students and families needs we thank you for partnering with us in this way for the benefit of your child thank you okay the board um uh based on this these particular statute the board will publish the written findings including the votes of each member consistent with the vote within 15 business days all right yeah we will move on to item 12 information proposals Communications we have any questions on items LIF listed before we have our board attorney uh go over the yearly review I didn't know that was happening today well maybe I
190didn't I forgot um go over the yearly review with the board um of the board board code of ethics and review the board policy and if you would miss amlong thank you Mr chairman so of course with uh great responsibility of being a board member comes the great responsibility of paperwork so before you you will find a couple of different forms to review and sign many of these are just housekeeping items but there are some important ones that I was asked to highlight your attention to this evening um the first being the certificate of receipt and distribution here for you for the Kentucky open um the Kentucky open records act and open meetings ACT guide as well as the managing government records a Cooperative undertaking publication by the Attorney General's office you must sign these
191in conformance with um your ethical duties and obligations as a board member um by signing this you are affirming that you have received this if you have not received this check your inbox because during the superintendent report I sent it to you so each of you has it um if you have any questions about these documents I would encourage you to reach out to me I am happy to go over these items with you you will also find in front of you a copies of a couple of board policies including uh the code of ethical conduct for Kentucky school board members um I don't need to run through each of the specifics I'm sure each of you have read each of the general powers and duties of the board as well as the expense reimbursement
192policy and importantly the code of ethics um these are incredibly important important I I don't think I need to explain that to anyone here you all know that this is a huge responsibility that you're entrusted with um so if anybody has any questions specifically about the code of ethical conduct for Kentucky school board members each of you must sign this and agree to the contents and to abide by it as a part of your oath that each of you took when you took office in your respective roles um have already implicitly agreed but of course with paperwork comes signing every year so if there are any questions I encourage you to ask them now or after the meeting I would be happy to do so you have these available in pocket size Michelle do we
193just pass these down to you when we're done so I believe just for housekeeping I believe that there are three forms in front of you that you should have signed and returned did I get them all sure okay you want them pass down no still during the business meeting how many what um Eric ball he has a question about the total number of speakers tonight can you handle that for meal like resp I counted there were 21 21 okay thanks Mr Ferman um all right where are we at let's see yeah I got myself all jacked up there all right let's see was that was that all you had unless there are specific questions or if you'd like for me to review the code of ethics and some of the implications of it I'm happy
194to do so but it says what it says this is publicly available questions about the code of ethics okay and also just I guess for the record to be clear the code of ethical conduct form that you all have in front of you is consistent with board policy this is codified into the board policies as well in chapter one all right any other um information Mr Parks I have put in a request for the board to discuss um our committee setup um and with everything that's been going on tonight it's kind of long so I would like to push that off till next month um but I would like to respectfully ask that you consider keeping us on the same committees until the end of the school year because like for example and lless or
195in um teaching and learning we're doing a book study and the legislative session just started so it's kind of weird to change Midstream like that I I don't disagree with you in those particular cases um we we're going to have some uh I think planned some discussion for next month um so at least until then we we're not going to change committee assignments and then when if the full board has some other input then we'll discuss it then but I'm I'm with you there's no reason to change committee assignments today or this month um until we have some more convers ation about that was especially for the two you just mentioned um anything else um facilities met last night Dr Brown's already alluded to that and um Kevin C from Planning and Zoning gave a
196great historical update on growth in Boon County as a whole in the school district as a um portion of that um I think the main the bottom line out of that is the hot spot now is uh in the Val Shannon Long Branch area uh the if you're not familiar with the gis uh um it's U it's pretty clear in that system and um when Boon County Schools partnered with the county on that our investment was like $30,000 to get GIS brought into boom County in the 90s and we took criticism for that expenditure but we probably saved that much in the first month in Manpower hours um with what that brought to it and the technology that Kevin and Jenna can show instantaneously you can see what took maps and horrible hours of ver
197verification to see but bottom line um the area of that area around Bley and Long Branch is booming it's not going to slow down um but uh Kevin did say say you know eventually we are going to go off a cliff so we have to be mindful as we look at our growth and continuing growth um to keep in the back of our minds for long-term planning what do we do when we stop growing um and Dr Brown can allude more to what she added to that conversation um we've we've never not had growth in this County since I've been on the board so it's going to be a different mindset of how we start strategically planning and I don't think Mrs best we have to do another fiveyear plan until okay so um as
198we continue to look at how our facilities fit into our strategic plan and our district impr Improvement plan we have to keep a Visionary expectation of we can't just continue to react to the here and now we have to anticipate three years down the road five years down the road 10 years down the road 20 years down the road so when you when you say over a cliff or or whatnot are you talking about the the population increasing and then it's it stops right uh like Kevin was alluding to um con home construction in Boone County has all been single family three and four bedroom 300 $400,000 homes he says that's not where the market is now and um as people are waiting in longer to have children they're having fewer or they're not having
199children at all and um we in uh last January I was at a state leader uh a national leadership conference for ksba and I've asked multiple times for them to bring this guy in and I apologize at this time of night I can't remember his name but he was excellent on the demographics that in education that no one is talking about on the trends of um student populations declining for a myriad of reasons but part of that is people [Music] remaining having fewer children or not having children at all um where most of us grew up in larger families so um it's just something that he was right he was out of North Carolina um I had never heard a presentation like that that gave the statistics and the demographics of the Aging population and
200um you know the the Millennials and the Gen y's and J Z's they're just it it's it's a different approach to um their constructs not saying it's bad it's just different and that's just something we're not talking about in education for future planning of how do we handle our current current situation how do we have good facilities and and small classroom sizes and be able to house everyone without having to put Portables in our backyards um which it's not the best for Education um we've talked about an an a different approach and getting back to a more centralized early educa Early Education preschool Center um but we've got to figure out and have indepth discussions and we really need to start diving into these demographic changes that no one is talking about and we need
201to be talking about them yeah I agree one of the things that they mentioned that I think would be interesting and I know that we can do that through our district is we have an allocation formula where a home we get what is it 0.5 children per new home permit I think um they said multif Family Apartments were 0.25 multif family condos were three and the question is postco and with the industrial growth and the workforce changes and the the delaying of families and the changes in the size of families do our historic algorithms still properly predict the numbers of students that we're going to see out of those and that was something that they talked about as a district looking at that data was once very predictive I mean Mike Ford could tell you
202down to about two people per year who was coming and who was going do are those still accurate and that's something as we think about planning a school and that's you know five to six year process what will the student populations look like then where will the students be and then what what does that look like so it was it was fascinating they are I could listen to them talk all day so assistant DPP um Boer who spoke to you tonight and I'm not sure that he's still in the room today um he has done some work with that with projections you know we we are we've gotten some projections coming up for this next school year and he's also uh gone to work on the following years I think it looks like we have
203about eight years if my memory serves me correct that we we Pro projected out now obviously that's going to be changing a little bit over time and we want to make sure that we're looking at those numbers as you were saying to be sure that they're accurate uh and see what we may need to adjust in looking at it so uh the the question about looking more deeply at demographics and those things is is is well noted and very important for us I also um asked where we were in the steeple chase property and um the potential for the back entrance down to chambers that we had always anticipated would be there and that study that we were told of Chambers Road and the the tunnel and all of that um would um could take
204two years and that's been about a year already but evidently from what Mr Castello said a lot of that's been kind of combined into the Walton interchange and the EXP you know and and and the what they're looking at with that interchange impacting north of that which would kind of come into the Richwood area and impact that so it's it's not something that's been forgotten but it is uh you know still part of that expanded study now so we just need to stay on top of of it well I'll tell you for the folks in my neighborhood over there it's been forgotten that's the way they feel about it and um they we really need a back entrance to Steeple Chase and that was well let them know I brought it up in our facilities
205with the planning and zon who who has the ear of the Fiscal Court right right anything anybody else all right seeing no um closed session tonight that would conclude our meeting we have a motion to adjourn second motion wolf and second Dr Brown all in favor hi you to all