Park Hill School District Board Meeting 10/14/2021

001good evening i call the october 14th meeting of the park hill board of education to order please uh we'll miss reed is on the phone joining us by teleconference and if you please join me 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'll ask you uh please silence your phones and 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 speak and listen respectfully any announcements this evening mr payne uh none thank you mr monsas none thank you mrs newberger no thank you this is woodley none thank you mr fine no thank you

002miss reed no thank you i'll need a motion and second to adopt the october 14th agenda as presented second second i have a motion for mr klein and the second by mrs woodley to adopt the agenda as presented dr coward and i'm sorry did you have me and nelson i just didn't want to mention that dr kelly's not with tonight he's presenting at a national conference and doctor dial is cheering on her daughter right now state tennis finals nothing but the best thank you and do you have any modifications not this evening thank you lord any modifications all those in favor say aye aye any of you any opposed say name motion carries 7-0 we'll move to recognitions and awards i'll turn it over to ms kirby thank you so much we have a couple

003exciting recognitions this evening they are both in the area of the national merit scholarship program we had three national merit finalists throughout the district they were riley hunt from park hill high school and sanjana kotha from park hill high school and sid suvarna from park hill south high school as national merit finalists they come they performed among the top students in the entire country on the recent psat exam and they are in the running for national merit scholarships and a lot of scholarship opportunities at top universities we also had several national merit commended scholars park hill high school srinivas gandam joshua gere tommy mathis and kyle naluwan from park hill south high school we had keegan good the national merit commended student recognition is also one of the highest honors given by the national merit

004scholarship program so we're very proud of all these students for their high achievement congratulations to them [Applause] thank you we're going to move to public comments during this part of our agenda we will receive public comments from patrons attending in person followed by comments received by writing by the noon deadline today mrs hibbs i know we've received several cards yes we have uh ms hibbs will post the order of the cards and 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 and keep you updated in the event the total time

005limit expires any remaining registration cards will be provided to all board members and i know we've already been sent the comments that were emailed in today as well please direct your comments to the entire board if a response is appropriate i will respond or refer to another individual in an effort to respect privacy we ask that speakers refrain from discussing personal complaints involving individual staff members or students we had three comments by the noon deadline today and we were already sent those so we'll see how the time goes if we're able to read those aloud or not sharika barnes hi my name is shrika barnes um i just would like to talk about the incident that happened at park hill south um i'm beyond disappointed by the situation that happened at park hill south as

006a graduate of park hill high school a taxpayer parent of two recent park hill high school graduates it is it is disappointing the ball has been dropped since the 90s on diversity and inclusion um i am hoping that the district will look into getting some diversity inclusion facilitators i have four a couple of names over to dr coward for some people to look into um one person that i have particular is dr nicole price she lives in the district she's a taxpayer she's a parent of a former park hill school district graduate um so she understands and she's dealt with some of these issues previously um if um the district has continued to say that they are serious about conversations and that they want to do something different however i have yet to see them

007act um how many times have you guys said this is going to be a teachable moment and we're going to do better yet here's another example of things not getting better the black students in park hill school district don't feel supported the statistics show black students in park hill school district are punished more and at a higher frequency i'm very confident that if the black student union had an online position about the white students it would have been in the news immediately there would have been an emergency school board meeting and so i just believe that park hill school district was banking on a lot of black parents not acting park hill school she wants to boast about test scores and being one of the top schools in kansas city missouri and even the u.s

008but pretty sure if you took a survey of the former and current black students that have graduated as well as firmer and current black parents that survey would rank quite differently it's been 30 years since i've graduate almost 30 years since i've graduated from park hill and a racist teacher said some horrible things to me and how did park hill school district handle candidate she was named teacher of missouri and she became an assistant principal at park hill south that the incident where the park current park hill high school south teacher principal dealt with the black lives matter situation how did they handle it he was promoted to principal of park hill south so it's not surprising that the students would think that it was okay to do a petition about slavery if their principal

009does not support black lives matter what is a relative reality is almost 30 seconds oh the current students so what the results will be is well we have the same statements emails newsletters i hope not and i really hope that i am not sitting in front of you 30 years from now having this same conversation thank you julie stutterheim shara fields good evening uh my name is shirai fields proud cousin of uh shurika barnes um a few kids in the district uh i didn't go to school in this district thank god uh so um the person's directly or indirectly responsible for the brash and reckless behavior um of the white children in this district are their heinous parents the superintendent and this overwhelmingly white school board you're responsible for not sending a swift message that

010such deranged and disgusting behavior won't be tolerated so when you tell us there's zero tolerance for racism we no longer believe you when you tell us that you care about the safety of black children we say that you're lying and we don't trust you if we must we have no problem taking these matters into our own hands we are tired of asking you all to be human to treat us with compassion and respect something you will never have to ask of us yes god made us with really cool hair dark sun-kissed skin and a heart to forgive our oppressors over and over and over again but even the most resilient can only take so much you boast and brag as sharika said about being top rated in this top-rated school as far as test scores

011are concerned but if you are doing nothing when children aren't being safe you are nothing more but a top than a top rated embarrassment and you should be ashamed do better parkhill lakeisha kelly good evening um i just want to say that all of the students in park hill are well aware when you say there's zero tolerance for drugs alcohol and bringing those things into the district and weapons but they all realize if you ask any of those students what happens if you're caught with a weapon they automatically tell you we will be suspended or even expelled but when it comes to racial gestures or innuendos speaking speech hate speech as i like to call it they don't know that they'll say well so-and-so got away with that nothing happened or i reported it to

012the board i reported to my principal and nothing happened so when you say zero tolerance regarding that it does not come across as such it seems like there is a clear distinction between what you feel is zero tolerance and what you don't i knew a student that brought rocks to school and she was suspended but somebody who you know says something to other kids it may it's being looked at it's a gray area that sort of thing also would like to say that there is a severe lack of diversity um in your district amongst your curriculum your literature my student's a senior and she has not once had a novel that was assigned to her that was written by anybody other than a white female or white male you have a third of your district

013minority students which means you have a third of your families that are minorities and that needs to be celebrated their cultures their music their accomplishments and these students don't know any of that um when we asked the teacher and the principal about what to do about getting more diversity amongst their novels their poems their videos we were told our hands are tied there's only so much that's approved and we have to go by what the board says there were a few of you approved on a list that i looked at which means that the teachers don't feel comfortable signing it or or don't feel supported i would like to propose that we do a um what north kansas city does and when they assign the kids who want to go into education they get affiliated

014university so that they are able to get discounted tuition rates for those going to education in exchange they come back into the district park hill and work for two to three years highly encouraging the minorities in the district to be educators and administrators here working for two or three years for reduced loans and then the last thing i wanted to say was that i feel like hr should be under um some sort of review like a group from the parents because there seems to be a lack of hiring them i personally know of five people who applied to park hill who were never even called back let alone an interview these were highly experienced teachers and so that just shows that there is a misuse in them the system and the bias is being checked

015chris pettigen uh hi my name is chris pettigene 7509 north america i'm going to be quick since there's a lot of people here um according to the kc mo tracker um the majority if not all the park hill district is in the 65 plus vaccination vaccinated rate versus the other half the the kc prop for jackson county sections that's in the 40 percent or less section this the whole kc metro being lumped into the 2 million plus into the same restrictions as a necessity i believe is a little extreme wouldn't you want to set an example if the whole thing hinges on vaccination rates show that you can relax relax restrictions based on the best vaccination status in the metro also doesn't this alleviate the concern of kids bringing cove at home if someone more

016susceptible is all if they are now vaccinated um yeah i'll pause there so we can get more people in thank you thank you jeff holmes thank you i was here last month at the board meeting and i was told to be patient and wait and i would see the change my daughter and i met with the principal at park hill south and he also said be patient and wait and you will see the change in that process in this time we're here now i have a narita quote by dr martin luther king he spoke about gradualism which often leads to escapism and stand still ism and do nothingism i am absolutely appalled by this board's absolute refusal inability or unwillingness to act you have you seem to have no idea how to heal a community

017that has been destroyed by an advantageous school i spoke about the kind words that were being tossed around and that's all they are kind words children at the school have no idea what you really mean because they don't see you really doing anything we're we're at a crossroads or you're at the ground zero of hatred you can fix it but thus far you have chosen to do nothing it is disheartening and is also scary for the children of the school who walk the halls and don't know who really likes me and who doesn't will i be accepted or will not be accepted but yet this board refuses to act not only this board each individual school refuses to do anything i implore all of you to actually do something take some sort of action that

018all of these children feel included as i said i'm absolutely appalled at your absolute refusal to act thank you for your time eric schlossenberg good evening everybody how are you thank you for giving me an opportunity to speak in front of you all clearly there's a lot of stuff going on in this district that has to do with a lot of topics and what an interesting place you guys find yourselves in um i got a few things that i want to ask about um simply in terms of critical race theory there's four books that i'd like to know that are if they're in the circulation with inside this school i won't go into the details and the pornographic information and images and so forth they're in these books but i believe that every parent if

019they're listening online or whatever would like to look into these books one is called fun home one is called all boys aren't blue one is out of the darkness and another is lawn boy now in terms of what is known as the elementary and secondary school emergency relief fund um for those who don't know uh they're listening this is different than the cares act this is different than monies in the cares act and this is a sunshine state request that's currently being sent on behalf of the parents in the district i respectfully make this request to the park hill school district smithfield board of educators excuse me it's actually park hill school board of education and business finance department of park hill school district for records under the missouri sunshine law chapter 610 rsmo missouri

020public records law section 109.180 rsmo and the common law right and public access in missouri i respectfully request that you produce number one a record of the individual applications park hill school district filled out when applying for each of the following emergency relief funds american rescue plan e-s-s-e-r-one e-s-s-e-r and e-s-s-e-r-3 number two a record of smithville gosh darn it park hill school districts safe return to in-person instruction and continuity of service plans submitted to the missouri department of elementary and secondary education for 2021. number three records reflecting or relating to any guidelines or mitigation strategies the park hill school district had to follow or comply with to receive any emergency relief funds from the american rescue plan ess er1 ess er2 and esser3 the types of records and subjects that we request include but are

021not limited to internal or external paper or electronic draft or final documents notes correspondence memoranda letter email spreadsheets databases text messages and instant messages so basically what i'm letting you guys know is we're working really hard to figure out how you guys make decisions and i appreciate your time hi everybody how are you i got quite a job my name is crystal fuller and i didn't bring any prepared comments i am a former homeschool mom my daughter is 11. so i put her in school i homeschooled her let me tell you why because we saw a turn in school i'm a public school kid so it's my husband my whole family but we saw a turn when my daughter was she was born in 10 and so just a couple years later saw homosexual books

022and libraries saw this common core math saw all these things that now we're all awakening to that the left has taken over our schools and they've decided to make our schools petri dishes and social engineering projects for our children and it's not okay we just recently heard merrick garland say people that are concerned parents that are earnestly concerned about their children being taught these crt uh homosexual lgbtq all the things um transgender all these things that they're being taught uh revisionism and history just many things just all these things and teachers being political in classrooms where we see these videos all over the nation would say don't tell your parents don't tell your parents fill this out but don't tell your parents it's wrong we are sick of it we are tired of what we

023would just what our children taught reading writing arithmetic banned choir leave them alone please stop politicizing they're not your children hands off of our kids we thank you for what you've done we want you to teach them we don't want you to make them anything like yourselves they're our kids we get to raise them for ourselves and now the crt has been inserted and it's not that here's the book for crt no no it's inserted in everything there's um blm in all in different programs it's everywhere it's crazy you know what there should not be racism i my family had their best friends were black never but no one gets no no i'm telling but people assume if you're white you're just you're we're racist right if you're white you're automatically racist we're not and

024no one gets to say that no one knows me or anyone else on the planet and if they do when they find out they'll know but why is this okay that you automatically say because you're white you're racist that's the thought it's wrong it's not right and we've had enough so i'm just here to say stop politicizing our schools teach them and leave them alone you have your opinions you raise your kids the way you want everybody can they have a choice when they come to school there should be i agree with these women there should be zero tolerance for racism absolutely i agree with that but we don't do the other thing mlk used to be the wonderful and he is a wonderful man a reverend a republican by the way who said no

025racism i have a dream and where is that everybody just poo-pooed him and said no no no he's no longer the deal now it's all about your skin it's all about your skin what on earth is going on here woe to those who call good evil and evil good isaiah 5 20. we are here it's ridiculous people call good things bad and bad things good it's unacceptable we're not we're done with this it's silly we're going to fight fight we're going to turn everyone over who's going to do this and continue this stuff it's ridiculous thank you for what you do yeah can i get my three minutes no thank you and by the way sorry okay our uh we've expired our time for public comments so um the remaining cards that we have will

026be distributed to the board members as i mentioned before anyone that emailed those have been distributed to the board members as well i guess i would encourage just based on the topics that were discussed for people to stay and watch the meeting because i know there's a couple of updates on things that were asked about in that um i'm also going to ask about a sunshine request there is there's a formal process to make a sunshine request we can provide that for okay be happy to do that because it's online we can do that okay but just coming here and stating it does not take care of that okay so we'll follow up with that thank you all very much for your thoughts uh this evening's consent agenda includes items 5.1 through 5.14 dr coward

027are there items that need to be highlighted you know the only one i would say is that we're hitting that time right now we're starting to see just our retirements and so i just asked the board to kind of look at those who are several there so we just appreciate their time and their services lord we have questions for dr coward i do on item uh 513. there and that is the a plus program evaluation um i i know dr coward you and i had talked earlier but i want to make sure that that the information got to everyone i know that um covid and having restricted visitors to school and not having all the activities normally where students can receive their a plus tutoring hours is is a concern and especially since this is

028now going into its second year for some of these students who when they signed up for the program thought they had two years to complete what are we doing to make sure that they can complete this program especially since obviously covet and the restrictions it's brought are not their fault sure we've been working i appreciate the work of dr kimbrell and dr kelly on this one particularly around adventure club and it's a place where a lot of our students get their hours and so we are allowing mid-year grads we're most concerned about them because they if they don't get those hours in before that time and we'll get that we're also allowing them to use other opportunities for example there's an education run that's coming up there's school carnivals there's other events that are happening

029within schools and so they've identified and worked with our a plus coordinators to identify those that our students can have as many options as they can to get those hours taken care of we've also been in contact with department of higher ed asking for a waiver on that also made the deci aware of the concern about that and received content back from them and again i think that's the issue they'll have if they make any waivers like last year it's 50 hours of tutoring and in the last year they cut it to 25 for the 2021 grads department of higher ed probably wouldn't do that until the spring semester so that's why our focus really is on those mid-year grads right now we have several and we know that they want to use those dollars

030to go to community college so or to a four-year college within the state so i think we've got those taken care of and i think we're in pretty good place for that thank you for asking good because you know i know that's a valuable program for students and their parents absolutely consider and if they were hoping for those hours to go to community college first we want to make sure that they can do that absolutely absolutely thank you for asking just following a quick comment on um let's see i'm sorry 510 it's the bleachers for the tennis courts i just uh i know that we're making that investment this is a great partnership that we have with the city right they uh through the payout process made a significant investment in reports they're brand new

031i've seen our community come out and use those i just wanted to make sure as we're making investments do we now have a renewed plan in which we won't fall behind in deferred maintenance right we've got that with the city in the city okay okay great thank you a question on 512 the communication services program dr can you kind of review some of our communications and how effective you think they've been in in dealing with some current issues happening at the schools maybe giving some examples of the communications you've been using sure but we actually review all those communications every year through our paper insight and review and find out which ones are the most effective and so we've done everything from direct communication we've done videos we've done emails we've done personal uh conversations

032with people and so we've tried to hit all those different areas put things on our website we've worked with outside partners we've put messages out we've done is everything that we think of that we normally would do plus more and i think you'll likely hear more about that as we talk about our access and inclusion work tonight too okay we've had a request to speak up they're having a hard time hearing us tonight so make sure your legs are on maybe it's because my mind speaks into the microphones okay if there are no other questions i would take a motion and second to approve the consent agenda items 5.1 through 5.14 is presented so move second i have a motion from miss woodley and a second by mr bain to approve the consent agenda as

033presented all those in favor say aye aye aye mrs reed aye thank you any opposed say nay motion carry 7-0 we're going to move to our first action item adoption of resolution for the sale of general obligation refunding bonds right and we've talked about this several times and so this is just the next step on that we are scheduled to have the bond sale is scheduled for 10 am on monday october 18th that will be online that is a competitive sale as discussed and then the final closing date on that happens on november the 4th once you clear all the paperwork and everything gets finished through and so this is just that next step we talked about we're anticipating saving our taxpayers about 4.7 million over the next 15 years for this action i'll need

034a motion and second to adopt a resolution authorizing not to exceed 12.5 million dollars of principal amount of taxable general obligation refunding bonds the missouri direct deposit program series 2021 of the park hill school district of platte county missouri and authorizing certain other related documents and actions by the district absolutely second also i have a motion for mr klein in the second by mrs neuberger to adopt the resolution for sale of general obligation refunding bonds as presented are there any questions seeing none all those in favor say aye aye aye aye any opposed say nay motion carry 7-0 we're going to move to an information presentation 7.1 is access and inclusion update dr coward and dr dion yes i'd like to welcome dr terry dion she is our director of access inclusion and family engagement

035and she'll be sharing our current what is happening what's them happening and what's going to happen i'd also point out to the board that a part of that consent agenda which i should have highlighted is two different uh vendors that we would be working with outside experts one is jamie grayson's parent in our district also has a program called people of all color work with our students the student athletes another outside the pacific solutions and they'll be working with us and so that'll be the first steps in that direction so that was important good evening i'm dr terry dion director of access inclusion and family engagement and i'm bringing to you tonight an update on access and inclusion so i want to start with the fact that we believe dr coward and i have done

036a lot of listening a lot of talking to different community groups and we believe that this work will come in three lanes of critical stakeholders and that is the lane of students staff and parents and community i want to start with the work at park hill south high school as a response to the incident that occurred there was an all-school message that was sent out to the student body there were open lunch conversations that gave a time for students to process and have a listening ear there were outreach communication there there has been outreach communication with students and families there is a black student union at park hill south as there is at leed and at park hill high school and i do know there was a park a black student union meeting at park

037hill south that is a student affinity group i have even been a part of one of those listening sessions so there have been more than one i have been a part of that i joined staff members of color to listen to students and to hear about their thoughts and their experiences and just have an opportunity for them to process there also was a discussion and debrief with the football program dr heron connected with members of the black student union and sent an email to the entire group dr herron also conducted grade level assemblies that emphasized the prioritization of sense of belonging and an environment where everyone is welcome following these assemblies the students then had an opportunity to reflect and the reflection questions regarding this fostering the same sense of belonging and an inclusive culture

038in the building the next steps as far as students will be avid lessons that's advancement via individual determination we will continue that that's work that we've been involved in sense of belonging council at park hill south will continue to do work and now leaning into the development of lessons and activities that student group has been in existence at park hill south for quite some time there are student town hall meetings those are lunch opportunities that are offered to students to give them an opportunity to share their thoughts and provide input i do know they had one today with guiding questions again focusing on fostering an inclusive environment so dr dionne i could ask a question you might address this later in your presentation but as you were listening to those conversations especially in the schools

039did they have steps or actions that could be taken to do they have suggestions or requests of things that would happen as far as the student groups and i listened at leed as well and yes they have they have ideas they have the students do have ideas now i guess can you elaborate a little bit on that and what some of the suggestions were and how we're working those into our plans right now we're in we're in the phase of listening because as dr coward just mentioned uh we will have a third party consultants which will also part of their first phase will be going out and listening to stakeholders because that's what informs informs the work the students have a lot of wounds from other incidents to be honest with you there's a lack

040of trust overall and they just want to know that people are there to support them and that they are listened and valued and they want to be able to bring their true selves to school and we know that students operate best when they're in a high trust low stress environment and those are basically uh some of the things that i've heard that that i've shared i've done a lot of listening and i don't want to discredit listening the media has tried to do that a little bit and there's such value to listening and being new in this role it has been critical for me to hear stories and to hear experiences that will help us to guide the work that will help us to refine the work and the next steps as we work with

041the consult the third party consultants and devise a strategic plan a couple follow-ups on that um and i don't want to discount listening either because i know it's a critical step but i can understand the frustration of students and families wanting something to happen immediately and so are we going to have to kind of postpone any of these steps or actions that people are requesting while another group comes in we do another listening tour and are there things that we can put in place immediately or start to put in place even as we do the work with an outside consultant that is my hope my hope is that we we will be able to listen because it will be vital for this group to listen as well for soviet solutions and succeed to do the

042same but my hope is that we can begin to get feedback on things to reach the student level and and and to help our students at the same time and i do know that at park hill south um their tutorial um there they have a tutorial time and that was following the assembly that dr karen conducted they had that reflection period and i do know that next week they will continue to talk about norms and having conversations so the work is continuing to happen um that's and and that that is my hope that as we um enter into this partnership um officially with the third party consultant that we can begin to get some things going up and going based upon the themes from what i've heard okay i appreciate that i have another question

043i'm going to address the gentleman that has his hand up i apologize this is not an interactive meeting we had a time for public comments already so um there'll be a time at the end of the meeting as well for additional public comments and you're welcome to address the board after the meeting as well individually um so i've also i mean i heard what you're saying and i i've also heard this before about that you're saying they're wounded from other incidents do we have an idea of how many of those incidents have been reported or are those something that our students have just been absorbing themselves and i will say there are incidents that have been reported as i talk to students and i talk to community members and parents there are incidents that have

044been reported there are also incidents that have not been reported so there is a combination of both so our response to i'm going to go back i think i missed one here sorry response to staff uh there was an email sent out to the entire park hills staff to advise them of the situation the staff was invited to lunch conversations and a staff meeting was held after school immediately upon return the next week dr herron and i hosted plan period sessions with staff members to determine staff student and community needs we discussed the impact and gathered feedback from staff on next steps and their needs also there have been individual staff check-ins focusing on staff of color at park hill south especially breakfast sessions dr heron has had his second breakfast session with staff of

045color and there's a plan for another one and these are opportunities for him to hear about their concerns and also dr haron met with the staff equity and inclusion council to review a plan for students and that equity and inclusion council is in its fourth year at park hill south how large is that council that i do not know but i can get that for you i do not know that there also was a staff meeting to share dr herron's plan and the equity and inclusion council's plan to work with students and then during early release there was a strategic deployment a plan for students the next step as far as staff is ongoing professional development regarding our avid lessons and zaretta hammond's culturally responsive education and then anything else that will will come from

046our work with our consultant dr daniel um what was the reception like if you know from the staff and the faculty as far as being invited to have conversation to learn about next steps and everything else was it a good group a number wise or was it just some people who just wanted to go and then we have which point are you referring to and parker's out when you said dr herron and um you that was the invitations for yeah so that was all staff members we saw all staff members throughout the course of the day so it would be it's something that was built into the schedule um naturally that they do and it would be a time for either professional development or staff nuts and bolts kinds of items and we use that

047day specifically because it was following immediately following the incident for these sessions and that was all staff members attended okay let me make sure it touched yes even office staff um everyone yes thank you did you get a good sense that staff was comfortable sharing their concerns or was it kind of just something they were there and attending or did you get a sense that they were very vocal about steps i think you have your combination of both like in most situations some people very very comfortable to express themselves we gave opportunities for verbal um individual uh response and input but also there were small discussions at tables where i was able to walk around in dr herron and i was able to capture um some themes and and some concerns and then there was

048there was also an opportunity for them to privately reflect and leave we left those on on sticky notes for dr herron and his administrative staff to review and there's been opportunity for say staff to reach out anonymously they don't feel comfortable sharing or you know expressing yes as far as the community lane in response to the community of course there was messaging that went out to the community regarding the incident there has been ongoing and will continue to be outreach and communication with students and families i have talked to several students i've talked to several families parents community members people from tulsa people from atlanta that have ties to this district uh dr coward has talked to many many people dr herron has talked to to many people we will continue to do that um

049that's that's important it's important to hear people's lived experiences and it's it's important to hear that um there was a message in the weekly family newsletter dr hand does a a newsletter weekly and there was a message pertaining to this at the football game there was a public address given dr herron also sent out a school messenger uh communication to families regarding parent-teacher conferences and this is when he informed them that there was an open invitation if they wanted to come and speak and sit down and speak with him i believe he had about a dozen people that came that did take him up on that on that offer and have those individual meetings during parent-teacher conferences also he has a family advisory council that's in its second year of existence there at park hill

050south and they had a special meeting they convened a special meeting just to discuss this and and to formulate some steps moving forward um as far as our response to the community next step next steps be continued family updates in the newsletter dr herron will continue to work with his family advisory council that meets at least quarterly and then continued follow-up conversations as as requested as far as the district response as you have seen there has been much communication regarding the incident we are following our disciplinary processes we met with the naacp which stands for national association for the advancement of colored people many of you have seen hopefully you have seen the joint statement that was put out from park hill school district in the naacp we have some ongoing accountability to the naacp

051as far as the work that we are doing and the next steps and we will continue to adhere to that we dr coward and i have had two meetings um thus far where we have met with representatives of our community that are faith-based leaders as well again thinking of this in the lanes of staff students and community we dr coward has met with the united states department of justice community relations representative and that there are some things where um we're considering as far as what they have to offer um and we will meet with them again next week um it's actually the 25th this is next time they're available to meet with us october 25th october 25th okay and um uh we met with dr coward and i last year if you remember when i

052was in the role as special advisor to dr coward we had an established superintendent's family advisory group we we pulled that group together because they knew they they know the work they they know um what we've been doing and things that we talked about and needs of our of our community and our school district and we and we um pulled that group together to talk about um the incident and their thoughts and to ask for advice on um what they see as as the most immediate needs we were able to get some feedback and some suggestions from that group as well and then of course as you have heard we have now have identified a partnership with suffolk solutions and poet people of all colors succeed and then we will we plan to use their

053expert feedback and info information and insight to advise us as we develop a strategic plan of action for parkville school district as far as next steps it was already planned that i would carry the torch from having a superintendent's advisory team to my own access and inclusion advisory team that group has been identified i've reached out to parents i have parents on that and our first meeting is october 25th we also many of you may know that a few years ago we started a group called embrace that was for staff members of color in the district so basically an employee resource group or a staff affinity group and we are called embrace educators moving towards better relationships and cultural empowerment is what that stands for um cobit sort of um derailed us a little bit

054and and we were in our infancy stages right right before that so we are reconvening and looking to grow that group now that i'm in this role officially i'm beginning to meet and learn of many other staff members of color that are in the district that i wouldn't have known otherwise and so we are hoping to grow that group and use that group in many ways um in this work as well um we will continue to meet with faith-based and other community leaders and we will continue to cooperate with the accountability pieces that have been put forth with our partnership with the naacp we are also um this has been a something we've talked a lot about especially with our community faith-based leaders we will we plan to develop a webinar series to support parents

055and families one thing we asked our superintendents advisory group from last year is what sort of topics do you believe we need to focus on and some of their immediate responses were things like you know talking to your students about race um social media um uh digital citizenship those kinds of things um that we've learned are we we knew were important things but out of this incident we know there's a greater sense of urgency to have these opportunities for us all to learn and improve as a community we will continue our partnership with the banneker school foundation and historical site as far as our goal our goals are to gather stakeholder feedback including students staff and community our goals are to develop a strategic plan to address access and inclusion with measurable outcomes our goal

056is to foster a culture that is inhospitable to hate hurtful words that negatively affect a student or their family's sense of belonging in our schools and community in closing this work lives in goal two so if you look at our comprehensive school improvement plan the orange circle is ensure success for all students regardless of background that is where this work lives it also aligns with our core value of equity we as a district have been and will continue to be committed to this work it is absolutely paramount that we have the participation of all stakeholders in this endeavor this journey because it is not a destination it is a journey this journey will require us all to listen to ask questions to gain clarification to grow to learn to heal to be vulnerable and ultimately

057to restore long after this board has turned over multiple times and our current district leadership team has retired this community and this school district will still be here and it will belong to all of us i believe in doing work that is legacy work far outlasting those individuals that are currently overseeing it this is the time for us all and i emphasize all to commit and devote ourselves to this work will it be easy absolutely not is it necessary absolutely so our ask is for your patience your support but most importantly your partnership as we all there's that word once again all students staff parents and community come together to do this legacy work that will impact this community our community for many many years to come do you have questions for me i do

058have questions and i feel a little bad because i would like to end on that as very well said thank you and i think you uh very well articulated our feelings about this as well and the work that we're going to do i guess i want to emphasize kind of to our public that i think some people are demanding action and i think our inability to talk about discipline or individual students or how this is played out is very frustrating to our community but i hope that they can realize that first of all we're prohibited by law from talking about it so we can't talk about specifics around that incident but our response to that is not defined by how we discipline or what happens to the students involved our response to this is much

059bigger and lies in the work that you're doing and it is longer and harder and involves more people it's very painstaking work but we very much appreciate you doing it and we're very committed to doing it with you thank you so um this is not so much a question um but again i as much as i say that i would any urgency that we can apply to the situation we would really appreciate doing that and i know we're bringing other people on board and other entities to help us but please don't let that slow us down i would also i guess like to give you both the opportunity to talk a little bit take a step back on the work that we're already doing have been doing for several years as we have addressed part

060of our comprehensive school improvement plan um and i think we've all been very proud of that but in light of this situation i feel like it's not at the pace that we want to make the work and the progress so i think this has changed that but i do want to touch on kind of our trajectory so far and what we have put in place to be able to grow on if you can talk about sure i'd be happy to do that and also just backing up to on the uh on the naacp i don't think terry and i got a chance to talk today so i apologize for that but i was able to visit with janiece comer and she is the naacp she's their educational chair for them and actually she's the one

061for the accountability piece and one of the things i think is wonderful about that and we we had a great collaborative meeting about that of what the steps are we're doing and the direction we're going and they're in full support of everything that we're doing and how we're doing it but i think having that outside party because of things you heard tonight to say about accountability and the way you build trust is by doing those things and not just saying but have somebody else watching and making sure you do it and we we respect the naacp and the work that they've done and so we believe they're a good outside partner for us to do that work and so we appreciate that and the work that we're trying to do with the department of justice

062it's called community relations services is where that's based because this is a community issue as dr dale said this is not a single school issue it's in every one of our schools it's known through our community and this is our opportunity to address that and make sure we do it correctly i think some of the things you're speaking about are the work we've done and they've both been focused on the adults will be very frank with you they've been focused on members of this board we've been focused on our administrative team our leadership team and then our teachers i think the thing that dr dion and i both identified very clearly is that our students are ready for this work and are ready to go uh it's a little more challenging with the adults and

063we understand that and we're okay with that we're still committed to doing that but we had not been focused on the students i think that's why it was an important part mr mr holmes mentioned this to around the students is how do we address that with the students how do we also include student voice and choice i also met with the black student union and one of the things that kept coming up was around safe and so my question for them because i heard from some of them in the group but not all of them i want to make sure i had all voices and so they actually i had they shared i had notes for them to share with me what does safe mean to you because it means something different to each of

064our students for some it was trusted adult for some was just feeling like i was safe walking down the hallway i mean there's so many different ways to address that and so i want to make sure that our assumptions are not getting in the way but i would agree that other things we have done is changed our gifted program and opened that up and so that it is reflective and change those rules because they are keeping kids out we remove barriers as far as things as access to all of our coursework i believe we're the only school district that does not require fees to be in courses to go to to field trips and those type of things the student needs transportation for professional studies any student could be in those programs we provide all

065that for them program equity audits we put into place three years ago to identify the gaps that we have in those areas and those are part of every program evaluation that comes before this board of education to see that and so i think just looking at some of those major pieces that we've done also identified what do we believe is instruction and also what do we believe is behavior and how do you identify behavior and we had some suggestions from the students that we'll actually discuss and we'll have to go through legal and do some of those things but we want to look at all those ideas and push them through so i do appreciate that work because i think that's what has been happening but as i said we can choose to react or

066we can respond we prefer to respond and i just view this truly as a strategic plan that you post and you have measurable outcomes i think the biggest challenge in the past was i don't know what the measurable outcome was so you need to be public about what is the measurable outcomes but what are you looking for and how will you know and how we know we're making progress those are a few of those i agree and all of that has come out of the work that we've done throughout 2015 2015 exactly when started geneva gay's work but then moved toward this because it was really focused on education and we like that the responsiveness to education um and i i've known from our training that we've done through that that it goes beyond just

067the simple i mean the outcomes that you talked about were very important but it was also much more of a mind shift so i think it's important to keep up both kerry said it best he said this that's head work but it's really hard work hard work and that's why it's hard so i have a uh i didn't remember my question um as you've done these listening tours have we uh done tours in our other buildings as well because i mean it's not just happened at park hill south everyone knows about it and so other students are hurting and as well so what have we done through the other buildings our counselors have worked with those but we haven't done it to the intensive level that we have at parkhill south and front of that

068will be where we're going to pilot all these programs and put it in we need to hit there first and then just build it out as we go and so again from a strategic standpoint and getting that capacity in place yeah and i will say that um dr andy sherman um and i have um we will have our second meeting tomorrow with counselors and social workers of color in the district to devise a plan for a culturally competent crisis team because we realize that um in situations like this just because you are a counselor or a social worker doesn't mean that you might be able to respond appropriately and be that listening ear and so that is something we're working on as well that is something we feel like is is needed and we need

069some um to to plan and be able to deploy a team for that um like and i also want to um as part of the work i know in our training and some of the things that i've read since then um i guess i would encourage you to find ways to pull everyone into that because i i don't want this to fall on our staff of color to solve this problem because it's not their problem it's our problem yes um and and i know um i don't i don't want them to feel isolated because hard as we've tried we're we're struggling to find staff of color and to get in our buildings i know we that's a focus of ours but it's just been difficult so um i do i would encourage you to find

070yourself we can all help yes this is not yes but i also want to say i also want them to feel safe and have a safe space so the really hard part i will tell you that i that i continue to struggle with is while i definitely know that i am fortunate enough to work with a team that believes that this this work belongs to all of us and they don't want and i've had parents uh that i've talked to community members say but you can't how can we support you because you can't do all of this this shouldn't be on on you i will also tell you um that it constantly comes up in in the listening sessions that students do want people want to be able to talk to people that look like

071them representation matters hugely and so in this work as a leader in this field we continue i have a there's a there's a area equity leaders consortium consortium that i'm part of and we just had this conversation last week that it is it sometimes the human resource piece and hiring and retaining gets put off understandably so because there are so many other fires that you're putting out and things that you have to do that have such a greater sense of urgency but at the same time then we are hindering ourselves if that doesn't come quickly because we don't have the capacity we're not building the capacity of people because students have said when i went to a listening session i want to see people that look like me i want to talk to people that

072can relate to my lived experiences so that is important as well just another question for you um i know that we talked earlier on this year about the ability to personalize the experience to be able to the ability to personalize the experience the the shared successes i i know that we're tracking metrics but it's the stories i mean as you're listening it's the ability the stories and the ability to use our communication tools to share uh the inroads that we're making so um i know that you and i had that conversation you know i'm curious as you as you've been listening how do we how do we start to communicate some of those stories that are showing the positive attributes maybe prior you know the measurements are on a broader scale it takes time to

073move the needle on the measurements but the stories are happening i i believe stories are data um good or bad stories are data and um and we we just we we just we continue i continue um to listen and i just the lived experiences are what matters and and um i i continue to to say that i we we have to listen that's why when the media um when i feel like the media was was downplaying this this listening piece it's we've got to hear that but we've got there are positives and negatives we've got we've got to be able to tell the story um and and narrate to create the narrative and um but that's that's data in my opinion and until we have students feeling safe and a sense of belonging then that's

074data we've got work to do dr dion there's been a lot of conversation and about work that's been done um i'm actually on the family advisory council at south been on this since inception and um it's been a lot of work a lot of things going on but has there been any conversation about how do we translate that transparency to the public because even at the elementary schools it's been you know hearsay or what's been going on and they don't have no idea what's going on of the incident of the work uh the hurt and everything else only it's like just small pieces and so it's not really until we allow the whole community to know and to understand the work that's going on i think the healing is not really going to fully take

075place and be where we need it for our students and for our families and everybody that is any aspect of our kill so has there been any conversation about how we enlighten the community about the work being done you know what i mean i mean so that it's not so um siloed yeah and then you have people sitting around thinking they're not doing anything when people are spending hours and tons of emails going back and forth and just well i think there are other buildings that do have some family advisory councils i know there are when i first took on this role and had um check-ins with every building administrative team this summer several were on the brink of wanting to start a family advisory group and i could see that as a way to

076broaden that a little bit i know that dr herron has been thinking of ways that he can even use his park hill south family advisory committee to then have other committees because i definitely am hearing as i talk to so many different people that people want to hear what's going on but they want to be part of it they want their voice to be heard and again i hope that with the help of our third party consultants that we can we can broaden broaden that a little bit the messaging thank you that's actually part of what they will be doing is having those larger community conversations in pieces it's important for us again i know that the listening gets beat up and said i'm trying to get listening to you listening but we need to

077listen to i need to get out of the way and let them speak so that we can understand so we can properly and accurately address what's going on and i think that's the important part that they'll be doing with these with these groups and they'll be large groups of small groups we need to have those and that was the same conversation frankly with the department of justice and that's why we want to look at them and save so we've got all these different pieces right now but they're not organized and they're not strategic and they're not planning and so we need to get them going because otherwise we can have all sorts of good things going on and if they don't have results and they're not organized they're not going to get us anywhere and

078so that's part of the accountability yes and so that's why we need this piece to do well thank you dr coward and dion for work because with my don't daughters i've seen a change of how they feel when they come home versus before that's amazing that's great thank you for sharing that thank you thank you thank you doctor our next information presentation is nutrition services update and asked ronald mccully just uh i know that she spoke it's just been a few weeks ago months ago but this is an ongoing issue and uh i promised the board we'd come back with some information about this uh just where she is what's going on what's happening you're seeing all of the news you're seeing it every place and so uh we'll see what kind of magic rhonda

079has been able to do here my wand is a little rusty still so bear with me um as far as both of our struggles which are staffing and also food procurement i thought i would start with staffing and we are making some inroads since the last time i was here however we're still approximately 15 staff members down at the moment and i have some pending retirements coming at christmas so we are continuing to struggle a little bit in this area we're doing everything we can to recruit however part of the problem is there just aren't a lot of applicants out there in the pool as of this morning we had no new applicants so um we are also working on retention with hr and i think we're going to hear about that a little bit

080later some ideas and some strategies to preserve the staff that we do have because we are losing them to other jobs to other opportunities to health issues a number of different reasons we're losing them but anything we can do to retain them i think will be huge to help us move forward secondly we are having still having some procurement problems however since the last time i spoke with you things have improved we have received our desi shipment we've received our first commodity shipment from desi and that came in at the last last week of september and we are expecting another one in october so that's a positive in addition we've been able to source um from a number of different places as i spoke last time we're still sourcing from some local companies mize food

081benny keith has also stepped in and is helping us significantly with two deliveries a week they aren't on the capacity to fully support us but they certainly are helping our our warehouse to remain full and then kohl's has stepped up and they have given us i believe three different deliveries which has been huge to help us bridge the gap until we can find a more permanent solution so i'm hopeful that that will continue in some fashion our contract has technically ended with them but we are continuing to have conversations and talk with them to hopefully continue to get supplies as they can find staff and trucks to to support us so in the meantime i am also working with a couple of different avenues but especially one that i think is promising on a prime

082vendor or a vendor contract moving forward and i'm hopeful that we will know something soon maybe later this month and those things take time then once they're they move forward but i'm hopeful that by the end of the year the first of january that we might have a more permanent solution in a regular stream of supplies and goods coming into our warehouse so we have been able though to restore some of the items on our menu we have cereal back and the students are elated about that so um i think that we are making strides and we're holding our own which is a positive in this atmosphere and in this environment because there's a lot of people out there struggling so um i would be glad to answer any questions i can rhonda would you

083i think the fda did they not give you some or usda did they not give you a little leeway on some of your requirements for meals and yes we have we applied for a waiver that allows us to have some flexibility in following the guidelines we're still doing everything we can to follow them as closely as we can but for instance if we can't get the right fat the right right fat concentration of milk because they don't have any then we can alter that for a week or until we can get it back we can serve a white bread instead of a whole grain rich bread in those instances so things like that we're trying to minimize that as much as we can and stay true to our menus but that does give us the

084flexibility you know to make those decisions when we need to so i i saw come through facebook that i guess we'll be recognizing you the next um at the next meeting that that your hard work has been um we know we that you work miracles but apparently other people know that you do as well so congratulations on that well thank you and and also um the tv piece that you did um you know there were several that uh in a series and i i thought that she really represented us very very well and i appreciated your point of view and once again um our ability to have the storage that we have now just thinking about last year when we were in one tiny area and now at least you have the ability when you

085can get things to store them so i'm sorry i really it was the one thing that timing worked well for us and in that case it did it very much did but it's all because of our our patrons they they gave us the opportunity to build our warehouse and thank goodness we have it because we would be in a totally different situation right now did we not have that space and if we were still in our underground um abode we would be in trouble so dr howard this may be a little out of the box but i know we're missing a plus hour opportunities but yet we have a shortage and he doesn't qualify for that okay we're trying to think of everything else too yeah we're there anything we can do to help our

086kids we're trying to do so yes we're trying so thank you so much thank you very much our next information presentation is a kobit 19 update and so our director of our health services program mrs saylor was with us this evening to share information okay this first slide you guys are probably all familiar with this is our on our dashboard these are our positive cases it goes back from september 2020 up to this past current week that ended on october 10th as you can see when we started the school year we started to kind of take upward with our covid cases and the last two weeks we have kind of turned a different trend we're kind of starting to trend downward which is a really good sign i'm looking at our numbers so far this

087week there's still a few days left in our data week it doesn't end until sunday but it looks like we're going to be three weeks in a row with that data trending down this next case or this next slide kind of breaks down our data a little bit more if you look at our total of positive cases since school started we've had 246 positive cases of covid between staff and students we've had 214 students test positive and 32 staff members who have tested positive of those we were able to identify a total of 30 breakthrough cases and again that is individuals who are fully vaccinated later turned positive with covet 19. the number 15 up there that is out of the 246 cases we were able to identify 15 that were positive after a direct

088school exposure 15 might seem high but it is still way less than one percent of in-school transmission and that's due to all of the hard work that our buildings are doing on all of our mitigation strategies and we further broke down the cases by locations and there's 142 that are unknown so that means someone develops symptoms and they just don't know where their exposure came from then there's 88 that were outside of school so there may be home exposures or just somewhere else we have had ten that were from our cafeteria four that are from the classroom and then one from adventure club and one from the bus the next slide is our community data and we always tend to be just slightly higher than our community data but our community data always lags just

089a little bit behind so dr coward and i meet with the platte county and kansas city health department every thursday morning we met with them this morning and they gave us some updated data platte county's health department their data is tending to track down as well their last seven day case rate was 104.9 per 100 000. kansas city health department is seeing the same trend their last report was 136.82 cases per 100 000. so we are both trending in that downward motion which is good news for us the next slide is our exposure data and that again goes back through the year you can see a few weeks ago we had a when we had our high spike of cases unfortunately that did result in a high spike with exposures but this next slide kind

090of breaks this down and gives us a lot more information on those exposures so we do not with our mitigation strategies and the guidelines we've received from our health departments we do not have to quarantine every exposure there are exceptions to our quarantine so if someone is fully vaccinated and they've had an exposure we do not need to quarantine or if someone has tested positive for covid19 in the last 90 days they would not need to quarantine or if both parties are wearing a mask during the time of exposure we would not need to quarantine so if you look at this last week we had 157 exposures but only 35 of those were actually quarantined from school so that's a very good number i could break it down further into just student data if we

091look at how many students have had an exposure since the beginning of the year that number is and of that 969 did not need to quarantine so that's a pretty large number if we break that down 767 of those were due to both parties wearing a mask 10 of those were due to the individuals had had covet that we were able to identify within the last three months and 192 of those were in students who were fully vaccinated and then our last slide i always like to put in a plug for our antigen test site we are still running our site it has been very busy it is a free service to our students and staff they can come and they can call their building nurse and make an appointment and we will test them

092for free and it takes about 15 minutes and tammy before you finish too on our conversation this morning there's been some things put out by desi around the the test to stay yes yeah and if they haven't heard of that that is if you have been exposed then you would be if you would take three tests and i'll let you explain what it is and so what that is and what we're talking about and then what our health departments are also talking about so hopefully we'll get a little more information they didn't have an answer for us today so yeah they didn't have an answer for us today but basically the test to stay program is if you are exposed and you don't fit any of the exceptions maybe you weren't wearing a mask and

093you're exposed then you could test to stay in school and they will test you a minimum of three times so they say like it at day two day four and day seven there's some other exceptions to that that go with extracurricular if you are having practice or you have a game that you want to participate during that time frame you would need to test before you are able to participate and as we discussed this morning while it is an option our concern is i don't know how we would staff it organize it run it there's also a huge reporting component that has to be reported in 24 hours and then of course the parents need to be present when the testing is done that they signed one thing and jesse really couldn't answer those questions

094for us this week so i think they're still trying to figure that out also and so we're trying to come up with some other options that would be a little a little less instead of three different different testing times that's uh that's that's a lot and then waiting for the 15 minutes for each one so i don't know what that's going to look like and so we're not in our health departments mars day day was talking with them is that they are going to get together across the region so that they're more consistent of what they're doing and what they're recommending yeah so that's what we know as a this morning and we'll get more information we'll be happy to share it as we've always done anybody have any questions for me i haven't been

095tracking on the fda and the immunization for the younger kids can you just give me a quick update on that so last that i have heard is that they are hoping to get approval for that by the end of this month we have been talking with kansas city and platte county health department on if we would they are not going to be doing mass vaccination sites but we would host as a district an opportunity it would be in the evening or a weekend for those families that choose to vaccinate their children we would we would host an event for them thank you anyone else i just have one question back to maybe the very first slide when you're talking about positive cases by reporting period is is that only through reported testing or doctors or

096how are they receiving that information so because i know some of our some of the patrons in platte county occasionally have problems getting testing i know for our students we offer it's easy but for families it's not yeah we are getting we get notified from a variety of ways our families call and let us know and if we do have families that that are not part of our district but they've got family members we will help them find some locations that where they can get testing we also work with our health departments very closely we notify them of any positive cases and they notify us of any positive cases as well okay all right thank you thank you thank you we're going to move on to our next action item which is reevaluation of board

097action taken august 16 2021 to require mass be worn by all individuals three and older inside all district facilities and i think we had that to go through second quarter or first quarter in the first quarter so we need to reevaluate that if we have any discussion around that or i would entertain a motion dr coward uh remind me of the action that the kansas city city council took regarding maps don't quote me on the date someone will have it quicker for me on the final phone i believe they extend through november the fourth if they've been there at stanford and then i i don't know what their next action would be after that okay and i i guess i should have asked this question when tammy was was up here um looking at the

098hills and valleys on those charts um the feeling of most people is that this latest hill has come because of the delta variant not a doctor but that would be my guess um i would do my career sorry team okay that's fine why do we have an expert here is that what we're still seeing is the predominance of delta variant or are we being seeing that starting to wane i think we we did see that kind of peak a few weeks ago and and our data currently right now we are seeing a trend downward and it is primarily delta variant or it's still primarily the delta variant that that's we're seeing yes okay thank you so what is our current mass quarter say our current is october 21st thank you october 21st thank you next

099week that's why we set it for this board meeting so you guys have a chance to review it madam president i'd like to make a motion go ahead i would like to move that the board of education for the parkville school district uh extend our mass mandate through the second quarter taking us through the first semester of the 2021 2022 school year i have a motion from ms reed in a second by mrs woodley is there any further discussion i have several points i'd like to make there's a new statute that was went into effect on june 15th it's section 67.22 it essentially states that a political subdivision can only create orders to keep people out of their buildings for no more than 30 days and that they must keep reaffirming that by voting by

100the board within 30 days or they cannot extend the mandate for 180 days so our current mandate by this statute ran out for the mask ran out 30 days after august 16th but because that's just this mandate also applies or this statute also applies to quarantine rules because that is another way that we keep people out of our buildings so that is one point i'm opening up our discussion tonight but by our mask ordinance does not keep people out of our buildings how do we enforce our mass mandate dr coward we ask people to wear their mask we asked them to wear their mask at one point during a board meeting you had stated that they would go to the office their parents would be called and they would be asked to leave the building

101is that correct or not i don't believe we've had to do that in any situation i'm aware of mr sailor you don't have any situation we have to deal with that i am not aware of any situations where we've i don't think we've had those issues in our buildings we have a few students that have mass exemptions and we honor those okay and the mass mandate is still in effect now so in every building everyone should still be wearing math so right yes yes because i believe it doesn't apply anymore our mass mandate ran out is my condition no as on that topic right there we have been in contact with legal counsel both internal in our house and external and so there's different opinions about that legally right now and so at this point

102in time now we did not believe that applies you're very hard to hear in your muscle we really can't hear you we have contacted uh with our legal counsel and they do not believe that that applies at the current situation for the board of education and so they're conflicting views on that and as you know there's a current lawsuit about that matter that not has not been resolved yet as soon as we have legal guidance on that then we will follow that legal guidance that has been done so far well if i read the interpretation of that that just would require us every 30 days to renew our mandate that does not bar us from making that recommendation that would be true i think what mr mon says to say is because our first one

103went past 30 days that you can't do it again for 180 days if i understand his statement correct i don't know but my suggestion would be at least amend to be only 30 days and re-evaluate well in our motion on the 16th we said to go to through the first quarter so and it was voted on mr yes i make a motion to amend the current uh movement before us to be 30 days instead of the 30 days from today instead of until the end of the what it was previously what is 30 days that's well so i'm trying to look up real quick when is your next board meeting that would be appropriate it would need to be the november the 11th board meeting but we could put it in effect for 30 days

104i don't know if that gets you through that day today's the 14th day so that will be okay so quick question uh mr monsis did did you share this with dr power and i'm i'm just curious when our legal counsel reviewed this statute just to make sure i understood they can't hear you i guess my first question is to mr monstas mr monsis when were you aware of this and did you share this with dr howard prior to i've spoken i mentioned it to dr carr but i spoke to our attorney mr folghan at least two or three or four times this week i'm not sure exactly how many times it's right here is there something wrong with their system no you just need to speak up well i don't want to feel like i'm

105yelling because i can go for that too i think they hear it easier online than they do in person so the i spoke to our attorney about this issue and about my understanding of it at least two times possibly four times this week okay over several days and again i i think the understanding from clay is just what dr cower just said that um it's ambiguous there's legal proceedings currently but they have not been decided so with the ambiguity we really don't have a legal determination that this is that that is what mr folger expressed to me i guess uh legally i would have if we vote to extend it through the end of first semester and say legal that case makes it through the court and they say no that 30-day limit applies to

106us are we then banned from having any mask mandate or would we just at that point amend our mass mandate and still be in compliance with the law i think that's a legal question that we will have to ask you know probably would preferably be in a closed session does that have to be in a closed session clay i think the part of that was going to be as far as whatever the whatever's coming out i think a lot of people are watching the columbia case right now calling the missouri case i think that's what's part of this is what and that's exactly what this is about and so it was thrown out as a class action suit right so right now it's just between that and colombia and so when i talk about what

107is that guidance going to be i don't think we can answer the question that you ask until we understand what comes out from that hearing because it takes court precedence and so waiting to hear what comes out from the courts is what's going to be the this is going to be the issue right yeah what i share with the board of individual members is this is it's an un these are all unsettled legal questions um and there are there's pending litigation so we will have more guidance we just don't right now um and and yeah i'm i don't want to give legal advice in open session so another statement that i want to make and i i've done a lot of research on the current delta wave and i've done a lot of research in

108covid for multiple different reasons not just school board related but also business related throughout this whole pandemic covid is turning from a pandemic to an endemic type thing it's always going to be with us and so we need to find a way that we're going to live with it going forward looking at the current wave of cases the hospitalization race the death rates i shared several different things with the board that it looks like the delta wave is passing through missouri and through our county here within a few weeks we should be back to where we were in early july if we aren't already today this is what it looks like it's happening so i would like to make a much shorter time frame so that we can get back to normal as soon as

109possible so that our kids can see faces and read expressions and emotions and make those connections in their brain as soon as possible because i'm a particular person that i have trouble hearing someone if i cannot see their lips i don't lip read but i watch people's lips it helps me to hear and i know that there's other kids like that in our schools that i am concerned about and so that is my main condition about getting rid of this mass mandate as soon as possible is for our kids learning ability and i it's just not as a just as a point of fact under the current requirements we are still required would still be required with or without a mass mandate to follow our our contact tracing exposures and those students will be excluded

110from school and so i just i want us to keep we're trying to balance this because there's people on both sides of this issue we understand that man i can't wait for it to be over i'm so tired of it i can't even tell you um as you do that but i just want to make sure we're doing that with and i think that's what you're trying to do with the 30 days i mean absolutely for the 30 days let's let's talk about that and i want to address what you just said about the quarantines can we deal with the mass mandate first and then talk about quarantine deal with yes well but i i think they're tied together because with what was given to us today from deci it's there is a difference in

111the quarantine the quarantine there's another line in this and i don't fully understand it but that the department of health and senior services can't issue orders that countermand this so if we're getting kids out and quarantined absolutely we're keeping them out of our buildings they cannot do that only we can but this is from the department of elementary and secondary education you don't have authority to say kids can't be in our buildings that is not their result if there's a health crisis and well-being kids life is at stake then i don't know that that's going to necessarily hold up in court let's wait and see let's let's do what we want to do that's what that's what you're wanting to do but i don't feel like playing gambling children's lives and our staff and communities

112i'm not saying gambling lies i'm saying this disease hardly affects children that has not been the case with the delton that experience that is not true i researched this thoroughly that is not the case i sent information to the board this morning and i will make it public as soon as i can i've had such a busy day i've not been able to do it that the the death rates and the hospitalization rates are still very very small for kids under 18. and they're extremely small for five to 11 year olds i yes uh mr mom says i am not sure that those of us on the board are willing to take that risk with the life of any of our students in the district um i appreciate the fact that you shared information with

113us but to my knowledge you uh are not a medical doctor [Music] and i think um it is our responsibility to do as much as we can to protect our students well that was the point i made in the meeting on august 16th so thank you for agreeing to me that we should leave these mandates up to the health boards thank you miss reid i appreciate that so it is our responsibility to do so but you just said you're not comfortable making medical decisions how can we make medical decisions where you're not comfortable that's not what she said she says she's relying on medical experts you're not a medical expert okay so that was her point i did not make the data the data is the dad well there is additional data there's a lot

114of information out there um i'm only sharing the data from cdc in the state yeah that's why there is data but i put more faith in the interpretation of that data when it's done by medical experts that that i that's probably a valid point thank you very much that's a good point in 30 days i will make sure we have someone with medical background make those points madam president yes um mr mon says did make a motion it is sitting without a second yes does anyone want to second that motion okay seeing as though it doesn't have a second we'll go back to our original motion made by ms reed and seconded by mrs woodley that the board of education for parkville school district extend the mask mandate order through the end of first semester

115is that correct israel to extend our current mass mandate which is the end of the second quarter which would be the first semester through the second quarter and to the end of first semester what is the date of this december 21 december 22 do we have a date on the end of seconds any other discussion all those in favor say aye aye all those opposed say nate nay motion carries 6-1 since we're on that topic i will say um mr monces i would respectfully request that you put a mask on because that's what the board's decision has been and i i know you disagree with this decision but i think many of us on the board have been on the losing end of a vote before and all of our professional development and training would

116tell you that the board speaks as one voice and once that voice is spoken and once the vote is taken that is the decision of the board and we have responsibility responsibility individually to abide by that decision and so that is my reason for requesting that you put on your mask i'm going to follow your precedent and not follow board what the board voted on thank you how was that my president in the issues in dealing with dr springston that's you were not privy to those and i can guarantee you i did not ever not support the board's decision all right moving on uh we have information written reports we have two items tonight are there any questions regarding those to for dr coward actually i do want to highlight one of you don't mind

117we talked earlier and actually asked bill to highlight the one because one of the things we've been talking about is staffing shortages and we have some areas that have been very very hard to fill so our adventure club we have parents on waiting lists because we can't hire staff nutrition services and bill's got some numbers for that one and then also in our teacher assistant area and so mr edinger i know that's out there we're trying to do everything we can do but this is kind of new for us in trying to do this retention and so how do we how do we get them in and how do we keep them and so would you mind just giving a few highlights of what we're going to try to do on this one you bet

118you bet um we uh we have presented to the board throughout the fall about the challenges that we've had in today's labor market things that we're not used to at park hill as mrs mcculloch mentioned earlier human resources been working closely with nutrition services and with adventure club specifically those are the places where we've had really the greatest challenges in staffing to start the school year so in a really hopefully unique and innovative approach we put together this incentive program that we've put in front of the board as an information item just for you to consider over the next couple of weeks and then we would ask your approval at the august excuse me the october 28th board meeting um just to uh to really recognize those who have been with us during the challenges

119that we've had over the last several months but also to use as a recruiting tool as ronda mentioned earlier we we've tried most forms of communication open open job fairs with with on the spot hires we've we've done a lot of things but we are still lagging in applications specifically in nutrition services and then again in adventure club so we'd we'd like to to provide a plan that will help with with those challenges we we think we've also designed this so that we could use it in times future i hope that we wouldn't ever have to but if we ever found ourselves in in a situation where we had these double-digit openings in those uh those departments we'd be able to enact this in the future and and pay a bonus we've we've also found

120over time that it's really effective to pay incentives twice a year once in december and then once in june um usually for uh for obvious reasons for those families so we just ready to try this this uh new initiative and and hopefully get some uh some headway on the the staffing challenges that we've had and just a point this really doesn't require board approval uh because it fits within the negotiated agreement within our support services within what we have however we just want to be transparent what we're doing and we will put it on as a consent agenda item uh next time but we do appreciate how the board said do whatever you can do to try to support and try to fill these positions and that's what we're trying to do so dr redinger

121i i thought these were really out of the box um initiatives that really hit exactly what you're trying to do which is you know once you've hired to retain and to get someone to stay through um that time period and then also the ability to recognize that the value of a ta especially when they're pulled in to a what could be a a substitute role because they are certified to be substitutes and um recognize that they need need to be paid as such so i thought both of those were very much spot on and not unreasonable asks for either for your staff to continue through or for your budget to look at so i appreciate that it's uh it's not often that we get to at least attempt to meet um our retail competitors in

122a in a similar fashion but it's these kinds of bonuses that that we think are being paid um you know in the places specifically where where we'd like to compete for employees in nutrition services and and for adventure club and so i i think that that this could help us make some headway with that um just one question in these situations since they are not full-time employees but they are hired for the school year do they have to pay their own background checks and things like that we're taking care of those now because i i can see that that could be a barrier as well sure so good thank you thanks we'll move to public comments from the posted agenda if there are any patrons that wish to address the board regarding any items from

123tonight's post agenda they can approach the presenter station public comments provided during this portion of the meeting may only include items from the posted agenda there will be a three-minute time limit for individual speakers and a 15-minute total time limit for all speakers combined the board secretary will monitor the time patrons are to approach the presenter station speak into the microphone and state their name before making comments along with the agenda item that they will be making public comments about please direct your comments to the entire board if a response is appropriate i will respond or refer to another individual in an effort to respect privacy we ask speakers refrain from discussing personal complaints involving individual staff members or students good evening good evening thank you i'm sharon ellis and i have um spoken once

124before i consider myself a researcher i'm a healthcare worker these are my friend masks in hospitals um i was looking over the graphs here can i move this to graph three can you do that no matter if i do this does it get rid of it no ma'am no sorry you just need to have to speak okay where's my timer okay i see it okay so this one when we look at bar graphs we look at i don't remember your name but um she even said well the school's always been above the community so if you look at this last peak here yes delta variant don't have a question on that but if the community is in fact getting better and i think it is even in the stores city mark of kansas city probably

125less than a quarter of the people had masks on so where is that ordinance where is it in the stores that i've gone in i've not been asked to put one on i think the people in charge are sick of policing it they don't want to so where are our teachers what do we think to them you're going to have to to police which ones can have the mask on i don't know i i am faculty on higher education so i know what it's like to have a class in control or not or to waste time trying to get students to you know we have the mask mandate also but if looking at that there is quite a bit of what's the space underneath the top peak okay so that's the difference if the community

126is getting better and the students are not what is going on in the classrooms with these masks that are still making the students so much higher than the community so one thing is um dr redinger did you take your glasses off because they steam up say yes that's my point you know i can either read or talk um i can either have my glasses on or not what happens to the inside of this that causes that moisture to come up into the glasses a warm moist atmosphere everybody knows that's what a petri dish is so if the masks i'm in the feeling that it is the masks causing continued infections if not my little next-door neighbor with a pencil eraser-sized stage two wound on her face open a stage two alarms medicare you don't do

127that i mean it's a red flag to close some system down or get dinged on their accreditation so the stage twos are not good my little neighbor had one that's when i called the school nurse and i got an answer from her anyway these are not if steam comes up here where do you think the covet from the nose last time i spoke i said there's receptor sites in noses and in the lungs in it of any of the organs i am a cardiopulmonary specialist and i teach the doctorate level at cardiac rehab and pulmonary rehab get ready also for i had a literature review that i wanted to talk about earlier long haulers that's the term now for the long term thank you hi i'm stephen martin um i'm one of the coaches at

128park hill south i'm kind of amazed and i clearly understand what the problem is you guys are completely and totally disconnected what the problem is i don't know this lady never talked to her once the incident happened four weeks ago we won 10 games since then the coaches found a way to move on we're ready to move on but you got to talk to us i got two kids in the school district so i got interest i got dogs in this fight so keep in mind as you're sitting here kind of postulating what to do talk to us i don't need somebody talking to my kid about what needs to be done i'm doing it and guess what all you did was make me talk to the whole team now so we're gonna get it

129done we're gonna get it fixed but you're not doing what you need to do is just pass the buck you said it best get out of the way let us do our job i'm gonna make sure my kids gonna have the best education i've been here since 2000. i used to play for the chiefs i'm here i'm vested i'm not going anywhere so i'm down to make whatever happened happen but what i don't like is seeing this political banter because it looks like everybody's trying to cover their butt and we're the ones that got to deal with it the two of the kids they live on my block so i'm in it i know it i know their dads we've already had discussions come to us the people not the third parties coming from out

130of town definitely not the naacp right they have no clue what's going on here and it's nowhere near as visceral as the media makes it out to be but of course media grabs it because it's good food but if you guys fail to pass the authority and the responsibilities of the people that are actually doing it every day that's the problem you're trying to solve it with more academics more people on this is not just an academic problem personally speaking as i said what we've done is the black coaches have come together and what we said is we got to come together as a black community that doesn't involve you all you need to do is step aside and let us put it together thank you hi my name is julie setterheim um i'm here

131to speak regarding the slavery petition and how it has exposed significant issues of racism that has been happening in our district for decades in one of the media stories the principal mentioned he didn't know how common the incidents of racism were i think there's an opportunity to fix that what do we do when we want to get better at something we have to start tracking it we have to know whether or not any measures we put into place whether it's with our community our staff our students are actually working i would like the district to appoint an independent person ombudsman or someone who can act independently where racist and discriminatory incidences can be reported this person could transparently collapse and compile and report back to the community about the frequency and severity of incidences while

132still maintaining student privacy this would allow us to answer the question are we getting better are we getting worse collectively i've heard a lot of this is not who we are but maybe it is i mean maybe this is not who we are this is maybe this is not who we want to be but maybe this is who we are right now there are students who participated in this petition but there are also four thousand other high schoolers who are watching to see what you do about it and my daughter is one of them thank you okay i i i'd like to start off by uh just stating that i'm praying for the entire park hill school district in terms of what's taking place inside of park hill south and that's that's a tough one

133all right let me dig into this real quick guys because you're talking about keeping children safe do you guys know how many children have died from covet in the last two two years anybody okay i'm gonna read some things here real quick though it's opposite of that a little bit an estimated 500 000 children on the age of 14 sustained injuries on playgrounds every year a hundred thousand two hundred thousand of these injuries require emergency room care more than 3.5 million children ages 14 and younger get hurt annually playing sports or participating in recreational activities sports and recreational activities contribute to approximately 21 of all traumatic brain injuries among american children almost 50 percent of head injuries sustained in sports or recreational activities occurred during bicycling skateboarding and skating accidents more than 775 000 children

134ages 14 and younger are treated in hospital emergency rooms for sports related injuries each year most of the injuries occurred as a result of falls being struck by an object collision or over-exertion during unorganized or informal sports of these fatalities at 1083.3 percent involved yellow school buses or other school transportation vehicles it's where i'm going with this is is that children die all over the united states of america for different reasons and for far and they're dying in far more numbers than would have actually been reported and actually reported is dying from coba 19 which is less than a thousand which includes those with co morbidity morbidities excuse me now i want to also talk to you um and this is something that everybody i think needs to listen to because this isn't talked about

135anywhere in the united states of america and i would love for you guys to explain that to us here in the community but it's with the pcr test the pcr test doesn't test for covid19 the pcr test tests for the coronavirus and for the coronavirus only the common cold influenza amb that's coronavirus okay it doesn't test for cobit 19. you mentioned the delta variant you can't show me proof you can't show anybody proof where a test shows delta variant or lambda variant or move variant or any other variant it doesn't show coping 19. the cases 30 seconds the cases that you guys talk about you guys show on these graphs how many of those are actually just people that got the cold that got a flu you can't prove it but you're using this data

136to dictate what happens with our children with these masks one of the things i want to find out in this district and i'm going to be making sure the public knows is how many children actually suffer from rsv and it's due to these masks so we're looking and we're hunting and we're trying to figure out how you're making decisions okay um my name is jennifer stoll and i wanted to address the uh the plan for moving forward i'm also a school administrator and i want to point out that while the plan sounds really good that listening isn't one phase of that plan that listening is an ongoing part of a process and those students have to be our students of color in this district have to be able to have people who they will talk

137to in order for their voices to be heard we need to take that very seriously and make listening an ongoing part of that strategic plan the second thing that i would also say is when we're asking people of color to serve in those roles because that's who students of color will talk to because of the representation issue we need to be compensating them for those for the emotional labor that they're doing in that role for the extra time for the intensity of the effort and for their experience and so i would advocate not only for the ombudsman that was suggested earlier but also for taking into account the labor and the time involved in and making sure that those students are heard on an ongoing basis thank you about 20 seconds or something like that

138is that correct okay real quickly i am hoping for um when you guys talk about all your accountability and everything that you guys um appreciate you talking to the naacp but you need to really do like a diversity or accountability community panel like there needs to be a panel of people of color that live in the district that can look at what are the stats for incidents that are reported there needs to be someone looking at hr like what is the hiring practices how often are those people being looked through um so that's my that's i mean there needs to be some accountability because there's none right now there needs to be look at like whatever staff members aren't on board they're gone you know you have an ex principal that's at another school district

139they're dealing with a whole bunch of the same mess so obviously those kind of situations are okay you know people leave from here and they still continue some of the same processes so there needs to be some accountability and if people aren't going to get on board they need to be gone that includes staff that i mean from everybody from that cleans the rooms the teachers to people on the school board and there's no way that this gentleman is over here telling dishing out discipline for students and telling students that they need to follow the rules and he can't put on a mask now what kind of discipline is that what kind of what does that show as an adult that you you can't follow the rules as an adult so you know what i

140make a motion to amend the agenda to add an can i get a item thank you all righty my motion is that mr monasty not be able to vote on any board agenda item written request or agenda item as effective as of today's date 10 14 21 until he's able to wear a mask at every board meeting and follow the rules thank you all righty thank you all right uh we'll move on to board member reports and requests mrs newberger no this time thank you mrs woodley yeah at this time thank you mr klein none thank you miss reed mr payne no none thank you mr monces yeah i just want to say that uh if you're not sick why would you have to wear a mask i have antigens i tested today there's no

141reason for me to have to wear a mask when i'm act as a parent and i walk into a building i put a mask on i follow the rules i was at lead last week at a ceremony when i go to the play i'll wear a mask whenever i do anything else in my role as a father i will absolutely wear a mask but it is my understanding and i have talked to the i have exchanged communications with the person that sponsored the section that i reference 67-265 and it applies i'm finished right um i yeah um i do want to report a report that probably should have done this on announcements but the education foundation is having their first annual run as a fundraiser for the foundation the next saturday the 23rd and so

142you can sign up to run or be a part of that if you would like i'm sorry mrs mrs bowling also in that light can you remind me the community breakfast or the the virtual something just went out today i think yes it's on the 27th it's virtual um 8 am okay thank you it wasn't on my calendar yet and i just wanted to i i think they had hesitated because they weren't sure whether they could do it in person they were hoping to do it in person but then it just wasn't able to do that so it's they've been moved to virtual so in shifting plans i think they're maybe a little slower than usual to get the word out okay it is virtual on the 27th okay thank you thank you thank you

143for asking them so we need to adjourn a closed session i'll need a motion and second to adjourn the closed session pursuant to chapter 610 section 21 of the revised missouri statute for the purpose of discussing matters relevant to subsection 1 legal 3 and 13 personnel and six students second i have a motion for mr klein in the second by mrs woodley to adjourn a closed session to discuss legal personal personnel and student matters ms hibbs can you please call the roll yes and just so everybody knows mrs reed will not be able to vote on this as it's a roll call vote and she's not in video we don't see her face so she will i will not call her name bolin yes fame yes klein yes woodley yes new burger yes monster yes

144board members please turn your mics off and remind her to remain seated until the live stream fades we'll take a short break let's be back at um 8.50 that gives you enough time