PLCS Board of Education Meeting July 24, 2023

001to the July 24 2023 school board meeting uh we're going to start with the parental involvement hearing uh first section one call to order uh please rise for the Pledge of Allegiance 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 thank you uh roll call here I'll make a motion to excuse the absence of skip Bailey tonight he got stuck without a plan to come home on so he's sorry you couldn't be here I will second that okay motion by Miss Witt second by Mr Bailey to excuse or second by uh Mr Lotus to excuse uh Mr wood roll call yes yes yes okay moving on to discussion uh so for the parental involvement hearing we do have a

002few um public comments before we bring up Dr Steele but I'm just going to read what the purpose of the hearing is for so the purpose of the parental involvement hearing is to discuss peer support opposition suggestions or observations of community patrons relating to parental involvement and educational practices that may affect their children relative to board policy 6404 parental involvement in educational practices so I'm going to call everyone up once you get called up come up to the desk state your name and address and you have three minutes uh Miss Franco has the timer first beeps at two minutes 15 seconds we got 45 seconds left okay first up Mr Daryl lechner oh one second if I do this my name is Daryl lechner and I'm a resident of La Vista Nebraska I have two

003daughters to go to two different schools here my address is on the form it's before I talked to you about this before I do apologize I wasn't able to make the last meeting but it's sometimes kind of hard to find babysitters uh both my daughters do have disabilities so like I said it's a little challenging uh first off I want to thank you all again for all you do I do apologize for challenges at times that uh I've been uh in a lot of pain over the last few days and I'm receiving treatment from the doctors and that so my patients level sometimes gets a little short so I do apologize uh first off I some of you may know me that I try to find Solutions rather than just bashing people that's we don't

004accomplish anything where if we can't openly discuss things and move forward uh I've been researching various groups for the last Almost year now uh in the last two months I've come across some very alarming things I have a tendency to follow the money follow the politics follow the power I try to get both sides of the opinion so it's not just because you got crazies on the right crazies on the list and I'm trying to find the sanity in the middle for everybody for our families our kids especially in in our great honestly great schools and I want to keep it that way uh to kind of make this shirt uh one of the things that I am seeing that I am concerned about and I'll kind of give you more reasons and some ways

005to document or understand it further is one of the common things in human psychology is what they call uh Anchorage anchored fallacy this is where things have been presented to people for the first time and they usually hold that as truth regardless if it is risen so it's something we've got to be careful with especially with our children and how vulnerable they are we have various groups across the country and school boards obviously you're all aware of the situations that are coming up but I don't think a lot of you are fully aware of what is driving this how a lot of parents may not understand where these books came into our libraries I want to make you aware of uh and then Emily drabinski she is a part of the American librarian Association in

006the United States she has actually uh self-proclaimed Marxist has done so for years I've gone back seven years into recordings of her live footage at various college campuses she has a new paper out it's called quilling the querying the catalog she also has has made many efforts to create activists in our libraries across the United States and especially in the schools she has also set up programs to circumvent Librarians to having to contact parents principals or anything else I have some serious concerns with that if you have any more questions please ask me I need to get this information to you okay thank you Mr Electra [Music] Next Step Dorothy Reyes [Applause] hello Dorothy Reyes Papillion Nebraska and I reside in the Papillion La Vista Community School District the key word here is community who

007funds the school district the community funds our school district through our our tax paying dollars not just the parents within our community who should have a say on the way our taxpayer our tax dollars are being used within our community school district the taxpayers should we should not be suppressed I have watched the board suppress the community's voices of free speech their religious rights and now wanting to take away tax paying citizens voices as to what is happening within our community school district I'm really tired I'm really tired I'm tired of coming to these meetings I'm tired of what I said what I witness this agenda that is being pushed Mr loads I know last meeting you had said that you were okay with the way everything was set up in regards to that policy

008I believe we had made that comment I'm not okay with that taxpayers should have a say as to what has happened within our schools we should not be suppressed um luckily it's the second half of my statement that I owe in taxes that's due the end of this month and over a half of that goes to the school district goes directly to the school district I'm paying for Bond three Bond four Bond five Bond six I'm actually pretty close to two-thirds of my taxes go to the school district and we as taxpayers have every right to have a say and a voice as to what is happening within our schools whether we're on one side or the other we have the right thank you okay thank you Mrs Reyes Roberta Adams [Music] my name is

009Robert Adams I'm from Papillion my address is on your form the school board is considering whether it is appropriate to allow District taxpayers who do not currently have children attending school to express their concerns about books and school libraries because they find them either pornographic or age inappropriate the very fact that this is an issue speaks to several other issues the prevailing attitude of the board appears to be that School Employees in particular Librarians are the experts and they are not to be questioned whatever Librarians determine is to be supported and must never be questioned by anyone if all of the socially disappointing aspects of all the socially disappointing aspects of the covid lockdown that occurred won an unexpected bright point was to reveal some of the indoctrination ongoing in public schools that was masquerading

010as education the fact that you are now experiencing several books being called into question for their inappropriate content does not reflect a change in the community as much as a shift in the focus within public education that does not mesh with the expectations of the broader Community you can expect this to continue the idea that showing restraint on what children are exposed to and when is somehow seen as Banning or an infringement of First Amendment rights shows the significant gap between beliefs for those of us whose children are now adults you may think that our social responsibility is over our time is done so do not interfere with those whose children are still in school if our social responsibility was complete there would be no reason for us to participate in the coercive tax scheme

011of school taxes as part of property tax every citizen has a responsibility to engage with the younger generations and their maturation process if District patrons are precluded from critiquing books perhaps you should perhaps you should also consider the following only parents a rule that only parents or Guardians could be elected to the school board and then only as long as they have children in school of course that is not legally allowed in the state so to be consistent you cannot disallow participation from District patrons you are concerned about how much time and effort is required to review the books challenged if you Incorporated a process to allow Community review of proposed purchases and eliminated those that were pornographic or age inappropriate you wouldn't have this issue you have created your own problem the choke point

012in your review process is self-imposed this is the procedure you have chosen to implement as you have stated procedures are developed by the administration not the board if the procedure isn't working then you should re-examine the procedure there is also no reason to preclude District patrons from submitting complaints concerning curriculum materials if there is CRT or any other inappropriate indoctrination theme in our curriculum materials anyone in the district should be able to submit a complaint thank you Miss elms and lastly Miss kuchamizer Lisa kukenmeister Lavista I am here tonight as a current plcs parent to share my experience with educational practices happening in our schools that are affecting our children first off I will tell you I'm very impressed with the communication we receive this starts with District level emails and Direct Mail throughout the

013year then every two weeks I was getting an email from a principal's office that included everything that was going on in our building then most importantly every Friday afternoon I would receive a newsletter emailed to me from each of my children's teachers and let me tell you these emails are impressive they start out by explaining how the week went special announcements accomplishments by certain students and then they break down the detailed lesson plans on what to expect for that next week and this includes books that they're reading in the classroom as a handsome mom I want to know exactly what is going on in the classroom so these newsletters are inviting me in and allowing me to ask my kids engaging questions and be involved with what they're learning these newsletters also allow me to

014raise concerns about anything or ask for clarification so to all of our teachers out there thank you we appreciate your extra efforts to ensure transparency of what is going on in our classrooms I would also highly encourage parents to attend the curriculum review that our district hosts I was able to spend an entire afternoon looking over textbooks worksheets materials that my children were going to be exposed to and lastly the best experience were the curriculum events for each of my child's classrooms this allowed me and other parents to sit in the classroom see our teachers passion and dedication to our kids education I share all of this because I'm extremely upset by those who do not have kids in our schools or those from outside our district pushing distrust in a false narrative and we

015just heard indoctrination about what's going on in our classrooms you have no idea let our trained professionals teach just because you're a parent that does not give you the right to steer the entire education system your parental rights and at your child this is public education not your home not your church if you do not like what is being taught then you have the right to opt out or you can get out and to end my time I will again ask Brittany to denounce her association with extremist groups that are pushing the same distrust in her public education they have likely never set foot in classroom or put the work in such as parents like myself I will say it again our schools and our teachers do a fantastic job with transparency and open communication

016Brittany please explain to me how voting against a bond helps our school this Bond will directly improve the safety of her kids Brittany how is falsely accusing our teachers helpful you are driving teachers out of the classroom you and your extremist bullies are the ones we need to be watching out for as your actions are threatening our children's safety and access to education thank you yeah let's last on public comments for the parental involvement hearing so uh Dr Steele over to you wait no well good evening and Mr President as you mentioned at the beginning this hearing was to be conducted pursuant to board policy 6404 which aligns parent Guardian involvement in the operation of the schools to quote from the policy and again this is also rooted in in-state statute superintendent shall develop Implement

017and annually review administrative procedure regarding parents Guardians being informed of the educational practices that may affect their children this shall include parent Guardian rights relating to access to the school's testing information and curriculum matters pursuant to State Statute this policy is to be reviewed annually and either altered and adopted as altered or reaffirmed by the board following the opportunity for public comment at this public hearing that we have just had so Mr President at this time I'd yield back to the board thank you any questions from the board for Dr Steele no all right thanks we're good okay with that I will adjourn the parental involvement hearing okay and then we'll move right into the wellness policy hearing we've already done section one called the order I think I forgot the last time but I

018want to remind everyone that the open meetings law is posted at the the front of the the room so this hearing the purpose of the wellness policy hearing is to discuss hear support opposition suggestions or observations of community patrons relating to parental involvement in educational practices that may affect their children relative to board policy 5602 School Wellness we don't have any public comment for this hearing so Dr Steele over to you again thank you Mr President this hearing is conducted pursuant to board policy 5602 the purpose of the hearing is to allow members of the public an opportunity to provide input to the school wellness policy as required under the Child Nutrition and WIC reauthorization Act of 2004 pursuant to board policy 5602 the student wellness committee met four times during the 22-23 school year

019topics discussed included review of The District's food program work on Nebraska Department of Education triennial policy assessment review of policy 5602 for recommended changes and then Wellness goals and programming in the district looking ahead to the coming school year the committee intends to review District Wellness initiatives and review and monitor of goals outlined in policy 5602 and with that Mr President I yields back and and would defer to any public comment regarding this policy okay any questions from the board no all right thank you Dr Steele thank you and with that I'm guessing Kathy you need in a German time so adjourn that meeting at 6 18 if I didn't do the last one I apologize uh okay so now moving over to our regular board meeting again we already covered section one called order

020so we'll move into section two Communications military advisor uh we have someone new uh today who will introduce himself uh Colonel Patrick kalisiak welcome welcome colonel hey thank you all very much for the opportunity to be here this evening uh so again I'm Colonel Patrick kaleesiak I'm the new 55th Mission support group Commander at Offutt Air Force Base and one of the roles of my job has uh me has the privilege of being able to work with all of the school boards in the area so really looking forward to the chance to be able to work out with all of you where our school our excuse me our school children uh go to school every single day um I'm glad to be here this evening to work with all of you um especially because you've

021been so supportive of all of the service members children at the base uh it's been it's hard for a lot of our children with the many moves that our military families have to have a sense of stability and the schools that you have here uh provide that for us and I can't thank you enough for everything you've done to take care of all of our students and I just have four items to briefly board on the first is 55th Wing uh we which is the host wing it our hosting adopt Air Force Base we successfully completed a major biennial inspection of our units finishing up on July 10th and we greatly appreciate the patience that you and all of the members of the school board here and members of the the schools teachers administrators and

022everybody else with your patients over the summer as we've really focused on not just getting ready for the inspection but taking care of our day-to-day Mission as well as taking care of our service member and their families uh the second talking about a PCS pause and what that is about two weeks ago the Air Force announced that it would pause some of the moves for our Personnel in August and September due to a shortfall in our annual Appropriations for military members driven by higher than projected Personnel costs uh recently with some additional support from Congress the Air Force has recently announced that it will resume issuing change station orders for Airmen through the end of September uh what the impact is though is that has resulted in delay to some of our families who are

023due to depart off it and others who were supposed to come in before the start of the school year and what I would ask is your continued support to our families and children who are not believing or arriving when they expected we hope to see this get resolved here but there is going to be a little bit of an impact for our families that we're supposed to be leaving to get to new schools or again for families that aren't going to be coming in here third just a quick update on operation backpack that's an annual event that we have in addition to providing a backpack and school supplies to over 700 of our school-aged children the event also featured a fair with a number of local community organizations to advertise their services to our students

024and to their parents uh Leanne yanikov who many of you know she led that event working with dozens of other volunteers across the base and for us absolutely great event for us for our children to get them excited to start back the school year and lastly I just want to bring up that the Lincoln air show named the Guardians of Freedom that will be held in about one month from the 26th to 27th of August again down in Lincoln show is going to feature a number of aircraft and events from the U.S Navy Blue Angels to the Air Force Academy's wings of Bloom we'll also have aircraft from the Marines the Nebraska Air National Guard as well as a number of other Legacy flight and flight teams it's a great family event and it's specially

025suited for any of our young future Air Force Airmen or service members or those just generally interested in aviation and lastly just a thanks to the board here I'm new to the area I've been through Omaha and off it a couple of times going to and from other assignments and I'll tell you right now this is my first choice of assignment to come back to so I am really looking forward to the opportunity to work with each one of you and I can't thank enough for all of the individuals here this evening that I've already had a chance to meet for the warm welcome that I've gotten with that being said and opened up for any questions you might have with me uh Colonel welcome uh Air Force Base Edwards is their loss is our

026gain so we're glad to welcome you back to Omaha uh I'm sure you probably remember this from your last year but almost 10 percent of our students here are military dependents so they're a critical part of our student population and if Dr settles were here she would tell us that some of our very best teachers and prayer Educators and support staff are military spouses and we know that even though we're going to get them for a very short amount of time until the next PCS they're outstanding so thank you for your service thank you for what you do to support our nation and just looking forward to continuing the relationship with next hopefully next two to three years sounds like maybe you have some boxes to unpack yeah yes sir thank you Colonel all right

027well I appreciate it all right thank you all very much okay moving on to Item B public comments four items not on the agenda we do have a couple uh same uh for the previous meeting when called upon please come up to the desk state your name and address uh each speaker is at has up to three minutes with uh no more than 30 minutes total on it on a topic um first up Miss lowen EB um hello my name is Logan EBY and my address is on the form I submitted on May 8 2023 the Nebraska Board of Education voted to revoke the teaching certificate of Daniel Johnston permanently Mr Johnston was a teacher at Papillion Lavista High School the following is an excerpt from the petition on or about October 5th 2020 plv

028administrators were notified of concerns that respondent was communicating with a student he had coached Hereafter MV via text messaging School administration met with respondent on October 6 of 2020 to discuss the allegations and instructed respondent to have no contact with MV administrators further informed respondent that it was a violation of school policy to text students individually about personal issues following the meeting responded immediately texted MV inquiring as to what she would have told the adults before he answered further questions during interviews with MV conducted by School administration and law enforcement MV disclosed that she and respondent had smoked marijuana together on five to ten occasions in the fall of 2020. the respondent had provided the marijuana and that he taught her in quotes how to roll a joint so she would be how to roll

029a joint so she would know how to do it once she got to college the Papillion Police Department conducted a criminal investigation and discovered approximately 62 000 text messages between respondent and MV which included multiple affirmations of love and emotional closeness arguments with explicit language and references to smoking the text messages reflected a close personal relationship between respondent and MV Nebraska statute and District policy do not require the administration to notify the public about grooming incidences this is deeply concerning because Mr Johnston was a Deca chaperone in 2017 2018 and twice in 2019. I have a packet of the petition supporting documentation related to my comments for each board member and one for the minutes thank you for your time see me and up next Daryl lechner my name is Daryl lechner and again I'm

030trying to give us Solutions rather than anything else I'm going to in part continue from before because this will tie into exactly what we're covering right now especially with policy and concerns we may have for our children and their safety oh I need to touch bases also that the Nebraska librarian commission just not even two months ago had a a lecture a live feed on their own YouTube which covered ovg2 Community issues for their Librarians which again I wouldn't have a problem with but with a variety of the language that they were utilizing was the one that was basically brought through the detention has very explicit or verbiage that is used by many communistic organizations which I have followed for the last year I have deep concerns with the Marxist ideology that's being pushed a

031lot of people don't realize when people know the marxists are using the word queer it is not in regards to the regular what most people would believe as the lgbtq community this word for queer is basically utilized for the destruction of our capitalist country which we so dearly love this is why I'm fighting fighting this and making parents aware of it it is not that we do not love our children regardless what they choose or what they don't choose but we need to keep them safe in regards to those that are abusing them and and going to do this further this again this was a live footage video which is about an hour and 20 minutes you can view it yourself to switch to proceed one reason I'm also seeing these library books being pushed

032within our community so fervently is the ESG situation that's been set up for our businesses across the country which gained very rapid points in their ESG scores to push and buy these books for our libraries or Aid in that donations because they will get ESG points for that that's why we're seeing a flood of this also and the American librarian Association and one of the communistic Marxist groups which I which I referred to on Lost matrina thought what they're trying to do is basically get this in and a lot of our they'll get a lot of these booksellers to set up for these books with Awards and that so the Librarians can push these say okay we got these books see these Awards they got these we need to recommend for our community this is

033not how it should work and this is how a lot of these folks got in I'm also concerned where a lot of these people are using the words were hurt we're unsafe and they're using the disabled Community certain races social classes to basically push and promote and silence anyone that's bringing in single light I have a very serious concern with this because I have lesbian friends I have gay friends and they're appalled by this they would never want to see any of the children they adopt go through this and they would not recommend it for any of the other children who are heterosexual this is an abuse and it is being utilized to disrupt our community our schools and break up actual families in our community this is a tool we have we have a

034war going on in our world and this is one of the tools you're utilizing I suggest you wake up thank you thank you okay that was the last public comment moving on to item C uh superintendent's report thank you very much Mr madler members of the board and for those of you that are joining us this evening thank you for engaging with your board of education for those that are watching online as always thank you for joining us we appreciate your involvement doesn't seem possible that we're already talking about back to school time but alas it is that time so some of the dates I did want to throw out a few dates for the board in the community to consider some of which are on the agenda some of which aren't but as most

035of you are probably aware we always kick off the start of the school year and welcome back our veteran staff within all staff gathering for the last several years it's been at Werner Park we've been very blessed in that weather has cooperated hopefully that will be the the case this year it is August 7th all board members are not only encouraged to be there but we may even put you to work helping hand out t-shirts so if you're able to join us we'll buy you some scrambled eggs and we would be grateful to have you there for a community that that may not be aware of the activity it's basically all of our staff approximately 1800 staff members teachers being the largest group of course but all support staff members administrators drivers para Educators so

036forth and so on and we we do a number of things we typically have some opening remarks we showcase our kids and their talents as much as possible and it is also the time where we announce our major awards from our foundation for our teachers and our staff so it's a really special event it's a great way to kick off the school year of course the first day of school is three short days later on August 10th for most of our students you'll hear hear more about that later on and all students will begin on August 11th but most of our students start on August 10th also wanted to share as part of our back to school Gatherings we do a back to school administrative meeting which we'll be hosting tomorrow so all 55 of

037our administrators will be meeting to discuss the nuts and bolts kicking off a new school year so that's always kind of exciting uh followed up by the administrative days meeting in Kearney which is jointly held by the Nebraska Department of Education as well as Nebraska Council of school administrators also a sign of the back back to school events is I believe Ms Siri can correct me but I believe today was the first day of jump start at all five of our Title One buildings if you're not familiar with jumpstarter there's a voluntary pre-kindergarten program it's a great way to get some of our families and more importantly our soon to be kindergarten students acclimated to the rigors of a school day what the school building looks like walking them through the building walking them through

038their schedule doing some of that pre-teaching to make that transition as smooth as possible so that'll continue up until the start of the school year I also wanted to remind the board community that we do have the plcs Foundation gala which is fast approaching that is on the 19th of this month we're changing it up and we're doing it at the beardmore Event Center traditionally this has been held at the Lavista Embassy Suites The beardmore Event Center while it does have a Bellevue address is still located in school district proper yes it is just barely in the school district but they are a property taxpayer also wanted to remind the board that we do have a retreat approaching it is one week from today 4 P.M for our community members you are welcome to attend

0394 pm to 8 PM we did not transact business in other words we do not take motion on anything it's strictly there as a means to discuss topics we'll be discussing strategic planning we'll be discussing prioritization of the bond projects we'll be talking about my goals for the upcoming year public comment is not allowed since we're not taking action but you're certainly welcome to attend participate it will be held in this room 4 pm next Monday and lastly I'm catching the board off guard which I usually don't like doing this but this is kind of fun news so we just found out from the Nebraska Association of school boards they annually give out Awards of achievement and this board of education received the board of Excellence award I believe you will all receive notification of

040that at your next membership meeting and I think they also do a formal announcement at the annual fall convention in November so on behalf of the administrative team that works for you and supports you congratulations to our six board members thank you thank you round of applause please so just as a reminder and I know I sound like a broken record these six individuals work very very hard on behalf of our parents our taxpayers our constituents they do not receive a nickel of remuneration for their work not a dime they do it because they love kids they love families and they love this community and I am grateful to work for this group of six outstanding individuals and with that Mr madler I'll conclude my superintendent's comments thank you Dr rickley uh border forts um

041last Sunday I got to attend the storm chasers game with teammates Miss Kelly set a table out front and they we were told to wear our t-shirts which was nice because then that gave people the opportunity to ask what it was so we could have conversation about it it was hot but it was great because it was family night so that was pretty um pretty cool to be able to network with people I guess and let them know what teammates is all about and then I attended a football fundraiser so I'm getting really excited for the football season um and yeah there too it was nice to just chat with teachers and parents in the community and just talk to them so that's about all I had I I know I think the next time

042we meet we'll already be in uh school right it'll be the Monday after school starts so to the staff that has been off uh in the summer hopefully you've all had a uh great relaxing summer and have recharged and are ready to come back for for a great year um look forward to getting you all back in our schools and for the parents as we start schools go to the open houses um I just want to put a plug out there for the ptos ptas uh parents take a chance to get some more information on what the ptas do see if you want to join be a member or at least volunteer and sign up for all the activities that the great ptos ptas do in this community so just a little plug there okay

043next is item e committee reports buildings rounds and finance we have not met since last meeting okay human resources and student services 19th we talked about negotiations how they're going with the maintenance custodians warehouse and drivers group and they've reached a tentative agreement that those groups will be voting on and then they will appear on the board agenda if it's a successful vote in the next month um let's see we looked at some of the board policy changes that are coming due to State Law changes none of those have been recommended yet because we're still waiting for the final um right up to come out and what when they're doing all that kind of stuff uh let's see we talked about substitute data and where we are with our para substitutes and our teacher substitutes

044and different ways that we can incentivize our staff to continue to fill those roles for us they're very important and we have a very good group of people who support our district in those roles we did talk about professional boundaries and talking about how teachers new teachers coaches and such would be trained I think at the new orientation rather than through their coaches that they would be trained on those processes at the central office when they first come into sign up for their positions our next meeting I believe was at August 8th or was it the 14th I can't we talked about two days and I think it was the eighth so if I forgot anything I'm sorry but and then we talked about uh is the eighth okay thank you uh curriculum and americanism

045our group met and on July 14th we had on our agenda the book appeal just some discussion around the process itself we talked about the 6000 Boe policy review mostly focused on the 6405 portion of it and then we talked about next steps with other policies and we do have some item here the policy 6000 on for discussion tonight thank you moving on to section three action items anime action by consent move to approve the action by consent agenda we have a motion by Ms witness second by Miss Fisher discussion no uh roll call please yes okay Item B board meeting uh minutes and student fee hearing minutes of July 10 2023. I'll make a motion to approve the board meeting and student fees hearing minutes of July 10 2023 as presented second we have

046a motion by Mr Lotus and a second by Miss Fisher discussion uh roll call yes the item C Construction manager at risk number three selection of committee Mr Richards over to you thank you Mr madler good evening Board of Education um just want to give you a general overview of where we're at in the process of moving to a construction manager at risk portion of bond projects for this upcoming facility Improvement schedule construction manager at risk selection process we're looking at getting two different companies for two groups of projects they're going to be right around 47 million dollars estimated between the two groups of projects proposals are actually due tomorrow from the companies to become our providers for the CMR projects um selection committee will receive proposals later this week pending board approval tonight selection

047committee will meet August 3rd and 10th to score proposals and interview finalists and then we will hopefully come to a consensus through our scoring for those top two companies and bring those back to the board at an August 14th meeting our selection committees members were recommending tonight our Brian Lotus who's a board member Brittany holtmeyer board member Marcus madler board member they're all three a part of the buildings and grounds a finance subcommittee that are very familiar with the different things going on within the district and the projects that we're talking about myself Mr Larry Ware who's our director of buildings and grounds Pat Carson who's here tonight with bcdm architecture Doug Lewis who's my predecessor and he's still working within the construction Community as well with alley cap insurance company facility Advocates doing a

048little work for them as well and then Steve Weber Community member HDR senior construction analysis we kind of hunted down and found about his abilities and he's been graciously willing enough to to join this committee as well so that's what we'll recommend tonight and I'd be glad to answer any questions uh my first question is are you expecting a lot of bids to come through we really are we had a pre-conference meeting or pre-proposal meeting with Derek Aldridge who's our from Perry Law Firm um and answered any questions and we we had about uh eight different companies show up that night and I know there was a few others that were interested so we're expecting anywhere from eight to twelve proposals um I just want to comment I think this is a great committee that's

049been put together between the financing building committee but also that you've found some really great people to fill those other spots that you needed filled so I think we're going to be a really great group so nicely done there great thank you yeah I'm excited to get to work with them and get their opinions on the proposals Mr Richards just as a review so we sold 130 million dollars 129.9 million dollars worth of bonds I think the uh assumption is that two cmrs each of approximately 47 million dollars a piece and then the remaining projects would probably be the traditional design bid build is that accurate yes that's correct and you know there's some miscellaneous costs in that 130 million too uh with you know permitting and testing and things of that nature perfect would

050it be your assumption that so we have two different CMR chunks CMR chunk 147 million CMR chunk to an additional 47 million so that's the bulk of 129.9 would it be possible for one firm to do both of the cmrs or would it be your expectation the committee's expectation that you'd have one firm do the first tranche second firm does the second tranche yeah great great point there we'd have two different companies we prefer at this point to do two different Pathways of projects that'll help us expedite the projects to get done sooner um and also we I think you know working together within that framework as well but with the Architects and the construction companies we're looking forward I know a lot of the people that will be putting into this are known for

051their great teamwork and I see us all working together as a team he there's no further questions I'll make a motion of the board of education for this school district should and does hereby appoint the following persons to the construction manager managers at risk selection committee to evaluate the proposals received from firms in response to the request for proposals for the proposed 2023 Bond projects group a members of the School District Board of Education Brian Lotus Marcus madler Miss Brittany holtmeyer Group B members of the school district's Administration staff Brett Richards assistant superintendent of Business Services Larry Ware director of buildings and grounds group C the school district's architect and engineer Pat Carson or designee from bcdm architects Group D any person persons having special expertise relevant to the selection of a construction manner under

052the Nebraska political subdivisions construction Alternatives act who are not employed by the school district and who shall not be employed or have a financial or other interest in in a construction manager who has or may have proposal being evaluated Steve Weavers HDR senior construction rep and a Community member and group e a resident or residence of the territory served by the school district other than an individual included in a through D above who is not employed by the school district and who shall not be employed or have Financial or other interest in a construction manager who has or may have a proposal being evaluated as submitted Doug Lewis alley cap rep and former assistant superintendent to plcs second okay I have a motion by Mr Lotus and a second by Ms holtmeyer any other discussion

053no roll call yes yes yes yes okay moving on to section four discussion information items Fricke Field and Titan Field projects great thank you again Mr madler and with that uh Paterson a bcdm and Caleb van wiedelden sorry Caleb uh from lamper Nissan are here tonight to kind of uh present the project to the board and answer any questions that you may have um I know they've been hard at work on a lot of different projects throughout the district and this is one of them that we can hopefully get started here this fall when we have that window uh where the the fields are empty and not being used and with that I'll turn it over to you guys to kind of review the project I'll do the easy part and let Caleb do the

054hard part here in a minute so again these are just the baseball projects we'll be coming back later this fall for softball but it is both the baseball fields they're being bid together there's an economy of scale in bundling the two together uh as Mr Richards mentioned these bits would be received on August 8th Our intention would bring them to you the 14th I believe and then they would start pretty quick the the plan would be there finished by DEC member of this year and ready to go for spring so both Fields it'll be up to the contractor which one technically starts first but they're both going to be happening to happen at the same time and with that Caleb do you want to maybe walk through the overview sure absolutely uh Caleb Ben Wilton

055lampreyerson nice to meet you all uh like Pat mentioned like Brett mentioned we're doing two projects together this will be a full Turf replacement of freaky field and Titans Papillion Styles Baseball Facility so essentially the images you're seeing on the screen will flip through a couple but everything kind of inside the field envelope with the addition of the bullpens and there are some minor let's call it outside defense improvements including a refresh of a couple of the batting cages we have uh strobe in the design to be economical and also to be Equitable between the two facilities to look at what's there existing and preserve the the character of the fields while also making sure that both facilities have are set up in an excellent way for the uh the users for the school and

056for outside users as we know that happens as well so you can go ahead and flip through this is perky field in general this is going to be the design the images you see are graphical they're not an exact representation of what the fields will look like but it's about as close as the color match we could get on our software we're using so they will have a large logo in the Outfield with the pl is the front runner in the clubhouse right now and then some other script around home place to have the individual schools represented in general we are basing this off of the design that the Uno teams just installed I think two years ago for their softball and baseball projects as you can see in the the lower left hand side

057with kind of a we'll call it a mode in look for the School logo in the Outfield and that'll be you know that's Turf so it's permanent striping and then the color matches for the infield and the surrounding out of play areas will be selected as well Caleb I would just throw in that we're still in the process of Designing these fields with the staff and you know the key players with Legion club and things like that and getting opinions and this kind of gets us started with the bids uh you know we want to bring that to the buildings around finance committee final project I know I got an email from Jeremy van Akron here early this morning and said yeah there's a couple things that we want to that didn't come out exactly

058right you can see they came up with a very similar designs but there's a few things here and there that we're still working through of course and we're not locked in until we approve the shop drawings so these things are going to look everyone's going to get a chance to take a look at them and agree and then we'll proceed forward into manufacturing that is one of the reasons we want to get going as soon as possible because there is a significant lead line lead time for some of these items and then at Titan um a similar concept we're preserving the character of the existing field we've got to the entire inside the fence area including the bullpens and then the batting cage for this one we're actually going to construct a new batting cage

059which will be outside of the Outfield of the softball facility so just to the northwest of the image you're seeing here and each school will have a little bit of customization on how they want the field to look um this one I believe we're going to go with a slightly darker look for the uh what would be the clay or the warning track with again the similar concept of the logo in the Outfield and then some script behind home plate we have lots of customization options for colors so we can match the school colors and make sure each field feels special and unique with the same general bones we'll call it so I'm I'm here to answer any questions if you have specific questions about the layout or anything I'll do my best um did

060you do Uno's baseball field we did not design Unos we are hoping that one of the contractors that built it as a at least they'll have an update on this on this project oh awesome because theirs is super nice I've Heard lots of good things yeah and then I have another question um how well does Turf do in like the snow sometimes we get it sometimes we don't oh it does Excellence I was at a conference about three years ago that had the University of Michigan's groundskeeper presenting and he talked about shoveling snow off the facility to practice they get I mean Ann Arbor it's a lot more snow than we get so you can actually have a plastic blade and scoop the snow off and play the next day that's one of the huge

061advantages of the product it's uh it's really an all-season product and I'm sure you guys will see people asking to play on it any time of the year as long as they you know even below freezing temperatures with this is there like a type of cleat you have to wear like are the boys going to be like you can't wear metal is that a thing um different Church different uh Turf manufacturers have different um stances on that there are ways to preserve the longevity of the field some of them will recommend non-metal cleats especially for the home team because they are they are the ones the primary users but there's things that you can do to maintain the life of it just like you would on your natural grass fields I mean this isn't the

062perfect surface it will wear down over time so they protect the fields with mats and with BP equipment so you're not just sitting there causing undue wear and tear where you wouldn't have to there is some maintenance required it is not a maintenance free surface you still have to add some more rubber add some more sand you may have to patch certain areas as they become damaged but the play hours and the playability is greatly increased due to snow due to rain events I mean you can get on it as it's raining as long as Lightning is not an issue so it is not maintenance free you can use different types of cleats manufacturers will recommend plastic just for an extra added measure of longevity but from our clients that isn't always the case just

063for practicality reasons does that answer your question speaking of longevity well first off grass fields also suffer a lot of wear and tear so I don't oh absolutely you know but speaking of longevity what is the expected longevity of this kind of a field um the the warranties on the product off the top of my head I think it's in the eight to ten year range and that'd be a full replacement manufacturer's warranty um for you know for certain areas let's say the pitcher's mound home plate first base those are the more High wear and tear areas there will be some replacement throughout the life there's actually ways to do that quicker but a 12-year lifespan is not out of the question if not longer depending on the maintenance of the facility and I know

064uh we we've had drainage issues at South you talk through or when you want to talk through kind of how we're going to tackle that problem with these new fields so it's a fully permeable system the rain water drains through the turf just like at a football field through the turf and then into a rock underlayment a rock layer with an underlayment and then it is piped um to the the exiting storm sewer which of that facility I believe is on the south that drains into the Walnut Creek Lake Basin um so drainage issues should be greatly reduced it is a large field and we are not fully reconstructing it from the bones up we're going to keep the general layout I know left field is a little bit flatter than right field but the

065storm sewer pipes itself are going to be what takes the waters away rather than just surface drainage which what you have now and we we met with the city last week all three of us and had some preliminary discussions on um you know getting it approved through the city the design those types of things had some things that we went through to make sure they were comfortable with one of those was the dream because we're going to have to cut to the east of Fricke to get to a creek on that particular one but same type of concept without drainage and the expectations are so we're doing baseball in the fall because they play in the spring softball plays in the fall the expectations are then to to be doing this side sort of work

066in the fall slash summer correct and kind of like I mentioned last uh last meeting um you know the first four out or the elementary schools but if we can piece some other things in once we get the construction manager risk companies in uh that don't disrupt school and we can do some of those side projects uh we'll be bringing them to you at that particular time too so that you know we're kind of trying to do some Pathways here of different projects with keeping our priorities straight as well thanks any other questions no no all right well appreciate it I do have a few I'm sorry I'm sorry I I you know I should have done this at the beginning of the slides I've debated that earlier today but just a couple General project

067information things we're expecting a project scope around 3.2 to 3.9 on these two Fields uh biz for the project will be due August 8th we'll have advertisement in the serpe times Wednesday construction to begin and probably early september-ish we're thinking depending on the bid winner and what their availability is but they know if they bid on this project it's a fall project and it needs to be done in December of 223. now are you done no no now we got that in at least all right thank you uh thanks for coming thank you all right Item B policy 6000 instruction over to miss Siri all right good evening Board of Education um so tonight as you may recall uh last month we discussed the 6000 series um we brought forward five policy recommended changes um

068of those five policies four have had no additional conversations or considerations um so tonight we are really just focusing on one and that is 6405 that deals with controversial issues um as mentioned earlier we had a couple of subcommittee meetings about this and also took into consideration additional feedback from community members obviously from board members that are here tonight um as well as additional information from the district's attorney and so what you'll see presented tonight is a new draft of 6405 with the intent being that it creates a Clarity in the language which was one of the requests from the last conversation of the board meeting as well as we change the organizational strategy of the policy so a lot of it is the same we just put it together by paragraphs in a way

069that would make it a little more clear and easily understood so I'm just going to walk through it real quickly so that you can kind of see again this is just the policy not the procedure but you'll see the opening sentence there is was a sentence that you had in the previous version but this simply just defines what topics could be considered for controversial consideration and that's political economic moral and social reasons the second paragraph that starts with the board deems anything controversial basically identifies where it could come from and it's any content area or instructional material or Library resource that could be reconsidered for removal or perhaps taught with a different emphasis the third paragraph that starts with each building principle simply outlines the responsibilities and rights of the principle in regards to controversial

070issues and also with instruction and so it outlines their what is expected from that role in our district the next paragraph outlines the teachers responsibilities and rights as they are delivering that instruction and possible material in his or her classroom and that it should be free of bias and Prejudice and that if they have um concerns or questions they should work with their principal and admin administrators um the next paragraph starts out when deciding whether controversial issues of materials should be studied this clearly outlines how what topics are determined to be put into the curriculum and so you'll see there that it's based on four things the maturity of the students involved the competence of the instructor to deal with the materials of subject and whether the materials are available to ensure that all sides

071of an issue be studied and then the last one is whether or not the materials benefit the student's intellectual growth the second to last paragraph then starts out with parents and guardians of current plcs students it outlines the rights of parents with a reminder that they always have the option to opt out of specific materials if they choose to do so for their child and then the last sentence acknowledges that patrons also have the right to share concerns and feedback on issues as well so again it's kind of a reorganization by paragraph along with clarifying language with that questions or this again is um just for discussion tonight there's been a lot of time and effort put in this and I like the way that this is structured in the paragraphs that we've put together

072here um there's been a lot of talk about for some reason people thought patrons were being removed but that is not the case there is still that opportunity for patrons to share their concerns as well so I do like those after a lot of conversation a lot of different meanings listening to our constituents talking with teachers staff members and everybody and just all of our conversation in the committee we've been able to put together something that I think really does read easily more easily and probably takes out some of the ambiguity that we saw in it before so I I just want to say thank you to all everybody that's been a part of this because there's been a lot of effort gone into helping to restructure this particular policy for its to be more

073easily used by everybody that might want to read it and even consider doing what's needed when they have a concern over some controversial issue so thanks to everybody for the efforts that have gone into this um when reading the last paragraph the PLC as patrons that are not parents guardians of currently enrolled students may share the details of their concern um I think that's a little different from where above parent and guardian you can fill out a complaint so I guess what's a complaint versus a concern is it is a patron still able to fill out the Complaint Form like they were before that will be determined by the procedure I think the difference is the complaint is when it's directly impacting that parent's child okay so a patron that doesn't have a currently enrolled

074student would not be in that particular role but we take feedback all the time okay so okay so patrons are still able to fill out a complaint form that will be determined in the procedure so we don't know that yet this is just the policy so um but we're saying that we'll take feedback from the patrons for certain okay and as board members um we don't determine the procedure you guys do but like you said we can give you our suggestions correct yeah we'll take I take feedback yeah but then yeah we work on how the policy is going to be implemented so the board determines the policy and then in procedure we determine how that policy is going to be implemented within the systems that we have you're welcome uh I just want to

075thank the subcommittee for all the work taking I I know you had uh suggestions from probably dozens of suggestions from uh people in the community teachers staff uh I sent mine in uh so thank you for uh for reviewing those um and multiple meetings and coming up with uh coming up with the draft any other company you know I just Echo that I know sitting on certain subcommittees at certain times of the year when items come up you know how much thought and an effort it takes to make sure that we're being consistent in how we're approaching our policies and really spent a lot of time last year uh doing what I think you've done here which is making it easier to read taking out redundancies taking out things that just cause more concern or

076non-clarity than they were really intended to do so I really appreciate that subcommittee's work again as I stated last time this is very similar to the prior policy which did include allowing patrons to submit uh materials that's what I was I stated last meeting that I liked the prior policy and that there wasn't a significant overhaul of the overall objective and that I think you came to the conclusion that we you know the subcommittee is recommending we we're not having a philosophical change in the way that our policy was written and I I commend that I know you all knew my opinions on on that matter so I was glad to see a reorganization and not a complete overhaul of this policy so well done any other discussion questions no so if it meets with

077the board approval Mr madler even though tonight we focus just on 6405 controversial issues we previously the board previously discussed the other components of the 6000 Series so if it meets with the board's approval we will bring the entirety of the 6000 series not just 6405 but all of six thousand back to the board in August offered potential approval if that meets your approval would the board like me to remind the topics of the other ones listed there or do you recall I'm sorry um in our meeting that we had last week if we're not voting on the other policies is that going to affect when students come back to school because you say that that had to be in the handbook language is um we're working on the handbooks and it's a little different

078but no we're fine because most of that's in procedure okay so we're okay but thank you for asking yeah okay thank you Miss Siri uh lastly on the discussion information items we have staff survey data I assume I'm in coming on up [Music] okay let's talk staff survey data um I I know you've seen this a thousand times but it's um what I always like to start presentations like this with and this is really best practice is this four-step model of communications 101 it starts with the research then the planning then the implementation and then the evaluation so I would say um right now we're on that left hand side of that Circle and we're evaluating what we've done in the past and yet we're also doing research to develop our plan for what we

079want to do moving forward so um as you know we've conducted a staff and parent survey we did that last spring throughout the month of April and May we had 1 244 staff members that completed the survey that's a 74 response rate which is really good um when you break that down and look at who responded in terms of our certified our teaching staff versus our classified staff 79 percent of our certified staff responded to the survey and 63 percent of our classified staff responded to the survey and I'd give credit to a lot of our classified supervisors who worked really hard to make sure that our food service people completed the survey our secretaries competed in the survey our warehouse and drivers completed the survey so we knew that the staff survey was a

080a valid representation of the makeup of our entire staff uh what did the survey focus on we looked at how do people get information what information do our staff want to receive we spent a lot of time in fact the majority of the survey really focused on climate and employee satisfaction and then we looked at some specific areas like Bond issues apps social media video Blackboard those sorts of things um of course the first question we always ask is how do our employees get information about what's happening in our school district you can see the Blue Line there at across and that's the historical trends of what's happened over the past several years with the survey but the blue Rhine across the top is our staff newsletter that goes out every Tuesday during the school

081year and then in the summer we send it out randomly on Tuesdays but it's not consistently every Tuesday it's the number one source of information it did drop slightly um as a source of information I think it's one of those things that we're going to look at maybe some rebranding and restructuring of that newsletter to give it some new life and hopefully we'll see those numbers bounce back up again we asked staff we have a an ongoing list of categories of information and we basically want to know are they getting the right amount of information about the school district in each of those areas or do they need more information you can see which I think is really interesting the lowest one which is 59 percent is a bond issue projects and we also asked

082individuals if they had too much information or not enough 35 percent of our respondents said they had too much info on the bond issue which I think in sake of a campaign I'll take the 35 percent um so if you add the 35 percent to the 59 where actually it's one of our highest ranking topics one of the areas that we asked in this question was just asked of our teaching staff is their communication with parents about learning because we know when parents are partnered with teachers for a child's learning students are going to do better not just academically but socially emotionally with behavior with attendance with all those things that matter so we asked some specific questions about how to how do teachers communicate with parents and we ask specific questions of parents on

083the parent survey on how do they get information about their child's learning um last year you can see where that arrow is Elementary classroom newsletters last year was 36 percent we slowed those newsletters down um during the couple years of coven it was like one last thing that we had teachers do and we saw that reflected in the data we saw that parents were saying they didn't have as much information as they needed about what kids are learning and reading what kids are learning in math so last year a very concentrated effort was made as part of our communication plan based on feedback from all of our building principles to bring those classroom newsletters back on a weekly basis and you can see the big jump there and it's also clearly reflected I'm going to

084share the parent data at the next meeting but it's clearly reflected in what parents how connected parents feel to the classrooms as well we also asked parents Blackboard is our system that we use as a school district for communication not just from a district perspective but from a school perspective as well as an individual classroom perspective so we asked our teachers about their comfort level with Blackboard we still have some work to do there 74 of our staff have downloaded our district app but only about 40 percent feel that it is that they have a really good understanding of the app that is one of the big sources of information for our parents so that's an area that you'll see in our new communication plan that we'll focus on videos has become a huge part

085of what we do from our Communications Department so we measure that I this is the two-year comparison you can see that it's growing as a source of information one of the things that we saw from the themes that emerged from staff is that they felt like we were doing a really effective job of telling the good news stories of what's happening in the classrooms and I would contribute that to the video Chantal does an amazing job with the videos share Mr madler and I went to a session at the national school boards conference on employee satisfaction and retention and engagement of employees and they used um in this particular session they used a lot of the Gallup information there's so much Gallup research that's out there about employee satisfaction so we pulled some of that

086data and Incorporated it into the survey this year based on that session that we attended this is a brand new question that we asked it's a question that's asked through Gallup it's been tested through Gallup but basically it asks like what are what are the employees individual plans over the next few years you can see that 87 of our employees see themselves here or retiring from here um only 12 percent are and that would be the area that we would be concerned are considering changing districts or leaving the profession um I will tell you that session that we were in I went back and looked at that today that number was at 30 percent um in their Trend data and if you look at a national level of the Gallup stuff historically goes as high

087as 40 to 45 percent um so to be at only 12 of our staff that are seriously considering leaving us is really good 12 is too high we want to keep everybody we want to keep all of our employees happy um but that's really um really a feather in the Hat of our principals and our individuals to keep our employees and keep them satisfied there was also they call it the q12 Gallup research which basically measures Employee Engagement and their satisfaction we didn't add all of those questions um into our survey but we added a lot of them so you'll see those first six questions there or brand new questions for our survey and it's all of those dumped together to really measure what is the level of Employee Engagement those last three questions which

088were basically about valuing their input those are questions that we had Trend data on and you can see that the trend is definitely going um in the direction that we would like to see it be going the question the point the one point I would make about this the 50 there that says um I have the opportunity to do what I do best every day the Gallup National statistic would be 16 percent um and we're at 50 percent uh so it seems low but proportionately when you compare it we still have a lot of work to do but proportionately we're doing really well in that area I think one of the things that um I was most pleased with with the results for this year is that last year I think we had some concerns

089about staff morale and employee satisfaction um as we looked at all of the climate questions um we saw Improvement in every single category or at a minimum we State the same so for example I enjoy working in the Papillion Lavista School District 86 percent and that number stayed exactly the same from last year but in every other category when we look at are do employees feel valued do employees feel recognized we saw a slight increase in those numbers and that was very intentional principles were very intentional about making sure employees feel valued and recognized as well as we were from the district level I think we still have room to improve and definitely want to continue to focus on that but we're certainly seeing the trend going in the direction that we want it to

090be going mental health was a new question that we asked last year you can see the two-year comparison there again we're going in the right direction but certainly is an area that we want to continue to grow we want our employees to know that we value and care about their mental health as well as the mental health of our students then the last section of climate data that we had was communication and purpose um do do employees understand their purpose which the Gallup research would say that that's really critical to employee satisfaction as well do they understand the mission you can see a huge jump we did focus on that last year because that was a low area um of do they know are they aware of the mission and beliefs and then do they

091feel that those represent what we do and we saw big jumps in those areas which is something to be really proud of and then of course the and this summarizes it but there were um thousands of comments um from our staff just written comments I think quantitative data is really important when we look at measuring and valuing where we've been and where do we want to go but the qualitative data is equally as important so we had an open-ended question we asked staff to share with us what are the strengths um and then what are the concerns in some of the areas and you can see the major themes that emerged from that um strengths people people felt and we did not see this last year and I would say I really saw saw it

092in the qualitative data this year they felt more valued and recognized there were lots of comments that they felt like their individual building principles as well as the school district as a whole we're making the efforts to try to improve in those two areas of being valued and recognized on communication was seen as a strength then I think it's no surprise to anybody and this was a strength last year as well but just the overall quality of Education that we provide our students in our district is something that our staff are very proud of as well as the quality of Staff members that we have um and I truly believe that that's what makes us us in the Papillion the Vista school district is the amazing staff that we have in front of our students

093every single day and that includes our classified staff as well as our certified staff and then leadership was one of the areas that emerged as a theme felt very strongly that getting us through the past two to three years and covid and decisions that were made and even though people didn't always agree with it that they felt the leadership from U.S board members to Dr rickley all of our building principals just the overall leadership is something that our staff identified as something that they were proud of concerns biggest concern overwhelmingly is student behaviors and support for student behaviors I know we've done a lot of things to improve that over the past few years but that's still an area I think student behaviors have just changed in the past couple years and I think that

094that is reflected in this data Recruitment and Retention of particularly of our classified staff but also our certified staff there's that perception that a lot of people are leaving and I think we're losing more people than we have been in the past but we know from the data you know we don't have droves of people that are exiting the papaya navista school district and then of course that mental health support both for our employees as well as for our students steps in August I'll share the parent side of this data with you so you can see the two pieces together and how they fit together and where the gaps are we're also sharing this with all of our principals tomorrow at our admin Retreat and then based on that data we'll develop the action steps

095that need to be put in place as a result of the data as part of the communication plan moving forward and we'll share that information with you as well so questions thoughts well I'll I'll say you know there's a lot of effort that goes into this survey but it's great to see almost everywhere we saw staying the same or Improvement and you know how I feel about the staff here in this district and I think this really shows that when you see how few are looking to either leave the profession or leave the district it's a small percentage and that speaks volumes about the work that goes on every day to make sure that our staff feel appreciated by everybody whether it's administrators other staff this board across just across the group as a whole

096so it's always great to see this but it's really nice to see so many areas going up it's a nice trend um who did you say was all involved in the uh in the responses teachers every employee in the district every employee okay and I apologize God I do not know this but how many employees do we have in the district that include it's about 14 I wish Katie was here if yeah if you yeah there's a lot of different employee groups so like employees that work from home which would be like um some of your volunteer coaches some of that kind of stuff those would not be included necessarily substitute teachers were not included um but anyone that receives a paycheck that gets the Tuesday tickets got the survey Paris as well then absolutely

097yes okay um another thing do you have uh the presentation that you have shown like before covid yeah they may pass data yeah yeah may I have that and then a copy of this presentation just because I want to kind of yep go with both of them um and then do you mind if you go back to the mental health slide nope I can go back so one of the their concerns was mental health is that mental health within themselves or their students or both it was both you can see from those questions that it it was both concerns about employees and concerns about students as well um so and I think yeah and each of those questions is different EAP was one of the things that we had asked about that was an area

098that I I was identified in the quantitative data as well we saw it started to emerge that um you know just access to those EAP services and the number of services um I'm trying to read all those so you can see from the different questions that are right there below Brittany that what the specific question was that they were responding to okay so this to me just I'm a little concerned with it especially the mental health because obviously these people went to school to be a teacher they had a passion for it and I don't want them to lose it because I know from covid a lot of people did um so how can we get this up yeah I I think we don't we got to look at all the survey results in its

099entirety so I wouldn't necessarily say that teachers are losing their passion for Education because they have concerns about their Mental Health be like yeah totally agree so so that's why we look at the survey in its entirety so I think the mental health you know there's a lot of things that play into mental health personal stress it doesn't necessarily apply to the job as well but I think absolutely one of the things that we've talked about and one of the things I think you'll see come back as an action step is how can we get better mental health supports to our staff and make them aware of those um the awareness people know what's out there um that's one of the areas I mean because we're at 87 percent but I think we've got to

100look at what are we providing what can we continue to provide and as a district we've had a huge focus on Mental Health um what's it say as an employee I feel that my mental health is supporting or is valued so you've seen a big jump there so I think some of the things we are doing are absolutely working and will continue to do those I think adding a mental health facilitator as a school district which we did last year here has been huge she's been doing a ton of trainings throughout the year so I think we're making strides in the right direction but I think it absolutely is an area that will continue to focus on for that um when they fill these surveys out are they able to like write anything yes that's

101the quantity the qualitative data or their written comments okay and those okay that makes sense thank you yeah if I could just compare that I just want to see what it was before and then how it is now yep you want like the year before covid yeah yep we can do that gosh whatever it is yeah there's some new questions but a lot of them are the same yep Miss holtmeyer I appreciate your comment about uh you know what are we doing for staff and students I think as I even mentioned a couple things here's just two very brief examples of Dr settles were here I know she would have others but um one of the things that we're looking at uh through our uh employee wellness program is is programs so there's a variety

102of programs offered through Wellness everything from encouraging healthy diet encouraging healthy sleep encouraging healthy uh exercise habits but also they've had an increased focus on mental health and that's specifically for staff so I think what you've started to see through our our participation in Blue Cross Blue Shield is programs targeted for staff in this recognition that mental health was an issue long before covid but it's probably gotten even worse since cobit so that would be another example the other one that we talked about I I don't think Katie will kick me under the table when she hears me say this but one of the questions specifically dealt with employee access we contract with EAP and currently we offer five uh complimentary visits and I believe what I think we heard from her this afternoon is

103we're going to up that to 10. so we've just basically doubled the amount of and it's not always about mental health sometimes you go to therapy to deal with financial issues sometimes you're dealing with marital issues kids behavior issues but many of those teachers that are accessing the AP are absolutely going there to support their own mental health so those are the kind of things that we're trying to do to continue to increase those numbers uh thanks for putting it together I know we spent a lot of time talking about it every year um and thanks for adding in those additional questions that we have some information to compare ourselves to other districts if I remember correctly what we went to that was a group that basically surveyed the entire state of Kansas right they

104tried to get all the districts within Kansas to survey so it's you know a someone to comp against that's not too far away from where we are and that would have you know drastically different situations than we have so it's good to be able to have those uh comparisons and you talk about next steps and hopefully uh there's a a bunch of good feedback and information from the staff that you guys can break down and share with the principals and get some action items for them and for the staff that's out there that filled those out uh thank you and next year when you when you do these again you know think through don't just you know put the score but if you have uh relevant feedback write those comments up I've said there's over

105a thousand I guarantee you've read every multiple times I'm guessing and that gets uh broken down to the individual buildings right right yeah I do think that's an important piece so we look at the data on a district level we look at it by level um a leadership team looks at it by elementary middle school high school we look at it by individual buildings every building gets their data gets all of the written comments from their specific staff they get their data they get a comparison to their level so if I'm in an elementary school principal I get my data as well as what the district data is at the elementary level and then we looked at we look at a lot of we look at it historically over as long as the data we've

106got we also look at it broken down by employee groups to make sure that there's not any one fraction of employees that feels different than the the majority of them so we look at the data and a lot of I didn't think you'd want me to spend three hours going through all the details of it though I I love this stuff so we look at it in a lot of different ways and um you're able to break it down but um just to put on the record it's blind survey so you can't see who individually you just have the different demographic information of which building they're in what grade and that just all pools together correct we asked for what building they're in and then what employee group they're in are they a pair are

107they a secretary are they a custodian okay thank you any other question one more thing can you go back to the the chart where the 50 sorry I try to write it down super fast 50 at work have the best that they need every day that's what I wrote which one um what oh yeah okay at work I yeah at work I have the opportunity to do what I do best every day did do you have any feedback on that like what what were they looking for that could help them no that's what we'll dig into now but I will tell you that's the one in fact because we're doing a lot of stuff with Gallup at a district level that's the one on a national level is at 16 percent um so 16 of

108employees now that wouldn't just be education that would be you know all corporate but all the the Gallup data that they have that is at 16 so 50 feels really low and I do think it's an area that will dig a little bit deeper into um now that we've got the Baseline data what do we need to do to get that up um because that absolutely is an area so these are this particular question so there's 12 they call it the q12 so there's 12 questions that feed into this analysis and that was one of them so yeah absolutely an area that we need to improve okay would you think like Paras would fall into this because I know that a lot of teachers and we've all received emails um about Paris like they're begging

109for peras yeah there wasn't potentially um that retention was one of the things we saw in the qualitative data is that um teach and that came from a lot of teachers wanting to make sure that we had the retention of Paris I do think our HR office has done an amazing job of keeping people and getting people hired so we don't have as many openings but absolutely I think that that's one that could play in there I can say that I didn't see a significant difference between our certified staff and our classified staff in the response of this answer there really weren't any areas in fact for the most part across the board our certified staff and our classified staff were very similar I mean a few Point difference here and there but we're very

110similar on their overall responses I just want to thank you for putting all the data together in a way that we can understand it I think one of the things this District does exceptionally well is get data and then use the data to make decisions and every year we see these surveys and it's one very valuable way that our community and our teachers and our staff can communicate with us as a board so we understand what's happening in the district so thank you to all the staff and employees and the parents when we get it next month who have taken the time to fill out the survey because it is important to us as important thank you many other comments no all right thank you thank you okay that wraps up section four uh so

111moving on to section five future board calendar August 7th 2023 we have the welcome back at Warner Park uh also August 7 2023 The Pavilion Melissa schools Foundation board meeting with myself uh Mr Lotus and Mr Bailey at 6 00 PM August 10 2023 the first day of school for k-6 7th and ninth grade uh August 11 2023 first full day of school for all students and August 14 2023 board our next Board of Education meeting at 6 p.m here at central office and with no other business in front of the board I will adjourn the meeting at 7 35 PM thanks