PLCS Board of Education Meeting July 10, 2023

001foreign good evening everyone I'd like to call to order the papilliona Vista Community Schools Board of Education meeting before we actually start the meeting we're going to we have a student fees hearing so we'll start that here uh item number one called order Pledge of Allegiance please all right thank you very much roll call please here thank you very much please take notice of the Nebraska open meetings act posted at the entrance to the room and with that we have our student fees hearing um purpose of the hearing review the amount of money collected from students pursuant to the use of waivers as provided in policy 3307 student fees for the 2022-23 school year and to hear sport opposition criticism suggestions or observations of taxpayers relating to any recommended changes and a summary of fees

002to be collected relative to the 23-24 school year so after reading all that Mr Richards I'll give it to you okay thank you Mr Bailey good evening everybody um as part of the hearing we'll review the 2223 fee waivers provided to our students this year as you can see we had free and reduced counts or about 26 percent Elementary 28 middle school and we're up to about 25 percent now at our high schools the number of waivers that were requested by the students you can kind of see that 847 at the elementary level 463 at the middle school level and 441 at the high school level so we are doing a pretty good job we discussed this this in the subcommittees a little bit of getting the word out that the fee waivers are available

003and we'll continue to try to do that with our students that are in need of those waivers fee waiver history you can kind of see where covid hit a little bit they started to decrease and then that last year they started going back up again at each the elementary junior high level this past year we were at 847 at the elementary 463 to Junior High of 441 at the high school so coming back up to probably back to normal from where we were coming off of covet student fee accounts for the year Middle School all three middle schools involved in this had a revenue of 176 High School level we had a revenue of 824 841 dollars the expenses at each School the middle school and this does not include the encumbrances they have already

004for next year getting ready for next year so you got balances at each each middle schools and the high school fee accounts but mostly they're staying within you know the free fee range which you like to see changes we're going to suggest for 23 24 we know there's inflation and everything else but we want to be real considerate to our taxpayers the lunch fund is still doing really well because of the federal reimbursements amounts that they're given but those are temporary still and we expect those to continue into 23-24 so we're only recommending a five cent increase on the lunch side breakfast will stay the same as 22.23 and then all other fees will be froze for this year as well on recommendations I don't have the handout for you but we still remain some

005of the slow low our directors out of town so I didn't get the exact for 23 24 yet I still have 22-23 we're still the lowest in the Metro lunch prices by about 15 cents so that continues to be good news for our patrons and and the board I think at this point so I'll share that she as soon as she gets back with the 23 24 prices any questions for the form for the frame reduced form do they have to fill it up at the beginning of the year or say like can they do it like in the middle or whenever yeah they can do it at any time during the year that they think they may qualify so if they forgot to do it at the beginning of the year they can fill

006it out in October or whenever great question the activity fees that you those are the activity fees you mentioned those are collected at the ball games and things like that or is that different the activity fees at the beginning of the year for seventy dollars for our high schools to participate in the activities those are collected usually at the beginning of the school year as best as possible and then of course if a student decides they want to play a winter Sport and they haven't paid the activity fee yet they can pay it at that time I guess my question is to help the public understand the difference between an activity fee versus General budget that the activity fee is separate and can only be used for activities and could not supplant District funding correct

007and that's you know that's kind of the complications of a School District budget the activity fund is over here and then the student fee fund is over on this side so actually all the student fees stay in the student fee fund and then you have the activity fund all the activity fund fees where they fundraise and things like that stay over here so it's all separated and different from the general fund which is the taxpayer fund you're talking about with um if someone qualifies for the frame reduced and then for the activity card do they get that for free or do they have to pay for that yeah that that's considered a student fee okay uh so if they qualify for free lunch they would get a free activity ticket for the year um they

008call if they qualify for reduced then they get the reduced rate uh that they qualify for okay off of that fee okay thank you all right any other questions or comments all right and we don't have any uh public comment so if nothing further then I will adjourn the student fees hearing at 607 pm right now we will call to order the regular Board of Education meeting we've already done item one with the Pledge of Allegiance and roll call should all still be here so with that we'll jump down to number two Communications and item a recognition thank you very much Mr Bailey members of the board for our members of the community that are here in attendance this evening thank you for being here and for our members that are watching on YouTube thank

009you for engaging with your community and your board of education for our frequent Watchers of board meetings you know that this is something we try to do uh once a month sometimes twice a month depending on as the need arises but we try to do some type of recognition of both staff and students who have provided some type of recognition from themselves their school or their school district tends to slow down a little bit during the course the summer months for obvious reasons we don't have as many activities going on but by happy coincidence we actually have two this evening and one's a student and one's a coach and in both cases they're really pretty remarkable as always what we'll do is I'll read the first one they'll be recognized by their Board of Education

010that individual can come down and be recognized we'll take a couple of pictures and then I'll come back and I'll provide the second recognition for the evening so the very first one is the Omaha World Herald 2023 girls coach of the year I don't know how many of you are regular World Herald readers or subscribers but this is always one of those things I look forward to reading about there's always a designee for the mail coach of the year went to West side's football coach congratulations to him he's done some wonderful things with the West Side program and our own coach Katie Tarman was recognized from papilliona Vista South in addition to winning multiple titles and Fielding an incredibly competitive program not just Statewide not just regionally but nationally coach Tarman has has guided this

011team to national rankings and has brought an already very prestigious program to new heights but setting aside her accomplishments as a volleyball coach she consistently produces outstanding citizens and if you've met one of our volleyball girls you know exactly what I'm talking about they're good solid individuals who are getting it done in the classroom as well as on the court and that's the mark of an outstanding coach in addition to being an absolutely outstanding coach and human being she is also an outstanding teacher of special education and it is for this reason and many more that she was Wrecking as the Omaha World Herald Coach of the Year coach Tarman come on down and be recognized by your Board of Education foreign [Applause] if you didn't get a chance to read the World Herald article

012it's it's pretty long and it's great and it's it's as much about Katie and her family and her kids and how important family is to her as it is about her role as a teacher and a coach so great article Katie we are incredibly proud of you and our second honoree this evening is a student we don't get many of these because this is equally prestigious uh Gatorade provides recognition every year to a state Player of the Year in a particular athletic Endeavor and in this example we have the 2023 Gatorade Nebraska boys track and field Player of the Year who is also from papaya La Vista South Mr Kaden Frederick 2023 graduate Caden has distinguished himself in all sorts of ways again not only on the field of play but in the classroom he's

013an outstanding student but also one back-to-back state championships in the boys discus 2022-2023 and we'll end up throwing the shot and disc for South Dakota state next fall so it's going to continue to take his talents to the Collegiate level I didn't see Kaden is back there Caden we are incredibly proud of you please come on down and be recognized by your Board of Education thank you [Applause] congratulations [Applause] Caden we're incredibly proud of you uh don't forget to come back and visit us we hope you do well up at South Dakota state next fall and with that Mr Bailey members of the board I would conclude our recognitions for the evening all right thank you very much yeah it's always good good stuff next up Item B public comments not for Adam's not on

014the agenda we have some of those tonight please remember when I call upon you coming up to the front please state your name and address and then you shall have three minutes Kathy will start the timer and again the first beeps about two minutes and 15 seconds and then we'll have uh the second one at three minutes and then you'll be done I will stress Again part of our procedure 8420 um I don't want anybody I don't need laughing heckling anything else like that please be polite and realize that everybody can have a say here and please let them do that if you do decide to do that I will give you one warning and then the second one I will ask you to to leave so let's uh don't really want to do that

015so let's try to maintain a polite meeting here with that being said we'll start off with uh Ms Elisa kukenmeister oh she's hiding back over there La Vista I'm here tonight to demand that current board member Brittany holtmeyer publicly denounced the hateful extremist groups that have endorsed her and that she's a part of Brittany I ask for you to denounce protect Nebraska children and denounce Nebraska Freedom Coalition who calls our teachers groomers and state that the worst form of indoctrination is found in our schools lastly Brittany I'm calling for you to denounce moms for Liberty which you are a member of and stop all association with them immediately moms for Liberty is absolutely an extremist organization they have called for lgbtq students to be segregated taught in different classrooms from straight and cisgender students they

016campaign for book bands against books they do not agree with something Brittany has said as a board member members of Liberty has offered bounties to anyone who catches a teacher promoting CRT in their classrooms they repeatedly call Librarians teachers and parents who defend material as groomers a very statement that Britney has again used members of this have been indicted for terroristic threats saying that they would gun down a school librarian moms for Liberty quoted Hitler in a recent newsletter inciting fears stating if the government has control over our children today they control our country's future so stop letting Public Schools indoctrinate your kids let me share some personal experience with the brick Clan Brittany did you know that your supporters have yelled at me during public events Brittany you have had a family member scream

017at me and others including teachers right out there in the parking lot completely unprovoked Brittany are you proud that one of your vocal supporters chased out after me following a board meeting confronted me in this encounter required a police officer to get involved so I could leave Brittany are you encouraging your online Clan to call my husband and others who support schools and Librarians pedophiles lastly Brittany please pass along to that same family member of yours that she needs to stop her online harassment I know exactly what account she is hiding behind and she said I should not be allowed around children do you find this funny my lawyer sure doesn't it's called defamation you should be ashamed and embarrassed for being associated and related to these people is it really what you want to

018be remembered for you are on that side of the table now and you have obligation to board ethics refuse to surrender to these special interest groups you're a slave to these hateful extremist groups everything you've said and done comes right from their playbook but my guess is Brittany will do exactly what her mom's for Liberty Masters have taught her never ever apologize so to Dr rickley and the other board members will you compromise with these extremists for the last few years the same group has been a thorn in your side you're staying quiet and attempting to compromise has gained you nothing it is time to shut them down and make procedures that will stop their attacks these people have an agenda and it is not to protect our children do not compromise with extremists do

019not compromise with these extremists do not I repeat compromise with extremists that is exactly what they are okay uh next up Mr Edward winegar Edward Wenger my address is on the form this week a movie came out the sound of freedom and I well I personally have not seen it yet I do intend to go and encourage all of you and anybody listening to go see uh sound of freedom in the movie theater uh I can still just because I haven't seen it with me I can't talk on the subject I have some knowledge of that topic but I want to point out that the stuff that is in the libraries the books are this stuff doesn't happen in a vacuum right children being sex trafficked groomed and enticed online this is all the end

020point of something that starts with little children's books with rainbows on the covers that are in elementary schools in papaya La Vista public or Community School District this is the stuff that Nebraska is for Freedom moms for Liberty great and strong uh groups like that that are advocating for our children this is all what they're fighting against is the end goal of stopping kids we see it basically every year here in College World Series uh time that there's a huge influx of trafficking of kids being taken advantage of and uh this is what they are groups like that fight against and are working to fight against this past week there was a kid in North Carolina a transgender kid who went to meet with a man that he had met online and was murdered and

021again that is that is what we're fighting to avoid and stop it all I won't say it all I'll say a large part of it starts with the content of the media and entertainment and books that has been absorbed by these children certainly parental involvement is important but when we try to get involved as you've seen here week after week it seems like we're constantly fighting an uphill battle with the school board to protect the children against stuff like this I'm looking forward to talking to Lisa kukmeister and her group about setting up an event in the future concerning the online uh safety text messaging and sexting I think that is important and uh we hope to have that as a future event coming up so thank you very much all right next up Mr

022David Metcalf hey what's going on I'm David Metcalf I love here we go there you go oh I pick it up and oh okay thank you so much um I had one part I was going to read but it's I didn't put it on my on the sheet with what I was going to say so I want to stay true to my agenda and actually so because I don't think this lady and everything um so my was books that's what I wrote down books so I'll skip this first part but uh I was raised Not To Raise Hell about the issues unless you had a solution and I believe that to this day I was also raised not to cuss in front of kids and I believe that to this day with the books and

023that's been causing the commotion uh I only got involved with it in like about February I started coming these meetings and everything but in this specific situation concerning like the the boy blue book that that gentleman read read here at one of the meetings I really don't believe they belong in schools with kids under 18 years old I don't know all the ins and outs to fix the problem but I know there are some people that were elected to this board that no way of getting these books out of the school in this situation it is moral to raise awareness to this issue in hopes that someone on this board will find a solution do you know any child psychologist of the same political party as you ask them their thoughts on that we'll use

024that one specific book as an example uh I follow this Facebook group it's called gays against groomers the I don't know a whole lot about the group but just the title alone attracted me to it the title alone is the concept of a large group of gay people coming together to stand up and say hey like there's some things that we maybe we need to work on that are that we need to tweak in another 30 seconds okay of sexual materials such as the boy blue book belongs in the bedroom are an 18 plus section of like a bookstore not our schools you know 1800 schools got one more thought I'm asking the board to put this book on a two-week time frame because that's all the time it should take for a school board

025to be able to remove a book once a member of our community literally read the material out loud for all of us to hear at a board meeting I was here and I know who was in attendance for that meeting all right next up Ms Linda vermuden good evening my name is Dr Linda vermouten so I want to review a couple of facts for you tonight a lot of what I heard at the first meeting I was at was opinions touted as fact fact has to be proven and scientifically verified so fact Nebraska statutes clearly Define what pornography is this is not this is an objective data it's a legal issue they also clearly Define what obscenity is there's no wiggle room in that the gentleman just before me actually made part of my case

026when a Community member came and read to this board out of a book and one of the board members objected by saying that is pornography that is true and that book was in the library so my concern is why do we still have these books in our library if we know it meets the pornographic obscenity law requirements if I take any one of these books fact and I hand them to any of you board members for example I'm arrested on the spot for the distribution of pornography so how is it that parents are entrusting this board to protect their children and yet in a place that should be the safest place it's becoming a dangerous place because majority of parents aren't even aware of these books and I think that's why a lot of them

027are not here to speak I wasn't aware of this until a few months ago so let me talk to you about some of the long-term effects of pornography it physically changes the structure of the brain of a child this is a fact anatomically proven and as a psychologist I'm well aware of the long-term effects on that my area of expertise is working with children that have been sexually abused and individuals that have been raped so I'm well aware of the long-term effects on that individual and lifelong struggles that they have when a child is exposed to a pornography early in life it leads to addiction addictions are hard to deal with so you're going to fill up the offices of clinical psychologists and counselors for decades because exposure to this early on in life sets

028down a pattern in their brain which is difficult to change so we need to be aware of what we're doing when we say okay we're going to have this in place so I'd strongly urge you to reevaluate all the books that you have to say if any of these meet this Criterion should we have those in our library because they are readily available online and in public libraries for those parents that would like their children to have access but as a taxpayer object to tax dollars being utilized for this kind of material that carries really no literary value but the damage it does is lifelong and the suicide rights are skyrocketing and the depression rates are skyrocketing as a result of this thank you for your time all right next up is Kerry George okay

029sorry uh being a teacher my district or my address is on the form yes Carrie George okay thank you thank you uh I am a school teacher plea member and I am speaking as an individual I want to thank the community members who have taken their time to provide positive feedback to our school district I also want to thank the board for regaining decorum at these meetings as teachers we are role models for our students and it is important for our students to know how to respect respectfully disagree with individuals without calling out in the middle of someone speaking next I would like to be clear that I am a proud product and parent of private and parochial schools but also a proud public school teacher our family is very much for school choice but

030lb 753 is not the way to accomplish the school choice it is a tax scheme that does not indeed that does excuse me indeed take away funding from public schools as well as other services provided by the state that are funded by tax dollars the creator of the bill has even threatened the school funding that was passed by the legislation if lb 753 is repealed the petition initiative is to put the issue on the general ballot in 2024 for voters to have a say in how and where their tax dollars are spent to note Nebraskans have voted no six times in the past to vouchers and voucher schemes there is also an there is also overwhelming evidence of the harm vouchers have done in other states and Nebraska has been wise to say no as

031it stands now lb 753 creates a scholarship organization that takes 10 percent of the donations for their services in distributing these scholarships the donations do not go directly to eligible schools or students the bill does not account for many rural schools that do not have private schools this bill is not about competition for students as some have said it is a tax scheme that is not in the best interest of all the students across the state of Nebraska to conclude this is not about teachers being offended this is about teachers wanting the best education for students same as many parents the choice that my family has made lb 753 is a tax scheme for those it benefits and not an opportunity for students okay next up is Vicki Fuller I just got bifocal so I'm

032still trying to learn how to read with them my name is Vicki Fuller my address is on the sheet I'm here to talk about positivity good things bring Smiles hopefully if you want to put kids first then do it be involved at your kids school get to know the staff not just the teachers I have two kids at Parkview Heights I'm the treasurer of the PTO I'm on the PBIS committee when the call came out in the spring of 2021 that the district was short staffed I applied to be a food service sub serving lunch to elementary kids is really fun during um I really recommend doing it honestly it's a joy during staff appreciation week this past may I was in the staff Lounge doing some cleanup the head custodian was in there on

033his break and I tell you Mr Joe at Parkview is amazing with the kids during our conversation he mentioned that until then he hadn't realized that I had a full-time job because I'm at the school so often I told him that I told my manager that most of the time my kids and things at school are more important than my work I know not everybody's that fortunate to have a job that they can do that but I am I know that parents can still be involved they can show up to the events at school they can go to PTO meetings they can show up for their parent-teacher conferences pay attention to the school board meetings read your emails from your school and your teacher I also want to say that my kids are very fortunate

034to attend a title one school I know some people don't like that I love it having extra staff at our school has been wonderful and they support all of the kids not even not just the title one kids they support all the kids that need it um and I know I submitted a gratitude comment I don't remember what you guys called that last year but I want to make it public I want to say thank you to our principal Randy guthmuller when sorry when my daughter was having behavior issues in 2021 Randy was the first person to say Have you thought that maybe your daughter has ADHD I had not even thought about that because of him he was able to get the staff on board with getting with treating her as if she had

035ADHD before we even got the diagnosis which took five six months to get we now have a positive diagnosis we now have medication and she was able to graduate from her chicken chicken sheet last year she had several days of a hundred percent which was amazing for me and I'm so grateful to Randy I want also want to conclude with teachers and staff need our support more than ever we're losing too many teachers to other careers and we need to support them any way we can and in reference to a comment made the last time to cameras in the classroom are not the way to do that at all we have a great school district and I'm very proud of us thank you all right that concludes our public comment on items not on the

036agenda uh we'll move to item C superintendent's report thank you very much Mr Bailey members the board again thank you for community members for being here this evening always appreciate your presence first and foremost want to belatedly wish everyone a Happy Independence Day all district buildings and offices were closed and observance of the holiday but hopefully everybody had an opportunity to spend some time with family and friends and uh sounded like a war zone in my neighborhood for about four or five days straight and the rickly cats were a little bit worked up but that is our right as an American so hopefully you had some some opportunity to catch up with with family and friends doesn't seem possible that we're already talking about this but we are starting to bring back some of our

037staff that don't work continuously on year-round contracts I believe Dr settles has new teachers coming in on Thursday we have a group of approximately 100 teachers which is very typical typically between 90 and 100 teachers is about what we bring on every single year due to Replacements due to retirement resignations things of that nature so really excited about the fresh crew of teachers we'll be bringing in later this week and our administrators who aren't on year-round contracts some of them are some of them are not come in later this month as well culminating with administrator days which is always in Kearney later this month uh August 10th is the very first day of classes hopefully that is on your calendar it is exactly one today more information to come as we get a little bit

038closer the back to school ads will be hitting the mailboxes any days now when we'll hear Collective grown from our parents and students when that happens I'm sure just a reminder to our board we do have a retreat scheduled including the time July 31st which is our fifth Monday it is four to eight pm the community is welcome to attend that event it will be here at our central office just as a reminder to our community we do not take action on any items at any board retreat the purpose of the retreat and what differentiates it from a regular meeting is there there are no action items we discuss a lot typically we have between four and five agenda items to discuss I would assume we'll talk about some things related to strategic planning to

039the upcoming Bond initiative school safety and a variety of other things that the board has identified as priorities but that's fast approaching uh also wanted to give a quick shout out to buildings and grounds the projects from the 2018 Bond are largely wrapped up and we're starting to think about phasing in the bond projects from the 2023 Bond and I know we're making some rapid progress wrapping up some of those progress including some irrigation playground projects at five of our elementary buildings so that'll be a nice enhancement for five of our buildings as they open their doors this fall uh lastly it's a little bit uh out of order but I think it's worthwhile given the circumstance many of you probably are aware that Lieutenant Ray Higgins recently passed in fact his memorials over at

040the Methodist Church until 8 o'clock tonight the memorial service is tomorrow uh they'll be lining the street saying goodbye to him tomorrow he was a grad and he also provided security and for those of you that stuck around after meetings you know that he was always quick I'd come up and slap you on the back and say hi and ask about your kids and ask what was going on in your world and the world lost a good human being so godspeed to Ray and and keep his family and family and your thoughts and prayers and with that Mr Bailey I'd conclude my superintendent's comments for the evening thank you for mentioning that I was going to say something as well but definitely the world lost a terrific human being all right item d uh board

041reports um I went down to the YMCA today Kaylee Bowen was down there she's the director of the teammates um and I asked her if she wanted me to share anything so she did she sent me an email for some stuff to share for teammates um the mission is to positively impact the World by inspiring students to reach their full potential through mentoring teammates is offered in our school district for middle and high school students mentors strive to meet with their students at the school once per week ideally or at least 20 times per school year plcs currently has over 25 students waiting for a mentor and those who are interested in mentoring or have questions can contact Kaylee at Kaylee it's k-a-i-l-e-y period Bowen b-o-w-e-n at plcschools.org so she just wanted me to share

042that with the people they're looking for hopefully to get some mentors before school starts for those 25 kids and then just another thing we had our building grounds and finance meeting and then my son attended the basketball camp at monarchs so so we'll look once again to have him do that and run up and down the same court that I did teammates that's a great program and definitely need that we need to get that word out we need more mentors so appreciate that on June 29th I attended a delicious glass of lemonade when I joined the HR team at the Papillion city park and welcomed several of our patrons who stopped by to ask questions about working for the district it was a great way to visit in a casual setting and enjoy some laminating

043cookies and to learn about and even get an interview for a position such as paraprofessional food service worker custodian fan driver or van writer the group hatched a plan to carry out with these events to carry on with these events and so now they've dubbed themselves as the lemonade Squad and the HR team plans a week of Lemonade Stand hiring fairs starting July 17th in neighborhood schools throughout the district so if you want to be a part of the team or if you want to go check it out you can search plcs lemonade on Facebook or contact the central office for the locations and times it was a really casual and enjoyable moment thank you there we go all right anyone else is that all we got I know it's summer so it's a little

044bit slower so all right well thank you um item e will move on to committee reports first buildings grounds and finance yes we met last Friday morning it's a pretty extensive Agenda One of the items is obviously on the agenda for this evening we'll discuss and then obviously the review of the policy 7000 series construction kind of flows through our group as well a majority of our discussion on Friday revolved around kind of the bond 2023 timeline some of the projections we're starting to get discussions with the Architects and then most importantly getting our CMR process off the ground that we've approved to start so we're getting some committee selections outside of the building grounds and finance group that are required by the state statute so we're progressing with that and getting some interview times

045proposals are due back from the cmrs July 25th so and then we'll set up interviews with the required committee shortly after that with those that we invite back for interviews again as Dr Wrigley mentioned just some of the 2018 Bond projects wrapping up and some other facility updates we obviously have the student fees hearing we discuss those fees and our meeting as well I started talking a little bit about preliminary budget items and numbers and where we're kind of looking based on some projections more to come on that over the summer and then just discussing moving forward with our improvements at Fricke Field now that we have the long-term lease approved with the city so the Architects have already been working for for weeks I would love to get that project started after the Legion

046Baseball season wraps up here in August to try to have it ready for spring for Spring ball so that was it we'll be meeting in August next I told you we had a long we had a long agenda thanks that's good human resources and student services our committee has not met but we are working on coordinating calendars for a meeting on the 19th or 20th okay thank you very much and finally curriculum and americanism we did meet last week Mr Richards jumped into our meeting and provided a little bit of updates for our group for just the student fees and the CRM which is on the agenda tonight but the main focus of our meeting was around our 6 000 Board of Education policy review we had a lot of discussion uh went through all

047the recommended changes and or the submissions from other individuals about potential changes and a lot of discussion around the 6405 we do have the review of the policy 6000 under our discussion item this evening thank you very much all right we'll move into action items first item is action by consent motion to approve the action by consent as presented second all right a motion made by Ms Fisher and a second by Mr madler any comments discussion roll call please yes yes yes all right thank you very much second item is a board meeting minutes of June 26 2023. I'll make a motion to approve the board meeting minutes of June 26 2023 as presented second all right thank you very much motion made by Mr Lotus a second by Mr madler any comments roll call

048please yes yes yes all right thank you very much the last item under action items is the city of La Vista interlocal agreement for softball field Mr Richards thank you I'm going to recommend that the board go ahead and table this item to a future date we have a few language changes that didn't match uh what we kind of talked about as an agreement at this point both great and well-intended things out of both sides but uh we need to get it cleaned up a little bit after discussing that with the city manager today um probably there's no big hurry in getting this done since that project probably won't need to begin till spring so we'll probably bring that back in August for the board to review we want to run it by the buildings

049the grounds of finance committee as well before bringing it back to the entire board uh I'll make the motion to table this item to be brought back for consideration at a later meeting I have a second okay I had a motion uh by Mr mandler to table this uh to a later meeting in a second by Mr Lois any comment any discussion all right roll call please yes yes yes yes okay thank you yeah we'll table this to a later date thank you Mr Richards all right uh we'll move on to section four we do have some items for items on the agenda for public comment and so again what I'd like to do is I'll I'll go ahead and it's all I think they're all for policy 6000 and so what I'll do is

050I will go ahead and I will have those people come up and make their comments and then we will go into our discussion is uh the plan so again reminder when you come up please state your name and address uh and then you will have three minutes and again I know this is obviously a very charged policy please keep your comments to yourself and again I will give you a warning if I hear something and second time I'll ask you to leave so let's uh try not to do that we did a good job on the first section here so let's do the same here without being said first up is going to be Ms Linda vermutin oh good evening again my name is Linda Wilmington so my address is just to talk a little

051bit about the proposed change on the pronouns I want to make a proposal you always have to ask the question what's behind the proposal because no proposal just comes out of nowhere there's a history behind that and it might be interesting for us as public to kind of know what the history has been with you all through that process before you've arrived at this juncture my concern also is just from the standpoint of English expertise when we begin to change from personal pronouns to Collective pronouns it can pose a lot of confusion when you come to the classroom and now you're trying to teach people the difference between he and his and her she and her and them and they and for hundreds of years it's been clearly understood in our society that if you're

052looking at a lady it would be her and she if you're looking at a gentleman will be hearing him but if I'm looking at a group you know we would say well they went to the meeting or you know I went with him to the meeting so it's it's a clear delineation as to a function not per se a title of somebody based on any other kind of identity and so that would just be my concern that we just kind of keep that in mind as we come into teach literature and the English that this does not pose a level of confusion to people that are not aware in the classroom of what's going on and what is behind this agenda because clearly there's always an agenda behind something like this it doesn't just come

053out of a vacuum so that was all my comment that I wanted to raise thank you for your time all right thank you next up Mr Edward weniger Edward winegar my address is on the form I wanted to talk a little bit more about what Linda spoke on earlier as we fight to keep porn out of our school libraries I want to talk specifically about the role that pornography has played in the lives of serial killers and I was uh I believe it was Encyclopedia Britannica was talking about how there some of the names that were brought up in terms of the role that pornography played in the lives of people like Ted Bundy Jeffrey Dahmer Richard Ramirez and John Wayne Gacy all that for all them porn was a factor specifically Bundy referred to

054his own addiction saying like an addiction you keep craving something harder which gives you a greater sense of excitement until you reach a point where the pornography only goes so far and to reiterate this is where we're starting our kids out in elementary school accessing this type of material through Junior High and through high school and then wondering why people like that turn out in the world the way they do we should be inclusive as possible in our own definition of what is unacceptable for our children to access and the highest common denominator should be our goal rather than the lowest common denominator which seems to be the current Bar for our libraries somebody at some point made a moral decision to put these books in the library and your job as school board members

055is to make the moral decision to protect our kids from that threat and the threat of following the footsteps of these men the first place I ever accessed porn was in Papillion Public Library at the age of 10. so this stuff happens this is personal for me and I hope you'll make the right decisions as we consider series 6000 and solving this problem thank you all right thank you last up is Mr Michael kukenmeister foreign wow serial killers and sex trafficking are born from libraries that is a new one but anyway first I'd like to thank those on the board with one obvious exception bread and those in our Administration for the courage they've shown recently in the face of attacks on our district and students from extremists both inside and outside the district it's

056been refreshing so most of you keep your spirits up and please continue working defend our students educational experience as a parent in the district I can't tell you how much I I appreciate so much of what I've been seeing recently but as much as I appreciate what I've seen so far I strongly believe we need to do more than just reacting what sometimes feels like a half committed manner when things have already gone too far we need to strengthen it we should not be viewing demands from extremists as something to be compromised with we should not be cowering to book burners bigots conspiracy theorists and opportunistic rifters we shouldn't be jumping to react in a ways that legitimize extremists endless complaints about how not everybody shares their Fringe ideology feeding the monster we hope will

057magically go away we should recognize it for what it is a tax designed to weaken our education system and while our district can't label the individuals responsible for these attacks as anti-plcs I sure can and I will I'm sure these attacks aren't going to stop and the methods used to attempt to weaken us will shift over time as sweets we've already seen over the last few years we need to hold strong our district isn't even unique in this pick a city on the map of the U.S and you'll likely find nearby districts who's being attacked in nearly identical ways this isn't by chance so to help us from becoming a victim a victim a statistic in this battle to dismantle public education I'm encouraging you to take a more aggressive approach to actively build new

058layers of protections for our district is staff and most importantly our students all our students all do not hesitate out of fear that's exactly what they want that is literally in the playbooks of certain extremist groups most of these attacks are coming from along with recommendations of ways to drain our district resources such as bonds for the win or as we've been seeing this year literally dumping a list of books into our book review process that we're clearly not personally read by the submittees intimidation tactics like harassment and parking lots defamation online threatening emails should not sway us from doing what's right for our students and staff right our book review process is a good one but it's clearly been abused those who wish to harm our public education system have found a vulnerable Target

059in this process so let's close it take every measure you can to cover the scap in our armor to prevent such blatant abuse and to prevent this drain on our District's resources do not allow extremists a single foothold no matter how much they try to repackage their vile intentions with prettier sounding but largely disingenuous language please help lead our state by example I love our district I love our community now let's show Nebraska just how great we truly can be thank you all right thank you that Miss Siri I'll turn it over to you yes good evening Board of Education I'm going to refer to the board packet agenda that you have in front of you as you know we have been working on changes to the 6000 series of board policies these board policies

060send her around instruction and basically tonight there are five recommendations that have come through multiple subcommittee meetings that you can see there at the top for recommended changes to this series this is for discussion only tonight and if we are ready the next board meeting I'll bring them forward for a decision by the board so the first one as you can see there is 6104 and this one centers around unplanned I'm going to use that terminology school closings this is an update to the language used to be just focused on weather but as you know the last few years we've had to call off schools due to a water main break we had an air conditioning issue at one of our high schools when it was let's just say rather balmy um and um then

061of course you know we've had some health considerations in the past as well so it's really just an update to the language from inclement weather to school closing the other thing is we also had it denoted in the policy the announcements would be made over selected media that is outdated and so we're making the recommendation that that sentence be removed our families and parents of the district receive notification by email text as well as media but it's not just media the second one then is 6202 this board policy focuses on Multicultural and this is really just an update to the language and grammar this was a recommendation that came through the identified groups that are outlined in this board policy aligned with rule 10 but it's really taking the recognition of all other ethnic and

062cultural groups that was previously at the end of the sentence and putting it in the middle and then listing the specific groups the third one is 6305 and this centers around students that have a need for special services through a 504 plan again this is an update to the language the original language talked about a student qualifying um and students really don't qualify they're either eligible or not eligible so again this would update that language the next one then is 6405. this is our board policy that focuses on controversial issues this had several changes the first one is previous the policy just stated parent so we're adding the word Guardian there we are also denoting that the parent and guardian of a plcs patron or parent can be eligible to deploy this policy if they

063would like if they would like to have a curriculum issue reconsidered so we added plcs and we added the word Guardian there we also updated the language because they're asking for it to be reviewed for consideration of removal and then if you scroll down to the next part towards the bottom I believe it's the last paragraph of the board policy it did state that in spite of all possible precautions we took that out because precautions have been taken and um we capitalize starting the sentence with parents again of current plcs students that is impacted by the decision um for that portion and then the last part you can see there is um that we are adding a sentence that says this includes encouraging the parent or Guardian to utilize the ability to opt out of

064any objectional material and that's just a reminder that parents have a right they have especially specific to library books they can contact their librarian through their building principle they can also see what their student has checked out through the app as well as look up any of the resources via the website through the fallot and then specific to things that are tied directly to the guaranteed and viable curriculum obviously a parent can always reach out to their principal and we often have identified alternate resources for whatever that parent has a concern with whether it be a novel or an activity and so we really just wanted to note that as well and then the last part is we added plcs in front of the word parent Guardian she'll have a right to appeal so again

065to denote so that is the end of the changes to and then the last one is 6801 this particular policy focuses on conducting research in the district and this was just simply a title update our four more title was the director of research assessment and evaluation that's just a name change to that position it is now just simply titled the director of assessment and so that is just an update so that the two titles match and that is the recommendations of the five policy changes to the 6000 series all right thank you very much any comments discussion I just want to make the comment um there's been a lot of thought and effort that's gone into this we've had some several meetings about it and I appreciate that in every one of them you provided

066the comments to the side of whether of different people whether it was a patron a parent a school board member or a staff member who had submitted a suggestions so we've had the opportunity to look at all of those and I appreciate that you put them all out there for us to see so we've we've gone through all of that and the committee did come through and say that we feel comfortable at this point with the recommendations that have been made however if there are the board members that have any questions about that I think certainly let us all know but I think this has done there's been a lot of time and effort spent on this making sure that everybody's contributions or thoughts were considered it throughout the process so thank you for that

067I think the subcommittee for all the time that has probably spent multiple meetings I know and and all the suggestions going through not obviously not just this policy but all the six thousands so I appreciate that I mean the 6405 I mean I've said previously uh that I think it was um probably confusing with How It Was Written or at least and when I read it multiple times just not clear and I still worry that I I I'm worried that it's still not really clear on who can do what uh so with that maybe just a question does this change anything that we're doing right now on who can submit reviews only in that it's very specific that it has to be a patron or parent of Papillion Lavista Community Schools and you're considering Patron

068as a taxpayer someone who lives in the district maybe does or does not have children currently enrolled gotcha or have ever had a mineral yeah and I think because that's where it has it up there at the controversial items it had previously had patreon we're still putting a plcs patron now and I as I've said I didn't think that that had previously meant that any Patron could submit something for review just because that paragraph is the way I've read it just defines what is controversial any an item that someone has an objection to now we are adding in to that they asked to be reviewed uh for consideration of removal but that last paragraph is where I've always felt like the uh the board policy was on who we allow to make those objections and

069in that last paragraph there's still nothing it is still only parents Guardians I mean second sentence the superintendent is responsible for instructing the staff in the handling of complaints and formulating a complaint and appeal procedure for use by those parents Guardians who seek a review of the educational selections made by the district and even the last one plcs parents guardianship shall have the right to appeal all the way to the Board of Education which is where my confusion came from you know since we started having the uh the objections come in that last one makes me think it's just parents guardians but here at the top we're now defining it a little bit more to be reviewed for consideration should anything in that last paragraph be changed if you feel like it should be for

070plcs patrons do we feel because I read it and I don't see anywhere in that last part where it is patreon yeah and we could do that if the board chose to do that you know I believe that a patron could anyone that is a member of the plcs community could ask for something to be considered to be reviewed but ultimately a parent has the power to decide for their child and that was also very explicit in the procedure which of course the procedure would be updated once the board if there were changes to the board policy um but that could be changed if that is what the board chose to do Shireen I thought that that section was for instructional only did not include Library material at the top it does state that the

071controversial item of any subject matter instructional material or Library resource and that has always been that way yeah that was not a change yeah but the bottom part just says educational materials which we've defined previously as including library books right absolutely because um Library material is often not a captive audience to speak a student goes in and checks out a material but they are all educational resources yeah so because if I read even with the proposed reviews the way I read it a plcs patron may ask for something to be reviewed for consideration of removal but that last paragraph tells me that the board is not instructing the superintendent to do anything with it unless they are a parent Guardian so again how I read it and I know I I voiced it previously that's

072how I read it and I still think if we want to clean it up I say let's clean it up uh to make sure there is no confusion uh now I will also say personally I think it should just be open to the I like the last paragraph where it is the parents Guardians and the sentence we're putting in there of a current plcs student that is impacted by the decision that would be where I think if we're going to clean it up and cut it down that's I like that last paragraph better than that second one okay right now I don't think they they go together I can definitely understand your confusion we we definitely went round and round about uh that second paragraph but I'll be honest with you I think that yeah

073we didn't probably think through that part of this also that I think that we came up with a number of times is for the controversial virtual issues can't talk here um obviously right now it's very centered around library books but a lot of this was written for curriculum and so that's you know while we were talking I think later on if we have if someone has a problem like if I if I don't like something that is in the curriculum I can go to you know the principal and talk about it and it you know there's ways to so that it doesn't get to the whole process of you know of eliminating it uh you know I can sit and say my okay I don't want my child to read this book in class and

074then you can work with the teacher work with the principal and have a substitute book that can be read again this is curricular books not library books and I think that's where part of this gets confusing even though you're right educational materials just like she said is around everything but I think that's where I think we probably need to look at this again and figure out you know hey we said educational materials and either needs to be just plcs parent guardian or Ps including plcs patrons yeah and part of it is to a lot of conversations centered around in the subcommittee please feel free to correct me but we didn't bring any recommended changes to 6401 that's our library selection policy it is very explicit on how library books are chosen what resources are used

075to identify the need and also the deselection process the selection process and the maintenance of the collection itself so it is very explicit as well and so skip you're right we had a lot of conversations because this policy is more than just library books it's trying to serve any issue that would be brought forward on a controversial reconsideration request the library proposal though is very explicit to books obviously and that's 6401. so even though it's not here because it didn't have changes it's tied to this because of that selection and deselection of books um I have some I was just going through and marking out some changes after after reading what you guys had presented for us for tonight and then I printed off the current policy that we have the way that it was

076online um mine is mainly more for like the procedures of 6405 um in letter A it says number three the use value of materials relevance to curriculum I think on some of these wording words we just need to be more specific and kind of clarify what it means because it may mean one thing to you but means something completely different to me so underneath the relevance please identify the relevance of blah blah blah blah whatever book that they are wanting to be reviewed because this is I don't know if you guys have so this procedure 6405 it says complaint procedure for controversial educator education materials that was letter a and then under B I think this one says if a parents Guardians wish that their child not use a certain material the principal shall meet

077with the teacher and parents Guardians to work out an alternative if it is not feasible the assistant superintendent for curriculum and instruction or assignee may meet with all involved to reach a solution parents Guardians have the right to request that their child be excused from educational activities that conflict with parent Guardians sincerely held religious beliefs or values in this one I feel like to me it's a little confusing even when I was looking at it at the beginning like is this curriculum or are we talking about like a library book so I think Brittany what's important to note here is that is procedure and tonight we are just talking about policy okay so the policy is the top part of that right and the board has to make a determination on what they want their

078policy to be and then you review the procedure because the procedure is how you put the policy in place and so tonight it is just policy so it's just the stuff of above procedure of that document that you have in front of you so when will we go through the procedure then so the procedure the district decides how they will put the policy into place once the board the board determines the policy okay got it that makes sense and um so that's why you just have the top half right right yeah because when I was reading it I was kind of confused because normally it's like the full thing and then outline or crossed out and then underneath it kind of like how much settles does that um but no I I do like how

079you put the PLC as parents guardians or plcs Patron because taxpayers also have a say and that's because they are paying their taxes um but other than that I think the whole policy in itself looked pretty good I just have some comments on procedures and maybe we can meet and go over that okay once the policies thank you okay I'm my comments are start by addressing what we've heard over the past few months about book Banning um the board has heard from patrons parents Guardians non-residents regarding the material available to students in our schools the controversy of banning books has been debated for decades and even been the cause of violence in our history these cases are the efforts of those who want to limit access to only those materials that they approve of is

080it really about the books or is it the desire to control what our students have access to because it doesn't stop at books that's just a way to gain access to the system we've heard National debates not only over books but gender equality don't say gay and other trends that frankly say to me that we are not making America free again but returning to a less free less equal time book Banning in schools is the most widespread form of censorship in the United States with children's literature being the primary target advocates for Banning books or certain books fear that children will be swayed by their content they commonly fear that these Publications will present ideas for his questions incite critical inquiry among children's and parents political groups or religious organizations that are not ready to

081address or that they find inappropriate opponents those who oppose book Banning emphasize that the first amendment protects students rights to receive and express ideas the Supreme Court in Board of Education of the island tree Union preschool district versus Pico in 1982 so this is decades old ruled that public schools can borrow books that are pervasively vulgar or not right for the curriculum but they cannot remove books simply because they dislike the idea contained in those books the decision called libraries places for voluntary inquiry and concluded that the school's board does not have discretion over the library only the classroom District policy 6000 series provides options for parents who do not want their child to participate in certain curriculum that they find inappropriate and it provides opportunity to limit material in the library if the parent

082or Guardian makes that decision I will support the policy as edited although given the 1982 Supreme Court decision I still have reservations about objections raised by patrons parents or Guardians that would potentially limit material available to all students in our school library foreign just to kind of and I don't want to preempt any board member but it it feels to me after listening to the the board that there's uh at least two questions that we have to deal with here and we're not going to take action tonight we're set to discuss we're not to take action until the next meeting at the very earliest uh one question is philosophical one question feels more practical I think the philosophical question that this board has to struggle with is do we feel like any Patron and to

083be Crystal Clear Patron is someone who lives in the Vista Community Schools you could be a grandpa you could be a grandma a mom a dad it could be an empty nester you could never have had kids here somebody that pays taxes here that's how we're defining Patron should anybody off the street have the ability to trigger our book review process or should it be somebody who has um more of a stake in the process by having a child actively enrolled in our schools and if you wanted to drill down even further it's maybe in some people's opinion whether you agree with it or not it's not enough just to have a student enrolled in the playing La Vista Community Schools but if you're going to object to Huck Finn and it's only available at

084the high school level for example and you have only Elementary children then it's probably not your place to object until you get to the high school level that is a legitimate train of thought but that's for the board to decide that is not for the administration to decide that's the philosophical question is it Patron or as a parent reasonable arguments can be made on both sides and the Administration has weighed in with a recommendation I think the second question is one that Mr maddler identified once you have figured out whether it is Patron or parent then we want to make sure the language harmonizes because I think there are some inconsistencies with the language is what I think I heard Mr madler say so it seems to me that we identify philosophically what we want

085to do and then we can make the language aligned with that philosophical priority very easily I do think one other thing in this series please weigh in here because curriculum materials get thrown around so casually and I I think for our community to understand there's at least three levels of curricular materials that we routinely use and as you go up the ladder so to speak the level of scrutiny increases let me give you some concrete examples a teacher may choose to bring into his or her personal classroom Library a book that they bought on Amazon a book that they bought at a book fair the book that they want to incorporate into their curriculum in some way shape or form that level of scrutiny is very very different than the second level which would be

086a book that has been vetted through some processes outlined through policy by the way and selected by professionals certified Master's level Librarians that is a different level of scrutiny that would be the second step on the latter and then the third step on the latter would be the guaranteed and viable curriculum that is now a captive audience that is now a captive audience a library book I think we can all agree whether you think this stuff is porn or not you're not a captive audience you can either pick up that book and check it out or you can choose not to that's the wonderful thing about living in a democracy guaranteeing viable curriculum is a creature of a different sort if you're in that classroom you are being exposed to that and that level of

087scrutiny is the very highest as I think we should all agree that if you were a member of that classroom and you are now a member of that captive audience level of scrutiny should be the greatest at that level so I just think that as we use those terms words matter and when we're talking about curriculum materials at a classroom Library where that book may or may not exist in other classrooms even in the same building as opposed to guaranteeing viable curriculum where every student enrolled in that class regardless of the building in the classroom is going to receive that same dosage so to speak of the curriculum that's a different level of scrutiny Ms Siri did I adequately explain kind of how we interpret things well done thank you um I have something to

088say with that because I don't agree but I feel like the patrons should be in there because like you said they are a taxpayer and we just basically beg people for 130 million dollars for a bond to help better our schools even when those people don't have kids in the district and I know myself as it gets said 24 7 I don't have kids in The District and either do a couple other people on this board so then why are we making decisions essentially if we don't have kids but yet here we are on the board so it just it needs to make sense so I believe that yes a patron a taxpayer can have a say but some random Joe that does not live in Papillion Lavista I don't feel like they should be

089able to because they are not paying into the school but I do believe that taxpayers have a right to say where their money goes and how it's being spent thank you yeah I have a hard time when I'm looking at on the resources that it takes than to support the review process Missouri how many books have been submitted for review maybe 11 or yeah I think right now you just recently yeah yeah since April 12 yeah and I did have the committee keep track of their time and it was anywhere from 8 to 12 hours for a Committee Member that included not just reading the material but also the meetings and the conversation that centered around making sure they understood the policy and what their job was and so on yeah so you know I

090think the hard part and understand that there's been a lot of conversation around this and I think everybody has looked at it at one point or another they've been in this camp and in this camp and then you know but to Dr rickley's Point words matter and I think you know taxpayers absolutely have a lot of influence and say in what happens in our schools there's opportunity for that when we adopt standards or there's hearings for public comment even when we look at curriculum resources we open that up to the community to come in and look and see and I do think you know the policies explicit in the sense that a patron has that right I think the hard part is is do they have the right over a parent and so they don't

091and so this policy is trying to balance both of those and I think um you know the board just does have to decide when it comes to asking for something to be reviewed so they've had input on the curriculum they've had input on those types of things but when asking for something to be reviewed for reconsideration what is the philosophy there right and then your taxpayer I mean if it wasn't any taxpayer anyone could come up and share their opinion in meetings they can email us they had other memes to share opinions and as a board member trying to protect taxpayer dollars on making sure that the resources that we are allocating in the time that this district is spending the staff is spending is is I mean High return use of those resources and

092the correct use of those resources so we had 12 submitted how many recently yeah since like April how many are we done with we've done two incomplete and a third one is in process right now and and we're taking those in the order in which they were received yeah and so the the first two that were done were both novels but we do have some books coming up that are not novels so they will probably not take as long in any of those 12 yet from parents Guardians with kids that would be affected by the material um it yes and no they have we have parent but not parent that has access to those materials so no kids have access that's the other part if tomorrow we get a parent of a of a kid

093in an elementary school that is requesting a review of a library book in that kid's Elementary School I mean with our current rate you might not review it until that kid is into the next grade level um we've done two since April and we've got 10 left on the to-do list and so this would be 13. yeah and I just I sorry to me I'm just trying to weigh I understand the other argument let anyone submit it but you know as the board member um as I'm trying to figure out what is the best use of school district resources and what is best for the students uh in our in our district um I I just have a hard time going with allowing any plcs Patron to submit that review and go through the same

094process that a parent of a kid that is actually affected and has access to the materials would go through not just where I am I I would I would say that that is a type of conversation we've had in our committee meeting how do we prioritize requests do we allow someone to just put in a however many requests whether their children are affected or not and then set aside someone who has children in a particular grade level that they're questioning material for that grade level so we've had quite a bit of conversation around that Mr mandler so I do think you bring up an important point this is very time consuming and it's it may require some means of prioritization to be fair to those who are most affected by the request so um just

095something that we've had some conversation around I can tell you that part of that conversation was procedure oriented and it related to the person submitting a request could not submit a second request until their first request is finished that way it doesn't bugger up the system and any parent who does have one can then put it in oh will you will you share with the board and um the community what books are being asked to be reviewed and just how the whole process is going kind of like the first one that you had shared I know you said that you were just using that as an example but that way people can be aware of what is being reviewed so right now the way that it is um the system as I shared at that

096board meeting where I went through the presentation it's the complainant's right to know what it's not necessarily at this point public um so it's it's really between the complaintant that puts in the request with the district now if that complaint wanted to make it public they could but the district would not necessarily as part of that process right now so you can't even just share like the title without saying who made the complaint no no okay not the way it currently is not the current system okay but potentially it could be you can share the book and why they're upset with it but just not give a name so you're not giving out their information that's not part of our current procedure okay does that make sense kind of yeah I think the hard part

097is you have to remember that right now you're specifically talking about library books but this policy is written for anything so you could have a family that felt maybe they had I'm just making this up this is not but you could have a family that had been in a very traumatic situation and did not want their child to participate in a certain thing now would that trigger this no it would probably be a conversation between the principal and the but they may not want that to be disclosed publicly and maybe even after it was done that family might make a consideration of saying hey maybe consider a different book because this book I don't know um so that's why because it's really about serving students the best that we can okay because in that scenario

098that wouldn't really be like a review since a book review since it's a child it maybe could be um like you could read okay like for example we've had a situation where we have a novel that's part of a guaranteed and viable and the family had concerns we made accommodations for that student we went all the way move forward but then at the end of the year the one of the individuals said you know what I want to fill this out because I think that you guys can do better okay so but they didn't really want that public because it was very private as to what happened to their child and and you know the the I said this in cabinet and I hope I'm not overstepping but this policy is really to make our

099instructional materials stronger you know it's a process that um is in place to ensure that if people want something reconsidered and times change and there's I mean Dr rickley used the example of Huck Finn there's a lot of conversation around Huck Finn it's a classic novel that's been taught for a long time and but it it you know and it has a lot of as far as American lit goes it's it is it it is you know probably the biggest piece of that component but it doesn't mean that there are individuals that don't think that it should be and we need to reevaluate that and look at that and at this point you know we've decided yes it's a very very strong component of our curriculum and it teaches those learning targets about what American

100literature looks like and what the author was trying to achieve through that and and so that's that's the idea behind it so it's more than library books as it's currently written okay I just want to say I am I part being part of the subcommittee and we did have a lot of conversations about this and uh I was exactly what Shireen said I was first saying no just parents and Guardians and I went back to patrons and and I actually do agree um they're taxpayers and I believe that they should have the option to to request to have something reviewed I think currently we're looking at this under a very small microscope and we have a couple of people that are trying to you know put in a whole bunch of books to cause this

101system to you know bog down and that's you know that's what they're trying to do I think the you know again it's procedure but trying to change that procedure so that we can limit how that is done so you know to spread some of these out is what we need to do and we need to look at this from a as I call it the 35 000 foot view you know over time is this what we want you know like I said right now it doesn't seem like you know this is ridiculous because we have people out there that are doing this that don't have kids that are associated with that particular thing but they are patrons whether or not they voted for the bond they will be paying for that you know Bond along

102with the rest of us and so in that case I feel that they should have the right to do that I believe one you know the teachers and the staff the Librarians I believe in them I believe in what they do I do not believe in book Banning I think you know this everything that's going on right now is ridiculous and I trust the teachers and the Librarians that we have so that being said I still feel that you know long term that we need to allow patrons plcs patrons those you know again I'm not willing to let someone from Millard or Omaha or whatever come in and consider this process but I believe that looking at like I said from the big picture that we need to allow plcs patrons to be a part

103of it I do think that you know your comment it was exactly right that's kind of what I wrote down is once we figure out what we want to do then we do need to clean up that paragraph you know to make sure that it's whether we clean it up to say X Y and Z for library books and this for curriculum or whether we you know you know so delineate those two or whether we just make it you know so that it says parents and Guardians and patrons if that's what we decide to do everywhere so that it's clear so yeah it is definitely confusing and I appreciate you bringing that up anything else anyone else no I just want to thank prior boards I mean this policy was well written we can get

104back to the philosophical point of where we're at today but we've had this in our policy for a long time parents have had those rights to choose whether or not they wanted their child to have the material whether in required curriculum in their classroom or in the library this policy existed well before today's time and the biggest thing for me and I'm glad we have not proposed any major overhauls to this because what we've heard for the last two or three years was we want more parent rights this policy does that for all groups on either side of controversial book issues and so I'm glad that the the subcommittee and the cabinet saw the strength that this policy has existed for for years and it gives everyone equal rights to either submit if they don't

105like your material get an alternative material from their teachers I know plenty of parents uh that I interact with that have had things that I I don't quite like what they're reading simple conversations between principal and teacher alternatives are provided it happens all the time so I'm very proud of this policy I think it meets the needs of our community and it gives the parent the right to decide what materials they can or can't are want their their student to have access to so um that's it's again it's it's the parent and the student but I also think that all students as we've stated Miss what you stated materials exist for different points of view everybody should be able to make the decision based on your family your students needs to have that choice and

106this policy has done that for many many years so I still stand by this policy we need to have some further discussion as noted on our full philosophical debate on who can utilize this this policy as necessary so look forward to furthering conversations sorry I have one more thing I just remembered remember Siri when let's see it is Layman it may present views on controversial subjects to a class through invitation from the teacher in principal what exactly is that is that like any teacher can bring in whoever they want to to their classroom to do a presentation is that what that means uh where are you at Brittany sorry um oh I see it on the yeah so it's talking about the materials and it goes back to what Dr rickley was talking about earlier

107how there are different levels and a parent basically it's saying that they can present views on even like critical um when you're curriculum is built to teach kids um how to think for themselves not what to think and so a lot of times you know it's it's uh like for example you'll read a piece of literature and it's not so much telling the kid what the literature says but asking the kid what do you think it says and so it's it's all about that all sides are represented and that's that's important with so whether it be in a social studies classroom or an English classroom it's that you're presenting multiple sides and letting students be critical thinkers with that information and so this is basically deciding when an issue is considered controversial it should be

108based on and then it's outlying the four pieces and then um if there is there's an invitation from the teacher or principal so in other words just not anyone can go in and and present on that it's an invite would that include I'm thinking of a holocaust Survivor might be called in about yeah understand survival you know those kinds of things would be a lay person would come in and add value to the curriculum being taught if the teacher invited them in yeah yeah that's what I was wondering because if if somebody is coming into the child's classroom is the parent aware that this person is coming in this day to talk about blah blah uh depends on what it is but most likely yes okay thank you all right any further discussion all right

109so I guess we need to figure out some more wording changes and uh bring it back to the board okay all right moving on to Item B under discussion items uh facility update and planning Mr Richards all right thank you Mr Bailey let me see here okay I just wanted to give the board an update tonight on you know kind of our current projects out there uh there's still a lot of them we haven't talked about them in quite a while we talk about on the subcommittee quite a bit but the whole board and the community to hear kind of where our current projects are the bigger ones are of course Liberty Middle Edition that that is well ahead of schedule uh has been for the past six months they've done a great job with

110that we're doing some punch list items at this point Rumsey station is one that's a couple summer slams it's a tight project if you went over there today I would tell you you'd probably say there's no way in heck by August 1st that's going to be done but it does come through they got a plan we got a good group of people working on that project and we're confident that we're going to have that ready by the time school starts Lavista West is completed it's on punch lists at this point plhs same thing completed with punch lists a little bit more punch lists at Monarch we might be doing punch lists until 2025 on that one but uh we're we're in good shape though irrigation systems um they've got started with the plumber and doing

111some things there that will be completed by October 31st we were hoping to get a little further this summer we still May yet but the contractor does have till October 31st to get that done playground resurfacing um that contract is due by August 31st they're making good progress on that we got sent back a little bit last week with the rain but it does take a 28-day cure once we get it all demoed out for those five schools on the playground the old playground and then we pour the cement it's about 28 days before you can do the rubber surfacing so we probably will be into school a little bit with a few of those projects but we'll keep the keep it safe from for the kids can I ask you a question we've got

112school starting how many of our playground resurfacing how many playgrounds will be affected by not being ready and still be in process of curing and doing their thing because I'm assuming that means the kids can't be out there so how many schools will we have do we expect if I had to guess at this point I would say three three of the five won't be ready by the time school starts so we have alternative and plans in place for what they can yeah we have other playground areas they can play in we'll keep it sealed off and thank you make sure that happens yeah great question and I'll keep you updated as we get closer to that as well and then our last major projects on the board right now are the kitchen freezer projects

113at uh Lavista middle and Papillion High School Papillion Lavista High School those two we ran into little problems with some piping that wasn't seen kind of behind the scenes we had to raise that up that took a couple weeks off the project but we're confident we're going to have that ready both the freezers ready to go those are two major freezers for us so the contractors understand and The Architects the importance of getting that done here by August 1st so that's kind of our current projects update um just wanted to bring back the CMR process timeline so some of these are a little more concrete now the CMR proposals are due uh July 25th we do have meetings set that works for all the selection committee members at this point August 3rd and 10th we're

114going to do that so first meetings kind of getting the notebooks learning how to score our lawyer will be there to explain the process how to score those types of things and then the 10th we hope we're at the point where we can bring some companies back that we're really interested in for an interviews to kind of get it down to the two at that point and then recommend to the board on Monday August 14th if we need to add a meeting in there we will but that's kind of the process at this point 2023 Bond facility Improvement fall planning I appreciate the sub committee helping us through this and I think we've heard along the way and Annette with the community survey what you know when you do a bond like this 130 million

115dollars you can't do it all at once and we know there's a lot of priorities within this facility Improvement project planning what we heard through the community surveys through staff meetings all those things was the Four elementary schools and the two middle schools were probably the highest priorities project wise to take on that includes Safety and Security so all of these include Safety and Security too but we want to keep the Safety and Security moving as well so I think looking at this and this is for discussion tonight and we tried to get both subcommittees involved in this discussion so you had some time to think about it that Hickory Hill Tara Heights Trumbull Park Parkview Heights um are on the design team from The Architects notice and they've begun working on those things design

116wise and we'll once we get the construction company involved they'll help with that design and those things take a long time to design I wish we could just start moving dirt this summer after we pass the bond believe me but it takes a good four to six months to plan out these projects on each of them these major ones I'm talking about the young adult transition program building as well Lavista middle and Papillion middle are quite extensive they're going to take even longer than the Four elementary schools to plan but how do we keep Safety and Security moving as well so the Architects had some great ideas in this process as well as well as the building grounds and finance committee that we maybe look at a three-prong approach here uh to Safety and Security

117we know that those seven buildings up there have the Safety and Security designs for security film playground fencing technology package all built into them but how do we get at some of those other schools maybe off to the side so we're looking at doing Walnut Creek portal Patriot and Bell uh this first year with security film and playground fencing they're out of the way of other projects going on once we get the designs what we're doing on the technology package it'll be easy for us to do a quick design and get those out for bid from different companies that are already doing those other schools up top so that's an idea we have Safety and Security technology package maybe that's the third prom ideal and three other schools so ideal we picked is kind of

118a pilot for this technology package for Safety and Security that Lucas and his team have come up with Architects are very good at the stuff they've been working with Millard on their technology or their Safety and Security packages as well so they brought a lot of ideas of the table um so we're just trying to settle in on what that looks like technology package so the architecture group has a technology person that's worked on Millard worked on other districts and Safety and Security that's part of the conversation now with Lucas and the cabinet on what that technology package can look like so we're trying to finalize that here in the next couple months um put that out for ideal which we estimate to be about eighteen twenty thousand dollars and test these things out and

119then they go in the design for all those other schools which will be real exciting for us to be able to do um and then we have some other projects that can work outside of this process that don't take up a lot of people's time either with the construction management companies we hire or with our Architects and that is the high school baseball fields and softball fields so there's kind of another area that we can take on during this first year baseball fields for example the engineers design almost exclusively so they're not working with bcdm a whole lot on that because they've done dozens of them in the communities that's lampreyerson so um baseball we have a time frame a legion ball ends in a couple weeks we can jump on and get the baseball

120fields done at this fall softball starts up in July here so at the end of this month so we can't really do those fields until they're done with their season so we'd hope to do the softball fields right as it falls next march would be the plan so we got a lot of things going here we want to make people proud of passing this Bond get as many projects as we can do in the first year going and yet make it sustainable and and doing it well with the team that we have and I think we can do that the Architects feel confident in this approach and we hope the construction managers feel the same way when they get on we've talked to a few different companies on the side to see if this is

121even practical for them to do these larger companies and they can do them we think so we would recommend this approach and continue that discussion knowing that it's got to be flexible these timelines and these projects knowing that they got to be flexible once we get the team on board there's lead times of Equipment and supply and demand issues and all these projects as well so we'll do our best we want to be done with this in four years is the goal from this summer and that's what our kind of preliminary projects look at that may get pushed back a little bit depending on lead times construction problems those types of things that can come up through the process but we're excited to get going I can tell you that much and I know you

122are too visiting with all of you any comments discussion questions I have one question about the bid process I see that they're kind of staggered is there any benefit is there any benefit to bidding them at one time so that you can identify materials and Workforce that would be working on the same thing in other locations and that will be real helpful once we get the construction companies on board to help us answer some of that right now I mean with our experience with the Architects that we have they would advise the Stagger so you're not bidding against yourself on all these projects with subcontractors that can't handle that much work all at once so they they prefer to stagger but you know that could change once the construction companies get on board for sure

123I had a question um back to your the 2018 bond list I it seems like you've been giving us updates and it I've constantly seen punchless punch lists are these are we coming up with new punch list items or are they just taking a long time or what what's because like I said that's all I've seen and it seems like okay yeah yeah you know for these huge projects 24 million over at Monarch I mean it's there's a lot of stuff that you catch yeah you know that you do walk arounds one time and you don't see it and then the next time you see it coming through so that's more where we're at now skip is kind of seeing things that are coming up and you know they've done a good job they've been

124very I will say they've been reactive to our punch lists and they're really trying to get out they want out of there as much as we want them out of there at this point so I would say it's coming in pretty quick at Monarch I just said I just wanted I mean I don't want to miss something and then come back later and go shoot we missed that but um the second thing I wanted to say you know with the with the whole list and how we have all these dates that I know you know we I've gotten comments uh emails and everything and people are asking you know the one thing we don't want to do is to rush this process we want to make sure we do it right because I I way

125too often it seems like I'm you know driving around and seeing sidewalks being redone and things where they I think they may have rushed it and not done it the right way and obviously we want to good stewards of this money that we have that has been you know granted to us through the vote and to be able to do it the right way first so we don't have to come back four years later and ask to redo something because we didn't take our time so I appreciate the fact that you're you know talking to these Architects and once we figure out who the companies will be that will actually you know use them and come up with the the right resources and the good resources and everything so I do appreciate that I know

126every yeah you're right every we all want to get going to get these schools built but we need to do it the right way so I appreciate what you and the subcommittee are undertaking right I appreciate those comments and if there's a time when we feel like we're rushing too much we'll have to a good team there with the committee and Architects and then the construction companies to say hey we gotta cool it and slow down a little bit and we'll respect that and do those things just with the with a punch list I remember at the meeting you said that you guys were doing the walk around and you just seemed like paint chipped or missing so like little stuff like that um and then with the baseball fields with the interfing I just

127wanted to share how you told us that the coaches are really involved with that and planning and how they want it to look which I think is pretty awesome since they're out there all the time yeah we're you know they're excited the coaches have been involved the legion's been involved in the planning of those facilities and we'll be presenting those to you we hope that the July 24th meeting for kind of the kickoff for those projects so we'll be able to share that with the whole board and the community at that time thank you any other comments all right thank you very much move on to our last discussion item item C the review of policy 7000 Construction Mr Richards yes and we will be reviewing those and the buildings grounds of finance committee will

128take a look at that on August 4th at our next meeting as well so if you have any comments or things that you see in the meantime let us know and we'll take a look at them here over the next month great thank you very much all right uh uh item five future board calendar uh one thing we have on there July 24th will be our next Board of Education meeting right here at six o'clock sounds like we've got some rain that's either started or coming so please be careful out there as everybody is headed out pray for no hail and um unless we have any other business I will join the meeting at 7 51 pm thank you very much