001Well, feel free to slow me down some. Okay. All righty. Here we go. Yeah. Got to leave. All right. Public comment. Any radar? Thank you. Senate agenda. Chair will accept a motion. Motion to approve the consent agenda as presented. We have a motion and a second prior to the motion to to approve the consent agenda. Any discussion? Seeing none, all in favor say I. I. All opposed. Moving on. Report of superintendent. Yes, sir. You're on. Sorry about that, sir. Our I think one and only Dr. Dr. Wkelman is here trail due to weatherillness. Oh, my apologies. Um, we want to thank you for being here over your spring break to present all the wonderful things that are happening at Kentucky Trail Elementary. Thank you. I think green means on. Okay. Good evening. Thank you for
002having me here tonight. Um, I know it's board appreciation week, so I just wanted to take a minute and start by saying thank you all for everything that you do. I know it's a thankless job at times, so it was nice having Miss Fletcher out this past week. She joined us and she was able to have breakfast with the staff and we enjoyed having you. So, thank you for coming out. Well, I appreciate the invitation and it was fun. Thank you. So, we'll take a couple minutes and talk about Kentucky Trail. Um, I've had the honor and the privilege of following in Dr. Sidleman's footsteps this year. uh she really paved a great path uh for success. Yes. I just wanted you to know I'm not being rude. I'm just trying to get all this
003signed. So go ahead. I'm listening. You're good. Thank you. Um I'm happy to report a positive trajectory with our building APR. Um the rest of this presentation will be a reflection of what goes into that number. Um but a couple years ago we were at 64.6% 6% and since then we've grown to 88.7% uh for this past school year. So there's some really good things happening that I'm happy to share with you over the next um couple of minutes. So with our MAP achievement, if I could stand up, I just want to draw your attention to a couple of things. Um for third grade for this past year, uh 41% of our students were at um advanced or proficient. Fourth grade, we had 40% of our students that were advanced or proficient ELA. Um the
004part that I want to draw your attention, I don't know the best way to do this, but if you follow this cohort from third grade um to fourth grade, that just shows that um th those students were showing some increased percentages with that. Um in a similar fashion, you could see from in math from third grade to fourth grade um that positive trend as well where we went from 40.9% up to 55.1%. Um, in order to achieve these scores, we um have several approaches that I like to make sure that we have in place. I'm an active member with our collaborative teams. So I meet with our teachers on a weekly basis and we talk about map data, we talk about data cycles, we talk about um some of the best practices that we've seen
005whenever we uh go through different classrooms and what's really working well in some classrooms and what can we appro uh improve upon. Um yeah, so attendance I'll talk about this more with the school improvement section. Um 2122 we were at three out of four points. 22 23 we were at three out of four points in this most recent year. Um our percentage of students uh increased to 92%. Um so we received all four of the points. Um last year uh this year as of last week uh we're at 90 we're like at 93.5% for KT. still um maintaining that high um attendance. We want kids in seats. We want kids at school. Uh we know that can bolster student growth. So, uh continuing to make sure that we have different ways to get those kids
006in to their seats. So, the last slide, uh I want to take a couple minutes just to go over some different things that we focused our school improvement efforts on. Um the first one is letters training. We've done letters training throughout the district. I'm guessing that we talked uh my elementary colleagues talked about this last month, but we're continuing with that letters initiative to really help these teachers teach kids how to read. And that's it's powerful because it's differentiated. We provide differentiated instruction for our students and we're differentiating our instruction for our teachers as well. Uh we've got different cohorts of stu of teachers that depending on where they're at in their letters phase. They've been assigned to different elementary schools on our professional development days. During that time, those teachers go to their cohort
007and they're able to have those conversation depending on where they're at in their um letters journey. Uh KT, we have the letters applied that comes out to us. It's not just KT teachers, it's teachers throughout the district at the elementary level. and we've been working with the Missouri Reading Initiative and uh we're focusing on um enhancing our writing instruction for our students because those teachers have been through the first several uh sections of letters. The next initiative is building thinking classrooms. We started this at the beginning of the year. Uh this is rooted in we want to get kids engaged with math. How can we really bolster that engagement? so that they are active participants in their education. Uh we started with a training at the beginning of the year and since then we've continued
008to uh embed it into different professional development opportunities throughout the year. The biggest thing is getting these kids standing up working around the classroom so that they are part of the process of learning. They're not just sitting there and they're not just the recipients of listening to the teacher work through some exercise. they're more involved with uh the whole lesson. The teacher is not just giving them the information. The teacher is not just telling them answers or facts to remember. The teacher might pose some type of inquiry based uh math problem where the student has to work through collaboratively uh different set of exercises to help them arrive at the answer. The teacher kind of stands back as the facilitator. uh the teacher inserts themselves uh strategically at different points in the lesson to help
009them move the students forward uh in a in a structured way. Uh the last part is the attendance plan. So we have a tier uh three- tiered approach for our improving our attendance and maintaining that high attendance. some tier one initiatives just apply to everyone. And that's going to be I have three faces. Uh whenever the kids get to school, the students, whether they're walkers, bus riders, uh car riders, they will get out and they'll see a friendly smiling face. Uh the teacher will help them out of their car, a teacher will greet them off the uh off of the bus. The kids then enter the uh building. They see another face. They see somebody that wants them to be there. And then finally, before they enter their classroom, all of the classroom teachers meet
010the students at the door and they do a hug, high five, or a handshake. So, that's three positive interactions that we've had before the kids even enter the classroom. We continue to lean into uh conscious discipline as a tier one resource. Um so, we're really creating those school families so that everyone uh feels a part. We want those kids to be at school. um if that feeling of wanting to be at school is there, then our attendance that that's what's going to guide that academic achievement. Uh some tier 2 things we have in place. Uh so those students that might struggle with attendance, I have my office staff, we pull those students that are at 90% attendance or lower and we um identify that. And then my specials teachers, they will meet bi-weekly and they'll
011look at the group of students that are below 90%. And they will meet with those students. I think if I reflect back and I talk to a lot of the students in our building, one of their favorite parts of the day is specials. And connecting with those specials can feel like such a special time that now we have got those kids that maybe they don't want to be at school or they have kind of that ill feeling towards school. Well, if they know that their PE teacher is going to be there to greet them and see them at the beginning beginning of the day, like that's pretty powerful. I don't want to let my PE teacher down. Um, so we'll do that with our specialist teachers as well. I also looked at some data and
012Tuesdays were our lowest attendance days. So every kid in our um classrooms, they all have a classroom number. And on Tuesdays, if you're in your seat at 8:30 and your number gets called, uh, then you get to come up to the office and you get a special prize. My own two children, they said, "Dad, it's Tuesday. We can't be late today. We've got to be there on time. because I I I need if number 18's called, that's a big deal. So, um and then for our tier three, those kids that really um struggle, I continue to partner with our school resource officer. I make phone calls. I make I have meetings with them um just to make sure that the families understand that uh attendance is important. So, I think that's it. Miss Stocking, do
013you have any questions for me? anyone. I like the Tuesday thing. That's cool. It's the kids love it. It's cute because you'll see like their numbers get called and they'll just walk through the cafeteria and they're just so excited and they're beaming and it's like a bracelet. It's just the little you know. Oh yeah. They they love it though. I had attended a meeting for the counselor earlier this year. Did we get that question answered for her? Yes, we did. Yep. Yep. We figured out where the discrepancy was in our system and we fixed that. Okay, perfect. Well, thank you as always. We appreciate all your hard work and it sounds like everything's going well. So, well done. I was going to say, did you take notes and thank you? And and Dr. Wkelman, you
014don't you don't have to stay. You can go. Sorry, I was late this time. Only 30 days late, but you know, no one's counting. No one's counting. All right. Thank you. E- rate. Yes. The administration has a proposal that we recommend for the board. Uh we've had some discussion. We receive -ate funding for technology. Uh a lot of it's for our uh servers. backbone. It's not things that we see. It's not laptops. Uh but is necessary communication devices. We receive uh pretty significant amount of funding, but also there's some district funding to go along with. Um you'll see that there are several breakouts. The total bill on the -ate is 876,000. Uh but you'll see the broke out into some smaller projects uh that we have across the district. Uh Dr. Posley, anything else um
015we want to highlight? Uh Dr. Overse is not here. He's out on spring break, but he did meet with us. We have went over this. Uh it's been kind of planned in the process. And I would just remind uh this is one of the reasons why we have our signups for free and reduce because that determines what level and how much money we do receive based on our free and reduce percentage and count in the district in regards to helping to pay for these technology needs. terminology to add microphone. Thank you, Daniel. I said I don't know enough of the terminology that that we are contributing the uh additional district funds to, but it's for the backend switches. Is that right? Yeah, it's the it's our wireless and the backend switches is basically what we're
016looking at. all that um stuff that's all hidden in the closets or hidden up in the ceiling. So, we can complete that across all the buildings in the district. Okay. This is not the service that you talked about earlier this year. No, this wouldn't be the service. This is the actual like where all the network where all the things plug into the ports. Okay. The ports there to add update those. Okay. Um we have stuff that's pretty old. And we did receive multiple bids on this project and some positive working relationship with Yellow Dog and experience with them in the past. They weren't the cheapest, they weren't the most expensive, but was somebody that felt not only on time task, but then you know a fair bid in regards to this. So, okay. The administration
017would recommend the approval of the -ate as presented. I make a motion to approve the rate proposal as presented. Second. We have a motion and a second to approve the -ate proposal as presented. Any discussion? On the monies that we get back that you've got this 5616 561,600. Do we get more than that? Much much much more than that. Correct. I think it's somewhere around the 800,000 mark. But yet yellow dog charges us 867,000. So well with -ate we have to expend a portion out of local funds to cover they will not cover 100%. So, it's it's almost like a it's not a matching grant, but then again, if it's like 8020, uh if they'll allow us to utilize X number of dollars toward and so we're actually going above that because we're doing a
018little more than what our match is, I think to the tune of about 160,000. We're doing 160,000 over what our required match is. But it really addresses the district as a whole in regards to this because we were talking about leaving out I believe Yokum and maybe part of the high school and another building if we didn't do that. So it just really made sense to go ahead and commit the additional $160,000. So say you get a million dollars for a project and they're they're willing to cover 80% of it. So the max they're going to do is 800,000, but if the overall project is 1.1 million, the extra money is going to have to come out of our pocket. So they're only going to give us so much based on a formula of our
019frame reduced and the student population we have. Maybe I'm not understanding it quite right. We're the 867 is that a that's the a quote from yellow dog to do the work. That's and then we're going to get project and then we're going to get 56 something back back on that. Okay. And take 160,000 out of it. That's a new funds that we're going to put towards it. The rest was already committed in the budget. Okay. To be able to get that 561 back. Okay. Has to pay that portion. So, we're going to go ahead and commit another 160 in district funds on top of the requirement. Do the entire district at one time. Okay. I I follow it now. That's messy. Yeah. I was just to me the numbers weren't working and Right. Yeah. because
020with the rate across the bridge so it was not I think I calculated quickly the the proportion that was in the budget was like 77,000 we're going to go ahead and do 160 on top of that to get the whole thing done. Okay, perfect. Thank you. Yep. Any other discussion? Yeah. So it just cuz I just don't have technology. Are we replacing our Wi-Fi system? Is this what this is doing? Yeah, this will uh up upgrade us to the newest Wi-Fi system and gives us the smart rate switches which allow for multi- gig to the access point so we can then give more bandwidth through to the individual students or the individual devices. It's just a we had utilized Aruba in the past and we're switching to Juniper. Juniper. Yeah. So it's not the same
021Wi-Fi. It's provider or anything like that. It's not the same. Yeah, we're going to switch to a different vendor. Well, we have Mornet as our provider as far as internet, but yeah, Aruba is like a they were well matched with Apple initially and was supposedly higherend, but I know Dr. Arcy and the tech staff have done the investigation and feel like making the switch is technologies changed since we did that. Yeah, no matter what we went with, we were going to like the lifespan of those devices that are in the ceilings, the the access points and stuff, they had they weren't going to be able to be upgraded to the next version of Wi-Fi. And we have different versions of those switches. And so the next code release of everything was going to take a
022bunch of switch a bunch of those access points out. So we had to start upgrading everything anyways. And so it kind of in line with our switches. Some of our switches are 10 plus years old. So we'll just kind of add new just replace all the switching and the the wireless to go for the new Wi-Fi 7 and things. How long will they last us? A month and a half. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's like everything everything they they want want it to uh have a shorter lifespan than we want it to, but it it'll five six years is what it goes out for now. Okay. All righty. Perfect. Any other discussion? Seeing that, all in favor say I. I. I. All opposed. Passes. 2425 calendar amendment. Yes. Uh our calendar obviously has come under
023some uh scrutiny. Yeah, that as well as whoever made mother nature mad, please apologize. So um in looking at where so our current end date as of right now would be May 30th on a Friday. However, we do have a Monday after Easter, which is April 21st. And so I'm going to recommend that we amend our calendar to change that April 21st day, the Monday after Easter to a student day. Um I feel like it is a more valuable instructional opportunity for our students in April than the May 30th day would be. We could then also utilize the May 30th day for professional development training for our summer school staff and then we could start summer school on the Monday. That's what we had planned on doing for saying that we don't have any other
024school cancellations in that regard. So, you will see that uh counter there. I have talked to some of our representatives in regards to this. Um Miss Crumbley did talk to the calendar committee. The majority of the calendar committee, I'm going to be honest, is not in favor of us utilizing that Monday. Um but I'm presenting this. I believe it is what is in best interest of our students uh to do this and honestly staff and for summer school in the bigger picture. So, and what was their reasoning for um not supporting that date change? I think that they had some meetings scheduled. Any other reasons? Some had made some con raised some concerns that staff had plans on that day. Some didn't give much of a reason. and they just would say no, but some
025did pull staff and say, you know, people um had an appointment on that day or what have you. Go ahead. So, I guess the question bodess is, are you worried about attendance on the 21st? I am worried about attendance on the 21st andor on May 30th. Yeah. And and random days in between. And then you would say, when is summer school slated to start? When's the first day of summer school? It would be the Monday, June. Second June. So, right into Okay. Yeah. There is no gap. I mean, we're up against it. Now, is there still legislation out there that could potentially pass? There is. House Bill 607. They would have to put emergency clause in. They have tacked on at least four items to that bill already. So the concern is they're going to
026tack on till it won't pass and that typically is what happens. Yeah. And so there's concern there. We can't wait on that in essence. So even if they forgave us the days, then in essence we'd get out on a Thursday before Memorial Day versus a Friday. So by adding the day on the 21st, we're not taking away Good Friday, but adding that day, it would still not in essence create a havoc at the end, but it does make an adjustment to the calendar on the April day. How would House Bill 607 affect the calendar? Just it would forgive us in essence 4 days. And so then we could be back before Memorial Day if it were passed. And then it has to be on an emergency clause and the governor has to sign it for
027it to take effect. Calendar also if we don't revise it this way steam is off on Junth and then they have to come back on the 20th for their last day of school if we don't do a makeup day. Now they're off on the 18th if I'm correct on that. Well, they have to make up two additional days because we did have to cancel uh their attendance, right? So, they will be pushed further in to so it will take away a couple of their summer school days the way we're sitting right now. But Junth on the 19th of June does create a situation. Uh when I did talk to the staff at Hillrest because there was concern as we were continuously missing that there was discussion that we'd be into July and I said we
028will not. No, we will not take summer school into July as far as that program is concerned. Do we have driver's ed and other programs that go into July? Yes, we do. Uh but as far as fulltime in essence in person, at the elementary we would not go into July. But this plan makes steam's last day the 18th by making up that Monday. Right. if I cut them out those two days that we add on which could affect people's pay would be the case but unless there's something their makeup days are listed here as the 23rd through the 25th on the original calendar if they were having to make up those snow days. So they would make up their snow days with those first four days of their summer school portion. And then they would
029have to finish out the remainder of their school year um by making up some of those days counted because they would so they would possibly have to go beyond the 18th. And they had a a longer a different another day added because of the power. They had two days. Correct. few days because of the power, right? Okay. If the House bill passes, Dr. Norwood, do they still would you still have to make up that day on the 21st? Depends how it comes back from the Senate. I think when we sat through the hearing, it looked like it was going to pass pretty easily, but the Senate, I think, I is the one that's changing things. So, uh, all it would do is just relieve us of the whole we just go back to our original
030calendar because we had scheduled 169 days. So, but let's see if that gets passed. I I know I think it made it through the house, didn't it, Dr. Underwood? Uh, through the I believe education committee hearing. It has Yeah. Yeah. But not as far as a a vote to go out. passed the house already. It went to the Senate. We'd have to look. Okay, we have a look. Okay. All right. Chair will accept a motion. Motion to approve the 2425 calendar amendment as presented. Second. We have a motion and a second to approve the 2425 calendar as amended. Any discussion? Mr. President, I would withhold the opportunity to adjust that summer schools calendar for Hillrest just to make sure that um we count the days because they are different because they did miss a couple
031days. So what it shows here summer school wise versus where they are I think will be different. Okay. So we'll come back and to the board with that this next month, but yes. And so it could end up where there are a few extra days there that what this shows. So Okay. But for right now, you're as far as regular school April 21st, we'll we'll do this calendar amendment as if you need to do another one, we can do another one next month. Right. Of 607 goes through. Yes. which would address summer school. Okay. Any everybody all right with that? Mhm. All in favor say I. I. All opposed? Passes. 2025 summer school. Yes. Just going to share a little bit of information about the summer school for this summer. We're already planning that and
032um it will be June 2nd through July 10th and that will be for our Grace Kentucky Trail will host grades kindergarten through 3rd. Scott will have ESY. Mil Creek grades 4 through 6, BMS grades 7 through 9. And then BHS will run from June 2nd through the 26th and they will have their normal credit recovery classes, driver's ed which does extend on beyond that so that they can get their driving hours. We have a PE class, a couple of PE classes this year that we're going to offer and also some online courses too at the high school. So, we will have a busy summer for kids. Um, info for summer school will be available to parents on Monday on our website. And then, so that's March 24th, Monday. And then we will begin registration. Parents
033can start enrolling and registering for summer school on April 7th. And that will go through May 2nd. So, we look forward to having all of students that want to attend summer school at our summer school programs. When can staff start applying for summer school? Staff applications will be up currently now. They were up last week. Um, are we moving the the non-driving portion driver's ed back to the classroom this year? It will still be online. So, it's not back in the classroom this year? No. Okay. We have the same three teachers I think coming back. So, okay. Any other questions? Graduation requirements. Yes. I just wanted to bring up conversation about future graduation requirements. Obviously, we've had the focus formies now for a number of years with the high school students. One of the next
034pieces would be to have that as a part of graduation requirement. And so probably have this to the board about three different times over the next uh three or four months in regards to this because what we're talking about will be seniors that actually freshman class that will start this next year. So the actual requirement will not be until they become seniors. So they have plenty of advanced notice. And so the the piece that we would be adding is the market value asset that we do with themies. And so that a student would have an industry recognized credential. they do some type of job internship or practicum and or earn nine uh college credits prior to graduation. And so we would look to add that to go along with what we the goal is, if
035you guys recall, is to have 100% of our students by 2030. We want to be ahead of that goal for the metropolitan area that would graduate with an MBA uh leaving. So, in essence, we'd be looking at seniors for I believe it would be uh May of 2028 would be the first time that we would have that requirement official for graduation. So, we'll have some more detail. We've talked about it some, but um just want to bring that up and see if there's any questions or uh concerns, comments that we want to talk about knowing that we'll have a formalized document in front of the board here in the next two months. Okay. Any questions? Staffing update microphone. Yes. For our staffing, we have nine open positions, but we do have um five positions that
036are going to be filled, which I'm looking at, Miss Puit, because they're going to be special education positions due to critical shortage. So they will be retirees that will come back. They're working for us now and so they have committed to next year already to do that. So we're very thankful that they're willing to come back and and do that for us. But what we what we're looking at uh right now, we still do have um a fifth grade position at Mil Creek. We've got a third grade uh position at Kentucky Trail. Uh special education at middle school and high school as well. Would round out the nine positions that we have open currently. uh as we're looking to fill those um as soon as possible. So, a few other notes here as far as
037our non-certified for 25 26. We still do have a social worker position open at Scott uh sped pair at the high school and then the finance secretary at the high school as well. And we honestly still have a few unfilled positions this year of paras that we've not been able to hire unfortunately. Um, and but we have added I've actually had the list at my desk of all the positions that we've added for this school year and I believe we're in the teens. Um, and most of them have been special education positions. Uh, but some have been teachers, some have been paras. And they have been throughout the district. They've been at Grace. Uh, Tammy helped me out here as far as some of the other positions that we've added. uh throughout at Grace. We've
038added some we added one at Scott. We've added two teaching positions and pair of positions in both of the classrooms at district programs at Kentucky Trail. And then we've added several one-on-one positions for students that moved into the district. So, pair of professional positions. It's been it's we've opened four classrooms for special ed since we started the school year. Yes. So, unfortunately, we've not been able to fill a few of the pair of positions. Uh we've got three sack positions open as well uh currently. So, we're doing the best we can trying to to fill those voids as they've come up. Uh sometimes it's it's hard in the middle of the year to find them and some of these positions we seem to have a high turnover rate with and we try to fill them.
039So any questions in regards to staffing? Anything I forgot. Thank you. Career ladder. Yes. There's a lot of HR on here for somebody not being here. I'm just saying. Yes, there is. Mr. President, thank you for noticing that. We we we appreciate our human resources assistant superintendent for all of her wonderful work and we miss her more so than you know. No. So, so this does not take action. This is just for information. So, we started uh career ladder in the district. I believe it's been four years ago and I it was only a handful of uh teachers uh that started with us. We're up to 38 staff that are taking advantage of. And so it's an additional um compensation for teachers that take on something above and beyond what they would do in the
040regular classroom. And so we uh have some staff that are uh providing tutoring in addition to what their current position is. Uh some family community engagement events that they're putting on outside of their regular scheduled events. um some externships where the teachers go out and learn other career fields so they can have a better grasp of that real world learning experience and so they can bring that back to our students. And then also some of them have actually presented uh information to other teachers uh in their profession. So kind of like a presenter that we might see at MSBA or some other conference that our teachers have taken that on uh to provide that expertise as well. So, just wanted to share uh with where we're at and how that is growing uh in the
041district. And I believe it is is it 3,000 and 5,000 depending on where they're at and how much time that they put into that that they can receive an additional compensation. And so, u we're thankful our teachers have been willing to do that and obviously the district has to commit funds. So, thanks to the board for allowing our staff to uh earn in essence that additional compensation. Okay. Any questions? All righty. Lebby transfer. Yes. So, on April 8th, we have a ballot measure and so we have went around and been sharing that information. I know we talked about it last month. Um, we have signs, I believe, from our community uh committee that is working uh to do that. So, if any board members want signs to put up, believe they're downstairs. And so, we'd
042be happy to share those out. Uh there's a few of them out if you haven't seen it. Nice little purple and gold uh spin to those. And so, I believe that I'm coming to the city council next week to share was at the uh parks and and wreck uh presentation the other night and shared there. We've we've shared with our staff and I know Dr. Poel shared a couple times. appreciate all the efforts that everybody's putting in to try to make sure that our voters are aware of what we're doing and what we're trying to do uh in some uncertain times that we've seen with the possibility of our finances um and what our legislators will do at Jeff City. Uh that could affect us and we're trying to make sure that uh we're taking
043care of our folks here. And if Miss Brown were here, she would say retention is our new recruitment. So I keep utilizing that phrase. And so we want to retain our staff, helping cover uh benefits, but then also recruit new staff as well. And so we want to be competitive uh with uh attracting new staff to the district as well. So it is a you know a kind of a concerted effort there to try to make that happen. And obviously um money does matter that we need it. So uh to continue to do that. So I'm encouraging everybody to to get out. We've got the flyers also. And Miss Haynes, where are we at with sharing our information with our voters via the USPS? There we go. Okay. Um, I actually just added money to
044our uh permit yesterday. So, that will be hitting mailboxes, I believe, early next week. Um, informationational flyer to every household within our district boundaries. Good. And you guys also presented to the educational foundation at their board meeting last month. So I'm correct, right? You were out of Yeah. But Bob and Torrance or Dr. Poisel and Mr. Allen and there were Mrs. Stalking there was a group that came. Perfect. All righty. Any other any questions? do know that uh Miss Hubard is running our um local group is still looking for funds. She's u obviously got signs but also is trying to put some more ads in the paper um as well. So um if anyone knows anyone that might help her cause then Okay. See um Miss Stocking, she's taking care of that for us outside
045of school hours. Yes. All righty. Miss Hubard will take your money as well. Legislative update. The spring break theme has continued as Jeff City is also on spring break currently. As we mentioned about the calendar, there are a number of legislative items. Open enrollment, which is House Bill 7-Eleven, has been kind of front and center as far as education is concerned. Uh there's a lot of things that we're hearing will start to push education possibly to a back seat when they're starting to talk more about uh taxes and uh rolling back. And so I think that is their plan to really look at more of the budgetary type uh focus and uh some plans to remove income tax from the state and a plan to do that. So, I think that's going to take front
046and center stage when they come back off of their break. And so, we'll see where things have been. Honestly, they have been working pretty well together as far as our House and our Senate, which has not been the case over several years now. There's been much turmoil u there. So, I'm not sure what or how or why, but that is the way the first half of the session has been. Of course, they have to approve a budget by that second Friday in May. is their statutory requirement and they've tried to stick to that and so that will be fastly approaching. Yes. And the budget the budget was still in the house when we went down last week because their um software crashed when they were trying to work on it. That's everywhere. So more to
047follow on 7-Eleven. That's for sure. Um, yeah, and I I was not able to make it down for the MSBA day on March 11th. I don't know if there's any additional information that uh those that attended would want to share at this time. You know, I thought that we had um a decent conversation for in the hallway. Um, as usual, one of our representatives uh ignored us. Um, I'll let you guys guess who that is. um after the meeting if you would like me to tell you the that person's I almost I almost slipped. Anyways, I can tell you that later. Um on 7-Eleven, one of our representatives did stick with us. It still passed out of the house even though they did stick with us. Um and other other than that, I thought the
048it's hard to get with some of them. um our state senator as usual um was not available, right? We got to we got to actually talk to one out of the three that we hoped to speak to, right? And um well, you'll be surprised, but anyway um you would be surprised. It was but and it was the one he didn't listen to us, but we he at least spoke to us and um and I am now educated that Cast Midway is no longer Cast Midway. They are just Midway. and we we traveled with one of their schoolboard members, really neat guy, and he asked some hard questions that were new. Uh it was a new face asking them. So, um the responses were still the similar, but um and then I went rogue on my
049own and spoke to Roger Reedi, who's not one of our we're not his constituents, but there is a push right now to get driver's ed to be in the regular school year. And um so they had their their hearing last week and he was his Blake his um um what aid whatever was supposed to get with me on the outcome of that but I haven't heard from him yet so I I can't give you an update on that but they're wanting it to be taught in health classes and I don't believe that's the place for it. That's just my personal opinion. So, um, and they're getting some backing by from some insurance companies, AAA. So, it may get more movement than we expect just because of of those supporting groups. Driver's ed. Yeah, they're supporting
050it because um, so anyway, there's only seven school districts in the state of Missouri that offer u driver's ed during the school year as a regular class. So, anyway, okay. So, H. That's what I had. Oh, I did too. Beldon had it back when I was in All right. So, anyway, so that's kind of stay out of that. Um, yeah, I had the shop teacher as my driver's ed teacher. But, so that's that's the update on that's why I asked if we were having it as in the classroom during summer. And, um, that's pretty much it for new stuff. All righty. New business horizontal advancements. Yes, we have two staff members uh one from Wil Steam and one from the middle school. As you see the list, the administration recommends the movement on horizontal advancement
051as presented. So moved. Second. We have a motion and a second to approve the horizontal advancement as presented. Any discussion? Seeing none, all in favor say I. I. All opposed. Passes. Miscellaneous school board recognition. Yes, Mr. President. Uh from our Missouri School Board Association friends, school leaders devote countless hours to making critical decisions that benefit the public school students in our communities throughout the state to honor school board members the entire month of March has been designated as Missouri school board's recognition month. The goal of this recognition is to increase awareness and understanding of the crucial function an elected board of education plays in the success and advancement of our public schools. And a thanks and a shout out to our buildings for recognizing our board members as well for all the thankless decisions and
052tough decisions that are made and the hours that are put in. So, thank you all for that and I hope you guys enjoy the baskets. Thank you. Thank you very much. Yes. I would like to thank Hillrest for inviting me to breakfast with the staff. Um, that's was pretty nice. I enjoyed that. I don't know. I don't know if they enjoyed it, but I did. So, committee updates. Belton Cares. Okay. Kind of slow night a couple weeks ago. We and we took second, I think. Second place. We were second. We only had six people. We were Oh, Miss Brown's not Chris Richardson's team was first. Really? Yeah. The councilman and his wife peasants or whatever they called their team. Um so, and we uh we made um a little over $3,000. So, that was uh
053um we thought was pretty okay. And Teresa, were you at the meeting last week? Okay. I was I was actually in Jeff City. So, but we uh we have the golf tournament coming up August 9th. We're already starting to work on that. Um we um have after grad in the works planning for that. We have a teen safety summit where other school districts are going to come here and um have some leadership driver safety stuff and that'll be at Memorial Station on April 23rd. So, and that's through a grant from MODOT. So, that's kind of what's going on with Bel and Cares right now. Kind of slow, but we're moving forward. Okay, perfect. Let's see. MSBA. Okay. I went with Jerry last week to advocacy day and we visited and talked around. One of the
054things that I accomplished that I'm kind of excited about, um, our robotics program, gracious professionalism is their theme. And so we're working to get Holden because they have a really good robotics team in Belton and to be at the showcase at the state conference in the fall together to show that professionalism and how two school districts can work together to achieve. So um both of those sponsors are working on that uh because I want to see Belton in that student showcase again and uh I mean our our um our ambassador down there but having that student showcase is good too. So Anyway, so that's kind of it for right now. Summer conference is coming up. Um, all the guys here are going to the national conference so they can report on that when they come
055back for next meeting. Yeah. Um, for the staff, they are already starting to take applications for uh presenters for the annual conference. I would like to recommend that somebody do something from this district. Please surprise me who but somebody should be presenting um at the conference if possible. I think reviving some you know who I'm looking at and so you know yes please put that on your agenda because I would like to see us present. All righty. City of Belton, anything? Nope. All right. How about the educational foundation? Okay. We um I think the big the big one everybody wants to know. Waiting. Can hardly wait. Especially Karen. This is just for you, Karen. Um let me find it. She'll understand when I say it. Um Turkey Bowl is November 8th. Yes, I'm I know
056you do. That's why I said that. Okay. So, we have uh we have the gayla coming up in August. Um and of course that's um a super great event and it's boots and bling this year. You're going to see cowboy boots everywhere. Uh the pirate-5K glow run is coming up uh April 4th. Um there you can sign up still uh Saturday at um Johnny's Tavern. You can play bingo uh from 2:00 to 4:00 and part of the money from that will benefit the foundation. Uh Price Shoppers doing a food drive March 22nd as well. Um and then the Cass County Democrats are doing one on the 29th for the foundation. Um we've It's still on. Oh. Um, we had matter Belton last week. Teresa, you can speak to that a little bit. You were there
057for that. Um, they've received 22 scholarship applications. So, that's a really good number of scholarship applications. Major Saver card is over for the most part. Uh, we made 13,000. Um, of that 6,895 went to the foundation. 6,874 went to local schools. Um, but you can still they still have cards left if you want to buy one. They're at the foundation office. Um, so that's kind of where everything is right now. Also, just remember food drive on the 22nd, charity bingo on the 22nd, pirate dash April 4th, Cary Nation Days, uh we'll have an alumni event on May 31st, the Gayla September 6th, and once again, Turkey Bowl is November 8th. Perfect. Thank you. I'll talk about September. Oh, Um and just to uh chitchat a little bit about the you matter day where everybody a
058whole bunch of volunteers posted up at all the different um school locations, the front and the backs make sure we caught all the walkers, car riders, bus riders. Uh we handed out a nice little bracelet um to the kids in the morning that was that was pretty fun. Uh they were glow-in-the-dark bracelets and um the kids are always surprisingly um receptive to that even though it's early in the morning and it's just kind of a great way to start their day because they get to see we're out there handing something out and it just really brightens their day. Even those little middle schoolers, we love them so much. So always a good time. I highly recommend volunteering for that if you haven't gotten the chance to do so. And they do that how many times
059a year? Well, we do it monthly, but not in person monthly. It just depends. Sometimes they give them out in the school, but we try to do quarterly at at the minimum. Yeah. Good time. Good time. All right. Perfect. All righty. Some miscellaneous dates. Um, of course, the MSBA conference starts uh on the 20th and the Cosbell one, I'm sorry, in Atlanta and Hotlanta. March 25th is the BHS choir prefestestival concert 7 p.m. The 27th is the spring concert for the middle school and high school at 6:00 p.m. at the high school. April 4th date change um like to remind everybody that the senior citizen lunchon is at the on the 4th and that's for at the fieldhouse at noon. Uh seniors will get there about 9:30. And those are the ones running late. Those
060are the ones running late. My dad will probably be there about 8:15 calling me, wanting to know where I'm at. Anyways, April 10th through the 12th is the BHS Theater spring play, The Plot, Like Gravy Thickens. Okay, sounds interesting. April 12th is the BHS Theater spring play, The Plot. Oh, okay. at 700 p.m. We have those April 10th through the 12th. Uh April 12th is also prom at the high school at 8:00 p.m. Any miscellaneous dates that the chair missed? Mr. President, I did receive some communication from our student reped me about the prom on April 12th. I'd have a little information I'd be happy to share. Please do. So, uh a couple of the big items that and this comes from Michaela McConnell. She's one of our student representatives. Obviously, they're on spring break
061this week, but she did take time to to communicate uh and and wanted to share with the board. Uh she also points out that we have a big test day on April 8th uh for our students. Uh Dr. Mock, anything you want to share on that as far as our day schedule at the high school. Would you like to share who does what at the high school? April 8th, where we have our test day for our students. Ready to rock and roll. They have been also working on freshman um transition too and our eighth grade transition on that day as well. So, we've got some more activities more robust versus for those groups of kids that aren't actually taking some of the big tests. I like how you I did have something to say. I
062like I like how you were trying to say no with moving on even though the boss was saying you will speak. Go ahead. So, uh, also she wanted to point out some of the organized sendoff events that we've had for some of our successful groups, FCCLA, swim, cheer, dance, and wrestling, uh, over the last few months. And she also points out that obviously our wrestling team did very well. We had nine state qualifiers, five of them placed. We had two girls that were state champions this year. So, super proud of our girls and and the boys both obviously in their work. Um and so thankful uh that they've had that experience and as we've evolved with what we're providing for activities not just here at Belton but also across the state and what we do
063because honestly 5 years ago it would be boys wrestling against girls or vice versa. And so now for them to have grown that sport so much that uh students can wrestle against you know male and or female and have you know that high level of competition really just uh super thankful for that and our our kids and obviously in the spring we have boys volleyball that's getting ready to start up and so saw a triyous uh starting for that. So they're once again another new activity that we have for our students as well. Also u she pointed out that she had the opportunity to meet our new principal. We had our new principles over at the high school and two assistants and our head principal over there and so a few of the students, but
064she also would like to see an opportunity for students, more students to be able to meet our new administrators this year before next year. I don't know if we can pull that rabbit out of the hat, but it's a request that she has made. So, we'll look into that and see. And then she also pointed out the girls made the second round of the district tournament this year. first time they've done that since 2020. The boys did lose in the first round and they finished with a record of 13 and 14 uh on the year. And let's see, yeah, I think uh she mentioned enrollment night for eighth graders that were able to come over and meet uh new teachers. We just had that occur. Uh but then some of the students, high school students
065were able to meet some of the eighth graders that came over as well and thought that was a good experience. And so those are just a few of the highlights that Michaela wanted to share and so I thank her for putting that together. One more thing on that. Louise Jwitt was named class two wrestler of the year for girls whole state of Missouri. Very cool. Very good. All righty. Anything else for the cause? The chair will accept a motion. Second. Get off the road. I'll second that. All All in favor of adjourning? I I I Yes. We need to do it by roll call. Jim, yes. Karen, yes. Dave, yes. Mary, yes. Teresa, yes. Norm, yes. And I'm a yes. On the road. See you. Are we doing spring sports on the Wednesday night on
066the 2?