PLCS Board of Education Meeting March 24, 2025

001e e e might have to start a little l for those for those that are standing please join us up front I mean if you want to stand you're certainly welcome to but we are bringing an additional chair so please join us up front we'll start in just a little bit well good evening this is quite a lovely crowd is that is that on um it's six o'clock and uh we're calling to order our meeting tonight on March 24th 2025 of the board of education for Pilan Lista schools please rise for 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 God indivisible with liberty and justice for all thank you can we have a roll call please Mr

002Lotus here miss wood here Mr Bailey here miss Butler here Mr madler here Miss Whit here all all pres please note that the uh copy of the Nebraska open meetings Act is posted at the entrance to the room our next uh Communications is our next agenda item we're going to have have lots of recognitions tonight which is always wonderful to have so um if there's as I call your group forward if you're in the audience make your way to the front if you can so we can see who you are our first group is the Pilan L VISTA high school education Rising group thank you very much uh Miss Whit and members of the board and uh truly a genuine thank you for all of our parents our students uh reps coaches I think we

003have a wide variety of individuals here tonight who are going to be recognized to have this many people show up for a Board of Education meeting is absolutely remarkable so we'll go through each of the uh several groups that we have here uh if moms and dads are in attendance and you can kind of wiggle your way to the front want to take some pictures with us that would be just fine but we'll go through one group take a picture or two and then we'll move on to the next group until we have all of the groups recognized but again thank you for taking some time out of your busy schedule to be with us this evening the very first group as Miss with and indicated is Educators rising and we have a group from

004Pilan Lista High School coached by our own Joe pelowski and I did see Joe sitting in the back in the room thanks for being here coach we have three individuals that are with us tonight Samantha Draper Maggie Novak Samantha ritterbush this team won F first place for their project featuring The plhs Hope Squad at the 2025 State leadership conference if you're not familiar with the Hope Squad it is an initiative at the building level to assist students that are having mental health issues these students are part of the solution Educators Rising as a group cultivates a new generation of Highly skilled Educators by guiding young people on the path from high school through college and into their teaching careers this group is particularly important to our own doctor settles in the school district because this

005is a group that we like to track through High School through college because we like to hire them once they have their teaching credentials so they are a very special group on behalf of your community and your board of education coach ladies congratulations please accept our recog [Applause] Miss congratulations thank you so much for being congratulations congratulations ladies and [Applause] gentl Samantha Maggie and Samantha don't forget to look us up when it's time to student teach and do your practica experience we are thrilled the next team that we are recognizing is from Pilon Lista South High School and it is the pro team uh proar emphasizes a variety of skills not the least of which is the culinary arts uh I don't know if is coach dun here is Jennifer here thank you coach thank

006you for joining us we have five individuals that you're going to see on screen Sophie Hamlin Chase Olson anelise Walton Raymond Flynn Caleb vestel The Culinary proart team of Juniors and seniors recently won two championships not one two championship shs at the state level best beef in the proart state competition and then they won first in the culinary category and Statewide top three competition and will compete at the national level in May these five students and Coach Dunn spent the past weekend at champ camp at Metro Community College Institute of Culinary Arts for rigorous training to help prepare them for the national competition which will be later this spring Pro starts a two-year industry back culinary arts and restaurant Management program the program teaches more than 214,000 students across the country in all 50 states

007we are so incredibly proud of you I'm behalf of the Pilan Lisa Community score schools please accept our recognition and appreciation [Applause] right [Applause] congratulations Pro uh the next group we are recognizing plcs State diving coach by did I see coach Baker coach here coach uh and I think we also have Jody sty didn't I see Jody uh longtime diver from our own Pon L Vista High School a champion herself who do for the Aggies I might add coach stce thanks for being here coach uh tonight we are recognizing Lily Sherman from Pilon Lista South High School Lily won the Nebraska high school state girls one meter diving Championship I don't remember the last time we had a state diving Championship maybe it goes back to coach sty it May thank you coach it was

008coach sty who is an absolute legend in the district so to have Lily following coach st's footsteps means a huge amount Lily coaches on behalf of the Board of Education please accept our recognition and respect well done [Applause] and uh we actually have two other groups one other group I'm going to recognize in my superintendent's comments and I don't know how many students we have here for that one uh it's has to do with uh a rather incredible effort uh at Metro Community College so if we do have those students please don't leave after recognitions we'll get to that in superintendence report the last group we're going to recognize under recognitions however is the state powerlifting team from P La Vista South High School coached by Lance Pullman I didn't see Lance when he came

009in is lanon back uh there's coach good to see you thank for being here Nate I did see Nate when I walked in did I not Nate Wesson thank you thanks for being here coaches we have three students we are recognizing from Pilan Lista South these students won the championship in their weight class Cooper Barnes Taran Lewis ow Owen Rayborn outstanding work representing Pilon Lista South at the state powerlifting meet please come on down and be recognized by your Board of Education [Applause] two [Applause] what a wonderful night of recogn recognition for our both our monarchs and our Titans you are all all welcome to stay of course but I know you're all super busy and uh probably have more exciting places to be but uh we love you for showing up thank you for

010being here and with that Miss W I would conclude our recognitions for the evening thank you so much our next agenda item is the high school student council report from P Lista High School Nova deby and Maggie Novak all right good afternoon everyone my name is Nova debe I'm the president of student council over at Pilan Lista high school I'm Maggie Novak I'm the vice president of student council thank you all for having us for our bi-weekly school report so starting off our school report we have State basketball our boys team qualified for the state tournament for the first time since 2017 we upset number three ranked West View to punch our ticket also during the end of basketball season we hosted our annual color of Hope game we raised close to $6,000 to help

011fight cancer ending our season our unified students went to PL South and competed against the Titans this is always one of the best events of the Year moving on to State powerlifting our school's powerlifting team once again competed at the raw state tournament for Nebraska high school powerlifting over at kraton prep and did amazing as per usual we had numerous students placed within their weight classes congrat congratulations to Nova Deb Henry Roberts and Charlie pile for winning first place in their weight categories State Deca shout out to Romy Brown and Coach P for their hard work with our Deca program the DECA team as we competed in the Nebraska state tournament we had National five qualifiers who get an opportunity to go to ICDC which is the international Career Development conference April 26th through 29th

012in Orlando Florida for the national qualifiers the national qualifying results were sales project Sammy Draper and Maddie Moore they're the state champions also state champions in entrepreneurship team decision-making in entrepreneurship we had Owen tesro he had third place in travel and tourism team decision-making ANZ NE anesa neic and Eileen Ramos placed fourth we also had several others who finished in the top eight McKenzie Frederick placed sixth in the Human Resources management buying and merch merchandising team decision-making Alexis Souza and Kiera Cy for seventh place business law and ethics team decision-making Genesis de Leon and Lauren targe for eighth place and financial services team decision-making Stella Manning and Claire Chandler tied for seventh Drew Schnabel and Audrey Hull tied for eighth moving on to more spring Sports we began our spring we began spring Sports practices

013Mar Mar 3rd participation numbers are very strong and we look forward to our Seasons competition began last Thursday a highlight this year will be for our baseball team they will get to play on FR on Frank with our new bleachers in track and field competition began this Saturday at an indoor meet at the College of St Mary our girls placed second in the 4X 800 Lila Phillips placed third in hurdles Becca Campbell placed first in the 400 Grace soups place first in the 800 ferin Place third in the 800 Jackson Layman placed second in the 200 girls placed first in the 4 by 400 Garen mey placed fourth in the shop Ellie manuso placed fourth in the triple jump and Trey Richardson placed fifth in the high jump on to boy soccer Saturday was also

014the start of the boy season for soccer we hosted Lincoln Northeast and lost a tough one in a shootout the Monarch the monarchs controlled most of the game but fell behind on a runout mistake that led to a goal we tied things up with four minutes to the end of the second period and then eventually got beat 3 to one in the shootout we are home next Thursday at 7 versus Burke our show choir had their fan final competition last weekend at sou Falls free spirit placed fifth monarchy placed Sixth and we were awarded best band in people's choice thank you to miss laru and miss us for all your time and efforts our spring musical is this week they are going to perform fidler on the roof you can see our students perform Thursday

015through Saturday at 700 p.m. with a Sunday Mata at 2 tomorrow the lucky Juniors get to take the ACT test yes yes yes uh the sophomores will also take a practice test students have prep been preparing all semester we've had two practice test days and teachers have Incorporated practice lessons into our school days stuco and pl Club students will be out next week as part of reading Across America that was last Friday these students we traveled to all of our elementary schools and read to Future monarchs stuco also gathered 1,000 food items for the SAR County care center and we are having a blant making activity on April 3rd for project lus congratulations to Vicky woo who was elected as hosa's state officers that's our Health Organization in our school 15 students applied and she

016was one of six students who from the entire state that were elected she had to take a test interview and give a speech to her peers and engage in a group activity this is a huge honor she also placed first in the biomedical technology competition congrats to DWI Halu for placing first in the medical law and ethics test Ed Rising um the three Juniors were who were state champions at our Ed Rising competition for their video about Hope Squad that was Sammy Draper Maggie Novak and Sammy rder Bush all hoping to be future teachers and finally our Multicultural fair right before before spring break our school hosted their third annual Multicultural Fair it was an incredible event for the local community with interesting booths delicious food and Stellar performances Nova deby one of our laders

017of Papio proud also appeared in an interview on Channel 6 News discussing the Multicultural fair and its importance all right thank you guys for having us thanks that was the most amazing report I mean there were so many recognitions that we didn't even get I mean that was thank you for doing that very professional job ladies thank you thank you next on the agenda we have a military advisory report from Colonel kesc we missed you last time Colonel welcome back Colonel thank you hey thank you very much for the opportunity to speak tonight uh quite a bit going on in the base with this being the month in military child um so first off I do want to say thank you very much to the board and to all of the school administrators principes and

018teachers that have made the uh military child uh all the planning we're really looking forward to that happening next month so far we've been asked to uh support nine different schools for month of the military child events and we're working with matching up volunteers that we have on base to be able to support the schools as they've requested uh we also have on the 11th of April we're tracking the purple star recognition uh at uh with the monarchs um and we're going to have a base representative there to really appreciate and give our uh thanks to the school for supporting that we understand it's a press event and we're really looking forward to backing up the administration there and again just saying thank you so much for being able to do that to our families

019as I've said before purple star recognition that's a huge thing for many of our families as they come into a new school district a new place a new Duty station uh to know that the school there has really geared themselves up to be able to help support the military child is they make that transition many of our children will PCS will go change stations and they'll be in six or seven different schools by the time they graduate high school uh so again we really do appreciate everything that the school board uh the administration Dr rickley and uh our school leadership for being able to take care of that really thank you and I also do want to say thank you very much to Dr V for all of his work uh he is a great

020partner with us in our school liaison the communication has been phenomenal back and forth and really just want to say thank you for that with it being the month of military child we're going to be doing some work with the state as well uh two events coming up on the 4th of April off it will be at the uh board of education for the uh Nebraska and really to explain what our school liaison do and how we integrate with the mick3 or that military Interstate children compact commission uh so off at Air Force Space and our school liaison officers we the designated Department of Defense lead for the state of Nebraska and that's what we'll be there in that role acting and just basically to explain how we and work and partner with the mck3

021compact for us to be able to work with those schools and then on the 10th of April uh Governor pillan will be signing a proclamation for the month of the military child uh down at the capital and we look forward to being able to join him for that uh on the base for celebrating that we have on the 19th of April our off at Air Force Base Colonel Howard the installation Commander he will sign the proclamation for the base as well and that's tied uh in with our Easter egg hunt uh that we have going on and then on the 26th of April we'll be doing our parent University at doit that's an opportunity for our parents to come in and uh learn everything from different parents parenting Styles or you have to finances and

022we're also going to have our school Liaisons there to be able to talk to parents and identify if there's any areas of concern or how we can better integrate parents working with the schools as well uh and then all of these kind of come to a head very publicly on the 25th of April the Bob Cary pedestrian bridge will be lit up in purple the color for the month in the mil military child highlighting to the rest of the Omaha area that we have here of the support that the Omaha area gives to the military and specifically our military families and to their children and then lastly going on uh tied in with all of this uh overlapping at the same time is our uh insulation exercise so uh that started that kicked off today

023and that's going to be going on for the next two weeks as you've heard in the news it's probably the biggest exercise that the base has done uh in decades um and we're really looking forward to that but that does mean that there's going to be a lot of challenges for us on the installation specifically those individuals trying to get onto and off of the base next week we expect that there's going to be increased uh air traffic we expect there's going to be increased noise uh and there's going to be very long late uh long lines trying to get onto the base and off of the base uh so we just ask for your patience uh for our students coming on to and off the base on the buses more for the Belleview side

024of the house but we've already worked through all of that but our students who do drive that live on base that do come here um they probably will be see seeing some delays at the end of the day as well trying to get back onto the base as we try to go through that the uh exercise is our ability to be able to go and make sure that we are exercising in our Readiness to engage in uh what we need to going forward to be able to deter and defeat um our enemies as we go up so this is our chance to really exercise that and we really do thank the community for their patience as they start to see lines around the base and the increased noise so uh pending any questions that's all

025I have this evening Colonel I do I have a huge favor um I'm not sure if you can help me with this but last Friday I was at Patriot Elementary and there's a pair there uh Mrs G um you remind me of the name of the parah who made the wonderful cupcakes yeah and um she her husband's supposed to PCS if you could put that off for about eight or 10 years um cuz we really need more of those cupcakes cuz it was phenomenal I heard she's also a phenomenal parah as well I I don't mean to minimize that but the cupcakes come on help me out here you were there come on so if you if you could work on that and thank I'm just kidding but no thank you very much I do

026appreciate everything you all are doing for the month of the child obviously it means uh just as much to me as well since my kids were there at one point uh so thank you so much for everything you and the base are doing with that and again appreciate all of the support that we get from the schools and from the school board here it's been great great working relationship also want to Echo uh Colonel Bailey's comments Colonel um without your support and your leadership um we don't make that kind of progress Dr Via Rial did a lot of the the the paperwork aspect of it but but you were the the the heart and soul behind the spirit to have all of our schools now be purple star designations in recognition of their military friendliness

027uh it's just it's pretty incredible so thank you for your leadership and everything that you do to support our families especially our military families really appreciate that like I say it really can't happen without the parents and without the teachers and everybody else so yeah this is a great partnership really it is all right thank you all very much than you thank you so much yeah we can clap for him he always does a great job our next item is the presentation from the B PPP array Dr or Missi are you going to tell us about that y as they make their way up here so um tonight we are very fortunate to have several students in the um boardroom here tonight along with their principles our elementary buildings are arranged into three what we

028call arrays um that allow them to work together and learn from each other and tonight we have the barp array which is I'll let them introduce themselves the principles and they have their student council members here with them tonight so with that I'll turn it over to Pam well I don't have to say a whole lot because you took everything I had on here thanks Shireen Elizabeth I promise you I will have the best dessert ever we are a competitive group so now that you brought that up skip I'm on it I'm on it we are very excited to have our kids here especially but also our student council Representatives that work so hard to bring our kids together each week to develop projects and Community Service events that serve our entire Community there's a

029purpose State quicker okay okay the first thing we're to do is introduce ourselves and then we'll kind of step out of the way because they are the Highlight um my name is Pam lounce and I'm the principal at Prairie Queen Elementary good evening my name is Brian gazing I'm the principal at Bell Elementary and it was just so cool as we were planning this presentation you know it it was seeing what our kids do day in and day out we wanted to make them the star and we kind of had this common theme of knowing what our uh student council or whatever name our buildings have for them what they do day in and day out so I hope you enjoy um but uh we're going to give them the the platform here in a

030second Corey Hull Ashbury Elementary School and thank you for having us tonight Megan Schumacher principal at portal thank you for having us Mindy Grim principal at Patriot thank you so much for having us hi I'm Barbara wild and I am principal at Rumsey station this semester instead of reading this slide to you I think the one thing I want to focus on in this slide is the very last paragraph to be honest with you and that I'm going to read to you because we really believe that through acts of service and involvement we enrich our educational experience we Inspire others to be engaged and contribute to building a school that is not only academically successful but also nurturing and empowering for everyone and that's what they're going to share with you tonight and I believe

031Belle is first up hello my name is Olivia patrini and I'm a fifth grade teacher at Bell and I our student council sponsor and one of our main goals of student council is to provide support and Leadership through our community in school and with me today I have Aya Skyler and Charlotte hi I'm AA sarda and I attend Bell Elementary in a student C council member and next month we will be helping with our District's Community closet this ensures every student has access to clothing and Essentials when they need them through a hygiene Drive we're collecting items like toothpaste shampoo deodorant and soap to ensure that everyone has access to the Necessities that help them feel confident and ready to learn and to make an even bigger impact we're setting a schoolwide goal to work

032together to donate hygiene products and clothing items as we came back from winter break it was important to reset refocus and remind ourselves of what it meant to be our best selves at school that's why we created PBIS Professor videos to go over our schoolwide expectations whether it's in the hallways classrooms cafeteria or playground we want to make sure everyone is showing respect responsibility and kindness every day we also did a Thanksgiving food drive through neighborhood good which was a perfect way to help families in need we collected non- perishable food items to provide Thanksgiving meals for those in need we also have made a difference by doing a toys for TOS Drive last year we gathered new unwrapped toys to donate to children in need ensuring that every child experiences the joy of receiving

033a gift during the holidays each of these efforts shows the heart of our school Community it's all about leadership spirit and kindness hi I'm Skyler and I'm a student council member from B Elementary this year we organized read Across America week with the goal of promoting the love of reading we created a series of events including a reading Cafe where students would could enjoy snacks while diving into books and to drop everything in a breed event encouraging everyone to take a break and read we also planned various dress up days to celebrate the joy of reading which were a big hit with both students and staff we also welcomed guest readers from our community into classrooms to read aloud we also bring excitement and school spirit by being Friday sign helpers every Friday morning student

034council members line the sidewalk play music and hold signs to welcome students to school with positivity and enthusiasm their energy is contagious and it's a great way to start the day on a high note we also celebrated grandparents week grandparents are such a special part of our lives and we wanted to make this week memorable for them we welcomed grandparents helped them get them organized and walked them to classrooms so they could share the school experience with their grandchildren this was a great way to give back to our school community and family members hi I'm Charlotte as a part of student council we help with assemblies by doing this we hand out certificates pass out Raffles and prizes and help recognize our Top Dog winners for their hard work and being their best selves throughout

035the month our leadership help makes our assemblies run smoothly next we celebrate Red Ribbon Week where we focus on promoting healthy habits and a drug-free lifestyle we organize themed dress up days to make the week fun and engaging while reinforcing important messages about wellness and making good choices during our schoolwide movie night the student council ran a concession stand where we sold snacks and drinks the funds raised from this event were donated to a local nonprofit organization which we are all very proud of lastly we ran a special initiative to support our youngest Learners they a bontique shopping we helped our kindergarteners shop priz it as a result for their good behavior it's always fun to see how excited the little ones are when they get the chance to choose their prizes thank you for

036your time [Applause] hi we're from Rumsey station I'm Ella Vance I teach second grade and I'm one of the co-sponsors for student council hi and my name is Erica Baron I teach fifth grade at Rumsey um and we have a couple of our Representatives we have Ellie and Rowan that are going to tell you about some of the things that we've done for the community so far this year our first our first fundraiser this year was the penny wars we hosted the penny wars to raise money to adopt a family over the holidays students had lots of fun that competing against other classes to donate the most money we ended up raising $1,358 we raised so much money that we were able to adopt three families we had a lot of fun shopping together to

037gather the items on each family's wish list in January we hosted a winter coat and boot drive to benefit the community closet students donated 64 coats and 18 pairs of boots we are currently hosting a food drive for the SRI Care Center we decided to do a spice drive and classes are competing against one another to see who can bring in the most spice bottles today was the first day of our drive and we already have 90 bottles donated we also have a few things planned for the future next month we are selling fidgets and stickers dur and money to donate to the Town and Country Animal Rescue and in may we are going to clean up Eagle Ridge Park which is just one block away from the school [Applause] hello and good evening I'm

038Sabrina packet I am one of the student council's advisers at ashberry Elementary ashbury's main goal for this year is bringing Unity through the Pilon lav Vista School District through all of our acts of service hi I'm Sage Fogerty um I teach sixth grade at Ashbury and I am the other advisor and today I have Micha and Audrey okay hi I'm Audrey I am ashb Elementary student council president and I'm Micha Ashbury Elementary Student Council secretary today we will explain how student council makes a positive impact on our community we fund raise for our school and community and we volunteer we have a ton to get through so let's get started to start we fundraise for our school and Community some of the fundraisers we have done before are hygiene drives which is where we would

039have students collect unused hygiene products like soap deodorant toothbrushes toothpaste and more we also do food drives clothing drives and pet supplies drives the clothing drives go to our community closet which is where families in need get clothes and hygiene items for free there was one more drive that we did it was called Socktober we collected 901 pairs of socks for our community closet I learned that socks are one of the most needed items but ALS Al the least donated secondly we sell things to fundraise for activities like making tie blankets for shelters some some things we sell are thanful grams and flowers um students can buy an eraser or pencil then write a note and give it to someone they're thankful for when those sales ended we had about $100 to help to put

040towards helping our community well we also sold flowers around around spring and students can could buy a flower for a loved one teacher or a friend it brings everyone closer to together plus flowers can reduce stress boost your mood purify the air and improve your memory and focus last but definitely not least I will list some activities we volunteered to do remember when we had those tornadoes in elorn believe it or not the student council helped gather donations to help people who didn't have items they needed anymore another thing we have done is make tie blankets for the humane society which was one of their needed items to keep the animals warm and cozy for our school we help with Kindergarten Roundup it's nice to have a warm welcome from other kids we would play

041with them get to know them help them with activities and more one other thing we have done is pick is a school cleanup along with other students we picked up trash repainted the four square lines pulled out weeds picked up lost balls and more the school cleanup leads to a cleaner environment and community in conclusion student council makes a positive impact on our community we fundraise for our school and community and we volunteer all of this just makes our community better and better I hope this helped your understanding student council's posit of impact on our community thank you for a Time [Applause] good evening my name is Michaela hush and I teach fifth grade at Patriot and I'm a student council sponsor hello I am Ashley bosk I'm a first grade teacher at Patriot and

042also a student council adviser and here are our friends to share some awesome things that we do to support our community hello board numbers our names are harlo and Cammy we are both members of Patriots Pride Council being a student council member is a big responsibility but it is also really fun we get to help our school and our community in so many ways it feels great to know that we are making a difference in people's lives one way we help is by participating in can food drives we collect cans and other food items to give to people who don't have enough to eat it was really amazing to see how much food we can gather when everyone at Patriot pitches in these food drives help families in need and make our community a better

043place this year we collected food items for our very own plcs Community closet and this spring we are looking forward to helping collect cans for the 17th annual Summit food fight through UNL another way we help our community is by selling suckers to raise money for the Serie County human society the money we raised goes to help animals that need homes food and Medical Care last year we collected over $300 to support Town and County Animal Shelter it feels good to know that we are helping dogs cats and other animals find loving families one of the most special things we do is our Giving Tree event during the holiday season we put up several winter trees including ornaments we make and pride Council each ornament has a gift idea for our child in need our

044Giving Tree event takes place on evening in de December where families can come to Patriot to take an ornament and buy the gift for a child who might not get as much for Christmas it it's heartwarming to see our school come together to help others at the giving Tre event many families come to Patriot to celebrate the season we have our school choir and band perform and everyone gets to enjoy hot cocoa and cookies there are also fun crafts like making ornaments building puzzles or playing board games it is really special night where we can feel the holiday spirit and the joy of giving being on the student council is a wonderful experience we work hard to help others and it makes us feel proud helping our community is important and we are so happy

045to be proud of it thank you it's always a great day to be a lion [Applause] good evening I'm Janet Chesley and I'm a fifth grade teacher at portal hi I'm Michelle Rogers and I teach fifth grade at portal and we are the uh sponsors for Star Council sorry I need to raise this and we have Emma here and Camille I'm Camille and um one of the first things that we did as star council is we voted to start with the toy drive we made sure to advertise it through posters that were either new or recycled from previous years and we donated 340 items to Open Door Mission I thought it was a really fun drive and most my peers did too hi I'm Emma in each October we do Socktober and each October we

046do a donation for our community closet to donate socks this year we donated 1,85 socks um the next project that we did was the Town and Country Humane Society that's Knox he's our school therapy dog who comes every Tuesdays and Thursdays he's very special to us just like many dogs are special to other people we wanted to make sure dog that dogs in sarie County had food toys and everything that they needed to keep them happy these are some other star council members selling candy canes to raise money to raise money we raised 20 $56 for materials to make tie blankets for project Harmony uh Allstar Council made blankets for todders to teens we made blankets for every person who is having rough time that needs something to to snuggle up with and remind them

047that all of us care for them and that they are loved we made 20 to 22 blankets thank you thank you well would you kids all kind of gather over here and get a big picture together oh I'm sorry we have one more you told me that was the last hi my name is Emily Brassfield I'm a third grade teacher at Prairie Queen and I'm a student council adviser hi I'm Tori ghoul I'm a third grade teacher at Prairie queen as well and I'm also a student council adviser um this year our goal for our building was gratitude so we really worked together with our student council members to promote leadership through being grateful this year's Prairie queen go this year Prairie Queen's building goal is attitude and gratitude as a school Community we have

048been learning to find ways to be grateful Prairie Queen student council members have done activities that connect to our gratitude goal first we wanted to thank our substitute teachers by making thank you goodie bags each time a sub came into our office they were given a bag filled with snacks to get help them through the day next we hosted a gratitude week each day of the week had a different question for classes to answer about why they are grateful every class wrote their answers on a paper strip this is our whole school's gratitude chain that we hung for everyone to see then we hosted the winter can food drive where we are so grateful for pq's giving Community we raised 482 food items to donate to the sby County Care Center we are grateful for

049student council friends before winter break we took the time to do some team bonding activities to strengthen our leadership we are so excited to continue to grow our gratefulness thank [Applause] you yeah would you would you guys all kind of make a big huddle over here and some on the ground some standing some squat on their knees Dr Dr V would you mind taking a photo of this good look too good students make a big crowd [Applause] good now everybody behind [Applause] this is a great example of our future leaders and this is why we're known for greatness now we're empty again yeah we would cut off a limb for meeting like that about four years and that concludes our presentation too bad we didn't have Kool-Aid or something for yeah yeah maybe those cupcakes

050that you were talking about be good cupcakes were pretty amazing not lie all right on to our agenda item we still have a lot to go our next is reports the superintendent uh thank you very much M Wht and members of the board uh as our students are filing out and parents thank you again for uh coming out tonight donating your time um I think tonight was a really good example of not only students who are really good public speakers yes uh which is no small no small thing but kids with heart kids that care about the school district kids that care about the school community so uh wow what a wonderful display of uh generosity and the great people leading our school tools uh speaking of we don't have these people here tonight and

051that's by Design but we did ask them to tune in this is a little bit unusual but it doesn't fit under recognitions because recognitions are strictly defined as state or national type recognition uh and this doesn't fit there but it's certainly worthy of consideration on February 4th students from both high schools Monarch and Titan who are enrolled in the MCC Law Academy noticed that their instructor who's retired law enforcement Captain Terry master was displaying some concerning symptoms during class the students immediately called 911 and provided immediate care and tell emergency responders arrived very likely served to save this individual's life Captain lamaster was later diagnosed with a serious medical condition which required treatment and he asked that we reach out and honor these 14 students this moment exemplifies what education's all about not just knowledge

052but character what it matters most these stud students represented our schools and our community with distinction we couldn't be more proud of their decisive action and care and again probably save this individual's life these 14 individuals I hope sincerely you're watching at home uh you have the school district's respect and gratitude Brianna Alman kale onalo Michael Baldwin Haley Christensen Taylor gree Levan horwitch Lane Johnson Seth Lumbard Isabelle pagee heus Ramirez Matt Smith Riley Snyder Erin stelson and Isabelle tzr we are so proud of what you did to save a fellow human being's life you are we are deeply indebted to you so kind of a neat way to finish off our recognitions for the evening and again hope they were watching uh in other news around the district and the superintendent report welcome back bless

053you Mr madler uh hopefully everybody had a restful spring break and recharge the batteries for the last uh last Hall into the fourth quarter uh we know that the fourth quarter can be a bit of a grind but hopefully everybody had a chance to spend some time with loved ones and relax uh On a related note uh and this Colonel I know Colonel eesc is still here in recognition for all of those buildings that Dr vial and our principls worked so hard to get that purple star uh recognition if not all of our buildings most of our buildings are going to be doing some type of a purple star designation award ceremony in the next coming weeks so I'll have Kathy get you that information board members are welcome to attend uh so a great

054way to not only recognize Colonel kisc and District leadership but also to celebrate the month of the military child uh going right down the list uh nasb trip recap um I won't go through a lot of that because I bet a couple of board members are on the table uh will speak to that but three board members and myself Mr madler Miss Whit Miss Wood myself traveled to Washington DC on the nasb legislative advocacy visit uh we were able to visit the US Holocaust Museum we were able to visit uh US Department of Education we spent uh the morning at the Capitol uh being briefed by a number of Congressional staffers and then the culminating activity was visiting uh Capitol Hill and we visited all five of Nebraska's delegates we weren't able to meet with

055them in person uh the timing didn't work out perfectly but we were able to meet with their staffers I did leave out for the board's consideration uh the three pieces of correspondence from the US doe a letter from our host a letter from current US Secretary of Education Linda McMahon and then a list of talking points that the administration provided which outlines administrative uh priorities for Education U not the time or the place to make political commentary but I will say this uh grateful for the opportunity to meet with our uh the offices of our Congressional delegates and while we are all uh deeply concerned about what's happening with um public education across this great country of ours um regardless of what side of the aisle you fall on this really is political issue uh

056there's some big changes coming and I guess my best advice to our teachers our students our staff our community members patience um we we see Wild swings in policy anytime an Administration takes over and and again without getting onto the political side of things uh this too shall pass public education is Alive and Well in this country our public schools are as strong as they've ever been nine out of 10 kids in the United States are educated in public schools that system is not going away anytime soon uh are there challenges yes we will navigate those challenges but we are fully prepared and will deal with them as they come to us so again more on that I suspect from board members uh moving right down the list instructional hours we know our staff our

057parents our kids are very interested in how we are going to make up our seven yes count them seven snow days we're interested too uh we have spent significant time talking about uh a variety of different options uh right now our plan is to continue to go to school until the 4th of July so so okay that was a little funny no we're not going to go to school for 4th of July but miss Siri and her team have put together a really nice menu of options we are going to start sharing those with the board I think our very first board subcommittee we have a meeting I believe tomorrow we have another on Friday so we're going to start bouncing some ideas off the board and they're going to tell us if they love

058our ideas or hate our ideas but uh more information to come also wanted to shout shout out for two papilon L Vista High School students Kyle VanZant and Leo gek who were visited by us Congressman Mike flood part of the reason why Congressman flood didn't meet with us in Washington DC is he was right here in good old Pilan listic Community Schools he was uh providing recognition for Kyle and Leo they won the Congressional app award challenge they built a app basically that allows students to track their volunteer hours what a very worthy effort and Congressman flood was at monarchi earlier this week recognizing them and lastly but by no means least this Wednesday board members put this on your list if you're interested Dr vial is hosting two different digital safety seminars for our

059students how to keep yourself safe when you're navigating the web certainly are relevant in your main topic 5:30 to 6:30 we have one happening at Monarch High we have one happening at Titan high again that is this Wednesday 5:30 to 6:30 I'll be with Dr settles leadership cohort so I doubt I'll be there but if you're even remotely interested in seeing the training and hearing what our students have to say about D digital citizenship my guess is it will be a fascinating conversation and with that mwit I will conclude my superintendent comments for the evening thank you so much uh we have board member reports I got a fairly short one so I wasn't at the in Washington DC but um fantastic uh I was at the championship game the South when they won theirs

060uh their title I know I ran into Marcus and his boys there so you know fantastic game a lot of entertainment the most fun part for me my mom was in town for couple days and we drug her down there to Lincoln and she absolutely had a blast watching she she said I don't remember the last time I've watched a high school basketball game so she enjoyed that quite a bit um and we're from the great state of Indiana which bleeds basketball everywhere so she really enjoyed it but um the second thing uh as as I mentioned before we actually did meet other than just eat cupcakes at uh Patriot um for Lea on lunch last Friday so with Dr settles and Dr rickley um great had a great lunch um a lot of good

061discussion um good group that we met with they had a lot of celebrations and everything it's amazing you know pages of of of these that they were talking about I'll name just a couple that we seem to to hear it's it sounds like a broken record but in a good way uh they really uh are enjoying the CK CK um you know it seems like we hear that quite a bit um that's fantastic they were very excited about the purple star um to get that designation um so thank you again Dr V for all all of your work on that um but yeah they had they had a number of stories about the CK LA and and how these teachers in the classes are celebrating those and and you know it's amazing that Shireen I

062money well spent because it seems like it's we just continuously hear all the good things that are going on with that so appreciate appreciate that very much um they did give a shout out to miss Wanda in the tech department so I thought I'd bring that up I think their words were she is a little Miracle Worker I think was the uh was what the exact quote was so I thought that was quite uh quite interesting so that's fantastic so appreciate all that like I said I could go on and on with all their highlights and everything um they did mention a couple things again that we hear over and over again the behavior and mental health challenges that we're facing that everybody's facing not just the kids but also the teachers as well and

063and all the staff um they did talk a little bit about their large class sizes and I know that you know we kind of had that discussion I know uh we've had this discussion as a board we we do have a very good average but obviously you get some of those classes that have a little bit higher uh numbers especially if they have some behaviors going on and that tends to you know come up quite a bit so I know we're doing everything we can we have done a lot as a board trying to you know see if we can uh help that out obviously budget affects that quite a bit um same goes with Paris shortages which again they I think we hear that over and over again um and we've you know done

064every done a lot to that we can to try to help that as well of course we always run into the budget but then also just not being able to find the bodies which we talked about quite a bit um so um very good overall I really appreciated it the one thing that I thought was interesting and I'm going to throw this out there for the board members to consider and I know Dr rickley and Dr settles also said they'd look at it but um one of the things that uh that the the St there um suggested was that the liais on lunches are a little difficult for them since they were saying a lot of them have they still have lunch duty and everything like that and they suggested possibly doing uh liaison breakfast

065as a change of pace maybe help them out before school starts or something like that um so just an idea that they threw out and I thought like I said I'd bring up and we can kind of um see if we want to change that up a little bit but um interesting so very good lunch so um and good cupcakes to I mention that thank you Mr Bailey and I attended the um metro area Board of Education Zoom meeting on March 12th um that's all right um you know and and most most boards in the area very similar to to what we're dealing with and and working through at this time uh the group is uh going to be looking at at their um guidelines and seeing if there's any changes or updates that need

066to be made for the upcoming year um I did have the privilege and it truly was a privilege to attend the legislative conference with the Nebraska delegate it turned out to be in a little longer trip than anticipated due to Nebraska weather um but you know for me it was a a great learning opportunity um an opportunity to hear uh priorities that are beginning to be established um by the new administ ation and also an opportunity for the Nebraska delegation to verbalize um our priorities um what we value um things that we would like to see um stay the same um and uh so again it was a great trip and I know that suan and Marcus will share more uh just a few things um obviously attended the uh State basketball and must say

067the Monarch Titan uh you know first game of the the class a session um what representation from our uh both student sections as well as just all the families and uh support uh we had some of the largest crowds and especially on Championship Saturday um Papio South had that side pretty well jam-packed as well as a huge contingent of of students so um big thanks for all the support supporting a great Championship Run for the Titans uh spring Sports have kicked off Monarch Titan soccer was supposed to happen last Thursday night on the boys side uh the snow didn't quite melt fast enough for uh either the boys or the girls teams to play last Thursday um pabio South had their first game on Saturday on the girl side uh and as well as the

068boys were in Carney and they won the Carney invite uh track was at the College of St Mary's so uh both team both schools represented very well there and then if anyone's interested Monarch Titan girls soccer uh is this Thursday night uh at Foundation field uh JV at 5 or 5:30 and varsity to follow I was also able to make it down to the Titan monor basketball game um you know obviously both teams couldn't win unfortunately uh but a great opportunity for both both yeah teams and the students to play you know one at the arena and then yeah in front of that crowd um is a great game so great opportunity for the students thank you to the community for for turning out and same for the I was able to go down to

069the the championship game and like you said I mean the Titan side was um full I would say pretty full in the west side side not that full uh and even on the student section too I mean it wasn't even close when you compare the number so thank you you to the community for turning out and supporting and supporting our teams for the DC trip this is the second uh legislative uh advocacy trip that I went on went last year as well um it was a great opportunity to build the relationships with the other school board members and a handful of superintendents in the state and I want to say was there 30ish people something like that 30ish uh school board members and and school leaders throughout the state that went from Ops to you

070know Panhandle schools so great opportunity just to talk through um you know what is happening in the other districts what are they having to uh deal with right now and you know and share lessons uh with um what is happening in our in our schools uh like um has been said we met with the Department of Ed we met with the federal the staff for the federal delegation um you know these conversations were different than last year obviously a new Administration uh that is handling some things differently uh but I I appreciated the conversations um you know we did let our uh I I would say we weren't overly shy on on you know pushing back on areas where we felt differently than maybe what they were sharing with us and I want to thank

071Dr rickley for the other board members and for the community to know I mean Dr rickley probably out of anyone was uh ensuring that our Pro public Public School stances were well known in these meetings uh where maybe you weren't getting that feeling from who was uh talking to us either at the department of Ed or from the federal delegation um so thank you Dr rickley did a great job pushing back at times when when needed uh and kind of setting the tone as well for others to feel comfortable of bringing up uh their thoughts as well uh for the local legislative work I think all the board members should have gotten an email nasb is having an all members uh meeting at noon on Friday just to go over what is happening in the

072Nebraska legislature so if you can join uh should be 45 minutes to an hour they'll just go over kind of all the priority bills that were announced last week that relate to education where they all are the stances that the nasb has taken and the work that they're doing to potentially to make some of those bills better and we are still waiting on the final budget proposal uh from the Appropriations Committee the governor has sent out his budget proposal uh which we talked about last meeting a little bit but uh we're still waiting I think the second week of April the Appropriations Committee should have that budget proposal out and obviously then we'll have to keep a close eye on it as you know the state is needing to to um fill a gap right

073now uh and so they you got to do that by raising taxes or cutting spending so we we obviously need to keep a close eye on both of those sides of it uh as as I'm sure there will be something that affects us but more to know when they actually release their proposals if you have any questions on any of it just let me know I don't have much to add about the advocacy but who was the name of the teacher that an Frank M Megan Megan Herer Herer I believe she was a former teacher from here and is the one of the curators at the ANF Frank house and um she's also part of the Holocaust Museum that she was able to give us some real personal information about that and um was nice

074to see her and have a lot of conversation with her and she she gets around like man Brazil and Denmark and yeah all kinds of places so um other than that I don't do you have anything tonight and I'm sorry I didn't want to step on you sorry okay all right next item is a committee reports buildings and grounds and finance uh we were supposed to meet but due to the weather last week we did not so we have a meeting this Friday Human Resources student services we were also supposed to meet last week and due to the weather we had to reschedule for uh next Monday next Monday and curriculum and americanism uh we will meet tomorrow at 4:30 thank you um we're now down to our action items action by consent do I

075have a motion I'll make a motion to approve the action by consent items as listed second I have a motion by Mr Bailey and a second by Mr madler R call Miss Wood yes Mr Bailey yes Miss Butler yes Mr madler yes Miss Whit yes Mr Lotus yes motion carrying thank you our next item is a wireless network system Hardware RFP Mr Moore and Miss Siri welcome M hello um so yeah just to refresh here this last board meeting um I came I brought up for discussion the wireless RFP uh that we proposed um uh was out for 38 days uh which met the 28 day requirement um the main thing I asked added in the summary sheet is that second to last paragraph where it's talking about uh how much e- rate's going to

076cover overall cost uh just a little under 1.2 million uh e rate's going to cover 523,000 [Music] is to go with uh Cisco which is uh CDW is the vendor so Cisco Network system for our hardware and software um I've got the evaluation Matrix there if you want to look at that uh if you have any questions on the bid tab anything like that more than happy to to answer any questions Matt one of the questions we've gotten um bro broadly is with some of the reorganization of the US Department of education and some of the ancillary programs everything from title to special ed Ida dollars and yes e- rate funding it's it's probably not fair for me to ask you to speculate but do you have reason to be concerned about the future of

077V rate funding and how that might impact the the reimbursement rate uh any anything that you're hearing in your corner of the woods I'm not hearing anything I'm but hoping for the best yeah well E8 is uh funded through the FCC and the and the telecommunication Act of 1996 so so hopefully it won't be impacted but you never know they've already talked about um taking out the Wi-Fi hotspots for kids so that's one of the things they've talked about that's not in this RFP though right no and so correct me if I'm wrong but this year's allocations have already been determined it's just the amount depending upon who applies for it and who does not so this year we would be okay it would be upcoming years there would be a concern and I think

078at the federal level I think the Department of Education that does grants this is a reimbursement program it's not the same it's a different Pony hey Matt thanks for uh bringing this up and I know we talked about some of it last week how does uh you know so the overall for the district uh cost 646 how is that compare to what we had potentially budgeted or expecting it to come in at y uh last time we were just over 400,000 when we did this project now that's that doesn't have into consideration the expansion that we're going to need for new Elementary yatp any of the additions that we're doing on any of the buildings so we added that into this one um we also added in redundancy as well and cameras and cameras some

079of the devices we didn't have that when we were doing the original so we've beefed it up a little bit uh to make sure that we have a continue our Excellence with with the network so perfect and Miss Richards it doesn't break any of your budgets um I won't comment on that right now okay all right perfect no no we we we were planning on this through the cycle and uh you know we've been putting a million dollars in the depreciation fund for the larger years of the technology expenditures this one will be a larger year for technology expenditures I think we'll be bringing some Chromebooks back to the board you know later this later this spring yeah um as well so we have $2.4 million in our depreciation fund at this point uh ready

080to handle that all right perfect thanks okay do you have a motion yeah I'll make the motion to approve entering into an agreement with cdw-g to purchase wireless network system hardware and software in the amount of $646,000 yes Miss Wood yes motion motion carried than you Mr Mo thanks m'am our next agenda item for Action is the foundation field Turf replacement M thank you Miss Whit um we're back to talk about uh we we did get receive one bid on the turf replacement for the project and probably one of the reasons why we only receive one is we it is a field Turf specific project um which is a type of turf that we've always used in that stadium and had really good luck with uh and everybody seemed to be in agreement that we

081go back with that um it was within the engineers estimate so um you know when you offer a public bid uh there are companies that don't realize there's they're going to be the only one too so you get a pretty good bid if you go if you get one that's too high which we have had before we um reject and we go out for bid so this one looks within our range of of what we're looking for um if you'll look at the breakdown it does include uh a cool material um which we did put in over at plat View High School as well and uh it does help I don't think it's as it keeps it as cool as what they claim probably um but we did notice a 5 to eight degree difference

082from not having it um they some of the cool materials out there claim to get up to 30 30 uh degree difference on the field I I have not seen that yet um but I think it does make a difference down there and the amount of activities that we have use that field throughout the day from physical education to band um to our Sports programs um I think it's a good idea to probably try to get it keep it as cool as possible uh that would be our recommendation here tonight um we'd also if you look at the breakdown there are some uh monies allotted for Logos on this particular field uh the buildings grounds the finance committee will be me Friday to look at some options on those uh the one you see in

083the proposal is the top um option of having multiple logos I I can say we're probably going to go cheaper than that right now just based on the feedback we're getting from the principes and ads at the schools uh but again the buildings grounds and finance committee will weigh in on that and uh ultimately um you know help in that decision on what that field would look like but uh everybody wants a clean professional look on that field but maybe to have some things on there that are specific to the schools and even maybe the district um instead of just the green field but that's still an option on the table too um so the District administration would recommend the board accept the bid of $83,900 which with the motion as presented and Mr Richards

084have they done any work for us did they do any work with the baseball softball fields uh no not this company okay but they are a a reputable company within the Midwest area um they do a lot with field Turf throughout the Midwest so we feel really good about this company actually uh bidding on the project great I was going to say I mean with the baseball kicking off here this last weekend and both of our uh softball and baseball facilities are definitely some of the best in the Metro so hope good job out everybody they do uh similar fantastic work uh I'll make the motion to want approve the replacement of the field turf at Foundation field for $683,000 from Midwest field Turf ATS present two to delegate authority to and authorize the superintendent

085of schools or assistant superintendent of business services for the school district to sign execute and deliver such construction contracts sign and approve any change orders pay the contract price and expenses related to the construction projects and take all other action necessary to complete any requirements or obligations under the construction projects contracts second motion by Mr madler and second by Mr Lotus any further discussion roll call Miss Butler yes Mr mler yes Miss W yes Mr Lotus yes M Wood yes Mr Bailey yes motion carrying thank you item four for our agenda is discussion information legislative update thank you Miss Whit um just a legislative update a brief one tonight um since Mr uh gay was here at our last meeting kind of give you a little larger update than um that we'll try to get

086him out you know probably sometime in late April as well um but just to kind of give you an update where we're at the hearings for the education committee at this point are complete there are none scheduled for this week uh they wrapped up um senators and committees have selected their priority bills which you can find online at Nebraska legislature um a few bills to kind of watch for us and we've talked about some of these in the past a little bit uh is lb 135 with h croft's bill um is already on General file and there's some work being done um with some people behind the scenes I would say from the education Lobby uh to try to clean that up a little bit and make it a little more appealable for schools to

087say the least I don't know if that's a word but uh we're looking at you know trying to get it to where a special election if needed can be done at least once every 12 months um right now I think the bill says that you can only go on the um primary or general election time um there is emergency Clauses built into that already so if you had an emergency come up uh in our district for example and we needed to go for a a bond for something um you know from a tornado or something of that nature I mean there could be a variety of reasons for emergency uh bonds um we could do that within this bill so that's that's a good thing um but it's we'll keep an eye on that Amendment

088if it shows up this week uh and if it shows up on the um agenda here lb 653 is merman's Bill it's an education committee priority bill um this is interesting this could I I I don't know what's going to end up happening there are a few option bills out there okay and uh option enrollment has always been a big issue in the State uh we have a lot of our schools that are open op enrollment um most school districts in the state are closed to option for certain special ed education programs because the Staffing just isn't there or they're already a capacity within their buildings um the legislation the Senators would like to see a little bit of change in that they they feel like that should look more like the option enrollment of

089the Reg regular ed student well there's cost to that too sometimes when you have a special ed student from another District come in um they can be a lot more expensive um and not to mention the fact that the capacity so you could have a really expensive option student show up so what this bill does is addresses that um by October 15th you could uh put into the nde and get reimbursed for that student if you let him in um so that's one hurdle they're trying to look at to see if they can uh encourage school districts to accept more option enrollment from special education students um but again that staffing has been always a big issue and you know the shortage of uh Educators we have throughout the state uh in that area lb

090303 um Dr rickley talked about that he's uh testified on that bill um it's one that the district looks at it as written as written right now looks pretty good uh takes that Foundation a from $1,500 a student to $1,590 a student of course you're not going to get more money overall but you are going to have be able to lower your taxes that's what any of these they want the state wants to take on a little bit more responsibility take it off the property tax owner which we've ad advocated for as a district in the past um so at this point it looks pretty good you always worry about um the shortage where um we were at $432 million shortfall um down to 267 now um and so still not sure how they can

091make this work because we're looking at a fiscal node on this one of 57.1 five million um to implement uh and take that property tax away from and fill in that property tax so we'll keep an eye on that one as well there's going to be probably some horse trading there to try to get something done but as Marcus said there's going to have to be some additional Revenue uh coming in or they're going to have to cut taxes more which you know they've done a lot over the last three years so that would be something I wouldn't anticipate another bill to keep after is lb12 c um this is Anderson or Senator Cal's bill but it's an Anderson priority bill um it proposes a constitutional amendment to go to the electorate of the state

092of Nebraska to approve or reject at the general election of November of 26 um should the amendment be approved beginning in January 1st of 27 the maximum amount of any uh tax on real property will not exceed one and 1 half% of the full cash value of any such property and the full cash value of such property shall not be adjusted in excess of 2% for any given year with certain exceptions and Provisions for bonded indebtedness natural disasters or individuals who are over the age of 5 uh five or severely disabled transfer of ownership property damage or contamination so basically this bill would allow it to go to the polls to for the voters to vote on it now anytime you have a con stitutional Amendment you're going to need 33 votes right off the

093bat so wanted to give you a heads up on this since it became a priority bill of a senator um I would not expect it to get 33 votes at this particular time down there um but something to keep an eye on as you hear about it uh other cap bills they're not prioritized which is good news um but as we've learned in the past sometimes that doesn't make a difference so they can come out with the out of the education committee an executive session with uh some of those bills attached to others so that's something else we'll be keeping a close eye on uh as they move forward here in the last half of the legislative session um lb 390 merman um again this one is to keep an eye on require School libraries

094to publish an online catalog of books in The District's library and provides the opportunity for a parent of a student to be notified of the materials checked out by their child our system pretty much does that the one thing we'd have to tap into uh within our system is to give instant notification to a parent when a kid checks out the book which we do not do um but we do publish all our books uh through our system um and parents can see I think at this particular time what the U students have checked out so we're almost there but the problem with this bill a little bit is just a lot of districts don't have this type of software uh to do this so it's going to be a a bill that's going to

095cost people some money to implement luckily um we're sitting in a pretty good place there and that right now is kind of some bills that I wanted to bring to you tonight um things will get interesting down there now that the Committees are pretty much wrapping up and uh you'll have some controversial bills uh be coming out with winter take all and and some of the other bills that are in that priority list uh most most priority bills tend to see the light a day uh until there's a fil of Buster or something of that nature so there's quite a few of them and and I know you have that list in front of you so if you have any questions just let me know um I know Marcus you're with uh the uh School

096Board committee too do do you have any other bills that you had to discuss tonight or anybody else no nothing else nothing any other questions for Mr Richards next item is mass communication system update welcome Dr V I really thought this presentation would be the highlight of the meeting so I don't understand where my audience went sorry so thanks to those that are still here uh today I'm going to give you an update on our mass communication system and it's going to be a long and winding Journey that ultimately ends up in a great spot but for transparency I want you to hear the whole story because we've had a number of people involved in this journey and some of them are going to be like what in the world world how did you end

097up here so I want to tell you that story today when you ask yourself what is the mass communication system right now our mass communication system is powered by final sites Mass notification and the most obvious way that that's present in our fam's lives is through snow day announcements so the snow day calls go out through the system the text messages the emails everything that we send out at the district level newsletters building newslet letters all of that goes out through this system as well um what a lot of people don't know is that this system is also what powers the plcs app so the app that all of our parents use to look up information about their students uh that looking up the library books that their students have checked out that's also powered

098by this system as well as uh what we call the paper airplane App that's something that our administrators use as a Safety and Security tool where on the go we can easily look up any student and their family affiliations or any staff members as well to get their emergency contact information so at the surface level Mass notification people think snow day notifications snow day calls especially recently with our seven snow days uh but it does a lot more than just that so back uh two years ago right before I came to plcs final site and Blackboard K12 had a merger or acquisition where final site purchased blackboard's K12 Division and Blackboard K12 is who we previously had a contract with and they're the company that developed Mass notification the system that we use so yes

099that's a fun bit of trivia for you to use at pub quiz next week but really why that's important is because after that happened they told us that they would be disc continuing the product that powers our app and discontinuing the paper airplane App which are huge shakeups for our district um so we had a lot of internal conversations about what should we do next and we decided that the best Next Step was to put out a request for proposals and outlining in detail everything that we wanted from a mass communication provider so we did that in November of 2024 we had a large team of somewhere between 12 and 20 folks evaluate all of the proposals that came in we scored them we identified the top vendors we brought them in for presentations they

100shared with us their products and we found a real challenge in January when we were at the end of the cycle because none of the vendors could give us everything that we asked for in the request for proposals and that was a really challenging space to be in because they offered great solutions for the things that they did but nobody did all of it and so what after a lot of conversations internally we went back to final site and asked them is there any any way that we can just keep what we have right now expecting the answer to be as they told us before a Flatout no and they said actually hold on just a minute and on February 26th 2025 they released their 2025 product road map which no longer discontinued our products

101and in fact enhanced them and so that's why I say it's kind of a long and winding journey to get back to wait we're staying with what we have and the answer is yes but it will look a little differently so what we currently have as mass notification is going to be transitioning to a platform called messages XR Enterprise the biggest differences that will be noticeable to our employees is that the user interface has been updated and they've made significant enhancements to the back end as far as security and speed go on our end user experience with our families they won't notice a difference difference in this change in platform but it is great that it makes such a significant change on the back end for our employees so that's one of the products that

102they're enhancing and no longer discontinuing uh the next is that paper airplane App it's actually called the com HQ app so similar to messages XR Enterprise it's getting a user interface update and some enhancements on the back end so we'll have that as well and then right now we'll keep our current plcs APP in its current iteration they are working on making sure that we can have everything we currently have in the app in their new app platform so we don't anticipate changing over to the new District app platform until fall of 26 and at that time they tell us that they'll be able to have all of our current Integrations with grades missing a assignments cafeteria balances library books um plus they will also have two-way communication features with uh Club sponsors teachers administrators

103and parents so we'll be able to have two-way conversations in real time um with our families through the district mobile app coming in Fall of 26 so with the changes to mass notification going over to messages XR Enterprise and then the com HQ app upgrade that does come with an increased price tag um this does look a little bit different than what's in your board packet because I did speak to them about uh on our current contract which this is an addendum to our current contract has flat pricing where there are no increases year toe and in their initial proposal that they gave to us there were annual increases and so I brought that back to them uh on behalf of the board and they agreed to maintain that flat pricing for us for the

104remainder of our contract at the increased price so um that first period one is the same as what you'll see in your board packet and then period two and period three are less than what you see in your board packet um so that's what I am bringing to you today asking for you to review ask any questions and ideally approve at the next board meeting and Christopher correct me if I'm wrong the one feature that you talked about the two-way messaging um that is a new feature as I seem to recall and speaking on behalf of the district I think that especially from an HR perspective where we don't want teachers coaches activity sponsors texting a student for example this could be a really big game changer for for a lot of our employees is

105that a fair statement that absolutely and it's something that has come up at least at least in the last two years of the districtwide survey where parents and staff members have asked for a district approved and supported way to have that two-way communication uh with families and so with the new technology there's no there will be no need to download a new app it will just be updated when they push the update through or will all the parents have to download a new up that's a great question and that was one of the first questions that I asked and it will just update through the app um so people won't have to redownload it and I I'll take this half second to acknowledge that we know there are some challenges with the current APP and

106they have committed to working with us to resolve those challenges even though we're working toward that upgraded experience we still have another year with our current experience and we want to make sure that that experience is user friendly for our students and our um families so they have committed to making sure that that is fully supported until we transition to that new app so as far as for staff you say there will be some changes and if I look at this correctly there's also training built in that would be available to staff to help them through those changes yeah great question and thank you for bringing that up training is one of the things that I think is critically important whenever you're changing systems in any instance because if people don't feel like they know

107how to use the system then they're not going to use it most effectively and so that's one of the things that I asked them to include in this addendum at no additional cost for us was training and so they agreed to do that our goal is to have some uh asynchronous training options available for them this spring so that way people can uh try that out as they see fit and then we'll have some live trainings available this summer all in an attempt to try to get people prepared for the fall when we'll be back and dealing with all of the back to school stuff and not necessarily wanting to pile on an additional new platform training at that time I guess that's it thank you that was a great presentation thank you nice little

108wander through your storyline uh last item on our agenda is the future board calendar March 25th that's tomorrow no school for freshmen and seniors due to the ACT Testing March 31st no school staff development day April 2nd Lea's on lunch at the plcc with Miss Wood April 4 through 6 the nsba conference in Atlanta attendees are Dr rickley Mr madler Miss Wood and myself on April 12th prom for Pilon Lista South High School and on April 14th the Board of Education meeting here at 6 PM seeing no other business we will adjourn the meeting at 7:32