001doesn't >> have to move. so far away. >> Well, and tonight all by myself. >> Oh, yeah. Holy cow. >> Everyone's counting on you guys, by the way, out there. Oh, >> yeah. Be official. to be efficient. >> I told Scott one hour >> not much record tonight >> like there's not a lot of meat in there. >> It really depends on >> Yeah. And I got a lot my superintendent update. That's a little bit of truth. >> Really counting on you. You're saying, >> "Oh, yeah. >> Kind of my dealing." >> Although, >> how's life? >> I don't know. >> But no. So far, no. >> I believe that. All right. And you're trying to say go. >> Hey, Randy. >> Turn this off, please. >> I'd like to call the Smithville R2 board
002of education meeting to order. With that, Dr. Collins, will you please? >> Absolutely. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America to the republic for it stands nationy and justice for all. Okay. First item on the agenda is the adoption and modification of the agenda. Is there any modification of the agenda? If not, I'd entertain a motion to adopt adopt the agenda as presented. >> So move. >> Second. >> I have a motion. I have a second. Do I have any discussion? If not, please vote. Make sure you join the meeting. Okay. >> Okay. Great. Next item. Uh the consent agenda. Our consent agenda in uh consist of the regular meeting minutes for October 15, 2025. Board retreat minutes for October 15, 2025. Bills for payment for November 2025. Krueger Technology,
003Inc. special inspections contract. Techline Sporting Lighting, Intercom and Paging System proposal and personnel report. Do we have a motion to approve the consent agenda as presented? >> So moved. >> I have a motion. Do I have a second? Second. >> I have a second. Is there any discussion? If not, please vote. >> Next up on the agenda, comments from the audience. We do not have any. Next up, uh, Superintendent Upton. Dr. Moss. >> Yes. We're going to start with student and staff recognitions. I'd like to invite the board to come to the front of the table and we'll turn it over to Mrs. Hedgecore to share about our celebrations this month. So, unfortunately tonight we had several students who couldn't make it for um the recognitions, but we will still give them a shout out
004and then we'll recognize the ones who are here. So, first um our state golfer. We're proud to recognize Smithville High School golfer Natalie Neil for her outstanding accomplishments this season. Natalie earned second place at the conference tournament and went on to compete at the class three state tournament finishing 43rd out of 85 golfers statewide. Please join me in congratulating Natalie Neil on an exceptional season. And then it looks like I have two of my cross country runners. So if you'll want to come on up to the front. We are pleased to recognize four Smithville High School athletes for their outstanding performances at the Class 3 State cross country championships. Sophomore Jack Johnston earned 10th place. Senior Logan Throm earned 18th place. Senior Lily Richardson placed 69th and junior Kira Janning placed 89th. Please join me
005in congratulating Jack, Logan, Lily, and Kira on an exceptional season. Shannon We'll take >> Okay. So, who are level and then tell us who you think? >> Uh, I'm Jack Johnston. I'm a sophomore and my mom and two sisters came with me this evening and I got tint that state. >> My name's Logan Throm. I'm here with my dad and I'm a senior and I got 16th at state. >> So now if my elementary principles and middle school principal will come up to the front if you're part of the recognition tonight. US News and World Report has expanded their best schools list to include elementary and middle schools. It's no surprise that all three of our elementary schools, Maple, Eagle Heights, and Horizon, as well as Smithville Middle School, all made the best schools list.
006Schools were assessed on their pupils proficiencies in mathematics and reading as measured by the state assessments. >> I'm Melinda I'm Melinda Stewart. I'm the principal at Eagle Heights Elementary and my kids are amazing. >> Thank you. My name is Chrissy Melon. I'm the principal at Horizon Elementary. >> Uh Taylor John. I'm the principal at Maple. I also have amazing kids and I did not bring anyone here with me today. >> And I'm middle school principal. Most thank If anyone was here specific for recognitions, please know you are welcome to leave. You are also welcome to stay as well if you'd like to, but you will not offend us if you guys decide to go home. And just a couple of updates that I was going to provide. I have gone to the high school in
007Horizon for my fall building visits. I want to thank both the principles who are here for setting those up. It was great to spend the day in your buildings, hear from your staff, and always appreciate the opportunity to hear from all staff, whether it's your teachers, your IAS, anyone else that wants to pop in and have a conversation. It was great to speak with them. Got a lot of valuable feedback. One of the things that has been part of our superintendent board and superintendent goals is the staff morale survey. So we give that both in the fall and in the spring and it's consistent over the last several years and we have really good participation in it at over 80%. So that is something that we feel like is very valuable. So I picked out
008several questions to ask them and get some feedback on so that way then we as a team can come back and make some goals on to identify how we can continue to increase those results. So, uh, I will be at Eagle Heights tomorrow and then at is it did we set on the 12th and I'll be at Maple on December 12th. Had to make a little shift in there just to make sure they could get some support. They were working with one of our CKLA uh, professional development people. So excited for those. Last week, we also had our superintendent advisory council and we had them do some self-reflection on one of the on a couple of the portrait of graduate competencies. So, one, we asked them what they felt over the last two weeks that
009they had shown whether that was being resilient, compassionate, a learner, any of those pieces. And then we asked them to pair up and create a stretch one for the month. So that stretch one is one that they want to work on this month and they wrote out some statements about how they're going to work on that and then we um paired them up so they would have an accountability buddy. So we're going to start the next December meeting with them being able to have that conversation about how what they did to stretch themselves in that. And it is a real word. No red line comes under it when you put accountability buddy in >> in a word document. I think Mindy was disappointed. one save the date. We would like to have everyone put on
010their calendars, and we'll repeat this many times, but Mindy was able to confirm this today. When Google brings in a data center, one of the things that they do is a family STEM day. Those days are usually on a Saturday from 10 to 3, I think, is when ours was going to be scheduled. And it's going to be February 21st from 10 to three. I'm correct. And because we have a data center, if you guys haven't noticed, just south is they have the walls up on their first building on the Google side. And then Plaque County is having a data center as well. And most the time these take place either these usually take place at a high school where our high school is pretty well under construction and chopped up. So we're going to
011actually do this at the new middle school in Plat County off Plat Purchase. So, we're going to combine ours with Plaque County, partner with them. They we've been working with a Google representative and then Discovery Education is the one that comes on and kind of puts on the day. So, it's going to be a very good event. We're excited to do that. And it talks about data centers. It talks about a lot of different things and has a lot of events for the kids to get excited about. On Tuesday, we also had a really fun event in this space, which was we invited retirees and former board members to come back for a brunch. We did that. We're trying to be more purposeful in how we engage our retirees and former board members. We had
01230 retirees and former board members have a great breakfast. They all got to share about their history with Smithville. Stacia and Susan were there to to join us. It was great to see some of station I former teachers from kindergarten to my senior year were there, but it was great to have them there. They very much appreciated just the effort to do that and being able to see each other. We also had Julie there to talk about benefits, things that they still may be wondering about or connected with us as our retirees are still uh benefit eligible as they leave us. So, it was a great experience. We will definitely have some upcoming events that we continue to engage with them. We did share all of our community events with them so that way they
013could pencil them on their calendars. Told them probably the first part of April for our color run, but then also our district art show which will be the last part of April, beginning of May that weekend. So trying to get them more involved. We always invite them to convocation. Just thought we could do more than just convocation. It was a very fun time. I want to thank all of you for today going through all five of our buildings. Thank you for our buildings for hosting us. It's always a great We usually do this in November and March. It's always great to get out to our buildings, see the kids, hear how everything's going on. Really appreciate you guys letting us come in and bait some of your classrooms. I know the part of the feedback
014I've gotten at building visits is it's a lot to have everyone in one group. So, appreciated the two groups. That was just a little feedback from the staff. Um, if there's anything you guys would want to say, please feel feel free after I'm done. And then the other thing I would like to just mention is we were able to get our lights. I know that that was part of the consent agenda, but that was a piece that we've been talking with you guys over the last couple weeks. Justin's done a ton of work on that for us to salvage those poles rather than those poles getting demolished. They were only 12 years old and so they are 100% reusable. So appreciate all the work that Justin did, but also um appreciate Mammoth being able to
015work around those polls as they have really transformed that area down there. I'd be happy to answer any other questions that you guys may have. >> Was nice to have uh two of our senators with us, >> Curtis and Maggie. It was nice to have them see the buildings and be with us, spend a little time with them. >> It's always an enjoyable day. That's one of the more fun days to be around. And yes, it was it was great having some of our state representatives join us this this afternoon or this morning. So yeah, one of the suggestions we had at the MSBA conference was to invite our state representatives as well as senators, those that represent us down in Jeff City. So we were able to reach out to both uh Maggie and
016Curtis and they responded that they came this morning. Curtis Gregory is a senator that represents us. Maggie Nerburgg actually represents the Senate a precinct just south of us, but she is an O2 grad of Smithville, so it was always great to have her walking through the building. She mentioned, I'm sure Mr. Winterbore won't be surprised, that the middle school has not changed much since she walked in there. The the Mau and Teal are still strong, but yes, absolutely. Really appreciate them giving some time up out of their day uh to walk through our buildings. It's always really impressive to go into the classrooms. We have amazing teachers. We have amazing students. And that is all we uh we had the opportunity to leave little notes for the teachers of the rooms that we were in.
017I said I kind of felt like a broken record because they always have their students engaged. They always have their students in control and listening. And it's um it's just always a good thing to see. So, thank you guys for letting us invade. It's it's fun to see the differences from the previous year to to now. Um, and the little things that you guys are doing to spruce up your rooms, your building, and engagement with the students is noticeable. So, it's great. >> Thank you guys. >> Okay. Just the superintendent up. Yeah. You want to wrap it up? >> You good with that? >> Yes. Okay. Uh, next up, 9.3 bond project updates. >> Absolutely. Um, I'm excited to have Josh Cow here from the new Kirk Novak. And I think I have you set
018up to go back here, but as you're getting ready, I just kind of threw you up there last time and they give a little context about what's going on. So, while you're making your way back here, I might do a little a little spill. But, we have progressed through package 0.0. We have one project left. Uh, one of which I will be asking you to approve tonight with some intercom and paging tables moving out of the demolition path. Um, and that should get package 0.5 pretty close to being complete. As you noticed, the high school, the old high school library is gone. So, demolition is happening. I know several of you walked through the uh demolition site today and demolition continues in the central commons. and Josh will talk a little bit about that, but
019now we're into installation of steel footings. Anytime you say installing steel footings, that's a positive sign because a building follows shortly behind that. Um, one thing I kind of didn't talk about last time was the masonry bracing, but we're nearing the end of that being done in the first week of December, and uh, that was an unexpected project. Just to remind everybody and make sure the public's aware, uh, it was expensive. it was $136,000 of expense that we weren't expecting in this bond project. So just glad to be seeing that nearing completion so we can continue our build. Um IDS has met with the rest of our staff in the middle school and the act shop to finalize those designs. After those designs are finalized, then those are taken out to bid and we're on
020a bid schedule. And one major one major meeting I'm excited about is the pre- bid. Not that I'm ever not invited. I like going and seeing how many uh trade partners we have at those meetings to gauge how much interest there is in our project. So I will be attending that next week. And into baseball softball and I'll stop after I promise Josh. But into baseball softball mass excavation has continued. Uh notable milestone was the poles being salvaged and um that that would be big for if we want to use those in any future project. And uh there is an unexpected challenge again of some rock that we've encountered outside of the plane area there. and we'll meet with Mammoth on the 20th which is tomorrow to talk about the details of that part of
021the project and um what that may have as far as impact on the timeline. So I will pass the microphone off to you now Josh if you're ready. >> Okay. Uh so update on the high school. So yes, as Dr. Collins mentioned, with the approval of the package one contractors, uh which included demo, masonry repairs, concrete, steel, earthwork, and site utilities from the October board meeting, we've continued on with progress uh for the high school. uh getting into some of the details of that uh in the gym. You can see there the top left picture the top left picture is uh what that masonry repairs kind of looks like underneath the stairs in the southwest corner of the gym. So that existing gym did not have any sort of reinforcing grout rebar uh within those
022walls and so tearing down the central commons which is braced against that uh would not have been good. So adding that in uh for structural integrity and to make sure we had a safe and proper demo of the central commons was necessary. So that work is ongoing should complete uh first week of December. Uh and then continue on through the central commons. Uh so temp walls and waterproofing uh have started. So blocking off any doors or exits, hallways, make sure we're not having any unexpected guests in the construction area. making sure we're keeping everybody safe. Uh we continued with partial slab and forlift demo which you can see down in that bottom right corner there. So excavated down 24 inches of subgrade there and out of the back some low volume change uh so that
023we can pour some of our foundations and bracing uh deadman so that we can properly brace that gym wall before we actually proceed with tearing it down. Uh beyond that, we've also started on the addition or what we're calling the addition, which is kind of that central courtyard area in where the media center previously was. So again, added temp walls and waterproofing there. We also added the temp egress sidewalk, uh the picture up on the top right there, along with some scaffolding to make sure students, staff had a safe exit out of the school, uh because it is right next to the construction zone there. Uh and then obviously completed the media center demo uh the fiber relocation and then I've started building pad. So if you guys walked out there today, you seen a
024lot of rock big area there. So that's the building pad that's going in and we'll follow that up with starting on foundations. So just some pictures that you guys can see up there. So top left, like I said, the masonary bracing and the gym. Top right is the tempo sidewalk. Bottom left is the media center demo. And then the central commons slab memo there. And on the next page, I think there's a few more pictures. And then on the left side there, you can see some drone shots or aerial shots at the media center and some more waterproofing as well as some of the excavating in the common area. So continuing on with good progress. We did send out package two for bid last Friday and that includes all the remaining contractors for the project.
025So they're out for bid for about 20 to 22 contractors. We're looking to have bid day first part of December. Looking for board approval mid December for that. >> Anyone have any questions? >> All right. Thank you very much. >> Thanks. >> Thank you. I guess the only one question is uh on the gymnasium bracing. I mean that's you guys discovered that because because of the renovation and you're able to rip when you ripped open the walls you saw that the need for that and uh obviously we need to address it as a structural issue going forward. Right. >> Absolutely. Yeah. without having reinforcing that wall that's very simple with that wall that wallers. So that's going forcing all those corners kind of some of the surprises that we talked about that might happen on
026a renovation versus a building new. So, um, that happens. So, well, thank you very much for your report. Appreciate it. Any other questions? We're good for bond project updates in. Okay. Uh, that was info only. Next up, 10.1 general financial. >> Yes, we have just spoke with Karen about this. We are receiving funds as anticipated as we look uh at what the state statute or state legislation had approved the previous year. One interesting thing that we actually were notified this evening of is we do receive a small portion of funds. It's usually about $100,000 a year for federal impact aid because our lake is a core lake. So that isn't new, but it has been something that's been delayed. It's affected many other school districts much differently, especially those that may have a uh military
027base on their in their district or multiple military bases uh if they have shut down or even a lot of contractors that work within their school district. So, we were notified that we are receiving that and it's pretty much on time as anticipated. It is not something that goes up very much uh but is something that we consistently count on. So, as far as the what we've what we've seen, it is as anticipated. We will let you guys know of any changes. Obviously, January, they'll start having conversations more so March and April about what the budget will look like for FY26. >> Great. Any questions on general financial review? Next up, 10.2 board subcommittees. Mr. Nichols. >> Yes. We had our finance committee uh this evening and uh talked with Brad Steel from Westbrook, our
028auditor um that we do every year and he was able to provide some highlights and recommendations like he does every year um save duplicating. I'll save kind of the details for him to present in the December meeting uh for us when he's here. And then we also uh talk through some of the bond project stuff that we uh as far as the finance side of it. um this afternoon which we covered earlier with the lighting and whatnot. We're able to cover in finance this evening. >> Okay, great. Station, did you have anything to add? >> All right, next up 10.3. Um approval of MSBA policy FED for the first of two readings. Do I have a motion to approve the MSBA policy feed for the first of two readings? >> I have a motion. Do
029I have a second? >> Second. >> Okay, I have a motion to second. Any discussion on policy feed? If not, uh please vote. Okay, next up 11.1 2025 2026 board candidate filing dates. Just so I make sure I say this correctly, the right date. Uh this will be >> So the filing dates are December 9th, 2025 to December 30th, 2025. Correct. Karen. Okay. So, that is it. And I hope the decisions um and for the April election, there will be three seats open. That will be three-year terms and then there will be one seat that will be open for a one-year term. So, there will be four open seats. Any other comments or questions on this one? If not, 11.2. Do I have a motion to approve the MSBA 2025D policy updates for the first
030of two readings? >> I have a motion. Do I have a second? >> Second. >> I have a second. We have any discussion on this item? First, you mind me sharing one thing? >> Correct. >> There is a lot of J series policy in here which deals directly with students as part of our we meet with our admin building administrators every month and our meeting actually falls tomorrow morning. So part of our conversation tomorrow will be a structured conversation. Both Denise and PJ have already shared the J series with them so that way they can see if there's any impacts. While I don't anticipate any changes to the policies being recommended from them, we may have to change some of our procedures that we do in the background. But just wanted to make sure that
031you guys know that when we have things, especially with our students, we always want to take it to those most impacted and those most closestly closely in touch with them. And that's what we'll be doing tomorrow morning. >> Great. And yes, there are a lot of J series policy updates in here. Any discussion on this item? It's for the first or two readings. If not, please vote. Are you going to speak to >> next up 11.3 series 2025 certificates of participation prepayment resolution? Do I have a motion to approve the series certificate of participation prepayment resolution as presented? >> Have a motion. Patrick will take the second. >> Okay. Dr. Moss, any discussion? Dr. Moss will add a little bit to this. Okay. >> Yeah. Over the last several years, we've worked very closely with
032Raymond James, as you guys are aware. just last July or a couple Julies ago, they actually came in and presented about our outstanding debt. This is one of the pieces that is our outstanding debt. It's a it's a cop similar to what we issued earlier for our Navatas project. And one of the things that we discussed, Karen and I discussed with him and that he brought up is have you guys thought about prepaying this? It would save you an interest. We believe the interest savings will be right around or a little bit more than $30,000. And he said, "Your fund, it will come out of fund four." So, our capital funds, he goes, "Your funds are strong there and it would make strong financial sense to go ahead and prepay this, especially with what we
033have issued already and then what we anticipate issuing to finish up our bond projects. So, in working with him as well as Gilmore Bell, we we present to this for you that we think is being a good steward in our district. It is all within our capital budget, so does not affect any of our supplies or our teacher fund that we pay our certified staff with. And think that it makes sense for us at this point. And we look forward to taking advantage of future opportunities like this whenever we can make those prepayments and save ourselves uh that interest payment as well as part of it. >> I think this is an excellent opportunity for us to do this. So, we're in the perfect place to do it. Is there any discussion? Any other questions?
034If not, please vote. Okay. Next up, 12.1. Do I have a motion to adjourn the meeting? >> So move. >> Second. >> Motion. I have a second. That was quick. Any discussion? If not, please vote. Did you get the motion and second on that one? Okay. All right. Okay. Great. Thank you guys. Thank you. >> Do a special >> looks like a special December 17th. >> We might do virtually at jump in our office. >> Good. I know you have a >> Yeah, it was at six. So, it was just I couldn't Me too. >> Oh, really? >> Oh, is there Well, thank you guys for a long day. >> Yeah, I'm glad we were able to >> better record. >> Although we've been together, >> feeling that's what Dr. Moss is trying to find
035out. I still feel bad for them to be here. So anyway, >> okay. So >> big hit. like pick the favorites and publish them.