Virtual Board Meeting - July 21, 2021

001[Music] okay we've got 704 it's got somebody with an unmuted speaker [Music] welcome to the regularly scheduled smithfield r2 board of education meeting for july 2021 if you would please rise and join me in the pledge of allegiance i pledge allegiance to the flag 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 okay uh agenda item 7.1 adoption and modification of the agenda does anybody have any corrections or changes to make to the agenda if not i'll accept a motion in a second to approve the agenda as presented got a motion in a second to approve the agenda is presented any further discussion please vote motion passes 7.2 approved the executive session meeting minutes for june 16 2021 are

002there any corrections or changes that need to be made to the executive session meeting minutes from june 16th hearing none i'll accept a motion in a second to approve the executive session meeting minutes from june 16th meeting second got a motion in a second to approve the executive session meeting minutes for june 16th 2021 any further discussion please vote motion passes 7.3 approved the regular session meeting minutes for june 16 2021 any corrections or modifications to those minutes hearing none i'll accept a motion in a second to approve the regular session meeting minutes from june 16 [Music] we've got a motion a second to approve the regular session meeting minutes from june 16 2021 any further discussion please vote should we have sushi ian's there lynn [Music] this yeah well she needs to have audio

003or video and audio to be able to vote do you need to make all sorts um if he's in here well you're here in person jeff the most important one on the for those of you watching bear with us just a minute we've had a little technical difficulty sorry guys got it now i think we have one more [Music] everybody okay somebody's speakers on besides mine i can't get it open again okay let's continue 8.0 approval of consent agenda items uh the five consent agenda items are 8.1 approved bills for payment 8.2 supplemental pay for july 2021 8.3 contractual agreements for the 2021-2022 school year for special services 8.4 contractual agreements for the 2021-2022 school year for student services and 8.5 2021 2022 meal pla prices does anybody have any questions or comments if not

004i'll accept a motion in a second to approve the consent agenda items as presented got a motion in a second to approve the consent agenda items on our agenda any further discussion please vote motion passes 9.0 communications 9.1 correspondence [Music] i bet don is not like russell and watching tonight's meeting hey todd you were muted you're muted okay yeah the correspondence was from donna white thanking the board for their generosity okay 9.2 2021 2022 board priorities yeah as indicated this is this is the list that was put together from your last discussion uh so based on your thoughts and comments i kind of wordsmith this and took some things out and added some things and uh this is uh the result so um interestingly enough uh some of this has made social media um that

005these are issues that are being established as board priorities many of these have been board priorities for years i think it's worthy of pointing out um but anyway this is what i present to you based on your discussion in june as potential board priorities moving forward to the 21 22 school year yeah i was looking at them today and i thought i thought they read really well i was just uh i was reflecting a little bit as in our own organization as we go through something similar and established strategic priorities i thought it would be neat to link them to our mission in terms of pillars of our mission that our district kind of utilized and kind of where they might support that that was my only other feedback is i think it'd be cool

006to tie that in there they do link to different parts of the strategic plan like for example it's pretty strategic objective and you know various places in the plan so if you were to develop a new priority um we would certainly go to that document and cross references to that document to show how it applies any other any other comments or questions on the board priorities list susan i'm going to leave my computer speakers muted so that we don't continue to have the feedback but if you want have something to say uh get my attention and and we'll i'll unmute my speakers 9.3 assistant superintendent for academic services dr cradfield yeah i'm sorry that was info action so are we just yeah then going to approve the okay so with that i'll accept a motion

007in a second to approve the 2021-2022 board of education priorities as presented in our packet second got a motion in a second to approve the 2021-2022 board of education priorities any further discussion on those please vote motion passes 9.3 assistant superintendent for academic services dr cradfill thank you i would just like to remind the board of some upcoming events related to the start of the school year um we are hot heavy in the planning for launching our school year with our district administration our teachers are starting to come back for meetings and trainings um we have convocation on august the 18th that is from 1 to 3 pm preceding that is a staff luncheon and we would love to have any or all of you that can attend that event to be there we had

008talked at the end of the year about perhaps doing some kind of a cookout for staff to show appreciation this might be an opportunity this luncheon for you all to come and if you wanted to serve our staff in some capacity there would be opportunity there so i'd just like to share that with you august 18th it's a wednesday so michelle do you want us to go ahead and put it on the calendar now and we make that a plan or you want to see if uh what do we do there that would be wonderful if you all could be there and how about if you um let me know who can attend and then we'll find um tasks for you to do i'm putting it in right now i'll be there okay what time

009and what time does the luncheon start 11 o'clock so you might want to be there a little earlier at central office yeah we'll be over at the high school uh lunch will be served in the cafeteria convocation will take place in the performing arts center yeah do you todd do you want to talk about let's talk just a little bit about convocation real quick since we're there i think we're going to get to it later but so the board is always welcome in convocation we love it when you're able to be there we can introduce you and this is the first official meeting of all of our staff for the school year under the same roof um another thing that we'd like to do at convocation is to have some newer board members say a

010few things to the staff from their role as a new board member this is what they would like the staff to know about them about their role the board um and so forth we've never made anybody do this um but i don't know that there's ever been a new board member that's not done it so no pressure right last year we had we had we did not have the traditional convocation so i don't believe we had any one last year so what's my time limit do i have an hour you have between four to six hours okay now when you have done this right and of course you have scott have you done this you have not in food then if you have not then susan is not and of course jeff is not so

011um and we've had years like that where there's been kind of a buildup and we did several and you know each person took you know two three minutes um to say what's important to them that they want the staff to know am i muted no how about that um so i guess first of all your availability that day the three of you uh are you available um to come to convocation on that day i have blocked it on my calendar okay susan i can be there is that a yes thumbs up yeah yes and then scott because of now i'm open okay let's plan on that and we can visit a little bit more later about thoughts you have and you don't need to run anything by me but if you just want somebody to

012chat with about what have other people done in the past and um that would be just fine so you know probably no less than a couple of minutes and no more than five minutes would be would be just fine um and if you go 10 minutes i'm not going to come grab you off the stage or anything like the big long king comes out and jerks you off you might start playing music or something to encourage you the accounting rewards yeah yeah randy will be in the back mute yourself yes great so we'll plan on that again that'll be good excellent uh so convocation on the 18th kicks off our that's our first day of our back-to-school meetings um so our um certified and classified staff will be attending meetings the 18th 19th and 20th

013in preparation for our kids coming back on the 24th and you're welcome to those meetings as well if you would like the week prior to that we are welcoming all our new warriors and so on the 12th 13th and 16th we have new teacher orientation new classified or certified staff orientation this year we are um also including for that first day with our welcome breakfast and our tour we all get on a bus and take a tour of the district so i can share some of the priorities for the district give a little bit of history and allow our new staff who aren't from smithfield to actually see smithville and we are including our classified staff as well so it's the first time that that we have done that and we're really excited about having

014them as part of that introduction and really orienting them to our district in that way so there may not be enough room on the bus for you and you may not want to be on the bus on august the 12th because it may be hot but if you really want to come we can make room i promise so just wanted you to be aware of those again you're invited to any and all of those events that you would like to participate in the orientation bus tour the bus tour will start i want to say 8 45 len if you're really serious i'll give you a i'll give you a definite time that's hilarious well i kind of take a convoluted route so we'll have to talk about that beforehand if you're gonna no no gravel

015roads but the 92 construction is throwing me for a loop look at it that's the 12th any questions about any of those back-to-school events all right i have left at your station a draft of a survey regarding the graduation site we discussed this last month i do not expect feedback today but i wanted you to have that um this is not a good time to launch a survey like this we need to wait until a little closer to the school year if that's okay with you so there's time to provide feedback but please look through it anything that you think needs to be explained more clearly word choice any suggestions you have for improvement please let me know the last item that i wanted to talk about this evening is diversity education in our district

016so i'm going to talk about two things and then i'll open up to any questions that you might have first i want to talk about our curriculum specifically our history curriculum i have been an educator for 24 years and all of those years i have been involved in teaching history or in working on curriculum in history that was what i taught um we base our curriculum on the missouri learning standards the missouri learning standards require us to look at history from multiple perspectives and we do that so when it is appropriate in the content we talk about race we talk about racism we talk about women's issues we talk about immigration it is important when you're looking at history to not just use one lens such as a political lens you have to look at

017the impact on society as well and so we do take a well-rounded view of what history looks like critical race theory is not in the missouri learning standards and it is not part of our curriculum so i just wanted to to share that information with you when it comes to current events our teachers that that's not history that's not the past we don't have the details we don't have all of the information to thoroughly explain that um when it comes to current events our teachers know that the proper way to to handle that is to look at all of the possibilities that are being discussed in our society and allowing our kids to come to their own conclusions the only real changes that have occurred in the standards um in the last 24 years the

018content is the same basically what i covered in first semester and second semester of american history when i taught 24 years ago is what we cover now we start in the high school with uh reconstruction and we end probably in the 60s with the civil rights movement and that's about as far as we get because there's just so much content in there you don't really get beyond that in our middle school curriculum in american history we start with the colonies and we end with the end of the civil war um in fourth grade we study missouri history that does include slavery and it includes native american history in fifth grade we do a um a survey of american history so we do colonies revolutionary war we do some westward expansion we do the civil war

019we do immigration get a little bit into the 20th century but those are the big topics that we hid in fifth grade so we do have historical topics that lead us to discuss race racism and other issues so i want to be totally upfront about that um but that's the way it's been since i've been teaching that isn't different some of the things that have changed are the emphasis on critical thinking really helping students understand how to look at historical evidence and draw their own conclusions we in particular do this through um document based questions where students are given a particular topic in history whether it's world history or american history and they are giving primary source documents to analyze and review to draw information out of those documents and use that to make an

020evidence-based argument those are the big um pillars for us in history um again there's nothing different what we're doing this year last year the year before for the most part our our standards have been very very consistent um certainly over the last 15 years that i've been here since the other part of diversity education comes in just how we treat each other and those of you who have been on the board for a while and miss harwood and mr urshlin were also a part of some work that we have done in relation to your board priority so let me give a little bit of historical context in the 2016 school year we had a significant uptick in racial racially motivated incidents between students to put that into context we typically had three or four a

021year that year we had over 20. it was a big increase and if you remember many of these families came to the board and shared some of their experiences um and based upon that we put a committee together to do some work part of what that committee did was to develop a diversity and inclusion statement for the district and i'd like to read that to you in the smithfield school district we believe in respecting the unique traits backgrounds and perspectives of individuals and ensuring kindness and equity while emphasizing that people have more commonalities than differences our entire focus around diversity education has always been to create a kind and welcoming environment for all of our students we cannot teach children if they don't feel safe and welcome and feel like they belong so that is

022always our focus our teachers have been trained in recognizing biased language and ways to intervene with that um our teachers have been trained in um just recognizing scenarios and where bias or prejudice may show itself we do not teach lessons about racism outside of the historical context if we have an issue we are looking at differences beyond districts we will look at religious differences maybe health differences um how a family is is constructed maybe some kids live with their grandparents while other kids live with their um with their parents we look at all kinds of differences that may um impact how a student feels um as far as belonging in their classroom we rarely will signal out any particular type of discrimination that may or may not have occurred if a student has said something

023or done something that violates policy that would be considered racist or prejudiced that is a conversation with the principal and that student in private and parents are always notified when that occurs um so we're we're not doing lessons in our elementary classrooms that are about racism or race we're talking about a welcoming kind environment i think that addresses some of the things that i've seen on on social media as far as questions but i would certainly entertain any questions from you if you would like more detail or more feedback and i would also welcome ms harwood or mr urshlin to share any insights they had because they were part of this committee that worked on our inclusion statement our initial plan regarding um equity and inclusion i just want to say thank you um you're

024very impassioned and very clear on what the direction was what we're dealing with and we're not just teaching them history we're not just teaching them how to be good students but we're trying to teach them how to be good adults too right how to interact with one another and to do that and prepare them for the real world that they're stepping into that is diverse that is open is clearly what we need to do so thank you for the work that's being done i had a chance to review some of the some of the information that was shared and i think you're doing a phenomenal job and kudos to you and everyone who is included in those efforts is that all you have that's all i have unless you have more questions anybody have any

025other comments or questions for dr crediville thank you dr cradfil 9.4 construction update mr hitchcord susan are you trying to say something we just we just couldn't hear anybody so i didn't know what was going on i'm sorry could you repeat that um we are that aren't there couldn't hear anything so we didn't know what was going on technical difficulties again thank you okay let's try that one more time here all right can everybody see the construction presentation okay okay so again just going to review we've had a busy month um going on with our construction a lot of work done this month uh a lot of rain this month but with the eagle heights edition enclosed um and us being delayed anyway with the att fiber for the activity center um we still got

026a lot done the good news is this month the uh fiber from the activity center has been um rerouted and we've been digging more so to start it's with eagle heights just recently we signed our certificate of occupancy meaning that we have taken possession from j done for the building so that is great news basically right now they're just putting finishing touches up um you know the um you know marker paint on the marker boards are getting put up some of the additional cork boards uh we're making sure you know our projectors are finalized and some odds and ends um you know soap dispensers things like that in that area but the main um you know 99 of the job is complete and so just to kind of give you a little bit of idea

027of what that looked like here is one of the classrooms we have the main cabinetry and sinks here this is one of this is of course the orange hallway we have our cubbies that are demonstrated in that picture this is the hallway starting at the end of the door where you exit down you can see it's a super long hallway now lots of classrooms going on in that addition and then here is the new restroom that we have in that hallway as well so things are looking really good in that edition you know just fine-tuning some things fine-tuning our hvac fine-tuning some other systems but we'll be ready to go here for the first day of school on august 24th so our activity center again last meeting we talked about how the atm t fiber

028was holding up some of that progress that was rerouted earlier this month and we've been working very hard to get down to level and get down to our pad the good news is early next week we're going to start on our footings for the foundation with epic concrete um next next monday or tuesday so we've got the majority of the dirt work excavated you know put to on the north end of our site and then this is what the site looks like now that's close to where the brick house or the block house is looking back up towards the high school and then that view is from the um oh about the 20 yard line on the east side of the field where the visitors are at looking back towards the property there so you

029can kind of see about the location of the elevation of where the basement of that activity center is going to start so making good progress there for the lost time we did have with that fiber this is a retention area that's on the south side again because we were displacing so much of the water flow by code we had to put a retention area for the watershed that was going to come off and in the past i know we've had a lot of complaints from our neighbors to the south that we have a lot of runoff this is going to help that and so we also engineered this area to be compliant with our 2025 plans which calls for a tennis courts in the current softball location that softball field to move down to the

030baseball location and install turf field and also have additional parking so we calculated that runoff in so we had to do this one time so when that 2025 project comes around we won't have to redo that retention area so that's something we had as a an alternate change order and the price came in right so we went ahead and did that instead of having to redo that work so we're happy to get that done uh so this is one of the biggest changes is our playgrounds um at all of our elementaries this is the eagle heights playground you can see the mulch is removed you can see we have the turf installed you can see the high impact areas there at the bottom of the slide and it looks so much different than what it

031used to look like with that turf so now this is going to be ada compliant i truly believe i'll be interested in the data especially getting with denise our injuries on the playground i think you're going to see that go go down how much we'll you know we're going to be seeing but we're excited to have this type of surface that's going to come in all of our buildings so this this is the one that's most complete at eagle heights eagle heights did not have any summer school activity going on there they were able to start earlier um the tall kind of house yeah so it's basically you can see it's a it's a play structure where the kids climb up to a platform and then climb around kind of on a a beam and

032so if you could see more to the left you'll be able to see that but that's what that structure is on the left there so um so that's eagle heights um moving along great there this is horizon and so you can see horizon they put the curbs in they've put the base in for the turf and then they have yet delayed the underlay foam and then the turf on top yet so um they're not quite as far along at horizon as they are at eagle heights and then this is the start of our preschool playground the area you see closest to the camera is going to be asphalt and then the area just on the other side of that to the south is going to be turf just like you saw on our other playground

033and then of course play structures on top of that and so that area will be fenced off you can see the the posts are already up it'll be fenced off away from the the other playground so that way only our preschool kids are on that area and that way they're protected and not intermingling with you know third fourth and fifth graders so that'll be a great space for our new preschool program um at eagle heights so the next is the activity center of course um just to talk a little about that on our timeline as you look at it we are right now looking at still putting in our footings and foundations in july late july so we're still on track with there we're still looking at um i had november last time we had

034a board meeting it's going to look in late november to get that building enclosed the reason that is is of course the att fiber that we had to relocate before we could finally you know complete the excavation at that site and then we're still looking at late may of 2022 to complete um that structure and so some of our ancillary projects um again hvac at horizon is still looking next summer 2022. playground servicing which i showed the progress those pictures is looking to complete next month before school starts and then our kitchen hood at the high school i don't have any pictures but it just got demolished yesterday so that kitchen hood has been taken out at the high school and that kitchenhood will be ready uh at least a week and a half before

035school starts on the 24th so opal will be able to set up and be ready to go in that kitchen area so that is the update on our construction project and i'd be happy to answer any questions you guys have how's the pricing structure with uh material still so um we did see an inflation in our bidding with the activity center um we need to give it a good time now where where we are staying out of places now to change orders so you will you hardly saw any change orders project um luckily we got the vision at the right time and and kind of hit the timing right a really good time before a lot of that inflation hit but any change order you're gonna you're gonna see it come in there so big

036parts labor some of the contractors they have are you know falling behind on labor and so they're not trying to get in as fast as as they were i'm i'm still confident in the may timeline but if anything gets us it's going to be some of the contractors just losing some of their labor and having to scramble for that so any further questions or comments on the construction update thank you sir all right thank you 9.5 comments from the audience this is an opportunity for members of the audience to make comments to the board a total of 20 minutes will be allocated for public comment speakers will be heard in the order in which they notified the superintendent of their desire to speak if the 20 minutes expires prior to while speakers being heard any

037speakers not heard may submit their comments in writing to central office here at 655 south commercial individuals addressing the board should state their name address and limit their comments to no more than five minutes items or issues related to specific personnel should not be discussed should not be discussed in open session uh the first name and i've been practicing this jade pick cabbage close enough and he's going to speak to us on the kobit 19 protocols i live at 103 wisteria court here in smithville i am a father of three children one in the high school one in the middle school and one hopefully about to enter kindergarten i'm also a former substitute teacher here at horizon elementary i'm here to talk to you with the board in the audience at large regarding the um

038a hopeful change to the government 19 protocols that are happening in our school district uh despite our best efforts at doing as little as possible in the county in the state and the country the delta variant is here and the problem that we're seeing with the delta variant is it is uh far more virulent far easily spread and worst of all as i'm going to explain far more of a trial for our children at this point there is the current research is showing that the vaccines that we have the horizon or the i'm sorry the moderna the pfizer vaccines all of them are showing less effectiveness marginally so at being able to prevent the vaccine or prevent the virus from taking hold but they are showing that these vaccines are still showing a high ability

039to prevent the worse symptoms the problem with the delta variant though is that it is showing to be affecting worldwide more younger people people 18 to 49 are showing 42 of those that are getting them as the new cases are now being hospitalized thirty percent of the new cases in john's economy alone for the delta variant are all under 18 years of age we're seeing as a result more transmission through the air it's it's more easily spread airborne so what is the answer to this masks are the answer the vaccine is an important step but unfortunately our current situation is anyone under the age of 12 which accounts for the entire elementary they're not able to get it in may there was a meeting here at the school board and i and i unfortunately was

040not able to attend then but i know that there were comments raised and there was an attempt to try and overturn the mask mandate following various guidelines for the remainder of the school year and into the summer school how did that work out for us i saw as many cases confirmed cases in the schools and as many people quarantined in the schools with a fraction of the school population and this was occurred just before what two days before that there were three schools in south kansas city that were shut down because of that's shameful and i saw the public comments at the time that were that were used to help we had parents come up and talk about how it would be so much more convenient and give so much normality to our children if

041we were just to relinquish the masks shame on them for putting complacency and a little bit of convenience over the children's safety i had some substitutes i saw come up and advocate saying here's the kindergarten mask it's all saturated with stuff what this isn't going to protect them what can we do about this gotta let it go shameful then you're a terrible teacher that's not how this is supposed to go i taught k-6 the whole time i was there i was able to get the new masks i was able to tell them to keep it on and they kept it on all you had to do was ask yes the cdc made a cynical decision to lift the mass mandates to try and get more people vaccinated but the cdc isn't here representing us the

042school board is it would be beneficial for the school board to have a backbone and to be able to show this entire community that they're willing to put our children's safety above anything else any other political concerns there's one support staff member in the elementary right now who their entire family resists getting vaccinated they their entire family is now out with coping for the second time i have a child who's about to go into kindergarten he's immune suppressed should i trust my child with this ia support person the next wave is here missouri is now one of the worst outliers in our country for the delta variant for kobe 19. we're as one news told us we're the canarians of walmart so what we'd like to do as a community to be able to step

043this up and i will really quickly leave you with a statement from all of a hood or children's mercy immunology department children are less different but that doesn't mean they have not been infected they have been this is still a pretty severe vaccine preventable disease that is killing more kids than influenza the child that is unvaccinated should continue to wear a mask whenever they are around people that are not vaccinated i know some schools are eager to get rid of the masks because the world is eager to get rid of the masks but if you're asking me what is the best thing either get vaccinated if you're eligible but if you're not keep the mass on until you are it's really that simple i hope the board has the courage to do what is necessary

044to keep our children safe thank you thank you next is john chevalier be speaking on the mask situation as well hello everyone i'm john chevalier i'm at 18 000 belinda um so i'll make sure everyone knows i'm my ultimate at the city so i'm not speaking on math the city i'm speaking on path myself i just want to say that this board had some tough challenges last year a lot of hard decisions needed to be made like with letting kids play sports um and uh even getting them back in school in person and i think mask is another thing that was a challenge um so why well for the most part i i do support having asked especially for those that are vaccinated that's kind of probably not as necessary i still think there is

045a huge population at the school um i really think that we should look at making sure we're protecting those kids um at a minimum right so the ones that need it i feel like we you know as as a society we have to make sure we're protecting the most vulnerable um and if there's a parent that can't send their kid to school full-time to be having a person in school because they're afraid that there's no mass their kid can catch this disease i mean that's that's pretty bad i mean we make sure we make arrangements for parents to send their kids um that have peanut butter allergies right we don't eat peanut butter sandwiches in front of these kids so why is it that we wouldn't um you know make sure that they're safe with

046masks so um you know and i hear a lot of people say you know masks are uncomfortable or tough i mean really i mean my kid had um one time got had to have wear a t-shirt on a hot date because um her straps or whatever weren't the right size so she had to sit there and comfortable and eat all day because of it i mean if we're concerned about that then maybe we should be concerned about all the press kept store everything up so so yeah i i think that um maths are going to be a tough one for you guys hopefully you guys can uh really think about this one but i will say that i am uh proud of some of the parents out there that are um willing to send their

047unvaccinated kids to become child soldiers help um fact undocumented population that are unwilling to support restless society that's pretty good so um but that's all i got thanks next up hello my name is whitney carlisle i live at 14601 mount all of it here in smithville if you notice drive by our house we have a lot of flags out front on mount olivet we are proud americans and tonight at dinner i reiterated to my kids that our great country is based on government of the people by the people for the people somewhere over the past year and a half that mindset seems to have shifted for many leadership positions i have learned more clearly now than any other time in my life how vital local government is to our day-to-day lives the motions you put

048in place directly impacts our kids and community more than anything done in washington please be strong and bold and do what is in the best interest for our town of smithville this is my fourth time speaking at a school board meeting about all things covent frankly i don't want to do this anymore but i will always fight for my kids i have heard from an army of parents and teachers who are very concerned with the upcoming school year one teacher said i'm worried it's going to be even worse than last year she was not talking about the health of our students but the covet rules expectations and unknowns that we endured last year we can't do that again to our teachers and kids we have learned a lot about cobit over the past year and

049a half our actions now can reflect the things we have learned i don't feel like this way of communicating is working very well parents are welcome to come up to you and speak for five minutes stating our concerns it's intimidating and quite frankly a little bit awkward looking at blank faces when i'm done speaking i'll sit down and we'll move on uh through the agenda as if nothing was said then the topic of kovid being on the agenda will come up you will say a few words and us in the audience have to sit silently after the may meeting some parents spoke up during that time and were told you guys can't talk and it's not a discussion how can we do better at communication between the board staff and parents because i do believe

050you should welcome having a discussion and input from parents i have teachers who will talk to me unfiltered but feel they can't honestly voice their thoughts and not have negative consequences from doing so i get this 100 parents who spoke out last year are now choosing to sit back this year in silence due to the backlash they endured for fighting for what they felt was best for their kids we sure talk a big game of wanting to raise strong kids yet when they grow up to be strong adults do we do the same the school board and parents should be on the same team your support and encouragement to accomplish this would be so great i genuinely want to know a better way to express the needs of our kids maybe a monthly roundtable discussion

051could be beneficial at least somewhere where we as parents can ask questions and actually get answers like all area school districts i imagine tonight's covet topic will discuss rules to be in place for the full school year i applaud those four school board members who voted to let families decide to wear mask or not i believe this should continue i have read countless articles studies and opinions about mass what many experts are missing when urging mask again is what happens in reality when kids have to wear a mask all day to those who say it's not that big of a deal i'll say it again the day after the mask were allowed to come off school was completely different my favorite quotes i heard that day were it feels like the first day of school

052i can see your smile and i'm freer than a sample at costco the experts urging masks do not bring up the emotional or psychological side effects of masking all day if you want to put mass back on kids all day are you requiring a six-year-old to do something you yourself cannot do while voting in favor to keep mask on these kids our own school board president has had his mask dangling from his ear if he couldn't keep his mask on properly for two hours how can we expect our kids to do this day after day but masking is only half the battle as seen in summer school the quarantine rules have to change or healthy kids will be sent home all school year long you can decide this i have some questions i would like

053answered maybe if you want to jot them down so when we bring up covet later you can answer them how many kids were sent home after an exposure at school then tested positive or got sick surely we have those numbers also will you accept a negative cova test to return to school the children's mercy cova handbook linked on the agenda tonight talks about if there's an exposure and both parties have quote consistent and correct use of mass there's no need to quarantine so who decides what is consistent and correct use of mask that's a lot to put on a teacher to decide if a kid slobbering all over their mask or wearing it on their chin is considered consistent or correct enough let's talk cohorts the same covent handbook states a cohort maybe a class

054or an entire grade i would like to see recess cohorts expanded to an entire grade level this may not seem like a big deal for you adults but i can promise you not being allowed to play with your friend is a big deal i want to reiterate the powerful role you have i have multiple or multiple times our district waiting on word from the clay county health department when making decisions well i went to the clay county health department meeting last week i wanted to hear straight from them how decisions are made you know what they did when asked specific questions about our local schools they pass the buck to deci so if we won't make decisions here in smithville but turn to the county to do so and the county is looking at desi

055for guidance i can only assume where they get their rules from do you think someone being in washington or sitting in an office in a different state knows what's best for my individual child here in smithville i don't but you can you can know our students and community at the most personal level you can see the effects of covet guidelines child by child and make decisions based on what you actually know and see not what you read about on a national level a good start would be to truly listen closely to us parents you don't need to look nationally at what's best for our kids ask us parents we'll tell you we want the best for our kids you can look at the end of last year to know where the majority of our community

056stands on the covet agenda for this meeting three links were given one was a cnn article are you really looking to cnn to know what to do here in smithville given the political game our media has turned into i find it very alarming that of the three links posted about coven a cnn article was included that is certainly not where i want guidance for my kids to come from so to summarize how can we improve having an actual discussion and dialogue between parents and the board coven rules please let families continue to decide to mask or not i appreciate your actions in stepping up to make that happen can we expand the cohorts to include an entire grade the handbook linked states that as an option that you can decide on quarantine guidelines what can

057we do now using logic and reasoning to ensure our healthy kids can stay at school part of the school's mission statement is to educate all students in a premier learning environment if the guidelines do not change now that would be difficult for many families to accomplish if their students are sent home when not necessary this isn't a trial run for our kids they get one chance of a childhood let's find ways to make the school year a success for them thank you hello again um i just want to start off by talking about the fact that you guys mentioned backlash people not wanting to speak out i can see the backlash that's ridiculous don't shame anybody for caring about their child in the way that they know is best for them it and your backhanded

058comments are not helpful for anybody our society is full of that already like the barriers that we have in our society are just keep building up and building up and there's just more distance between us as people and individuals it's not just about masking anymore it's about just dividing us further physically mentally it's it's just disgusting really you know we want to bring each other together and lift each other up and we can't do that when we're tearing each other down there's so much out there so much information there really is so who do you trust i'll tell you what the first one you trust is yourself and we should be able to trust ourselves to make a decision for ourselves and our children our families be the advocate for our own children and that's

059all we're wanting here is to continue to have a choice as parents i am fearful all the time that my choices as a mother are being taken from me i am a responsible adult i really am i try hard to make sure my children are safe and that they're being good people i really work hard on that and i do welcome the diverse information that everybody else is putting out there your opinions matter to me your opinion matters to me and i would appreciate you giving it to me without any kind of backlash judgment on what my opinion is i will take your opinion and i'll weigh that against all the information that i can gather on my own because i am a parent and i do care about my children and that's why i'm

060here and i appreciate all the hard work that you guys do i can see it here regularly when i'm when i attend your meetings when i look at them online and yes these decisions you guys are making are so difficult and i can appreciate that and i also appreciate you addressing any discourse or diversity discussions or anything all the things that you talked about here recognizing the public comment without it being brought to you in this meeting i mean that's that's fantastic and i kind of just appreciate that i just want to say i would hope that you all continue to feel empowered to make the proper decision and maybe give the give yourselves a break and let us make decisions for our children we can do that without putting any pressure on you and

061making you feel responsible for anything that happens if masks are where you think it's safe please wear it wear the mask and that should protect you if you need a vaccine or if the vaccine is pretty high success rate or if it's like the flu where it reduces the symptoms or the length of time you're sick that should be your decision and you know those are all available all this information is available to anyone at any time and maybe if we weren't so harsh on each other there would not be so much hesitancy with stuff like a vaccine no nobody has ever pushed a vaccine harder on any public than this right now i think we're just stepping on our own feet here if we just support each other not tear each other down and

062trust that we have the ability to make decisions for ourselves and our family i think we will all be able to move forward as a society and just do better be better people and make better decisions and our health mentally and physically i think will improve we just need to get out of our own way just get out of our own way like i appreciate everybody putting their face out here and you know just getting out here it's so scary it really is i'm sorry if i'm kind of getting distracted here but you know it's just it's really depressing to see what we could backtrack into when i've seen the success of giving everybody a choice we didn't ask you to deny mass in this school we just asked you to give us a choice

063and everybody made their choice and it was fantastic i got to experience it firsthand when i you know took my daughter in for testing to be into this next school year for her first time and just seeing the faces hearing conversation i mean i just like to experience the world around me and take it in and it was just amazing it really was i could see a huge difference and i know everybody can and i'm not asking anybody to put aside what they think is going to protect themselves but i'm asking for the choice to stay there i do not want to lose any more parenting choices i need to keep them in place i'm doing a good job i really am and i second guess myself every moment of every day but i'm hoping

064that i can continue to move forward as a mom and do best for my children thank you uh program evaluation discussion will come up here a little bit later on so we move to 11.0 11.1 the general financial review one thing that was a priority for us was to make sure that if we had you coming in for a meeting that there was a substantial amount of information for us to discuss so that actually went into the way that we clustered some of these topics another thing that we looked at were do we have some related topics so for example in um 1st 2022 in that particular um program evaluation evening we're going to have about an hour's worth of discussion maybe a little bit more but almost all of them are related to curriculum

065so there's kind of a theme for that evening there were a few items that we are every year we update you on and so we felt like they were related enough that we could add them to that particular presentation so for example in december i should be able to share what data we have on our annual performance report for this year student attendance and graduation rate are two of the five components of that um that report so it makes sense to piggyback those together in a similar manner we do a workshop specifically on the budget and finance accounting and insurance can be included in that so we were really trying to streamline your time and make the time that you that you come in meaningful and um and important um so that was really our

066thinking behind the way that we clustered them but you'll notice that rather than four per year there are three we eliminated the august meeting that had originally been proposed so november february and may are the um the months that we would present program evaluations [Music] um would we do it on the same day as these or would it be separate so the board well that is the good question um because these dates may this may be the first monday we might need to choose a different date for the the budget workshop i think i mean i believe it would take um at least two hours if not more to add the budget discussion to that particular workshop that that's what i was thinking i wasn't sure how we're going to fit the budget workshop and

067the academic stuff into the schedule because those are two lengthy ones that we already have very heavy topics any other comments or questions on the proposed program evaluation cycle this is listed as an action item so if no other comments i would accept a motion in a second to approve the program evaluation cycle is presented in our packet so moved second we've got a motion a second to approve the program evaluation cycle is presented in our packet any further discussion please vote motion passes 11.3 covet update of tonight this topic is certainly gearing up in in all of our communities i just had the opportunity to interact with colleagues superintendents around the entire country and um same kinds of conversations that we're having in our board meetings here are being had in nebraska in washington

068florida so on one hand it was good to know that we're all dealing with this but on the other hand is there not a pocket somewhere that there's some kind of solution uh to help us work through these these types of issues so um there have been three publications very recently uh targeted at dealing with covet in the school environment and whitney you are very accurate that that is a cnn article and when when i when that was posted that was not the intent um the link was was to be directly to the american academy of pediatrics and it pulled up as cnn when i went back to look at it later my apologies that's that's not how i would have wanted that to be displayed but you're right that's how it comes across be

069that as it may um children's mercy uh you know looking at at their language children's mercy says masks uh recommended for the unvaccinated that's the language that's used in the document recommended for the unvaccinated a cdc masks should be worn for unvaccinated that's that's their language should be worn uh for unvaccinated and then you get to the american academy of pediatrics that that comes across with a much uh swifter uh universal massive recommendation so those are the three summer publications from entities that we have looked to in the past for some direction in our policies and um at this point i just got off the phone this afternoon i spent a couple hours on the phone talking to area superintendents again had lots of conversations around the country um but we continue to make our

070our rounds locally on our local communities what's happening in the kansas city metropolitan area and then even more specifically what's happening in clay county what's happening in plant county as it relates to our numbers and our policies moving forward as far as mitigation measures are concerned um aside from masks they're pretty standard and denise can you know can jump in here in terms of social distancing as best we can cohorting where we can those things we've been doing for a long time and are pretty easily put back into place the masks is the big point of contention if you will whether to put masks back back in place or not um so we're still working through that this is not an action item i'm not asking you to take action on this tonight i'm telling

071you that uh this is the information that i'm looking at um these are the people that i'm talking to um i i would suggest though uh if these entities are coming out and they're saying that this is recommended and this should be done um you know i would like some board action um if it is something that's outside what these entities are recommending i can bring you a recommendation i'll be happy to bring you a recommendation and my feelings won't be hurt if you don't implement my recommendation but i think when when the district goes outside recommendations of these entities that it should be aboard a board action item so and and this board was very active in in taking action in implementing plans during the last go round as well so that wouldn't be

072a you know a situation that you're unfamiliar with so anyway i'll ask my colleagues what they have what they have to add i certainly would like to know what what your thoughts are what's on your mind at this point in time if you have things you want specifically from the administration as we move forward um you know knowing that mask is a big hanging chad if you will masks that that sole decision can be made with a little time left to implement we know how that works many people have masks if they don't we'll have one for them you know if that's if that's a problem i was on a an airplane a couple of days ago and i lost my mask i didn't have a mask well not a problem they didn't kick me

073off the airplane they they gave me a mask so that's something um that's easily easily managed so i guess i'll stop there uh denise from student services thoughts that you have to add at this point i don't really have any other thoughts other than our fall 2021 safe return plan has been posted since june 23rd on our website so right now that's our tentative plan unless um things change and you know as a part of that plan we stated that we would continue to watch community transmission and we'll continue to take things under advisement i think right now it's too early you know it's too early to make a determination we still have time before school starts but i just wanted to remind people in case you didn't know this plan was out there that

074it has been posted for where we currently stand there has been some requests from the board to hear from additional administration i had a request today from what about you know if if the approach of elementary students don't have the opportunity to be vaccinated and here we've got a couple of organizations suggesting that they should mask because they don't even have that opportunity what do what elementary principles feel about that right behind that was you know we can't really pull the teachers because they're not here you know yeah so i am curious to see what more teachers i know i've asked some of my teacher friends what they thought especially the ones with littles in their classroom and i know the principals probably have a good idea what their teachers want or would like to

075see you know teachers can be affected too i mean if they have the quarantine that's money out of their pocket i mean that's pto time i i think we'd have to go back and look at all those again so i mean it's not just as easy as saying yes or no yeah and the struggles is not just mass right so um the quarantine strategies are much more manageable for the lack of a better way of putting it uh in that if you are vaccinated you don't have to quarantine so that makes i mean that makes perfect sense to me and and that's easily uh uh easily managed or if you're not vaccinated and both parties are wearing a mask and you're three to six feet apart for the entire encounter you don't have to quarantine

076well that makes good sense as well so so th those developments um in that regard are are are helpful well so what if we're talking about a couple of students and they are um they're saying they're vaccinated but do we should our policy be just the honor system you know you're you're saying you're vaccinated so you're vaccinated so we move on um or do we need to move towards because you're saying you're vaccinated we need you to we need you to prove that you're vaccinated uh do we do we get into that then um and so that would be the next question that needs to be worked through and i'm not suggesting one way or another i have i have uh i could argue that uh from both sides so uh and then finally kovidly

077for staff um the the coveted leave that was enacted by the federal um government that'll that lat was very generous and allowing for for leave that expired june 30. so what's what's the covid leave look like moving forward for the smithfield school district um you know not not what's the federal government doing or this or that well how are we going to handle uh covet leave moving forward so very big questions that we still need to sort through and um and i realize that the clock is ticking and i realize that parents would like to know now what first what's august 24th look like you know for my kids i've got kids too you know going to school they're asking me the same question and their mother is as well and they feel like i

078should have some answers but i more importantly i want to make the right decision i want to be sure that this is well evaluated and i've gathered lots of feedback before i make that recommendation so our neighbors are not planning on making a decision um real soon they they're they're kind of thinking like like you're hearing me thinking right now out loud so we're studying this we're studying it together and we don't always do the same thing in the northland we do operate independent of each other from time to time as well so my interest is to do what i believe is best in the smithfield school district so more more to come so i've got a couple thoughts i'd like to share um you know as i look at this i think we got

079three things we need to consider looking at potentially doing tonight first and foremost is leading by example so dr carter fell very eloquently laid out that we're trying to teach individuals how to how to respect one another and this is a decision that has a lot of varying opinions so we need to lead by example with a group who has varying opinions on this board and clearly in the audience and community on how we can have an honest conversation around this and come to a result that we feel is appropriate second is i think we need to clarify what our position is at the moment and third we need to recognize that the position that we have at the moment kind of handcuffs our superintendent and i think we need to address that tonight and

080and give him the authority to address what variants may come and what what what could potentially happen so i've the liberty to draft up what my thoughts on this and uh my recommendation which is we clarify those things tonight and so this is my my words the board of education recognizes the public health threat that kevin 19 virus represents we also recognize the toll that the virus has taken on the mental health and overall well-being of students staff and the general public to that end we have firmed the goal of providing for the safe instruction of our students the board strongly encourages each family to inform themselves of the risks that the virus and the variants represent for them and their loved ones we encourage each family to make their their own choice on what

081is right for them and recommend that those who are ineligible or unvaccinated remain masked in accordance with the guidance from recommendation from the cdc and various health officials as the virus continues to evolve we further recognize the need to evolve with it to that end we authorize the superintendent to enact any changes required to protect the health and public interest including mandating mass should circumstances require uh such measure any change should be followed by a called or regularly scheduled board meeting within seven days of said change for board review so i think that does a couple of things one it clarifies that we still believe that it should be up to the parents that we aren't recommending that folks don't mask but that they make their own decision and where risk exists can do mask

082and third gives gives our superintendent the authority to move in in an order that may be necessary [Music] so i am i love that statement because it acknowledges the capability and gives respect to the parents who make decisions on behalf of their own associated risks to their individual families which i believe is a given right um but it also gives leeway because the reality is this is dynamic there is a varia and communicable diseases do have and flow throughout a community and i do think you have to have the opportunity to make swift action without deliberation of weeks and weeks and weeks and months from aboard so i do think you should have that autonomy based on given scenarios when the public safety is truly at risk and we all kind of have a feeling

083what that looks like and as stuff escalates especially those who are closely connected to healthcare um i mean i do have questions and i think clarifications and i think there are good points brought up in both ways and that's the reason i ask these questions you know from a masking standpoint um i guess i'll ask denise specifically from a masking standpoint does the data suggest that it just stops the spread through limiting the vector opportunity a vector someone who is a communicable disease and has the ability to spread that disease throughout the population does it reduce the vectors ability to spread that communicable disease or does it also protect the individual themselves from contracting that disease what is the data leverage is it 50 50 like it stops me acting as a vector and it

084protects me from getting and contracting that virus is it both and the reason i ask is because if it no one said get rid of masks we said you have the option it's up to you we trust you to make the right decision based on your risk for example my work modality doesn't give me great flexibility to be at home so my if i know a risk is my kid will be quarantined for 15 days because he's not wearing a mask i associated that risk i now have the option to put a mask on to mitigate that risk so that's the piece i mean is there data around that denise at all i'm sure there is a lot of data around that i would feel um i would need to look that up to give

085you accurate information you hear so much on every side of this topic you know there's articles that will um i feel like they will support both sides of that you hear various things so in order to give you something i feel like i could stand on i would need to really look into that that would be helpful and then i guess to that to the effect of you know we i'm a data guy if you guys don't know this but we've had an opportunity to run with mask and compare what our infection rates versus quarantines were with mask on and then we've also had a summer to compare what those rates were without mask quarantine and infections and i think both of you guys spoke to those points today i would love to see what

086that comparative data looked like i can tell you without the numbers without the numbers in front of me because i'd have to pull out and give you exact numbers but i can tell you for the first time since covet started here and i've been keeping track of things i would tell you that we did have spread at school so i would i would have to go back and tell you exactly how many but i remember from those that were quarantined those kids were coming up positive and that was alarming to me because it's really the first thing that we saw that go on in in numbers you know before we might see one here or there and it's really hard to assume especially with high school students that are in activities or spending the night

087or whatever you're doing in your social setting to really pinpoint where that is um which that's going to be a challenge no matter what but i can tell you during summer school was the first time we really saw multiple students that were exposed that did end up positive you really had two different environments sure several different environments that you were looking at there that summer school environment you know was beginning apparently the delta um you know very being exposed to our community we had little social distancing at that time we you know we took it all away and so you know determining what factor that's challenging i think as summer came and people traveled and did a little more you know during a school year you're naturally more in your in your limited circles and

088in the summer you're not so it's really hard this is why this happened i think that it's almost nearly impossible but i can just tell you that we did see a little bit of something that would have had more alarming yeah i think from my end and i don't know denise if we can work with our epi or not from clay county but i would just love to see quarantines versus school year versus the summer and not just total numbers but percent increases within a given month um maybe i won't labor any more on this but i'll follow up with you in terms of what i'm talking about a little more in detail because i think if we can look at not quantities but percent increases in incremental ways per month because i want to

089compare the i want to look at the environment are you speaking of percents in our county in our city in summer school for example we had 400 kids in summer school this year our total population was 2 000 in this setting but the infection rate or quarantine rates compared to total population versus this population within a three-month trend would be data that i'd be interested in i know that's well we have one month and we have two environments and it's different and it's mixed kids so i feel like we're not comparing the same we're not comparing i want to look at the different environments that's what i want to see is the different environments and how they're how they trended to the what limited capability we can i think it would be helpful so however

090denise you work your magic i appreciate it um but the reason i bring that up is because um i i personally feel at this point in time i still feel that our parents and our society is educated enough on the matter at hand and um if you come to tell me mass do nothing to stop the infection rate well that's a different story but if it does you're associating that risk and you you are responsible and you can make an intelligent decision on behalf of your family no one says get rid of mass they say you have the autonomy to make that decision how best reflects your family and that's just how i feel one thing um i don't like the idea that we're telling the parents what to do i think we take away

091the responsibility that parents have we shouldn't do that parents should be well enough aware that if they're afraid that their child is going to come in contact with covet that they should put a mask on that should be up to them i watched that news release when that doctor from children's mercy spoke and i thought to myself man she just opened up a can of worms she came out with no statistics she showed no graphs she just came out and almost i could almost classify it as a personal opinion almost because she didn't tell me where she got her information from she didn't tell us how many people how many kids are sick with uh kovitz she didn't give us any kind of statistics at all i think running and putting our head in the

092sand because someone says we must do this i think that's premature i think we should get more facts more statistics and think more on this rather than to take the option away from the parents and it's for for giving them to one person to make the decision ah i find no no offense to dr shoots but i find that hard because this board is based on seven people making decisions and to take that decision making away and handing it to one person i don't feel comfortable with that i'm not saying you would make a good decision i've got a lot more decisions yeah yeah you do you do i don't want to lay this on you i mean that that and there you've got another point that's the board's responsibility it should be the board

093that saddles that horse it should be the board that packs that weight on their back and i don't like it anymore than the other six do but that's what we signed up for that's our job well you know from superintendent's perspective i appreciate um jeff's suggestion that you know you you you have one employee you hired me to do the job and i appreciate the opportunity to make uh decisions especially when their public health decisions uh are perceived public health decisions and ones that i think are critical enough that need to be made before the next board meet and if you know and if and if the board and i'm sure each one of you at some point in time i've made a decision that you didn't agree with and if collectively the board disagrees

094with that i'm a big boy you know you've you've voted against me before i can handle that and we all walk away friends right so um from that perspective i appreciate the proposal um and giving me that authority but understanding that i report to seven people and if those seven people disagree they certainly can can override that decision jeff can you share that with us because i would like to actually be able to read it through and through before we all said hey yeah this is a go this is not a go uh it doesn't have to be now but if you can put that in and share it with us so we'll actually gotta read it wordsmith it um that would be helpful from my point and i know sooner or later but you

095do have a little time here you really do um the next board meeting is uh the week before school starts and if you wanted to push that up you you could put together a workshop and you know make some decisions sooner if you wanted to i don't know that you need to but one thing i mean i i agree with doctor i'm going to reiterate and repeat what previous presidents before me have said since i've been on the board is that we were not elected to run the day-to-day operations of the district we were elected to enforce policy as well as manage the superintendent and his his actions and everything comes before the board we approve all of these action items that whether they're listed as personnel or legal or however they're they're deemed or

096by policy they reach a certain point in financial terms that we are required to approve those but but unless we're willing i think if i'm not mistaken this gave this talked about giving the superintendent the ability to to make such a decision and then any change uh could be reviewed and followed up at the at the next scheduled board meeting or within seven days however that was so it gave a little flexibility uh you know we're going to meet on august 8th august 18th that's the next date the same day as convocation now that i look at that uh you know six days before the start of school and there's going to be a lot of things that change between now and then and uh nobody knows the number of positives versus negatives of things

097that are going to change but i think given giving dr schutz and his administration the flexibility to to be able to run the district as as they see fit in the in the safest manner knowing the feedback that we received and also knowing that should some decision be made and the board doesn't agree with it we have the ability to speak our mind and and take action uh you know if unanimous part of the board agrees on that so i don't think i think as much as things are going to change over the next you know four to six weeks prior to school starting four weeks prior to school starting i'd say we're going to get weekly memos and those are going to change so i i do agree that giving that flexibility and giving

098that that uh the administration the ability to to uh pursue that would be a good idea um yeah i agree i agree with that pass that around scott i think we're getting some more copies of it any further comments or questions on the covid update so no one can hear me okay hearing none we'll move on to 11.4 collective bargaining yeah collective bargaining um finally some headway here from the legal uh from respectively from the legal side of things the missouri supreme court has struck it down house bill 1413 and so we're moving forward in our conversations uh regarding collective bargaining so we're at a point now we've talked about this four years a long long time several boards have been a part of that conversation and after this decision from the state supreme court

099visiting with our legal counsel the advice was you know you've got some people in the district who would like to move forward with this concept so it would behoove the district to develop some policies and framework that would define what that should look like uh moving forward and so that's that's where where we're at tonight i recommend uh to you that we spent some time uh with our council here uh in a workshop i'm talking about these kinds of next steps we've got some policies from mspa that are great starting points um this board can hash them out uh determine uh what they like about the policy they don't like about the policy and then our council can tell us well you really can't change that because of this or that you're the same but

100there could be a better way to do that based on what your concerns are and that that kind of conversation so some next steps can be more clearly defined so to take the next step um to determine what the next steps after that would be uh and i would suggest that we do that with our legal counsel because that is um the the people that would be defending us in a court of law that would be defending our policy should we end up in some type of legal battle i i think the the workshops with msba who is just um an expert in in collective bargaining at large is fine but they're not the ones that would be joining us in the courtroom so i think it's time to work with with our lawyer okay

101oh i can you hear me now okay maybe it's my computer who knows um i don't you know want to rehash the kovitz so i'll say that later but um on this todd i really agree about the collective bargaining i've been hearing us talk about this for since i came on a year and a half ago almost now and i really think we need to make the decision we need to get the you know if we have to have another uh meeting we really need to do that and we need to approach you know prove these things especially since the um supreme court said and i think there's going to be some interest interest in the school so i i'm sort of of the let's get started on it and do something i'm tired of

102listening about it type things so sorry to be blunt and everything but i think that's what you were saying to todd so thank you yeah no go ahead oh that was me talking that's my echo i'm talking to myself hello um no and susan know that there's board members here that have been hearing about a lot longer than you have as well so yeah i appreciate those comments looks like uh workshop just opened up um i could start with that thing yeah i could just get a slew of meeting dates from him in a month and then tell me what month and i'll get from him months the nights that look good for him and i can give those to you and we can pick the most favorable evening nightmare for me so stay away

103from october yeah i would rather go a little sooner than later because we have september yeah yeah we've got 6am on august 18th i think we're available otherwise i think we're pretty booked that day we're gonna be here we might as well be here right yeah i kind of like that idea you could do early morning meetings that's not unheard of what time what time doctor do we gotta what time are our events start up so lunch begins at 11. um you could potentially do a meeting before that you could have a whole day of fun in the district now do you need time to get ready for today's events we've got to put hair nets on you you have a little bit more important role and it wouldn't take me long to put my

104hair net on uh well and then the other question that this board needs to consider and they can consid in my opinion is my opinion uh with their legal counsel is um you know considering next steps um you know how how do we then bring in our our staff into this process uh of being a part of it um giving feedback um what's the give and take you know and and we would need dwayne's help you know with that but uh um it could be just a strictly uh board it could be it's a legal matter it could be executive session um the board and their lawyer [Music] yeah i i think it's a strategic way to roadmap how we want to go about this process knowing that later on we need to pull in

105our staff and i think it's creating framework in the roadmap and that getting that vision set so it gives us an action plan to go engage and move on you've got a real inquisitive look on your face for a while i'm just penny for your thoughts actually i'm i'm on board with that i think we need to have a better understanding of what this all means before we we have that conversation with others yeah not to exclude them but you kind of have to educate yourself first before you can have an intelligent conversation with somebody else so i think it'd be good for us to sit down with him and educate ourselves to that level so we know what those next steps might be yeah [Music] nine o'clock in the 18th well so not everybody's

106work schedule is as flexible as everyone else's so 6am it is okay i will get evening times and i'll also ask about that morning how about that well if you start at 9am and we go to convocation then we've got a six o'clock board meeting that night as well so it would literally be the entire day get some dates and times for you and then you can let me know what works best for the majority of you okay starting the discussion yep getting more formal about the discussion that's all i have there any other comments on the collective bargaining topic okay moving on to new business 12.1 msba policy revisions 2021 a and 2021 b yeah you got two batches here one is bigger than the other um i know there's a lot here and

107there was a lot to look through reminder that these are three readings so you know you could approve a first reading and then um you know really notice something about a policy and not approve a second reading and subsequently a third reading as well until some adjustments were particularly made so just approving a first reading doesn't mean that you're locking the board into the policy revision but questions on on any of these yeah as i read through them all fun reading uh the one that jumped way out on me is that uh eba b uh the eba b uc 0.1 d at the end of that yeah it talks about the super or the schools be required to or the board encourages the superintendent or designee to include the district's lead eradication program periodic testing

108and drinking water knowing the age of our buildings is there a threat of having lead pipes and lead poisoning from pipes in any of our buildings then then having this in that policy means we're going to be testing for something that we really have no threat of having in the first place there's lead deposits within the water table and it somehow cycles through the water true but our city our water supply you should be testing that already so this is this is just adding more from my point of view potentially unnecessary testing and unnecessary costs the district because the city or our water supplier is already doing that so that's the one that jumped out on on me because i didn't any of our pipes shouldn't have any kind of who actually does the testing

109right usually that's who would be the state agency well typically those tests for um now the municipality were it's been a while since i've been in that game but typically no dang it to your point though i don't i don't there might be a little i don't know if we reach out to our public health agency clay county environmental health they'll be a good they'll be able to give us a good idea if this is even applicable well robert do we have a district's lad eradication program i've seen our buildings the old field we have is maple elementary and you know when we did our renovation a couple years ago all that was reviewed to ensure that there was no um lingering you know issues it might have been so so then to scott's point

110would those last two sentences be moved scott let us confirm from msba that this is actually moot and they may say well it may be moot now but it may not be the future but we'll we'll bring next month bring something back to you and it might be an insurance liability type it could be you may have to be in there but we'll find out yeah good question bring that back any other comments or questions on the policy revisions hearing none i'll accept a motion in a second to approve a first reading of the msba policy revisions 2021-a and 2021-b got a motion in a second to approve the first reading of msba policy revisions 2021a and 2021b any further discussion please vote motion passes 12.2 approval of the district's property auto liability insurance so

111the conversation you have before you is our annual renewal of our liability insurance for the district um just to highlight some things in that proposal um there was an 8.47 increase in this year's premiums that's a total of 13.7 thousand dollars uh you can see some of the reasons why they have uh the increase in percentage that was given we do have an increase in square footage and items that are in our buildings with the expansion of eagle heights so that is some of the increase but there is greater liability in general greater replacement cost if something does get damaged in today's environment and so that is some of the main reasons we see the reflective increase in the insurance um liability insurance uh on page two you can see i'm sorry page three you

112can see a history of all of our changes in our premium rate history so you can see back in 2016-17 we had rate increases of 18 000 and 14 000. so you know we've kind of had some good years some bad years and cycled through also shows right above that our total premiums paid and our total amount that we have um claimed as well so you can see um we're not necessarily the best um you know customer as far as payout loss ratios we've had some major incidents with this building getting struck by lightning several years ago um so that was one of the incidents that was a high claim item so i can answer any questions renewal robert do you do we make adjustments based on historical claim issues to mitigate premium increases there's

113some things we can do we can change some deductibles um we can add like windham deductible well i'm thinking like adding lightning rod protection for that or so there's some people think that the money you spend you actually if you put the rides you actually attract instead who did i've asked chris about this to see if we should do something here and there's really no no true information one of the other that's really going to help us or not for the money we would spend so when i look through this um when i work with our insurance liability at the the med center they usually give us a list of action items to help mitigate mitigate some and if we commit to those it adjusts our insurance do they do the same for sure they

114do so we do a safety meeting at quarterly we can take diminished quarterly go over safety procedures and items and stuff like that and us already putting those things in place that gives us the max effort i can tell you how diligent you know mr wayne krueger is and so he has already put in place every single thing that we could do to decrease our rates and so all those things have already been pretty much put in motion so yeah i think it'd be i think it'd be beneficial for the board to see what some of those action items are and how how we're going about mitigating that right i can give you some of those things that you know kind of lowers our premium like just like if you had a student that just

115got their driver's license if they have they're on the honor roll you turn that in that lowers your dreams so can give you those things that we do for our district that brings those down okay thank you we are yes yep that is being done right now so any other comments or questions on the property auto and liability insurance so the question was the removing the mulch and putting in the turf for the high impact areas on the uh playground so once that is complete and that's set that'll be reviewed for our next revision and so i'm hoping that will also hopefully have data to show from ms harwood uh the nurses at each of the schools of that data show so i'll definitely use that information to try to get those lowered so it

116could look like that so you'll probably want to see some data first um but but i would think that would okay that would help it will definitely be on medical claims because with less injuries you know less situation were people trying to put claims against the district so in that sense that will help as well okay any other questions comments hearing now don't accept emotion in a second to approve the district's property auto and liability insurance proposal as presented in our packet got a motion in a second to approve the district's property auto and liability insurance proposal any further discussion please vote motion passes 12.3 health textbook recommendation i don't know if the board has any questions about the textbook recommendation but just for those of you who are new we haven't had a textbook

117recommendation for a long time actually um when we are evaluating textbooks we actually look at every standard for that course and the evaluators um document the page number and provide feedback on the quality of the um the content and they also have an opportunity to comment on things such as the supplemental resources and how those could be used so they are able to use that in their final decision-making process alison mollenauer had requested a new health textbook it has been many years in fact i'm going to say it's probably been 10 since we have updated this text and and we do have the funds to do it within my current budget um so i i'm recommending that you approve the textbook that she selected my only thought was that it's it's from so actually health

118textbooks are not updated very often the other one that was a runner-up um was a 21 update very minor updates i mean they just changed a few things um despite that she felt like the quality of the content of the 2014 was better and that she was going to have to supplement regardless of which one she chose and the supplementing would not be difficult so i noticed that as well but they do not update health textbooks very often it's not like a math textbook or a science textbook that they do that every couple of years just doesn't happen in fact there were only these three available for us to review you know others any other comments or questions on the textbook recommendation hearing now i'll accept a motion in a second to approve the health

119textbook recommendation as proposed in our packet got a motion in a second to approve the purchase of the health textbook recommendation that's presented in our packet any further discussion please vote motion passes thank you 12.4 support staff hiring environment so i put this info item on here is information start to kind of talk about the hiring environment for our support staff specifically for our custodians um in recent weeks we've had job openings for custodians for four to six weeks for one for one position it was six weeks for another position it's been four weeks and we failed to hire that area at first i just want to kind of let you know the environment we're in where we're at we're short staffed but in recent days if i've been talking to different companies that do

120contract and run temp services i feel inclined to being that the next board meeting is august 18th to bring a solution to that and so i did have the agenda item changed to info action which does have a proposal for us to use a tip agency to hire two employees that would be contracted from this company to basically fill the two custodial positions we have we the applicants that we have had have been anything from interviewed and have not basically qualified to to work in the area based off feedback we've also had you know folks not call us back we've had folks in choir and then we basically give them our salary schedule and then we don't hear from them again so we have we have had no one that has been qualified that is

121has basically stepped up accepted the job and been able to move forward so we've been short staffed again two folks the last four to six weeks and i don't see the environment getting any better um and so in the meantime to to be able to prepare our buildings for students um on august 24th i feel like at this time we need to take action to contract with citywide to procure two employees for the stem services i did reach out to three different companies citywide was the only one that was interested in giving me a solution and a bid the other ones only wanted our district as a whole or wanted to take over a whole building and so i i do believe it is in the best interest of the district to always continue to

122have custodial staff that our own employees that has worked for our district um from you know inception and i still believe that's the best the only reason that i am coming to you with this solution with the temp solution is because i have nowhere where to go to try to find custodial staff to clean our buildings and as you can imagine the environment we're in right now that is very important to make sure that our our areas are disinfected and clean for our kids to come and enter so um i have the proposal from citywide for those areas where we're a short staff this contract basically basically states that we have to start with them and give them 90 days and then of course if we were able to find you know someone to work

123for the district we could then cease services through them with a 30-day written notice so it's not like it's a year contract or anything like that it is temporary but it is going to get us in my opinion where we need to be august 24th because if not i'm i'm basically hoping that somebody applies that's qualified even though we've had no one do that even though this has been open for four to six weeks and hr has done a great job of trying to promote this we promoted this job on social media we promote this job on our marquee we've you know friends and family hey if you know anybody and talk to our custodial staff any you know sometimes word of mouth is the best we've had nobody and so i this is the

124last resort for me honestly to make sure that we're staffed for the start of school so i'd be happy to answer any questions specifics for the proposal that they have or or anything in general about our hiring um so we we've recruited and then how many hits have we gotten in terms of people seeking employment minimal is it you know is is it the deterrent so i guess my better question is compensation rate is that a limiting factor and should that be reassessed we just had to do the same thing if ku men pay our labor a different rate because of the challenges with it okay so what's the i mean is there a strategy around that as you guys look comprehensively at maybe market studies and compensation rate studies yes we've started um some

125studies across all industries and then also with other school districts okay and of course this isn't just unique you know this is the district or you know difference hall it's tough really tough right now thank you robert no problem any further comments or questions on the support staff hiring environment and the request for the janitorial services this was a the late edition but i i think i agree with mr hedge court that that we go ahead and pursue this so hearing no other comments or questions i'll ask for a motion in a second to approve the proposal for the janitorial services for maple and eagle heights as presented in our packet got a motion a second to approve the proposal for the contracted janitorial services for maple and eagle heights any further discussion sometimes those

126services can can find those people who will fit better by all means let's go this route to get it get us to where we need to be but just that's another avenue we might check into sure absolutely any other discussion or questions hearing none please vote thank you motion passes 12.5 horizon mobile unit water damage yeah so unfortunately we had a really wet end of may we had a wet june and we had a roof leak in one of our mobile units at horizon elementary that mobile unit you know during the month of june we're doing a transition with leadership for our director facilities and uh we they we basically the end of june was not using that facility it's basically storage right now is all it is and so because time had lapsed between

127the last time someone was in that building and the time that the water damage was noticed um a considerable time had lapsed and considerable amount of water damage had happened and so uh the pictures i have there kind of picked some of the water damage that we have i'm looking at what it would cost to repair the roof rip up all the carpet all the drywall out of that mobile unit and restore all that the cost of that is worth many times more than what the mobile unit is itself so under our board policy of course anytime we have salvaged property we need to put that in front of the board i'm asking for us to to basically demolish that mobile unit um you know what would we do for storage we can buy a

128shipping container for five to six thousand dollars um and place it somewhere is if we need that additional storage i think where it is correct we would put it somewhere else absolutely um we have one behind the high school we have two behind the high school right now you may not even know because they're tucked away um but that's what we would do if we needed additional storage um i don't think i think we'll be able to take what we have and be able to put it other places we won't need to buy anything new but i am asking that we would be able to demolish that site is this the same mobile unit we had to transport it's a it's a different one but it's okay it is over 20. the gift that keeps

129on giving they served their purpose at the time any other questions or comments for on the horizon bubble unit water damage hearing none i'll accept a motion in a second to approve the demolition of the mobile unit and horizon due to water damage so moved got a motion in a second to approve the demolition of the horizon mobile unit with the water damage any further discussion please vote motion passes all right thank you 12.6 concessions planning 2021 2022 school year all right last agenda item last agenda item so a little bit of history with concessions in smithfield school district four typically our friday night football games our junior class has ran our concessions and so they've been a mainstay there for many years um and basically uh we reformed this year that the junior class

130is no longer interested in running those friday night concessions with that junior class leads so we are at a point where we need to do something different than we're currently doing because having concessions is a service for all of our patrons whether it's a soccer game whether it's a basketball game a football game you know when people come to watch events they they do expect there to be some sort of refreshments for them to buy um at that event and so um i asked darren schaefer to talk to a lot of adjoining districts and see what they're doing for their concessions and so the plan i have presented to you tonight was put together by darren schaefer he basically took some components of many neighboring districts and it was very similar to what liberty does

131what carney does what excelsior does and made it fit best for smithville and so what the main um i guess you could say principle is is we have a concessions manager that makes sure all those areas are stocked with all the product um and opens that up to different um groups or booster clubs to sign up to work that event they get a set amount for working that event and then the district basically um you know they pay the percentage basically or set them out depending on their structure and the basically the district basically takes them as well and over time it basically pays for the stipend that this person will get or that salary that person would get and then also has a little bit on top too for profits that you know go

132to like a maine booster club like a an s club or something like that so um the proposal is there um that mr schaefer wrote up um that you know he did all the legwork for it you know we kind of discussed it at the end and and kind of you know put some things that we thought would help present it um but uh i think he did a great job of putting together a plan and it is something that we do need to do something for this school year because the junior class is no longer um you know interested in doing those friday night concessions so um i can i can i know it's a a big change um but i can also answer any questions you guys might have about what this looks

133like with this new um proposal for how we might run concessions not only for friday night football games but for you know um you know boys and girls soccer for boys basketball girls basketball um softball any type of sport we i can kind of talk through what that might look like but not happy answering those profit margin covers the invest stipend so that is what now do i have a you know magic wall anticipated would be the key word you know last year's concessions with covid i mean it was such an odd year um years before is it is a good you know do we have fine you know finite numbers on that we really don't to be honest with you hi robert i as a parent for four years being is this this is

134just for this next year we were kind of anticipating the next junior class taking it on we kind of got taken back we did not realize till late that the junior class what you know was not interested in doing this i think they tried they really wanted to then they they didn't want to give us late notice they really didn't it's just they didn't have the people to do it they can't get the kids to sign up and they're like you know we we just can't provide that service anymore so we kind of scrambled to come up with a solution um we will review this year by year we will make improvements to it um as we see you know how it's working the type of sign ups we get so i don't know if

135you guys ever been associated with like worlds of fun has a deal with your nonprofit group you just sign up you bring 10 12 people they tell you okay you have 12 people we're gonna pay you this set amount for the day you just come and you just work so that's basically what the concession manager does they take care of all the planning as far as ordering the food having everything set up ready to go that booster club signups for that day they come and work that set amount of time we pay them their percent or whatever set amount is and then at the end of the day that person takes inventory of everything orders the replacement items make sure everything's cleaned up ready to go for the next time we have an event at

136that that area so um that is and of course we the district takes some proceeds as well and over time from all the events from basketball wrestling football soccer volleyball you name it um we anticipate this pain for this position as well so we'll have a lot better numbers after year one and see how everything works out we also want this person to you know make more finite decisions about how the process works of signing up for a booster club or if if we have you know if we open it up to booster clubs only and we give them the first month to sign up and we have openings do we let outside groups come in that want to make money and sign up so we we want this person to kind of you know

137come up with more of those finite details and policies for this as they go along so i know um but we had a short amount of time to try to put this together because we had late notice that of course the junior class wasn't going to do it next year and so um this is this is i think a good start but we want to refine this as we go and learn robert the intention would be that any district related club would be able to apply to work so it wouldn't necessarily be booster clubs correct correct yeah if there's an interact club if there's any type of district sponsored group club booster that has you know kids our district kids best interest in mind i mean they are open to sign up you know for

138these these events sure robert can you hear me i can okay um i just wanted to say i really like this as a parent of four years that's been very involved with the confessions with the uh boys soccer it is it is very hard it's very hard to do it's very hard to get parents to want to volunteer and kids are are busy um and darren asked me about this and i think it is a great program um i was checking around too i didn't know all these other schools did it i i think you guys have put together a well thought out uh plan and i think um we definitely as a booster club would support it so awesome that's good to hear any other comments or questions on the concessions hearing none i'll

139accept a motion in a second to approve the concessions planning for the 2021-2022 school year as presented in our package so move planning for the 2021-2022 school year any further discussion please vote motion passes 12.7 msba igniting great ideas conference yes lynn and susan were able to attend this conference and uh i joined them as well and um it was a pretty good little conference so i would like for them to share with the board uh a few of the takeaways um that they got from that opportunity uh lynn you want to start sure um there were a couple things that i really liked um [Music] upon graduation park university waives their tuition and they go in and they do the four years to become a teacher and the deal is that when they get

140done and graduate they come back to the school and work for i believe they said five years it was an incredible program she said there's a waiting list of kids to get into it i thought that was just incredible and another thing too um there was a a session on um and it kind of you know we do the budget thing and we see the money going here and there there was a there was a a guy came in on fraud was a policeman that works in the fraud department that really updated us on how things happen in to school systems where money is siphoned out you don't even know it like there was a school a school that had a they noticed that bills were coming in for construction but there was no construction

141one of the superintendents was submitting bills and getting money when they found out he had a gambling habit but it was kind of interesting they opened up the doors so you can see all this stuff that happens and and kind of make you aware when they do the audits and stuff you know it was it was a good conference it was a lot of stuff it was really hot it was an old hotel it was really hot but and maybe susan can do a little bit more but those are two things that caught my attention was okay yeah thank you lynn susan yeah it was really good for me to go as a new board member newer to to meet other people from across the state one thing that stood out to me they talked

142a lot about connectivity in missouri and how we are state is really you know behind on activity for internet back in the southern and the uh smaller districts and it made me realize just how lucky we were with um all of our virtual um things we had going on with the kids last year how how lucky we were one thing that i i went to a session on msba is working on an equity policy toolkit um to help school boards and superintendents and in the session we were actually allowed to read the the rough draft and to help make changes um it was it was it was exciting to me to see some stuff that's going to be coming out um and to actually have a an opinion on that and then one of the

143number one things that really hit me is our teacher shortage in missouri you know we have a shortage all over but missouri is really getting hit hard we are the 48th in the u.s for starting pay for teachers every state around us as you can imagine is higher than us and with us being so close to other states especially like in kansas city teachers will go over to kansas and they can you know make more money there they talked a lot about how we we have students that are starting college like maybe there's 6 000 students that start um teacher college in missouri and only half of those actually finish um and then they talked about how like they did data after three years 64 percent of new teachers left and after five years 48

144percent had left so they really talked about how smaller districts and rural districts how much harder it is and that just leads into what you know lynn was talking about how they're you know they're trying to do some things to help with that so i just really scared me and yeah not scared me but made me more realize you know we really um are gonna start seeing some problems with getting qualified teachers and you know just making sure we um take care of what we got and and treat them and so that we don't um maybe have to experience that shortage here in smithville like other school districts are so those are the main things i saw okay very good and thanks to both of you for attending that conference and um later on the

145miscellaneous you know you've got a all of you have a conference you have your opportunity to go to in november 4th through 7th so that um that'll be another good opportunity to share but i'm jumping ahead in the agenda and for that i apologize mr president turn back over you any other comments or questions for lynn or susan on the conference down in springfield okay moving on 12.8 personnel report uh we went through the personnel report and executive session uh i'll accept a motion in a second to approve the personnel report as presented in our packet a second to approve the personnel report as presented in our packet any further discussion that we can have please vote motion passes 13.1 miscellaneous yes the conference i look forward to that uh opportunity with all of you

146to learn and grow professionally november 4th through the 7th that is in kansas city um i would encourage you to consider carpooling and whatever you can do to spend a little time with your colleagues on the board um outside of this room right um eating together um you know laughing together um going to classes together and what have you so good opportunity coming up there and then secondly uh which is also been mentioned the back to school uh dates and times or at least some of the times um is the item number two under miscellaneous we'll look forward to seeing the board and scott and susan uh say a few words to our to our staff as well thanks everybody for your this patient and your help with all of that that's all i have

147i have just one quick question because it was a it was a kind of aha moment i wanted to see where if we ever followed back up on it did we still participate in listening tours uh we did not have listening tours during the covered year um but we you know the staff members with staff and community community well they were both canceled last year right yeah we can get those going again because i think um some comments are heard tonight i think those are opportunities where yeah we can solicit but i think we've done a great job of providing communication i think now the inputs for that communication we can get back to but yeah it's a great idea so we bring that to the next board meeting um i can do that and

148karen handed to me tonight the president apologized not on the agenda uh lynn matthias has achieved master board member certification um and that certificate is on the way congratulations glenn if we have nothing else i'll accept a motion in a second to adjourn but move exactly got a motion in a second on the floor to adjourn our meeting please vote won't let me i'm trying roll call scott susan hi we are adjourned thank you everyone