001Okay, I'd like to call this meeting to order. Um, Mr. Harding, could you please lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance? Okay, now we have um public comment session. The school board has established a normal item of order of business at each regular board meeting. Um, during public comments, any citizen may make a statement or address the board concerning issues pertaining to Kirkwood School District. Speakers are not to address the board directly concerning specific personnel issues at a meeting. Such issues should be addressed using the district's established procedures for sharing concerns about school personnel and if necessary brought to the board's attention in private. Board members will not directly respond to a speaker during the meeting, but if a response is required, the appropriate individual will get in touch in the days following the meeting.
002And the board establishes a uniform time limit of 3 minutes for each speaker, and we have a speaker tonight, Nicole Kelly. That button there, it'll turn on your mic. Turn this up so I can Uh, that button you press that. There you go. Okay, great. Thank you. Um, my name is Nicole Kelly and I'm a parent of a fourth grade student at Westchester. And I have recently gone through an experience where my son has been assaulted two times by the same student and I've gone to the principal and also to Dr. Bailey to evaluate the situation and I feel like there is a serious safety concern in terms of how the school is handling assault cases and particularly my son's case and I have all of the emails and the bullying report that I just
003received from Dr. Bailey on Friday. Um, and I just want to express my concern that violent situations are not handled appropriately and that we shouldn't be allowing our students to assault regardless of the age. In this case, they're 10-year-old boys that know that they should not be punching kids in the face. My son has been punched in the face and he has been his hand was fractured by the same student in the PE class and I think this is unacceptable. And the feedback that I had received from Dr. Bailey is that the school's following the policies, but I have serious concerns about this. And for me as a parent, I think it's unacceptable that I have to file police report separately outside of the school district and I know I'm not an isolated case at
004Westchester this year and violent situations should be handled appropriately and that's my concern. Thank you. Okay, moving on to um, 2.02 approval of the agenda. I need an action or I need a motion to approve the agenda for the April 27th, 2026 business meeting as presented. So moved, Heffernan. Second, Niemann. All those in favor, please raise your right hand and say I. I. Motion passes. I need a motion to approve the consent agenda items, 3.02 through 3.06 as presented. So moved, Niemann. Second, Harding. All those in favor, raise your right hand and say I. I. Motion passes. I need a motion to approve the hiring of an additional kindergarten teaching position at Kaiser Elementary as presented. So moved. Second, Hepburn. Dr. Rich, you're on. Good evening, Board. Wanted to just give an update, as you
005can see in the memorandum that was shared. Uh we've been closely monitoring the situation at Kaiser um elementary moving down to three teachers, which would have facilitated a max number of 60 students um for kindergarten. Uh our projections showed that uh towards the end of enrollment we would have had 55 students. Still would have been give or take a student or two and could have been under that threshold of 60. Um projections are just that. Sometimes they are not accurate and we are just lucky that we have exceeded those projections already um at uh the publishing of this uh memorandum, we actually were at 62 kindergarten students and um slightly growing as of today. So, um just feeling blessed in the sense that if we were going to exceed this threshold, it happened in April
006and not June. Um and so, um our uh class size uh you know, we kept those at 20 and then we open up a new class. Um we are at 62 and and I'm I'm bringing numbers to you to let you know that I I believe uh it would be a wise move um to open up another section of uh kindergarten at Kaiser and I hope that is what is approved here this evening. Any questions or comments for Dr. Rich? Ms. Niemann? Yeah, thanks. Just want to point out the fact that I I guess I echo your sentiments on appreciating that we recognize this as early as April. I know last year and in past years we've had a lot of conversations around ensuring that we're evaluating the enrollment and doing our projections and thinking
007through class sizes. I know you all put a lot of work last year into updating those processes and policies. So, appreciate you guys doing that. I view this as a success for this year and acknowledge that we will have probably more to come as enrollment continues to to evolve. Thank you. >> Absolutely. Thank you. Dr. Hill? Ms. Hepburn? Yeah, I just want to use the opportunity to celebrate for a lot of people also recognize that being able to get ahead of these things also enables us to have the best hiring practices, something that I know one of our previous board members, Ben Cappy, used to talk about a lot too. So, just want to continue to celebrate that you guys have, you know, established this new process which is best for kids, it's great for
008teachers, it's great for the district and so, just want to keep shouting out the celebrations as we can. Thank you. Mr. Harding? I echo what everyone said. This is great news. Everyone raise your right hand and say I to approve the hiring of an additional teacher. I. Motion passes. Thank you. And now we need a motion to approve the February 2026 financial statements as I'm just Thank you. The March 2026 financial statements as presented. Need a motion. So moved, Hepburn. Second, Harding. Go ahead. And you get Scott Cook is on assignment, so you get stuck with me. Operating revenues for the month of March were just over 3 million at 3 million $156,000. Um the main little bit unusual thing is we recorded $664,000 of interest earnings. Um we're a cash-basis district, and we had
009some longer-term uh interest earnings that matured, and so those were finally recorded as revenue. Um Our operating expenditures were just under $7 million. Uh the majority of that was salaries and benefits. I believe it was around 89% was salaries and benefits of the operating fund. Um Lastly, the self-funded insurance fund balance increased by $274,000 in March, and the fund balance is about $1.7 million. Um Just for the record, last March we were at $652,000, so the self-funded insurance account is in a much healthier position now than what it was at this time last year. Thank you. Any questions? Thank you very much. I need um a vote. All those in favor of approving the March 2026 financial statements as presented, please raise your right hand and say I. I. Motion passes. Thank you. Now we
010need a motion to approve the policy and regulations as presented. This is a first and second reading and vote um for these policy changes and they are all either MSBA required to comply with state law or rescensions rescind rescinding um some because they are no longer um appropriate. So, we need a motion to approve the policy and regulation as presented. So, moved, D'Andrea. Second, Niemann. All right. Is there any discussion about these? Start with Ms. Niemann since Ms. Andrews just got here. Yeah, no problem. Um I just had a quick question in terms of process. Um I noticed that we're doing both the first and the second reading um today. Is there are there time frames that these are required? Like is there a reason we're combining them together? Yeah, there's actually no statutory requirement
011or policy requirement for a first and second read. It's just generally um to provide the community and the board an opportunity to review them and provide input before they'd be approved. Um we shared previously that several of these groups of revisions that we're bringing to the board uh actually came out last fall and from a technical hiccup we were not receiving them in a timely basis. And so, because these are all required based on state statute and there really isn't much room for um the board to make any edits or changes, we brought this group here for a first and second read tonight. Next meeting we will have a group for first read that we would follow um generally they'd come to one meeting for a first read and they'd come back to the second
012meeting for a second read. Got it. Thank you. I appreciate you talking through that process. >> Yep, you're welcome. Thanks. No. All right. All those voting to approve the policy and regulation as presented, raise your right hand and say I. Motion passes. Okay, and then we have um curriculum presented for a first reading and review. It will be brought to the May 18th, 2026 business meeting for second reading and approval. Those courses are AP business with personal finance, sixth grade wellness physical education, seventh grade wellness education, and English language learners English 9th through 12th. That's just for information. Future events, we've got a lot coming up. KHS senior awards and gold K is May 5th. The 25-year employee and retirement reception is May 6th. The KHS class of 2026 comment commencement is May 9th. The
013last day of school for students is May 21st. Next Monday, which is typically a work session for us, we will be holding our first board retreat, so we will not be meeting other than for the retreat. And our next business meeting is May 18th. Dr. Rumpus, do you have anything to add? I don't. Just welcome to our new board. Don't expect all of our meetings to be this short. This was just a treat for you at this first meeting. Um we also sent several communications out yesterday, but again want to thank um our parents and our community for being flexible on a day with a very challenging weather call. We appreciate how gracious everyone was um being responsive to make arrangements to either pick their child up or be at home to greet them. I
014also want to thank our administrators and staff who did an incredible job with short notice of um coming up with the early dismissal plan and executing it. Um our officers, several of you are here tonight, continued to drive around the district yesterday until we made sure every elementary and KECC had fully dismissed and everyone had gotten home. So, it was a great example of a team effort and you know, fortunately the weather was not as terrible as it could have been for everyone, but safety is always the first priority and so thank you for supporting that yesterday. Okay, and with that we are adjourned.