Park Hill School District Board Meeting 1/13/2022

001um [Music] so [Music] so [Music] good evening i called the jamie i called the january 13th meeting of the parkville board of education to order mr monces and mr klein are both joining us by conference call this evening please join me for the pledge of allegiance of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all i will uh thank everyone for silencing their phones this evening before i call for announcements i would like to remind the board of our norms be prepared display integrity remain mission driven and goal focused stay in the role of a board member no grandstanding and speak and listen respectfully any announcements this evening mrs newberger none thank you mrs woodley none thank you mr fans

002um yeah i had heard that the kansas city public schools received their accreditation and we're very proud of them yeah that's a win for the entire metro community i couldn't agree more and so i just wanted to share that with the team uh we're one kansas city and it's exciting when that uh we're all getting to the same level so fantastic thanks reid thank you mr klein mom thank you mr monsis thank you um i'll have an announcement or an update on the board superintendent search this week our superintendent search firm conducted focus groups with students parents teachers community and business partners and staff to help us get a picture of what our community wants in our next superintendent we also encourage members of our community to provide feedback on the online survey from the

003search firm if they haven't already we'll provide the link again in the board highlights tomorrow and it is on our district website dr coward i do have a couple of announcements i'll try to speak very clearly uh first off in the uh and i will talk about a couple of these later when we get to personnel so i'll address those but we have had some questions just about how we're doing the contact racing we have turned that over to the kansas city missouri health department and they are using a company called agile government services to conduct that contact tracing for our schools and i want to let everyone know they are working seven days a week monday through friday eight to eight pm and saturdays and sundays eight to five so that they can they've

004received a high volume of calls and cases as you can imagine but they're currently just one day behind and they made a call today and we helped them out with a couple of classrooms too that they want to get messages out to families we're happy to do that and our nursing staff has always help always able and available to answer questions for families so they can help make informed decisions and we know one of the challenges that our parents have asked for is just could you just give us a flow chart so we can just kind of figure out where we are and we are going to do that that will be updated and put on the website for us tomorrow and so we're looking at that as we do that and the last thing

005i want to remind everyone of as you look at our data we have actually moved from when it was reported to us to the actual date that that person tested positive so we're moving that so you'll see that rather than the date so it's a test date rather than the date reported and so you'll see that on our on our data which meant that last week data as of today had 457 uh and so far this week we have 277 and remember that goes all the way through sunday night and we do that so you'll see that maybe change a little bit more and i just want you to remind you of that particularly when we get that and when that test date is so that's what's going to be key for us and so

006we've updated all of those so that everything matches and so it should be completely out there we appreciate that and we also there was a request that our special meeting around some k95 mass we already have six thousand of those we distribute those tomorrow morning as they go out but we also have mass for our students we have those and we do provide those and so we'll have those out there as we go too so we've got several options and we just want to make sure we're providing as much support as we can in this trying time let's just put it that way so thank you so much man so i'll need a motion in a second to adopt the january 13th agenda as presented so i'm a second i have a motion from ms

007reed in a second by mrs newberger to adopt the agenda as presented dr coward any modifications no ma'am or any modifications all those in favor say aye aye any opposed say nay motion carry 7-0 we'll move to recognitions and awards and i'll turn it over to ms kirby thank you very much we have a recognition of um the staff members who received our parkhill star award so if anyone is here for that recognition if you'll come stand up here with me [Music] all right so this is an award that dr coward presents every month every month she presents it to a pre-k or an elementary teacher a secondary teacher and a support employee and so i'd like to start by giving you all an opportunity to introduce yourself and tell us where you're from and

008then i'll give dr card a minute to tell us a little bit more about this honor i'm james miscavige and i teach english and debate and journalism over at the lead innovation studio my name is sheri sproul i'm a luncheon playground supervisor over at renter elementary i'm mackenzie heavy i'm a school psychologist at russell jones i'm kristin mitchell i teach first grade at hopewell elementary congratulations did you want to share anything about this well first i want to thank you all for being here tonight i know it was kind of a question and everybody's trying to protect themselves so much they can so thank you for that but this has been such an outstanding program and we really appreciate it and this is so each month we do this but the other part that's really

009cool is we have a lot of people that are nominated and so each month i'll go visit about 25 to 40. it depends on the month of our outstanding employees because it's wonderful because you are nominated by students by our parents and our families our community members and and your colleagues and that's the greatest honor and everything aligns with our core values and our strategic plan and so you guys represent that very very well if you haven't seen their videos online i encourage you to go see them you will learn a lot about them it's a great way to get to know our staff but congratulations we're so proud of you and thank you for being here tonight thank you so much thank you thank you we'll move to public comments during this part of

010our agenda we will receive public comments from patrons attending in person have we we also received two uh comments from online and they have been distributed to the board this evening and we do have cards this evening we have four okay and we're going to start with corey terrell okay coming up i'm sorry that's okay come on when called upon by the board president patrons are to approach the presenter station speak into the microphone and state your name before making comments there will be a three minute time limit for individual comments and a 15 minute total time limit for all comments combined the board secretary will monitor the time in the event the total time limit expires any remaining registration cards will be provided to all board members please direct your comments to the entire

011board if a response is appropriate i will respond or refer to another individual in an effort to respect respect privacy we ask that speakers refrain from discussing personal complaints involving individual staff members or students hello good evening i'm corey terrell before the board deny his proposed bond to fix up our aging and outdated schools and build a football stadium in park hill south high school i and many i have spoken to are four are upgrading our schools however there are a couple of items that should be addressed on this issue prior to voting it through first is the financial aspect on the proposed resolution under section one item b it states that the school board will be authorized to increase the operating tax levy to 4.9907 per hundred dollars of assessed valuation but then under

012the actual proposition it's only going to rise to 4.6746 does the board expect to raise the operating tax levy in the future and if not why not just request the 4.6746 will any of this debt be offset by reductions in staff at top levels of district management the public needs to know before this goes into effect how much debt the district is carrying overall in total from previous bonds issued to this one is there a mechanism in this proposal to prohibit the district from using the money for any other purpose other than what is outlined in the proposed programs of improvements if not i think it needs to be specifically stated that the district cannot use the money for any other purpose via facility or education in nature lastly i don't think the school district

013should foot the bill for all of these projects in their entirety i just came back from kearney high school last night watching the varsity girls dominating win over raytown south both of their scoreboards were led and super nice but around each were advertisements from local corporations and businesses the basketball court was either paid for or is earning money through st luke's north hospital via advertising they call it saint luke's north hospital court i believe half the money for these projects should come from local source corporate sources just like professional sports teams the local public should not be on the tab for all of this money when other districts have shown the ability to raise money from local businesses thank you mike crowley should i keep my mask on please okay yeah i came prepared tonight

014to talk about diversity training i understand that's a new initiative for the district by the way i've been i've been a resident in the park hill school district for 28 years this is my second school board meeting and i became i came really prepared to talk about critical race theory and really ask you to reject that and if that's been under consideration i think it's uh it's damaging i think there's a real situation where the student is considered to be a perpetrator or a victim based upon their skin color or their ethnicity that's just wrong and so that's that's my uh conviction i understand though that there is a there's a kind of a change in emphasis that uh there's been discussion in terms of teaching transgender issues and sexuality especially for the elementary kids

015i just took this it's not the time or the place this is not the time of the place in a school board a school situation that's for parents for churches for religious institutions schools have other responsibilities such as teaching science math english debate and all that the stars represent and everyone else who teaches in school and park hill school district um i just i it's a confusing issue transgender issues and sexuality issues that's really the responsibility of the parents and that's a responsibility in the privilege of churches and religious institutions i really encourage you and want to advocate if you don't do something that is in contradiction to parents teachings and the teachings of religious institutions that those families are part of and i would just we all have our foundation in terms of why

016we believe we have beliefs we have convictions and there's a reason why we believe what we believe let me just read you something i'll tell you where it comes from and i encourage you please read it in context this is connected to the diversity training transgender and sexuality do not be deceived neither fornicators nor idolaters nor adulterers nor effeminate nor homosexuals nor thieves nor the covetous nor drunkards drunkards nor revilers or swindlers shall inherit the kingdom of god but there's more you ready for the good the good part and such were some of you but you were washed but you were sanctified you were justified in the name of the lord jesus christ and the spirit of our god that's first corinthians chapter 6 verses 9 through 11. stay away fine thank you sharika barnes

017good evening can you hear me good evening um i had the privilege of going down to jeff city on tuesday to listen to the education committee and actually speak in front of them for a few of these house bills that are going to affect k-12 which is our which would be our district and one of them particularly is hb 1474 which talks about not talking about um historical facts are using things like the previous gentleman critical race theory which isn't taught in high school it's a law class but i don't know any six-year-olds in our district that's taking critical race theory as a law class but if there is one i'd like to meet them um the 16-19 project and various things and so i would just like to give an example since we want

018to use whose history do we want to teach like uh who historical facts would we like to teach because um reading through some of the books here in our district um those facts seem to be very one-sided um i remember one history teacher that one of my children had was uh made it that the slaves freely got on this ship they were so happy to come over to america to work for free no mention of the hundreds of thousands of people who died or any of them the horrible things that happened to them so i think we need to be mindful of whose history we are going to teach if we're going to teach history so i would just like to talk about one thing in particular the gi bill is mentioned in one of

019the books in our history classes and i would just like to give you an example my grandfather fought in the military and he was a veteran and he was supposed to get the gi bill um but however upon return all black soldiers did not receive the gi bill and so the gi bill um i'm just gonna get some coins just to show you the gi bill gave things like a home loan so this goes to the site that received it they gave things like a business loan decided to receive that they gave tuition so people could go to college and get higher education or they gave tuition to their dependents right so um that's how i got all that you know my grandfather had to work two jobs so that he could get a house

020for his kids right there's no tuition assistance over here he had to work two jobs my grandmother had to work two jobs they had nine kids and i would just like to say again whose history are we teaching because this is to 10 right so this means that this side has 90 percent more wealth than this side over here so that is part of what those things like 16 19 projects and various things are trying to teach and are we going to be honest about those things here in our district thank you patrick dunn i just wanted to introduce myself and see you guys face to face and tell you thank you for your service i know voluntary but it's also important and that it's important so thank you i know um the the way

021to affect things is to serve and um i again it's a thank you at this point for you i grew up in the district i've lived here my whole life i'm 55 i graduated from park hill my children went to park hill i love that i love park hill in the sense of what i know that [Music] as far as an educational institution um and uh it's uh and i look at what what was here i look at the history in one way and i look at how probably half my class settled in the park hill district so i still run into them i still seem around there's there's a lot in the educators that were here the people that taught me the people that uh probably sitting behind us you know that administrate for

022a long time and not that any of that matters can throw out tons of names but first it's an appreciation second i just wanted to at least looking at i tell you thank you so if i ever have anything to say at least i want to introduce myself thank you next we have brian hefflin by email mr heflin's comments hello park hills school board my name is brian heflin and i live in sunpoint subdivision my children attend southeast and park hill south i have been told that park hill school board members are prohibited and possibly simply instructed to not answer emails they receive from the voting public is this true if yes i firmly believe this policy needs to be changed there should not be a wall imposed between sitter the citizens or and their

023elected officials we need to be able to communicate with our representatives and they should be allowed to communicate back to us communication is a key to intelligent and informed participation in the democratic process please ensure barriers such as this do not exist sincerely brian heflin i called that that guy called this patron that said the other one and they did not need to be they asked not to be ready very good it was still shared with the board yeah this evening's consent agenda includes items 5.1 through 5.14 dr coward are there items that need to be highlighted there's a couple that i would like to highlight and it's in the personnel area and actually one of them is here tonight is here almost every night and we have a board meeting so we do have

024some retirements and um and some resignations that i'd just like to point out and uh dr jill owens has been with the district for many years and has served also as our ph nda president has done a wonderful job and so we appreciate her work and she's been faithful to come to all these meetings and and uh we're we wish her well john carr our assistant principal athletic director park hill south announced his retirement also and so we wish john wilde has been with for 19 years and we appreciate everything that john has done his dedication and his care has been great and then dr ryan stanley at lee uh is stepping down from his position and he has done a great job he has started that program from the beginning and so we appreciate

025everything he has done um we care very greatly for him and we are not sure what he's going to do next but whatever it is we want to support him and hopefully he might even be teaching for us so we never know so we just wanted to mention those three thank you or do we have any questions for dr coward related to the consent agenda hearing none i'll need a motion and second to approve the consent agenda items 5.1 through point one four as presented second i have a motion for miss reed in a second by mrs neuberger to approve the consent agenda as presented any further discussion all those in favor say aye aye any opposed say nay motion carry 7-0 our first action item is the approval of the 2022-2023 academic calendar yeah

026just a quick reminder of the process the district's calendar committee began their work in october continued through december then at the board's december meeting we presented the draft of the calendar the academic calendar for next year in many ways that calendar mirrors this year's calendar just with a couple of a couple of other exceptions did want to comment to uh pass along to the board that we did have several comments in the last month about the length of holiday break next year um that was an issue that the committee wrestled with they tried really hard to to find a way to extend it but in the end the committee found that that they placed greater value on our teachers and staff having at least one day off all the way through the year and if

027if we were to move away from that to extend holiday break we would have would have had some long stretches of the year that the teachers and and staff wouldn't have had a day away but we had several comments about a dozen or so that came in during the last month during the comment period to that effect about holiday break and just wanted to make sure that that everyone knew that the committee spent some time on that in fact it was probably the uh the greatest issue that that committee took on probably took up most of their time um but otherwise we would present this uh this draft and with the board's approval then we'll begin making these plans for next year and and be able to follow through with work calendars as well so

028dr renninger i think another way to extend the holiday break would be to make first quarter extend into past christmas break yeah and i noticed like other school districts that i was looking at are their quarter is ending tomorrow second quarter and that that's very important to our patrons as well so i don't know if you want to talk yeah that was of course that was a quite a bit of context to that conversation um is the the imbalance between our two semesters and whether we stop first semester at the holiday break or not it's been our priority to do that and i feel like that gives us the best academic advantage for students and and that there is some differing philosophy among districts so we we find that and and many districts will will

029find themselves like we have having done both over the last several years now we've settled with exactly as you said ending the semester i assume there was healthy discussion around that as well there was there was and and fairly universal support in the committee especially uh you know among those folks on on the high school side and secondary side and this bone if i could add to that too we did that last year because we had to because we started so late and one of the issues i ran into is we have a lot of mid-year grads and so getting transcripts so that they can go to community college particularly to our local colleges here at the metropolitan community colleges really created a burden for them and they couldn't get it done and so that

030is another great challenge we've had on that one and we want to support all of our kids and get them to where they want to be in life and so it is a balance and uh we're doing the best we can i think the calendar committee did a nice job with that yeah i had forgotten about that but it was a nightmare last year so the last time we did it so i really appreciate that well and sometimes it's just the the uh turn of the calendar and i i know soon it will be um eat rather easy to get two weeks just because of the placement of thought so and the other challenge of course is we are mandated when we can start school now and previously we could start school earlier and under

031the new state statute we are required to only start that 10 days before labor day and so that really does compress what we can do and how we do that and so there it's as a counter committee looks at this they have several uh i wouldn't say barriers but uh opportunities to look at multiple things in order to put this together so we appreciate their work so thank you so much so as that relates to our calendar has there been any movement on that in jeff city are we still having discussions with anyone or we have you know i actually i'll have the opportunity to meet with some of them in a couple of weeks and i'll ask again the response so far has been we really haven't had a normal school year since it

032started because of kildred so they don't really know how it's impacted school so they don't really want to have that but we believe that that choice of the local school board to determine when to start the school year is important and so we will definitely uh have that on the list and it is uh actually part of what you'll be talking about here in legislative priorities too anyone else so we'll need a motion in a second to approve the proposed 2022-2023 academic calendar is presented i have a motion mrs woodley in a second by misread to approve the proposed 2022-2023 academic calendar is presented any further discussion all those in favor say aye aye any opposed say nay and i'm here mr monsis mr mances hi hi thank you motion carry 7-0 our next action

033item is the approval of support of the 2022 legislative positions for the cooperating school districts of greater kansas city and on this item this is a standing item for us every year the parking school district is a part of the cooperating school district of greater kansas city there's over 32 schools that are part of that program and it is we use it for cooperative buying and lots of things but it really does represent the entire kansas city area regardless of the school size and that's what's really wonderful about this and over the past few years as uh and we've been providing this to the board it's been posted for quite some time but identifying what are the key legislative priorities but also ongoing legislation issues we support and actually the first one on there is

034around the local control to make decisions around working conditions compensation curriculum instruction materials course access pd professional development and school calendar so i think it's all there and the one that was added this year is on the high level is supporting expansion of statewide broadband for all students because for some of our districts well we're very blessed in park hill to have that opportunity but not all of our students have that opportunity and we will also have other districts than part of the states that don't have any services so we think it's important to work as a team and to do that for what's good for all students within our state too so we appreciate that i'll need a motion and second to approve the support of the 2022 legislative platform for the cooperating school

035districts of greater kansas city is presented second i have a motion by ms green in a second by whitley any further discussion all those in favor say aye aye aye any opposed say nay motion carry seven 7-0 6.4 is the approval of emergency purchase to move park hill fiber yes we were notified our technology staff was notified by kansas city missouri that modot will soon be replacing the bridge that spans over waukomas so that may be news for some people you know that they just opened the bridge just south of 64th street and the next bridge they're going to work on is the one over wakomis and that work is going to start march 1st and our fiber loop for our district goes right underneath that bridge and as we go underneath that bridge they're

036also increasing the the piling depth from 3 feet to 12 feet on that and so as we did our initial piece to go down and see how far that took us we hit what i call wonderful platte county rock and so it is a we we have got to get this done and get this pushed out and so uh we normally would bring this to you and have actuals but what we're saying is this is not to exceed 125 000 as they do that project we do believe it'll come in below that but we also don't know what else we may hit in the process and this has to be done before they start their work on march the 1st and we don't want to disrupt our service for our students and so we'll run

037through our redundant lines and so that we can take care of this so um dr kelly anything that you would like to add or anything that i missed on that uh you did not miss anything okay well we'll all be excited to have another branch out and it always creates a wonderful challenge and so but we appreciate working with kansas city missouri if they do help us and work with monday so um i'm sure i know the answer to this but we did explore moving the line we did and the cost was significantly significantly higher let's just go with significantly higher yes we did look at that you're welcome yes i know when we put in the fiber some years ago that there was an agreement with kansas city um is that still ongoing and

038will that affect this as well yes it is still going ongoing i apologize for interrupting you my followers it is ongoing and actually they do all of our locating services for us and that's a great savings and actually they were the ones that that notified us about it we hadn't heard this remote dot so we appreciate that partnership and so it has helped us so thank you i presume the work will be done and to ensure that we don't inadvertently have any disruption or during the school day that's exactly why we're doing this yes and i'm guessing that yes may add to the cost a little i don't think so we think we'll be okay mr unruh has done a good job of studying this and working through this process i'll need a motion in

039a second to approve the emergency purchase to move park hill fiber line as presented i have a motion from this read in a second by mrs neuberger any further discussion all those in favor say i our next action item is to adopt resolution calling an election in the parkville school district of platte county missouri for a bond issue dr power well and first off this has been a long process we've been working on this for quite some time as the board and community knows and we have also said and what's listed on the board documents which people can see is everything from our tax levy history to our bond project list and what that looks like and you'll notice on that list there are projects that we're going to hope to do and then there's

040if the economic conditions allow we will do this also you may remember we did that last time on our last bond and that's how the transportation sys facility was built as we did that one and i i think it's important to note that when you're putting out of propositions of proposition i as you talk about those monies can only be spent it's very specific can only be spent for what is within that document and on the questions around on the operating tax levy that is so confusing which is why it's so important that we provide information for everybody and so i really appreciate dr kelly will be helping me with this but i'll be visiting with every pta and every staff group and i've already set up with several community groups so if you have

041a community group that you would like to have that information about we want to share that with you i don't think there's anything more complicated that i don't believe maybe our taxes but school finance and uh we want to help understand that but the bottom line on both of these is that the goal for the district and what we have worked toward at the direction of the board is actually no change and so as on proposition n the 499.07 is exactly what the voters last voted for in 2002 and so in 20 years maybe in 2042 we'll ask the same thing to not change anything and on proposition end also we're asking to maintain uh it is expected to remain unchanged our property our adjusted profit tax levy at 539 5.39 55 cents it has

042been that same since 2018 and that has been our commitment to our voters and so um it has been an interesting thing this year was an interesting thing with the uh the reassessments i think a lot of things happened on that and i that's that's an important part of this and just a reminder that the district can move things to pay off debt which we have done over the past two years we've actually refinanced and to save around 8 million but we can't use it for operating and so that's why those informational sessions will be so important we'll go into depth about that so that people understand and understand these questions and so they're required by law to be written the way they are written but we will make sure that we clarify sort of

043understands but when we say no tax increase that's exactly what we're talking about so we are very blessed and park hill very blessed and uh we're so glad because i didn't think in 2017 we would ever come back with the no tax increase bond issue and we are and to be able to come back and ask for no change from 2002 i think is amazing also so also we'd like to point out the the surveys that we have done the work sessions we've done the input that we've received and we appreciate very much and these are focused on taking care of our existing facilities there is the new elementary school that we need to build but the bulk of this will all be about taking care of what we have and so the facilities we

044just opened walden hopewell lead innovation studio support services and the transportation facilities really there's nothing in this issue for them this is all about everybody else and making sure we do that and that's an important piece for our taxpayers take care of what they have given us and make sure we provide equal and parity across our district and that's what we're trying to do so be happy to answer any questions but i think we've been through this many many times so proposition i and proposition e is what we would recommend taking to our voters if it's the board's will dr carr the only question i had was just the the positioning of of these on the ballot um so i'm guessing there will be items between eye and in no these two should go together

045they will go together together those two will go together okay that was my bill it goes before and after but we will see that was my biggest concern because as a voter i can see that being confusing if you're going in looking for the issues relating to park hill and making sure that those are closely linked together because it is very important that um i understand that that these two items work in tandem they will be on the violent microsog okay dr power um and maybe this is uh should be directed to dr kelly i'm curious about our bonding capacity i know we've talked about that um and i know that we've aggressively paid down our debt as we refinanced and that's part of the reason we're able to do this on a tax-free or

046no tax increase basis just roughly i don't need exact numbers but you know what is our total capacity and where are we and then where does this place well you may have to help me with this a little bit because the basic calculation is 15 of your total assessed valuation that's where what we're looking at and so part of that the question is how much can you do for a no tax increase versus how much can you do if you increase your taxes and those are both factors in that so dr kelly i'm going to turn it over to you right there and let you just take it from yeah so so one of the uh boundaries that is a legal limit on how much any school district can take as dr coward mentioned is

04715 of your assessed valuation so currently that's for us about 350 million dollars that we that would be the capacity of how much debt we could take so as we stand today we're at about 148 and that's over i mean consistently being paid down so this is a moving target this has all been scheduled based upon our previous uh bond issues and so by the time if we're fortunate to have this pass then those dollars will actually be kind of layered in over time we would not take on 137 we wouldn't have the capacity anyway to be able to do 137 million dollars a project at one time and so we would we will be simultaneously paying debt as we're actually then taking that on over a series of years and so um although you

048know adding the current debt of 148 which by the end of this fiscal year will be down to about 130 we'll take on another 137 so if we were to sell the bonds all in one day we would be at about 260 270 and our legal limits 350. that's that's not going to happen that's as high as it would possibly be like i said because we have we'll be subsequently refinancing that and all kinds of things but so it would uh i think maybe the answer to your question is um and now we couldn't do the full for no tax increase right so yeah and that's what kind of goes back to dr coward is that there is a whole another limit there in terms of how much we can do and that's the one

049that's that 137 calculation that's why the 137 is what it is is what we feel comfortable conservatively taking on from no tech sure and i'm grateful we're staging it as future administrators or superintendents and boards will be able to again it's to the language of what it states is what we have to spend it on but how we how we execute against those plans could be dictated economic a whole variety of factors absolutely and we know that inflation's a thing right now supply chains are issues i mean all of those things are factors that go out there i think the other thing that gets lost sometimes is that when we do these remember these are for 20 years so you think about homework did you use it think about a 30-year but in school world

050we can only do 20 years and as you guys know as we sell bonds you also have to use those in a certain time so what stage that selling of the bonds also so we don't want to hit arbitrage which means we cannot benefit from that as a district so it's very clear what we can and what we cannot do with these bonds as we do that and so there was no taxes uh no tax increase and someone may have talked it was 2007. and that was for the hawthorne project no that was for russell 2006. 2006 and then 2011 is when we did another no tax increase in 2017 another no tax increase bond i never dreamed when i did those speeches that we would do this again but we are able to do

051this and if you pull up our charts it talks about total tax rate the only one lower than us is platte county and then our colleagues in north kansas city and liberty are much higher than us and you will see that and you'll see the entire kansas city area so we have the second lowest tax levy and we've held that for these last years and that is our goal is when we say that that 539.55 that is what we're aiming at and staying in those limits to do that and so uh it is complicated it involves the state auditor and some everything plays into this um but we wanted to make sure that we are being as transparent as we can and that's why we'll do those informational sessions so happy to do this yeah

052and i think with regarding to the ballot language i think every it's everybody's desire to simplify it and to just well if it's no tax increase you just take no taxes like we wish we could and we've tried every sort of way to contort ourselves and get the language that way this has been written by bond council gilmore bell has proposed this this is the same language that other school districts would use and that's what they're from a legal framework comfortable with putting on there so we are not able to do that and that's why the information sessions are going to be so key uh is to really kind of fill in kind of the questions and and the gray area that's created by some fairly vague or and or confusing ballot language but we've

053worked hard on trying to make it as simple as possible both on the as much as we can on the ballot as well as then and during information sessions well i accept that but i'm still very frustrated so i'm going to touch on a couple things that we have talked about numerous times in the work that we've done but i think it once saying to them again out loud one we did visit um the idea of having sponsors and we do have sponsors in our things we do we have an investment in a great field everything has sponsors all over it but i think there's a misunderstanding when you look at other districts about how much money was contributed i don't know if you can touch on that a little bit well i think those

054are all you'd have to contact those districts because i don't want to speak for them but usually those are long-term things that are a little bit every year over a long period of time to do that and so in those cases these are taken on because these are public and our parts are public and we do some public private we do use our advertising to use that if you're at the football segment you'll see it around the outside if you see all those things and so you'll see advertising all over this place as we do that but in order to meet these needs and to also as we put these projects out it's just important to do so it just doesn't meet the the level of where we need to be to get this and

055so it looks good and you hear numerous times well you know they raised half their money half their money for that and by so and so and we have determined that this is absolutely not true by contacting and talking to other districts so correct i just want to make sure that we've we have explored those opportunities can i say i mean on your consent agenda tonight you approved the approval of scoreboards for the very end these will be ready for the advertisements that we already have um and so that's part of the reasons why um we're able to do this is to provide those um via that those advertising funds but the majority don't majority of those funds go to the stu into the students activities themselves and the annual operating and and with the

056exception of scoreboards um we did at the football and now at the two high school basketball our gems we're using some of that to supplement the scoreboard purchase and i guess i don't really have a question but i do want to commend you all in the process because we have had numerous meetings and i know at one of our meetings we kind of ask you to go back to the drawing board and start over and do more digging and request more information and you all did that and provided what we asked for and so none of this comes easily or without a lot of work by you all so we appreciate that and i certainly appreciate the extra work and diligence that we did because it is a large amount of money but i also

057also think that based on the survey and the information we have from our community that we've created very balanced plan across all buildings all interests all uh things that will affect a lot of students both academically and athletically and safety and all kinds of things so i really want to commend you on how we built this plan and i think one final point is you say if we pass the bond and yes of course our public needs to come forth and support this in order for us to to do just that but if you could just reinforce the sense of urgency i know that we've been very methodical this has been a long uh term of planning but just to reinforce why now i think the why is obvious that we've heard from our constituents

058let's be very frank about that you know and their request and and and to have it's both taking care of what we've got but making sure that we are updating those facilities and keeping them there so it's not it's both an internal parity but it's external too it's it's it is uh you know what our neighboring districts offer that we don't offer but the main piece for us is we want to reflect the park hill community and i think that's what this set of projects does and that's what mrs bullon was referring to because it does talk about our it's about our fine arts it's about our students with special needs it's about it's about all of our students in a process that's that's put forth it's about all of our elementaries it's about our

059two high schools it's and so it's hitting all those things but it still supports everything academically and education we want to do so there's always a balance we want to have that balance with everything that we're doing but we're also a very proud community and we want to be proud of everything that we have within our facilities our academics our achievements and our awards and we want to do the very best and so we're proud of this and really do feel like it is is answering that that request we had but also realizing that we're at a point now we've been building building building and we still needed to build another elementary school but we solved our middle school problem with the 27 issue and when we built the lead innovation studio remember that's the

060first phase of the third high school because we're not quite big enough for a third high school we won't even have that data until 2025 2026 and so we have made the promise to our taxpayers is that we're not going to project out what we need until we have the actual students here which is why we use mobile units and so that's why you'll see a lot in the union chapel and hawthorne and chin and how many mobile units do we have currently um use that in another one yeah about six i think yes six we'll just add another and so there's things that we need in programming and we want to meet that program whether it's in our culinary arts whether it's our fine arts uh updating our auditoriums those are just things you

061have to do and we want to make sure we're doing that and again taking care of what we have been given yeah so i appreciate you um sharing that and i you know just another quick point is wow leadership may be changing you're getting ready to move on you've done this before for us you've helped us get through the bonding process and i'm grateful that we're able to continue to take advantage of that but in the same light as we transition to new leaders our needs aren't changing so it's not like a new leader and then all of a sudden we have to reevaluate our needs our needs have been ongoing and building over the course of time so i'm just grateful that we have your leadership to continue to drive this and then i'm

062also cognizant of the fact the board is going to select our next leader to be able to help us create the continuity around what we're going to be financing i appreciate i think a strength of the district is we do things in process it does drive some people crazy sometimes we do things in process but i think it also allows us to look at blind spots identifiers that we haven't thought of making sure we're getting feedback looking at all aspects of it so i think that's a key piece can i yeah yeah on the urgency question and why now so dr coward addressed proposition i proposition n was actually a kind of a domino effect of the reassessments that occurred last fall by which inadvertently you know we were we were uh impacted by that

063by a negative three million dollars in our operating budget um because there is an organic and natural sort of legal way by which even though the taxpayers will approve a tax levy ceiling the state auditor annually will come and and chip away at it based upon those reassessments and that's how you know as dr coward mentioned we our last voter approved tax rate was in 2022 and was for 499 and today it's at you know 4 40. and that happens just over and you see the history of it and it's published on the on the web as well but that happens naturally and that's what keeps the boards from taxing more than you know they're actually have voters approved um so anyway a couple things on the operating side and why that is a kind

064of a new twist we've done no tax increase bond issues before and been responsive to the public the second part of it though is i think that we have an operating shortfall that's going to start this year and it's just going to compound over the next series of years and something happens to that operating rate and then if you are taking on all of this additional square footage and all these additional responsibilities we're if proposition high pass is proposition in we need to operate these things that we are adding and so we need to be we need to we need to be good stewards of those that new square footage so that we can actually turn the lights on and and maintain that square footage and you just can't do that for for free so

065yeah and now actually you see that in that language that's what we wrestled with with gilmor and bell and you'll see it in the second sentence it talks about the tactile ceiling that's the one that's set by the auditor that's what's driving this and so it's a complicated and that's why we feel like we want to take that time to go visit and talk but the bottom line is our goal is absolutely no change for our taxpayers we just have to get to the complication of what our legal requirements are here you know every time the the public in the past all the way back to 2006 the public has approved a no tax increase bond issue they are entrusting the board to have no tax increase and so this is just exactly the same

066um request from the public is to um if we're telling the public that this is a no tax increase that it not be a tax increase and so that's also the commitment that we're making as we get the information sessions out although we can't say it in the ballot language but that's clearly our desire and this actually turns out to be an opportunity that we have that's unique to this year any other questions just a quick comment i just wanted to say thank you as a new board member all this he said school finance has been like way over my head but i understand no tax increase so that was easier to understand and i hope our taxpayers take that to heart and and really realize that this is going to also support our c-set

067plan and things of i just feel like the belonging is going to start to come through when students see that happy to go to their school and see the different upgrades and the safety so thank you karen dr kelly thank you okay i'll need a motion and second to adopt a resolution calling an election on april 5th 2022 in the park hill school district of platte county missouri on two propositions proposition i and proposition n as presented okay i have a motion from mr fain in a second by miss reed to adopt the resolution calling an election any further discussion all those in favor say i right any opposed say nate i don't think i had mr monsis hi all right thank you any opposed nay motion carries 7-0 thank you board it'll be the

068next few months will be a lot of work and a lot of time we look forward to meeting with our community and sharing so we look forward to that we're going to move on to our information presentations our first is 7.1 parents teachers update dr ward all right hello i'm rachel ward um i've not officially met you good to have you i'm the coordinator of early education programs for the district at gurner and my intent tonight is just to keep everyone on the board informed of programming updates with parents as teachers that are happening at the state level and some may have heard may not have heard but there's been some discussion that parents as teachers in missouri is going away and i just want to ensure to you that that is not happening um

069but there are some changes that are taking place in some minor reformatting um that is happening um with all services remaining the same that are in are currently put in place um but just some connections with our national center is uh justine um so just kind of looking a little bit at the past missouri is very um strong roots in the programming for parents as teachers and really actually started in missouri and has now grown into an international organization so 40 years ago i started as a pilot program to be able to support parents of newborns for any of us that have had children there is not a manual that goes with the child when you leave the hospital and so being able to sit beside other individuals to process through raising the child from

070age of zero up until school is a very powerful process that then expanded to across the state with funding to support families before they enter school that has since over the last 40 years become an international organization with a national center in saint louis and it is not under the control of the state of missouri any longer but it is actually appearances teachers national center so here in missouri what programming looks like now is still rooted in the initial funding from the 80s and so parents as teachers guidance comes from the early childhood development act that we refer to as the ecda and the intent was truly to help parents with their confidence and skills in raising children to support the growth and development of those children before they are entering school our services are

071outlined in what is called the ecda manual administrative manual and it is just really our identifying specifics of what programming looks like for all districts across the state and what i refer to as the big four um for activities that parent educators um conduct in conversations and that they have with the families so that includes on personal visits developmental screening um connection events and resource connections so personal visits are as said it is um a visit with just a family um and it is really discussing um needs that family has there are lessons that the parent educators do conduct that are provided through training through the national center and they model a parent-child activity and talk about developmental milestones for different ages of growth for the children and then discuss child or family needs that

072have been identified through those discussions another part of our programming is developmental screening and it is a free screening for families a family is participating in programming we like to do it annually there's a lot of changes that happen every single year just so that everyone can continue to monitor growth and development and we utilize two different screening tools one is the asq which stands for ages and stages um questionnaire and the other is a dial and we're in the fourth edition of the dial and that is just a developmental indicator for assessment of learning and those tools are utilized to be able to monitor growth and development and to be able to have early intervention if a child is not meeting some developmental milestones that are typical for those ages that then leads to

073discussion of potential um further assessment either with a pediatrician or looking at first steps in our state or even in our own building at gerner if there are maybe some areas of delay that we need to be able to foster and support we also host connection events and that is really inviting multiple families together to be able to connect with each other in the community as well as parent educators and have more informal conversations and networking that has been challenging recently but we have had had a really great experience of going on park tours and reintroducing families to our community parks and areas to um enjoy time with families and work on giving gross motor skills with their children at our at our works and that's open to all the families and it's just really

074a great way to have the families talk about some of the needs that they have with each other alongside those parent educators and then through all of the activities we are we focus on supporting the families with resources in our community and is identified as resource connections and it is response to dialogue that's happening if a family is starting to share concerns about maybe some anxiety that their children are displaying being able to help connect with resources that are part of our community to maybe look at that a little bit further if even it is um things that they're needing that are physical needs we are able to connect with our school social worker to help support those needs that the family has our our programming now is under a new office of childhood that

075is in dece that office officially opened in august and it is one of multiple home visiting programs that the state supports specifically focusing on education of families where other home visiting programs will can focus on the health of the family and the safety of the family and the children um the as i mentioned there is a connection that we have had with the um parents as teachables and teachers national center and um they have connected with desi through a mou to allow missouri programs to access all documents all resources the national center provides without meeting requirements of other organizations um here in park hill we are very involved in providing all of the programs and all of the um conducting all the activities outlined in the ecda manual and i am a part of a

076committee to reevaluate that to make sure that you know we are aligning everything the best as possible as we are making some changes um current our previous data from last year identified the number of families and number of children that we were supporting our personal visits and developmental screenings conducted and we are well on our way to meet those same levels of visits and helping support children and hopefully even i'm going a little higher our staff have worked very very hard to change processes to meet the needs of the families as we've been altering how we've conducted some of our services with families i mentioned a few times a change that's coming and so i just want to walk through what that is looking like at the state level and the biggest part is a

077change with the current mou with the national center and that will be ending in june and that mou will not be extended based on the conversations between our state program and the national center and so our missouri program is looking at how to take a new path and to continue to accomplish the expectations of the ecda and be able to still be able to meet the needs of all of the families throughout the state and for us here in park hill so you may be asking why is there a shift and a big shift is missouri's focus on what is what is referred to as universal access where all families have the ability to utilize support through parents as teachers and and do that in a way that meets their needs the best the national

078center's focus is on full program participation and implementation for every family that participates meaning when i discuss the big four they want all families to have personal visits and do the screening and be involved with other families and multiple other requirements whereas missouri focuses on allowing there to be choice for families based on what those families desire and what they need what they feel that they are are needing to uncover with their parenting to support their children the best and we are funded based on what has been outlined in the ecda manual and on universal access model for our families so in the past it was not universal access it was based on so in well it currently is on universal access there is a belief in for missouri programs to allow families to choose

079how they want to receive support where the national center does ask for families to participate in their program as designed so there's not as much choice and districts that um work with the national center do get rated down if for instance if a family doesn't want all of the visits that are required then a district could be rated down but the family is just really not wanting all of those visits or as universal access for missouri is is giving that choice to the family thank you for explaining absolutely so at this current time missouri programs are looking at different options for districts to choose based on their level of commitment or their desire for implementing programs so there is an affiliate path what is called a curriculum partner path and what is called a curriculum

080subscriber path so the affiliate path is that you are a parent's teachers program in implementing the program as parents as teachers national center has designed and so all of the training materials are available all the support that has been there and um and you can have the full use of branding as parents as teachers national center allows but it does not allow the families to have as much choice and the districts also to not have as much choice to support the needs of their families the curriculum partner path is a new category for national center just for missouri districts is that there is still availability to connect to the national center for training and curriculum there are limited support materials that will be available not the full menu for all other affiliates but it is

081still allowing those districts to meet dusty requirements which allows for family choice and there is currently in the works a special designation for missouri programs that are going to be curriculum partners the other choice is to be a curriculum subscriber and that is to have them curriculum materials available but all other support materials that help implement other services would not be available but you still would have the expectation to meet dusty requirements um but the use of the pat even the special special designation would not be available so where we would be looking at moving forward is in that curriculum partner status category deci's work is focused on this category as i mentioned i'm a part of a committee to re revise the ecda manual there are multiple committees identifying what do those support materials

082need to look like so there's consistency across the state and as then that new that new partner status with the national center is unveiled then we will have a library to be able to choose from but it's just limited compared to what an affiliate would have this is really is where we currently are this is this is what our current status is so there's not a change in our commitment there's not a change in our process and it's just continuing to be able to maximize what is available to us but we don't use all of the components for the national center that is available we are not focusing on that affiliate status so we don't need all of those materials so just looking ahead um we will continue to follow all of the requirements outlined

083i'm again becoming well well-versed in what that looks like and we will as a as a team i'm continuing to make a priority to support the families with where the family are demonstrating the needs um there will be a name change throughout the state um and so while i can say that we're a parent's teacher's program today the next time i um maybe even present for our program evaluation plan it may be called something different but the essence of programming services will still remain the same okay any questions i just have a question about funding the the senate bill that you um referenced is that a missouri senate bill or is athletic okay so the am i right in saying that the funding for parents as teachers comes primarily from the state or is there

084and so whatever program a school would those three levels the the funding will follow in the same respect or is there a will be would there be a difference in how we are funded if we would have chosen the full affiliate let's say yeah we are funded based on the activity that's conducted in the big four that that i was referring to and really two activities and that's the personal visits and the um screening the developmental screening so that is how we're funded whether we are an affiliate or a curriculum um partner or curriculum subscriber we would still be funded in the same way okay i think the biggest change mr newberger is just the fact that the national has they've allowed missouri to just call it parents as teachers because it started here and

085they've gone in a different direction and so they own the logo now and they own the branding and they own the name and so really that's as much of that as anything else is what is going on here but we know that's important to missouri it started here and there's been some tears around this to be very honest and i think that's why you saw that office of childhood coming out from desi and so to support this so we'll continue to support as we go forward so that that's really is the the split there so is then your feeling then that we will be the the new department in deci will be our guiding um it doesn't change anything that we're already our guiding department okay that they're already doing the work and supporting us

086and i was already collaborating with the team and i will continue to do the same with the same team the name's just going to be a little different i think that the um other thing to point out that is helpful is i think that we are one of the school districts that probably is talking about this sooner and later dr ward is part of several different groups that she has the ability to both be part of the discussion and be hearing exactly what's going on with the office of childhood and so what we wanted to do tonight here kind of in the middle of the school year is to be able to put that in front of you because in may or june you may receive some sort of you know publication or some other

087information that would say there's that change and we wanted you to be aware of it and we would be happy to come back and explain anything further but that's why we wanted to get this in front of you guys right now it's really just going to be a name change i'll be very frank with you the funding doesn't change how we offer our services doesn't change how we get paid doesn't change it's just that's the difference but it's complicated thank you so much thank you thank you our next information presentation is parkville online 2022 2023 and dr courtney all right good evening so park hill online uh historically was born out of covid so we had an online program in response to um the covet outbreak and immediately following that spring down in 2020 we

088determined that we needed a way for our students to learn from home when we reopened in august so we started park hill online in the 2020 2021 school year we had 3 around i mean they fluctuated throughout the year but around 3 300 students enrolled online last school year we had 65 elementary school teachers all of our middle school teachers had an online class within their contracted schedule and our high school teachers did the same this year we decided that we wanted to continue with an online program with the goal of finding those students and providing services for those students who truly learned better online so our goal of continuing this program was at the time not covid related at the time it was related to really trying to provide services for those students who

089found success in a different learning mode right now we have around 300 students enrolled in online services we have five elementary teachers so i have one teacher who teaches a kindergarten first grade split she has a grade level aid who helps her with her students i have a second third fourth and fifth grade teacher all of my special teachers for elementary school have full schedules in their regular contract and are leading their online classes as an extra course outside of their contract i have three middle school teachers right now each middle school teacher teaches sixth seventh and eighth grade i have one teacher who teaches all middle school math so that's six different math classes i have one middle school teacher who teaches sixth seventh and eighth grade reading and sixth seventh and eighth grade

090writing and then one teacher who teaches sixth seventh and eighth grade social studies and science all of those encore classes are similar to elementary specials and that the teachers have a full schedule in their regular contract and they are on stipend or with an overload pay for those extra classes the high school teachers i have two teachers who teach primarily online everyone else either has that built into their schedule or they are also an overload currently we did a survey of our online families and of the participants who responded 80 percent of those families stated that kovid is still a contributing factor for choosing online so our goal initially was to continue online and make sure we had a program that was about choice in learning mode and truly we are still providing an accommodation

091for covid currently and you can see that in the ebb and flow of our enrollment we saw with the vaccine for younger students that more of our students requested to leave and go back in person and now recently with more coveted cases we have seen more students request to come back online so kovit truly is a factor still in our online enrollment um wasn't what we planned but it is our reality currently 68 of our families reported that they're happy or extremely happy with our programming um 15 of those uh additional families were neutral on that question of our families mostly elementary and middle identified live learning sessions as very important for their child success in online programming we do offer live sessions for our elementary and our middle school students parents really liked the

092safety and the flexibility of learning online again this points back to covid their choice for online has been about covet and safety they also love our teachers i explained all the work that our teachers are doing by sharing with you their preps they are working very hard and they are doing amazing things with those students parents would recommend having more live sessions creating a separate online school and having live synchronous specials encore elective classes so you can imagine that because those teachers do have a full course load and they're doing these elective classes on top of that that we do not have live sessions for our students in the elective course offerings those would have to be in the evenings or in the very very early morning and we have committed to only doing the

093live sessions during the course of the regular school day so the top of this slide it says given survey feedback i think it should also say if i were to work on this again it'd say given survey feedback and improvement in cofit with those two factors in mind we would estimate that we'd have about 75 to 100 students enrolling in online as a learning choice so without covit as a factor based on the survey responses that we received that would be our estimated enrollment in online services the bare minimum really that i can run with in our current program to make sure that all of those students have teachers and educational options to choose from would be three elementary teachers three middle school teachers similar to what i have now with our specials on core

094teachers on overloads or stipends and the high school being the same so truly the smaller our enrollment gets the less sustainable it is to have a park hill designed online program so that really broaches the question of what do we do you know we still have some of those students who truly do flourish online they learn very well in that setting and it has provided them with some flexibility and some personal freedom and it just has made a difference in their lives so the question becomes what do we do to make sure that we're still serving those needs as a district um and our current plan is to serve those needs by partnering with the missouri course access program mocap and their vendors to provide online services for our students i think what excites me

095most about this decision or this choice is that every provider there are 13 different mocap providers and every provider has a slightly different spin on online and you know when you think of online education you just think learning from home on a computer but truly there are different structures that the different vendors have in place that make for very different experiences so our program currently follows our kind of our curriculum pacing guide so students cannot work ahead in the park hill online program they are tied to those live sessions into the learning that they are experiencing that day with their teachers many of these providers do have the option to work at your own pace to work ahead and then some of them also have those live sessions that pace it out for the student

096so truly this excites me because i feel like we can work with our families we can work with our students figure out what they truly want out of online and then find them the right partnership or the right place to receive that experience so to show that i have a few options on the screen and these are three of our best partners that we work with this year i currently have 56 students enrolled in mocap either part-time or full-time 31 of those students are full-time students and the rest of them are part-time taking classes with the high school that they couldn't fit into their schedule so edgenuity for example is up here this is a very popular choice with our high school students a lot of flexibility with ingenuity you can take your class anytime

097during the day any day of the week so that has worked very well for our students who would like to work during the day who have other obligations with their families or maybe even personal health obligations that make it difficult to work at certain times edgenuity has also a very expansive course offering list so some of our students with specialized interests have found courses in edgenuity that they would prefer over maybe some of our other traditional electives that we offer in contrast to that connections academy is a very structured organized program that has live sessions they also have clubs for students who want to become involved socially with other online learners they have additional support such as small class sessions breakout sessions that you can do with your teachers and with other students for tutoring

098it is much more of a structured schedule because they do offer those live sessions so that is how it is in contrast to the edge annuity or to maybe some other programs based on survey responses i will recommend that elementary parents and most middle school parents look at a program with live sessions our families did stress that live sessions especially in those earlier grades were very important for their learning and i would recommend for our high school students that they look at a program that is a bit more flexible because their feedback stated that that was something that they valued our goal would be to partner with the families find the right place and then get them enrolled in the right classes our timeline starts now we will start transitioning the website um this month

099so that families have correct information about our plans for the future of online next month our high school students will start their course selection with their counselors so they will be meeting with their counselors discussing what courses they're interested in whether or not they prefer to be online or in person the next bullet down there talking about contacting kate online families i put this on there because our future online students are most likely a group of our current online students and so i really want to target those families and find out what their plans are for next year assuming which i know we might not be able to do but assuming that they are choosing based on preferred learning mode rather than based on safety so trying to figure out which of our students truly

100do learn best in this way and making sure that we have them on our list to get them enrolled in a mocap provider i also acknowledge that there are some families who will choose online that are not online yet they can communicate with their schools and we will get them still enrolled in online it's not selective to current online students we just know that those will most likely make up the majority of our future online kids in may we'll start contacting the families who have selected online for the future so that we can talk about what their needs are and match them with the right provider and then we will actually enroll them at the beginning of august probably late july early august so that they can begin at the same time as our in-person

101students that is all i have i did not put a question slide in so if you have questions i don't have a prompt but i will take them i have a couple of questions one of them is about parents who are currently or students who are currently being home schooled are re-reaching out to those parents and those students as far as we can to give this as an option um and then how do we how are we doing that so the process for home school would be that each you know parent has to declare each year right they are homeschooling so we we are in contact through uh typically it's been through uh dr colvin's office with student services and managing the communication with those families it is both directions sometimes they're in homeschool and

102they're looking for more resources and so on and so we would put them into something like this where they would have access to online resources and so on and sometimes we have families that or students that are in the online environment and for some reason that is not meeting their needs and so then they choose to do uh the homeschool option which is where then they notify the school district and go through that process and that's an annual process that we have to know uh students that are in our district in which families are elected home school because i i can see where that would be an advantage for some of our our parents who are wanting to make sure that they want to homeschool but they want to make sure that they are providing

103the both the best educational processes that they that they possibly can and i can see where that this would be an advantage my other question is from some information that the board was presented when we were in last year in the the heat of coven and when we had more students um online and that is that from the information that the board was given we saw some issues with the mocap program one of them being that at least at that time the failure rate from my perspective was unacceptable from the mocap program that there seemed to be not as much follow-up with our students if they weren't participating and i know anecdotally from our our teachers and administrators here that if we had someone in our park hill online program and for some reason their

104participation had dropped off that we were on them and we were contacting them and we didn't feel that was happening from mocap and that the other issue was kind of the model of some of these programs being we'll sign you up you pay your money either the district or the state does and then there's very little follow-up after that for making sure that quality follows the amount of money that we are paying for the program i believe my you know this is my perspective is that we have to own that um that they are still park hill students and that we do have to provide an element of follow-up and we have to accept and acknowledge that they are still our our students and when you do budget assumptions you'll see my suggestion for how

105we might be able to devote some more energy to these students who you know from mocaps standpoint i i will say they do send lots of emails copy it on all of them i receive many many emails a day but that is how they can reach out whereas we are down the street we can knock on the door we can make sure that they have internet access we can have counselors meet with them to talk them through any mental health struggles that they might be having that are stopping them from completing their work so i i believe that we need to own that they are still our kiddos and that we need to make sure that we are putting energy into them just the same as if we still had a park hill online program

106i'm glad to hear that um and i'm guessing that we will have the information from these online groups to be able to track the the attendance for one of the better word participation and their their progress as as we would our other students i'm also hoping and i'm i'm guessing from just some things that you've said here is that you have a go not go uh point for the budget that you know okay here's how how much mocap classes you're going to cost us here's how much having just 75 students or 100 students is going to cost us what what's what's the point at which um it does it isn't viable anymore for us to uh continue with what we've been doing and from what i heard you say we're at that point if the

107enrollment projections come come true that's true so a couple of things on what you've mentioned one is that it is it's a supply and demand type question right now um last year we were in the situation of uh projecting about 300 students in fact that was close to what we were looking at was that was the low end we thought maybe there was going to be a little bit more than that but um we are operating at probably uh you know if we get much smaller um as dr courtney mentioned we can get smaller in enrollment but we still have to staff it and by doing this um we're able to we have some of our best teachers that are teaching online and we need teachers in the classroom as well when that happens when

108the enrollment gets so low that we need to be thinking about that i think the other thing on your quality comment because i think that that was that's a real uh issue we're exploring um the support that we would need to provide from us uh in order to make sure that those students are being followed up on uh worked with so that there's a person um that we aren't relying just on the vendor but i think the other thing that two things two sides of this have happened is that these vendors have learned a lot through kovin and so they're the ones we're recommending have improved quality and they're able to offer content in a way that um maybe is uh as good or better than than we are in terms of especially those specialized

109classes as they get to the uh upper grades and then the high schools um so so quality on that end is uh i think improved i think we've learned a lot about what we can and can't do and where students are successful and what parents are looking for and what they're not uh you know looking for and so we feel like this is something that certainly a year ago i think we made the best decision we could based on the information we had and i think we've had a good year with those 300 students and i think that they're in a better spot because of the program we created but based on the information we have right now if we drop to 25 to 30 of the current enrollment we're going to be uh having

110to still spend the same amount of money that we're spending on the program right now which ends up being hundreds of thousands of dollars that i think could be allocated in a better way to make sure that students or needs are being met we're finding that through covid you guys are hearing this by and large students and parents want to be in school there are a small percentage of students that thrive in this online environment and we want to be able to provide service and connection and support to help them get the education that they um deserve and they're our kids so they're going to be our kids receiving it from a uh a vendor that that we feel like and we're going to really work on coaching them into the most quality program that

111we can that makes me that makes me feel better i knew i knew there had to be more you guys have run the numbers we've learned we've learned a lot in the last year on this i think this is new burger the other thing i have in mind is just in the state of missouri now the choice that parents have well we believe those are the best three options as dr courtney mentioned there are 13 providers and they do have that choice and we don't have a say in which one they choose and so that is a part of this too that's part of the state that we must follow as we do that and so even back to your legislative priorities you we did one of those was about making sure that they are

112equal and having to meet the same standards and making sure they're doing those pieces so we're also trying to balance that piece out too as we do this process and as dr courtney mentioned and i'll it's no big we can go ahead and let you know we are talking about how do we support them and so that's what we have we're building into our budget assumptions also because we know that's an important piece to have that connection we want them to be park hill and so how do we do that and how to provide that support and so you'll hear about that at the meeting next in two weeks how about what that's going to what we're proposing for that just a quick point i'd like to make i i agree with the direction but

113i think maybe when we use the term online and i know it's how we're currently structured how we're currently financed i think 10 years ago only half of the adults had these and they weren't even smart right and we talked in terms of online and in classroom and where we're going with the lead it seems like a lot of our lead experiences are accessing global assets that we can pull into the classroom and self-directed and i think with artificial intelligence once we gamify education how that will totally transform and so you know i know we're doing bond issues and this is this may be a little distant thinking here but i think we never really get away from online meaning our programs continue to find ways to expand resources that we bring into the classroom

114and we teach our kids because their own metaverses i guess using an overplayed term right now but their own they're becoming increasingly digital i cannot believe the number of teenagers who are not getting their driver's license when they turn 16 because they live on these devices and if they live on these devices um and and how we just conduct our our businesses now everything is becoming so virtualized that um there's a part of me that worries about giving that skill set away but i know short term it's the right business decision to make i just i'm an advocate it is but at the same time i think um you're exactly right in the sense that there those are closing in terms of the skills we are teaching them but we're teaching them when they have

115this device sitting you know somewhere in their school and have a personal connection with a staff member and or staff members and we're finding that that's the most successful approach is when they're in the school but yes we are fully aware that the way in which students learn the content in which it's delivered to them how that's being packaged and so on um is is constantly changing we're trying to stay on top of that um and uh we're doing it in that blended more the blended model yeah so i think that's what i'm hearing you say that we've just found kids want to be in in the school yeah i just don't want to lose sight of i agree as we we look at online we look at in classroom i just seeing a convergence

116happening and i don't want to i want to make sure we never lose sight of that and i think it's it's not just it's it's kind of hard i mean it's it's it's k-12 it really is so dr courtney i wanted to ask you kind of touched on um students and the families being able to kind of select what they felt was best so are they going to understand as a process do they come to their counselors and say i want to go online and what's my my options um what's the are the counselors being taught about all the different pieces of each platform to be able to counsel them the right way so that hopefully they make the best choice the first time for it okay um so i'm giggling because i that's part

117of my budget assumption suggestion so it just keeps circling and i've been vague and i might as well just um share so one of the suggestions that i have given that's included in the budget assumptions is to have not necessarily a counselor for online but essentially someone who builds the role of connecting those students between the vendor and the district so that would be the person who's very highly trained on the different platforms who's able to communicate with the families i our counselors are very very talented and very very busy so training all of our counselors in all of our buildings about 13 different platforms and the enrollment processes for 13 different platforms and how to find the courses when all 13 different platforms put them in different places is not feasible so i have

118suggested that we hire one person to become an expert and to coordinate or facilitate those relationships between the student the family the provider and us so that person would be the one that the family goes to to find the right fit and then that person would be the point person all the way through their cap experience would be the one contacting them about progress would be the one knocking on the door if they haven't been active for a while and we haven't been able to get a hold of them to make sure that you know everything's okay and that they do have internet access and um really bridging that gap between us and an outside i provider part of the question that you're asking too is when they enroll how do they know and already

119in our handbook that we have that our students our guide our course guide we have courses that we already have been offering online and they're marked that way but a student simply tells their counselor and then they will refer them up if they want that information and so it's we want to get that now while they're enrolling because what's happened in the past they've enrolled in classes for example last year then we had to go unenroll them remember last we were screaming last year trying to get them re-enrolled and getting classes built and do all those type of things and so let's get that information up on if that's an educational choice that you'd like let us know up front and then we'll work to you through the processes of doing that and the counselors

120will still be able to facilitate their academic plan to save that for yes would that be a new position are you reallocating a counselor from somewhere it would be out of those fte that you saw where we had the teachers and we're going from like eight and a half or nine teachers to be where we'd have one we want to provide great support we want to provide choice we want to provide options but we want to do it in an efficient way we also want to put it in a way that is supported and we want to take care of our own do we lose any flexibility i mean as inconvenient as it's been with cobia changing so many times i know we've really strived to have the option to change as we've changed our

121actually gives us as much or even more flexibility yeah i think that's what's nice because they'll need it different they just they have rolling enrollments versus fixed time enrollments and i think synchronous asynchronous those type of conversations so so my understanding then is if a student let's say had a medical issue that arose quickly and could no longer attend school on a daily basis then this would be an option even in the middle of a semester we already do that we've been able to do that we do that with even in our discipline process okay we need students to have access to uh quality coursework yes we that's something we already do okay good i mean that's that's another plus then thank you dr bernie we have information written items tonight for four of them

122items 8.1 through 8.4 which are all relative to bids contracts agreements any questions for dr coward we'll move on to policies procedures and forms we have policies and procedures on this evening's agenda as information items items 9.1 through 9.4 are policies the board will be asked to take action on these policies at the january 27th regular meeting there's also one procedure item 9.5 and no board action will be required that's informational any questions for mr folger i just have one on on the timing of this the school board election ballot placement we won't fully implement this until the end of the month will this be for this april's election or will it be after that point yeah we're kind of ahead of the game on actually implementing it so this is just to catch up

123never policy reflect the new statute but for the filing period that just happened uh we've complied with a new timing um and then on the political campaigns um there might be some um items there that would affect the current say for example the bond issue or the the politic the school board election once again is that would it go into effect for this election or for next election um it's in effect for this election okay i don't think the language change will have too much of a significant impact it's pretty similar i think it's just kind of trying to clarify what was already there um and in fact in our employee insider i had a reminder go out to our staff about those obligations just yesterday so we're on that but but yeah that statute's

124in place so this is to just have our policy mirror that okay thank you mr folger uh we'll move to item 10.0 public comments from the posted agenda are there any patrons that wish to address the board regarding any items from tonight's posted agenda seeing none we'll move on to board member reports and requests mr payne thank you ms reed and thank you mrs newberg yeah i actually have two and one is i'm bringing this up on 8.3 i know that that has been a long-standing issue within the district for the communications equipment that has been a concern not only within the district but with our law enforcement partners and so i'm glad that we're finally getting that fixed my other question kind of also is is with a previous item which made me think

125of um i kind of like to know what's going on at plaza with the uh issue with the gymnasium right now it's with the structural engineers okay and they have not gotten back to us and they are trying to give us the best option to do with that roof at the plaza gym and people don't know what we're talking about we're talking about we have a problem at plaza remember plaza is one of our oldest buildings so it has wood structure trusses but then there was a drop ceiling put on and created some weight and so it really is a we want our structural engineers to give us that information and that advice of what the best options are to do so as soon as we have that we will bring that to you so

126that we can resolve that issue it's been a little slower than we hoped it would be but i i want to make sure they're they have their information right and they're they're the ones who will be responsible for those calculations so let's make sure that they're correct absolutely what had just brought it to mind was the effect with um you know we're now in the heart of the winter and so that having that facility out of use might be causing some challenges there it has they're very fortunate to have two gymnasiums in plaza which makes it fun and dr singletary has done a wonderful job working with that and working with other bunch of schools thank you mrs woodward no thank you mr klein thank you mr mances thank you um i'll need a motion

127and second to adjourn to closed session pursuant to chapter 610 section 21 of the revised missouri statutes for the purpose of discussing matters relevant to subsection 1 legal and three and thirteen personnel from a second i have a motion from ms reed and the second by mrs woodley to adjourn the closed session to discuss legal and personnel matters mrs hicks would you call the world please yes bowling yes fame yes new burger yes reed yes woodley yes thank you board members please turn your mics off we'll take a short break let's be back at 8 30 and remember to stay seated until the stream fades thank you you