001Do you want Well, first I think we should have a consensus from the board if that is what we would all like to do. Um, do you want to look and see and take a few days and look over what Katie sent us and see if that's adequate or do you want to Okay. And then we can put it on the list to like revisit and and talk as a board if that's something you'd like to do. Yeah. And then I was just saying, you know, they just added it into their presentations and it was just helpful information. But yeah, and I can I can also share the Rockwood um presentation. So I just felt that that information was just really helpful. Thank you. All right, moving to 11 point I guess anybody else before
002I move on. All right, 11.4 Board of Education resolution. We need a motion to approve the board of education resolution as presented. Motion discussion. Session's over. Session is over. There's nothing passing. Then this didn't pass. Nothing of the sort passed. And usually when we do board resolutions, we come up with it as a board, talk about it as a board, have more than 24 hours to review it. I don't know. I think this is if this is something that the board is seeking to address, which it's really not our lane, it's the legislaturator's lane and the voters's lane. I think that there should be some some workshopping, some serious discussion among board members where they stand because if it's not a majority or if it's not uh a unanimous board resolution, it's just a majority
003resolution. And if we want to all get behind something, we're going to have to put a little bit more effort into it. Any other disc? Oh, go ahead. You know, I have something, Julie. So, this is going to take a little bit and I apologize. I was elected two years ago, two and a half years ago. And during that tenure, I spoke about vouchers and uh in fact, two of the board members that are with us now, we sat together when we did that. I spoke at that time and said that I do support vouchers. And the reason why I support vouchers is because when school systems fail you, you need to have an option. You need to have an option. When you look through this resolution, there's lots of undocumented statements that speak about
004how the the school district is going to save the kids and they need the money. Well, we've spent tons of money and and it's still in a situation that we're in. Um, I'd like to go down real quick and just give you the reasons why in each one of these that I'm I'm not going to I will not vote for it and I will not sign it. We're not a democratic society. We're republic. Ability to keep children safe. The second one, so by spending more money with the school district, that's going to make my kids safer. There's no there's no tie into that with legal documentation. So I I don't view that as valid. competition among schools is going to create a market-driven competition. Well, gosh, wouldn't that be great so that you'd have a
005choice so that you could go to the best school instead of being put into a school district, and I'm not talking about Wville, but put into a school district where it was less than what you're expecting. So, next one is perpetuating racial and social economic disparities. See, to me, I view it as completely the opposite, and that's why I can't vote for this. The fact that you have a voucher opportunity means that those students that maybe financially or where they lived or whatever didn't have a great school. By giving them vouchers, they have an a much better opportunity to go to the schools that can serve them with their needs, whether they're special or just getting a good education, accountable to the community. Well, the community are the taxpaying citizens. and the taxpaying citizens that
006have spoke to me this week about this or the last couple of days say that they don't support it. I'm not speaking for myself. I'm speaking for the taxpayers that have reached out to me and the comments that they've made back to me. uh potentially compromising um you know I I I don't vouchers you got citizens that are that have been contacted and they talk about what they want what they're willing to to give and that sort of thing and I I don't see that this bullet does anything for us maintaining high property values. I got to tell you I I hope my property value goes to zero. I'm tired of paying the dang taxes, but that's another story. But I got to say it. When you talk about high property taxes, um the reason
007we have a high property tax, we have uh it says maintaining property values and low tax crime rates. The reason we have low crime rates, I think, is if you ask the citizens of the community, they talk about the amazing police force, EMT, and fire and ambulance that we have. We're talking about the people that live in our community are upright citizens that don't do the things that you're you're trying to say that the school district would uh not be able to complete if they were there. Um down to therefore be it resolved. Um opposed diversion of public money. This public money is the taxpayers's money. It's not your money. You know, if if I take and choose my my child to go, I should be able to use my money where I want it.
008I'm sorry. Uh down below farther it's equity, inclusion, and diversity. Uh I guess you can turn it around and it says DEI. Uh Brian, can you comment on do we do DEI in this this school district? Give me an example before you say because DEI, we use DEI as diversity, equity, and inclusion and we make it sound like it's a word. So I think before I can answer that, you have to say my answer is no based on the way that people try to describe it. Do we provide diverse learning experiences for our students? Yes, 100%. Do we make sure that our students have an equitable learning experience? Yes, 100%. Do we make sure that we believe our students should be included in our in the projects, the things that we do for our students?
009Yes, 100%. So to me I but the way the DEI is explained kind of in the mainstream media. No, we're complying with the law that talks about that or the the president's mandate. But the the DEI that I just explained, yes, we we do that every day. I agree with that, Brad. I appreciate how you said that. But that unfortunately the way it's written there, it doesn't really address it that way. It leaves it wide open. And uh collaboration among resources sharing with public schools. Are we talking about we're supporting that we send teachers to another school district because they're short or or vice versa? Is that what that means? I'm not sure. But sharing resources among public schools, I'm not quite sure what that means. But for those reasons and more, I will be
010voting no and I will not sign. Thank you. Any other comments? I do have a question. So given what um director Olson said that usually when we do a resolution it's it's really a resolution between us like the board it's not really given to anybody it's not for um any other purpose than we are promise making a promise to our stakeholders and our taxpayers about what we are promising to do. Um since the board did not do a workshop as we have historically done. I'm just curious who wrote the resolution. Ted House. So, if I can comment and David, thanks for sharing your your insight. Um, Jen and Ray as well. Um, I'll be perfectly transparent. I took what I saw that they had written. I had written a previous one a couple months ago.
011Um, and wanted to add to it. Um for me it boils down to and the reason why I wanted to bring this forward um it boils down for me two things. One um I live and breathe public school. I am an educator. I have been an educator for almost two decades. Um and private schools have their place. I have nothing against private schools. My daughter went private school for preschool. um we wanted my son to go private school and he was denied. So David, when you say that in an ideal world, yes, other students would be able to get a better situation and go to a go to a better school. In an ideal world, sure, that's what happens. But I think the reality is that's not what would happen. Kids like my own kid
012was told no to go to a private school. um when with if you looked at him, you wouldn't have had any idea that anything was wrong, but he was told no. Um so yes, private schools have their place. Um but as a public school district, we are charged with educating every single student that walks through our doors. Um and I feel like this I was elected under that as a public school teacher supporting the fact that we will educate all students. And I feel like that is us being a publicly elected board. We should be verbally vocally supporting our public school district. Um I know you said, Jen, that legislators done and passed some things. Um I was I had heard that no, they were stripping out or they weren't going to be allocating some
013funds for private schools and then last minute they put it back in. Um, so that kind of became my motivation behind bringing this now is that they are allocating, I believe, $50 million or something along those lines um to the program that already exists, the the scholarship, but again, they're taking funds that should be spent on public schools and signing it elsewhere. They were elected. They were elected by the people and we were elected as well. We don't make those laws though. We make these laws in this school district. This isn't a law. This is just us publicly supporting our all of our students. But where's the public outcry from the Wsville School District? Parents and constituents and taxpayers in opposition to this sort of I see it online every day. I see it online
014every day. Parents crying for help. Crying for help to for what? For the government to not take the money from the students that need it. Okay. Number one, this is their money. this is their money and their children, 95% of them are forced into our schools. We could at least, and I think there's some massive confusion here, we could at least be in favor of open enrollment, which would allow students from failing public schools to enroll in our school and provide them with a free, fair, and equal education. But we're we're telling everybody in this resolution, we don't even support that. Springfield public schools will allow you to go to any school in their district just in case there's not an opportunity at one of their schools. you can go to a different one. This
015isn't this isn't a novel idea. This is happening in in over half of our states where there's an open public enrollment or open enrollment for public schools and it's effective and it serves students. And back to the the point on a democratic society, some of the key foundational elements of a democratic society are free and fair elections, which goes to the representative republic that we live in. people elected those people to do whatever they're doing. And I will say this on the record, I don't support any of their school choice or voucher system legislation that they've uh put forth at all. Period. I think it's it it actually adds too much government into the private sector in my opinion. Also, citizen participation, like I talked about, where's the outcry? We don't have people lining up
016uh in fear that we're public education is going to get defunded in Wsville. We're an extremely thriving district. So there there, yes, there's a handful of people that show up and say the same exact thing. There is not outcry from the citizens, the voters of Winsville, which is why they voted the way they did to put the people in Jeff City that they put in Jeff City. Democracy protects 51%. That's that's that's the foundation of a democracy. constitutional republic, which is what we are. We protect the rights of the individual even when the 51% doesn't agree with them. That means that one failing student Can I interject for a second? The one failing student has an opportunity to go to a different public school if the one they're in is failing them. So, just if
017I can interject for a second, and I don't I don't want to go down a whole other rabbit hole here, but you said people speak, they vote, and they put the people in to to represent them. Yes. Then why is our current legislator legislature actively overturning things that the public voted for just the last election? They're putting it back on the ballot for the people to have an informed vote on what they're voting for. And if they feel the same way the question extremely political, please call the agenda. I'm going to call the question. I'm calling the question. Thank you. All right. We have a motion to second. We are voting. Um, I'd like a roll call vote. Thank you for taking that out of my mouth. We would like a roll call vote, please.
018Director Lewis, nay. President Scott, I. Dr. Hanky, nay. Secretary Bizenthal, I. Dr. Olsen, nay. Dr. We I motion well tied failed. Okay, moving to Oh, if anybody wants to refresh, there is the additional uh personnel for vote on new business now. Thank you, Joanie. Moving to 11.5. What? Oh, yeah. All right. 11.5. We need a motion to approve the recommendation of the committee to retain tricks by Ellen Hopkins. Motion. Second. Any discussion? I have discussion. It's just a comment. Um, these book, this book trick by Ellen Hopkins is not age appropriate due to the sexually explicit nature. Okay, thank you. Any other discussion? Yes. Questions yet? Uh, this is goes to to Pat. Pat or on each of these three books that we're going to talk about, is there any that seemed like the middle
019book and I'm sorry to bleed it, but it's going to apply to all of them, Julie. Okay. There in the middle book, there is some reference to graphics and pictures and that sort of thing. In any of these three, are there anything there that would be put us in jeopardy with the law as it is? I have not conducted a review under the uh graphic sexual contact statute, but I did for Kaiderunner uh and that did not meet the threshold uh for a violation of the statute. As part of uh librarians processes before a book is put on the shelves though they do review any graphic material to try to ensure compliance. But I don't know about these three books in particular. Okay. One other question and I I'm not sure who this this goes
020to. I guess Brian to you. The uh with the three books, are any of these three in the middle schools or are they just in the high school? I'm going to defer to Katie here because it's her department that conducted the book challenges. I do not believe so, but give me a minute to check my paperwork and I will I'll get it to you. Okay. Well, that that's the end of my questions. Uh, depending upon what the answer is to that is impacts my vote. So, I'm sorry to put pressure on you, Dr. K. Okay. Are you ready? Um, Lucky, um, is not at the middle school level. It is at Holt High School Library. and Trixs is at North Point High School Library and Holt High School Library. Correct. Thank you for that clarification.
021And just a comment before I sign off here. Um it's my belief that one of the greatest measurements of your success is at the end of the day how many books you own. So, I'm very much in favor of keeping books in the library as long as they're age appropriate. Thank you. Thank you. Any other comments? Okay, we uh will let's do roll call, please, Joanie. And again, this is for tricks to approve the recommendation of the committee to retain. Director Lewis I. President Scott I. Dr. Hanky. Nay. Secretary Beenthal. I Dr. Olsen. Nay. Dr. We I. Motion carries. We next we need a motion to approve the recommendation of the committee to retain the Kiterunner graphic novel by Kh Khaled Husini. Motion. Second. Any discussion? I have discussion. This book has images and depictions
022of blood running down the back of a child's body after being forcibly violated in a sexual manner. And those are his injuries. Um clearly it is not age appropriate due to the sexually explicit um the rape content. That's all. Any other comments? Okay. Roll call vote, please. Joanie. Director Lewis. I. President Scott I. Dr. Hanky. Nay. Secretary Beenthaw. I. Dr. Olsen. Nay. Dr. Weey. I. Motion carries. Next. 11.7. We need a motion to approve the recommendation of the committee to retain Lucky by Alice Seabold. Motion. Any discussion? have discussion. It's not age appropriate due to the sexually explicit content. Um there was actually one thing I wanted to say and I meant to say this at the beginning and um it was kind of passed on through a librarian on the committee that I was
023on and she just wanted me to just reinforce to everybody that any parent elementary, middle, high school has the option and she said it's very flexible on how you could say like I don't want my kid to read books about monsters in elementary school and that is put into them in their system in the library. So, it's not like triggered by a keyword or, you know, um, you know, if you want to put a whole genre of books of you do not want your child to have access to. Um, she just wanted me to remind the board that that is an option for every parent in the district. As well, I want to follow up on that with a librarian that was on the committee with me. They said that at the high school level,
024there are no restrictions that they could feasibly put in place. that I received that from a high school librarian. So that's okay. That's who I received it from. Okay. Because they're all young adult, so you can't or they're not all the books are young adult, but the young adult would be a restriction. And that's that's the limit or the adult is the limit. Um for the librarian that I spoke with, it is not just as simple as like a click of a button. Like you can put in things that you do not want. Like if you do not want your child to have any books of whatever nature, you can put that in. Are you talking about on Sora for their online books? I No, I'm talking about if a student were to check out
025a book, it would alert the librarian to prevent them to from checking that out or it would like alert them. It says like there is a on your account, you cannot check this book out based on a keyword. I'm saying not just a keyword. You can put in I think our I think our librarians should should probably collaborate. I would love to have a liar. Mine told me the exact opposite. Okay. It's in the regulation. It's a circulation holder. U it's a note that's attached to the student's record. It's a note. So like again using the monsters reference. If you wanted your high school student not to check out a book about monsters, you could put that in there as a request to the librarian. Okay. And the reason this even came up in the
026review committee that I was on was because it was at the high school level and they were kind of throwing around ideas as to how you could restrict this at the high school level and the librarian said we can't. It's young adult. These books are classified as young adult at the high school level. So that's the classifications that they go off of. You can restrict them from adult books. May I May? Um, I would be happy to get additional information for you from our lead librarian and our librarian group and share with you. It sounds like just some different things have been shared and so I would love to get clarification um and to give you a clear answer. Um, so let me work on that um within next week and I I'll make sure
027that I get that right to you. Thank you Katie. If I may. So with just this debate um Katie I it did spark a question for me. So could you just clarify with the librarians um is that physical and online if that's an um option there? Typically when we put restrictions in place um parents request so they make a request young adult a topic um an age um age level sometimes we look at that too. Um we are able to do that for in like text that we have in our libraries and for online resources. Okay. Thank you. Any other discussion? Okay. Roll call vote, please. Joanie. Dr. Lewis. I'm voting for to keep it to retain. Yes. To keep it. That's the vote. I, President Scott. I. Dr. Hanky. Nay. Dr. Weisenthaw. I. Dr.
028Olsen. Nay. Dr. We I motion carries. All right. Next up is 11.8 personnel recommendations and resignations for May 2025. We need a motion to approve the personnel recommendations and resignations as presented. Motion second. We will roll call that please. Director Lewis. I President Scott I Dr. Hanky I Secretary Bisenthaw I Dr. Olsen I director we abstain. Motion carries. Okay. Um next we have board action items. I don't know this is something we'll talk about in our next like June workshop of how we want to move forward on these things. But I do know maybe some library discussion as well as some discussion on the title funding and you know some of the programs that are associated with that. So I think that's something we can visit at our June workshop. Any Oh go ahead. May
029I add a few things? Yeah. Um I was just wondering what the update is on the power lunch. I know that that was a board direction closer to the beginning of the school year kind of restructuring it. Kind of wondering where that's at if we can get an update. And then also a transportation discussion. We're talking about the June meeting workshop. Isn't that where we're doing a tour and then we're having MSBA come out? Well, I would like dinner. So part of the I'm not saying that this is the agenda for the the workshop. I'm talking about how to move how we want to decide these going forward. So like taking like right now it's board I was talking about the board action items like as an agenda item like I know that's how we
030did it in this last year. Is that the best way to continue? So that's why I'm just stating is like we can that's part of what we're going to be talking about at our June workshop with MSBA to like what's the best way for the board to you know give direction to the administration to workshop to get agenda items on that kind of thing. So, just a more of a procedural thing if that makes sense. And I have those written down. Thank you, Renee. Any board member comments? Thank you. Talk about that in a separate session. I think it's reasonable to talk about that in a separate section. I just have a quick comment. This is again probably what I say every time. Um, students, get studying on your final exams and teachers, you can
031do it. We got what, not even not even a week left. A little over a week. Not that anyone is counting. So, have a great summer. Any other comments? Board comments? Yeah, I just like to piggy back off of David. Um, wishing all of our staff a wonderful summer. um you've worked really hard this this whole year and um that has not gone unnoticed, especially our support staff. Our bus drivers have been amazing this year. So, I just want to send out a special thank you to everyone for teaching our children and caring for them. And have an amazing summer and congratulations to the class of 2024 2025. You're almost there. All right. Next, we need a motion to adjurnn. Motion to adjurnn. Second. We can all those in favor, right? No, shoot. Never mind.
032All right. Roll call, please. Director Lewis. We say I. Please. President Scott. I. Director Hanky. I. Secretary Benthaw. I. Director Olsen. Yay. Dr. We. Motion carries.