001Somebody yells at me. I'd like to call this meeting to order. Uh, Mr. Cathy, can you please lead us in the pledge? Before we get started, we have one fun announcement. Dr. Shern is official. She got her doctorate in educational leadership from Mville. So, you are the coolest. And um I know at work sessions we don't use titles, we use first names, but >> I'll call you Dr. Nicole >> and I think we're going straight into the Kirkwood High School presentation. >> Yep. So, uh good evening everyone. As you can see, our high school team, sorry, high school team is here. Usually that's not a problem, but um happy to introduce the high school team and sit with them uh as they go over different pieces of information. What you'll see tonight uh is a
002high school that is focused on increasing opportunities for students, improving post-secondary outcomes for students. Uh they've implemented problem solving strategy to support their students and you'll see some different um components of that as well. and Kirkwood has worked very diligently to improve culture and climate and a sense of belonging and you'll see those positive results uh with this team tonight. In addition, even though the uh results of a Friday game weren't what we wanted, our Kirkwood High School continues to offer very competitive athletics and activities. Um and the goal is to just help every student find their pathway and find their people and find the activities they can connect with. Um, so you'll see just some some snippets and some pieces of some information tonight. But what I can assure you is that this team
003works extremely hard every single day to ensure that every student is prepared for whatever that next step is. And if that next step is college, if that next step is work, if that next step is military, their grade level principles teamed with their counselors, uh, provide that support for our students along with our alternative program that allows students to just continue their path towards graduation uh, and beyond. So happy to turn this over to Dr. Harold and his team and he'll introduce them um and we can see just how awesome our high school is. Dr. Harold. >> Good evening. Um thank you Dr. Bailey. As he mentioned, I'm Dr. Seth Herrell, principal at Kirkwood High School. Uh and we'll just go down the line here and have our assistant principles uh introduce themselves. >> Hi,
004I'm Alex Clark. I'm the 10th grade principal. >> Good evening everyone. Dr. Courtney J. For senior. I serve as the senior principal. >> Uh my name is Mike Gavin. I'm the associate principal and principal for the class of 2027. >> Dr. Sheree Jaggins, alternative school principal, Pioneer Pathways. >> And unfortunately, Miss Owens, our freshman class principal, could not be here this evening. Her mother unexpectedly passed away this weekend. So, um we're totally good with taking care of some of the things that she would be presenting on this evening. Um so to get started a lot of the things that we'll touch on first off uh very very thankful um at least using my eye voice to present in December because January gets real busy. Uh we got that's really when we're starting the process of
005enrollment course selection for the next year. A lot of parent meetings and so um feel like this is such a great wrap up to our first semester to be able to just go over some great things that we're doing at Kirkwood High School. just like to to say I appreciate our school board and the time and commitment that you guys put in uh for our students, our our staff, our community, our schools. Um and we really appreciate that because I know that's hard work. Uh and we just appreciate everything you guys do for us. Um also very important to acknowledge that the things we'll go over, we we we won't cover everything. We'll miss some things. There's there's, you know, we we we try to uh paint a really good picture of the great things
006that are taking place at Kirkwood High School. Inevitably, there'll be some things that that uh we may not touch on, but everything that we will touch on is a direct result of our students, our teachers, our staff, administrators, custodians, kitchen staff, uh all support staff, our families in the community. uh there's a lot of people that factor into the things that we'll go over and so uh it's very important to acknowledge those individuals uh because it's truly a collective effort to ensure that Kirkwood High School is one of the best high schools not only in the state of Missouri but in our country. Uh and then lastly just want to thank uh the administrative team that you guys see here. Uh these guys do a phenomenal job of ensuring that our school is running smoothly,
007that our students are taken care of and our staff is supported. Uh and so just very appreciative of these guys and all the work that they do. Um you know, last week we we were gonna we needed to to gather a group of students for the strategic planning uh sessions that were taking place as we we look for the next strategic plan. And uh we had a snow day that kind of threw us off a little bit, but the work that these guys do uh and did last week to gather a a great group of students and a diverse group of students that uh was able to be a part of that process was phenomenal. And so just another simple but small example of what these guys do each and every day uh to make
008sure that we're at our best. Um you know this the first slide that I go over is just something I feel is very very important. Uh just these three words. We try to root this in all of our work. Community tradition and excellence. Uh community obviously very very important to ensure that we have a tight-knit community at Kirkwood High School. Uh I I feel like we have that. I feel like we have that in this community. I feel like we have it with all of our other schools. Uh and so that's really really important part of our work and the relationships that we try to to establish each and every day. Uh when we talk about tradition, obviously Kirkwood has a a longstanding uh rich traditions and many of those and so that's important to
009keep those in mind. Um but also create other opportunities for new traditions. And um I was surely hoping that Dr. Ford would have worn his Christmas uh sweater tonight, but he changed because he has one that he wears uh every school day in December and he has enough of them uh and they're very very creative and very good. But that's just a small example of like for me traditions when you have an assistant principal that that's something they do every year. People remember that and and and our students remember those kind of things. And so I use that as an example because ultimately that's what we challenge our classroom teachers to do too. find unique ways that you're reaching your students. Something that they will remember each and every day. Uh and then lastly, just
010excellence. Obviously, uh the constant pursuit of excellence is extremely important, I know, to our families, to our students, and to our staff. And so, we'll never lose sight of that. Um at the end of the day, our ultimate goal is to ensure that we have 100% graduation rate. Uh that's what we strive for. I think that's extremely important that students that come to us their freshman year uh as first-time high school students, this is the goal. If they're a transfer student, their junior year, like this is the goal. We want to ensure we're doing everything we can to ensure that our students uh can graduate with a high school diploma. Uh and that when they do, they're prepared for what's next in life. Uh and so, uh we surely hope that throughout that process, we're
011creating an exceptional educational experience for each and every one of our students. So that's uh the biggest part of our work. One of the things that we wanted to spend a little bit of time on um was just kind of just touching base uh and just going over our class of 2025, our our recent graduates. What's unique is obviously each one of the grade level principles starts with the freshman class and stays with those students all four years. And so uh last year that was Miss Owen's first group where she started their freshman year and took them all the way through. And it was just so neat for me just to sit back and observe and just watch uh how well that process took place and and all the great things that that Miss Owens
012did to graduate those students. And I just put some numbers up there uh as it relates to like academics. Um you know 85% of last year's class going on to a two or four year university. Uh obviously there's a lot of students that college that are collegebound. um we don't also lose sight of the fact that there's students that may not be collegebound and so that's going to continue to be a focus of ours. What do we do with that other 15%. Um you know 257 students that were gold K scholars. I think that's that's phenomenal. Uh 738 scholarships were obtained by that class and and again those numbers are not on there. Um 273 students received scholarship which was really good. that uh cash value is about approximately 34 plus million dollars of scholarships
013for our students. So that's uh outstanding um work for that class and and and the great work that Miss Owens uh did with those students. And what's unique is is as you're wrapping up a senior class, you're also doing things for the next freshman class. And so then you kind of start back over and come into this fall and and doing some really ne neat things to welcome our our freshman students to our campus and just kind of starting that process all over. Uh, one of the neat things um that that I think is is something to highlight uh is the great work that our middle schools do. They do a phenomenal job of preparing our students uh for for life at Kirkwood High School and and um what they have to look forward to.
014So, uh Dr. Havner and Dr. Libertton do a fabulous job. 82% of the students that came to us already had high school credit. Uh and I think that's phenomenal. And and each year we we get, you know, I think in this If I look at the numbers, it is, you know, 3 and excuse me, yeah, 3 44 students um earned a high school credit, prior high school credit, which is phenomenal. Uh and so it's a large number and that we're proud of that and it's just good for those students that have already um kind of obtained some credits and they already know what what high school is going to be about and and the rigor uh and they just expand as they continue to move on to Kirkwood High School. And so just very proud
015of of how that transition just works every every year. Uh works really really well. And that's a that's a kudos to to our middle school staff and then also uh our freshman grade level offices. Um this time I'm going to turn over to Dr. Ford who's just going to touch maybe just a little bit on the class of 2026 and then ultimately uh where our grade levels are as it relates to being on track to graduate. >> Good evening again. Um, as you can see on the screen with our objective 1.2.5, we're always looking um at least weekly on our on track data. Um, what's presented here is where we are with each class as of the start of this semester. Um, everybody's at least 96%. our you see that the class of 2029 our
016ninth graders um haven't yet completed a full year of high school as Dr. Harold said many of them come in with uh some credits, but that doesn't put them um we don't really start tracking that until uh January when they we finalize grades from their first semester. But for our senior class, um I personally have challenged them to um reach a goal of 98% attendance, knowing that there are some students that will remain in school um utilizing their services through an IEP or something like that. So, we know that our goal is 100% um but it's it's it's not going to be uh met because we know that there are some students that will remain. Um but we want 100% of all those that can to graduate. Um one of the ways in which we
017do that is through our weekly meetings as administrators and then also as a team at the grade levels through our problem solving meetings. Um as administrators we're we meet on Mondays but we're constantly meeting throughout the week. um whether that's conversations at lunch, conversations um in the class, or just different um text messages in our offices. We try to be off our phones, too. But there's a need to to, you know, respond to the group text. So, um, and we're just proud, honestly, um, having seen these students grow from the ninth graders that they were, uh, coming in to, um, hopefully this week having their senior picture put up in the wall on the wall in the senior hallway. Um, and it just seems like a a short experience, but it's been uh, filled with
018joy. Um, lots of um, accomplishments for this class so far. and they have started some things that we hope will continue uh with other classes just with their I believe their vigor and their um their love for the school ultimately and I believe their love for each other and we try to emphasize that and continuously um pour into them so that they may pour into others. They challenge themselves uh sometimes uh to the brink and we you know sometimes have to change a schedule or take an AP class off but they are not afraid to excel and that is the expectation that uh we will meet or exceed expectations. So I'm proud of this group and all the other classes as well that my colleagues uh lead during this time. Also as you know there's
019a a no column on there And that no column speaks to the students that are not currently on track. There are several things that we do um within our um our schooling and our programming. Um we try to get students up to speed. We also look and pay attention to when students are transferring in. Um who are these students? Where are they coming from? And I will say that proud to say that our numbers for students that start with us are very very uh very good versus the students that transfer in at different u at different rates. So that is something that affects us. It's um a challenge that we take on as students want to be at Kirkwood High School and we're working to get them moved on. We do have several uh graduates
020already who started off track and through our options program in our uh pioneer pathways and discovery they have uh attained graduation as had they went on a tried to stay on traditional route they would not have in the four-year track because of uh the lack of credit accumulation but I'll let uh Dr. Clark Mr. Clark speak more about the no column on that as well >> yeah so a lot to a lot to celebrate um we provide a lot of different interventions for students that are e on track or at risk of graduating. And that first bullet point says student relationships. Um when we first met Dr. Rumpus at u our admin retreats, he gave us a quote and it said no significant learning occurs without a significant relationship. And you know, this speaks true
021to everything that we do as teachers, as administrators, as you know, any staff member on Kirkwood's campus is building positive relationships, making sure that we're pushing our students, but making sure we're meeting them where they are um and doing whatever it takes to to help them succeed. Um so once a week we meet as grade level teams um in problem solving meetings. Um so this includes a team of administrators of counselors of social workers of SSD um staff members um Pioneer Pathways where we meet we discuss you know what's going on with our with our current students what are some issues that we're seeing we pull grades we pull attendance we pull uh you know talking to social workers about some of the things that are you know that they're seeing as far as mental
022awareness um and just trying to you know find some solutions for them and with them. Um so collaborating with each other and having these conversations really has helped us uh continue to move uh move move our students. Um on Thursdays we have academic home room. So these are uh 90-minute classes. Um the first 30 minutes we have students that are with their academic home room teacher. Um but those next two 30-inut sessions segments they can um travel to teachers that they need help with. Um make up tests, get some extra supports. Um they can sign up for the teachers. the teachers can can pull the students um administrators and counselors can say hey you know we met during problem solving meetings we're noticing that you know this student's not you know has needing a little
023bit extra support so we can you know have them go to their home room teachers as well um when semester ends we do have credit recovery we have the extended school year so students if they did fail then they have that option and opportunity to uh to make up that credit um in in January and in the summer months And then this year is the first year that we have started a uh our program called Zello. So this is um you know all students are required to have a four-year IAP and individual career and academic plan. Last year we or the last years we've used Naviance. Um this year we are using Zello. Um so this is for career path. This is to search for colleges. Um talking to students, talking to counselors a lot
024more user friendly. But one of the biggest advantages this year is that parents have access whereas before parents did not have the access to be able to see this. Um so just another way that we are we are trying to reach our students. Um and then I'm going to turn this over to Dr. um Dr. Juggins to talk about the pioneer pathways. >> Thank you tutorial. Okay. In reference to students not graduating or being off track, Pioneer Pathways is a non-traditional space at the high school. Um we have a tier two which is called innovation and then we have a tier three which is called discovery. What's special about these places in addition to our students is that the class sizes are smaller. Um there's a dedicated guidance counselor, a dedicated social worker. Um when
025students are involved in these spaces, they have an opportunity to take part in social emotional learning activities routinely. They also have group time routinely. So um we also offer the Missouri option program which Dr. Ford mentioned earlier uh for our students that we definitely know unfortunately will not be able to reach a high school diploma on the traditional route. So in our nontraditional um spaces, we allow students that opportunity to walk across the stage with their peers. So that's part of pathways. >> Thank you. Felt it was important to touch on obviously again those students to graduate. That's our goal. And then some of the great work that takes place to to reach some of those that maybe just need a little bit other assistance. Uh I'm just want to spend just a few minutes
026talking about some celebrations um from just kind of this past school year, the 2425 school year. Very proud of of uh Mr. Bill Benzinger who was our teacher of the year, one of our our coaches and uh was selected and as our high school teacher of the year and then ultimately became the district teacher of the year. I think that's very very important to point out. Um he's also a teacher in engineering department which once again was named a project lead the way distinguished school and there's certain criteria we have to meet as a school to receive that award. Uh and so Mr. Benzinger and Miss Jordan Sabatich did a great job with that. Once again uh in our business department we had 25 students that qualified for the PBS scholarships um at $500 of
027students and ultimately that that results from the students taking business courses on our campus. If you look at our AP scores, um, particularly in AP calculus, we had a 100% pass rate, which is the first time that's happened. Uh, and so kudos to our our AP uh, calculus teacher, Mr. Jeff Guchar, and our students. Couple other areas that had 100% pass rate, meaning uh, the students that took that test uh, got a three, four, or five. We had AP Chemistry, AP Lit, AP Art History, AP Gov, and AP Human Geography. uh AP social studies was really really high with a 98% pass rate. Um in our or world language department uh we've expanded our dual credit options. Um and we also had two students that one student uh based on a test they took uh
028basically won a trip to to Germany and we had another student um that also um is in Germany right now studying abroad all this year uh just from their work that they've done in our world language. So we're very proud of that. Uh, I'm going to spend a little bit of time continuing to discuss uh AP um scores, our honors placement in our classrooms and our honors uh achievement from our students. Um, a little bit on EOCC's and then also our ACT. Um, this doesn't necessarily drive a lot of what we do, but I really think it paints a really good picture of the success of our students because the AP exams, for instance, uh, that's a national assessment that's given at the same time at, you know, same day across the country. And so,
029it's other students from other high schools. And so to see our student scores, it's just it it's great data that I feel like is pretty realistic and and aligned to the great work that we're doing. So, I like to highlight that. um numbers may be a little bit challenging for you to see, but ultimately um in looking at our AP exams from this past year, so we had about 919 uh exams that were taken by about 488 students. So students will take multiple exams, 919 uh of those exams. Out of the 119 or 919 exams, um 93% of those tests um was a pass. Okay, we the 93% pass rate, which again it's on a fivepoint scale, five being uh the best. Um and then uh one being you probably need a little bit more
030work. Uh a three, four, and five uh will get you college credit. Uh and so that's a big deal. We have a lot of students that earn college credit uh from those exams. And so that's really really important to to highlight. Um the last year the number of fours so the students that got a four that number has cons continued to increase. The number of students that got a five has continued to increase. Uh last let me think about this. Uh when we tested in the spring of 24 we had the most most number five scores of a five that we've had in six years. Um, and that number dropped just a little bit, but it's still high. But in all the other categories, our numbers are really, really good. Uh, and in a six-year
031period, the students that scored a one is is trending downward. I think we only had five of those students. Students that got a two is trending downward in in six years. The students that got a three, that's in the middle of the pack. It's going to be pretty consistent, but it's still um trending downward there. And then fours or fives are going up. So, it's really really good. And so if you look at this broken down by ethnicity, uh I highlighted uh the highest scores out of these students. Uh and this is out of the last five or six years. So if you look at our Asian students, that number being 4.28, um that's the highest it's been in six years. Uh you're looking at the next column down with our African-American students, you see
032the 3.24 and how that number is increasing. Also, the number of students that tested and the number of of exams uh that our students have taken. And again, this is only a three-year period that's being represented over there, but this is out of a six-year period. Um, going down, uh, our Hispanic students have stayed pretty consistent. A couple years ago, they were at a 4.09, which is which is really, really good. Uh, and so that's just something to keep an eye on as we continue to to work to improve our white students that stayed pretty consistent uh, with their score 3.98. And then down at the bottom to to wrap this up, uh, students that identify as two or more races, you see our numbers there that across the board uh, the highest number of
033students, highest number of exams, uh, and the highest average. And again, you know, looking back five, six, seven, eight years ago, I don't know exactly what some of those numbers will be. They very much could have been those. I'm not saying those are the highest of all time, but they're definitely uh in the last five or so years. taking a look at AP uh and our honors enrollment. That's I know that's something that we've kind of talked about uh as being part of a strategic plan to try and encourage uh students to challenge themselves and and take those classes. Um and again, if you just kind of look at this, you have the number of students and then the number of courses that are taken. So again, students are going to take multiple courses and
034this is combined. So you have AP and honors combined. Uh and you just kind of see where we are with the number of students um that are taking those classes. um staying pretty consistent. However, numbers are increasing in in some areas. Uh you look at our overall total number of students and the number of courses that's high uh that's increased in the last three or so years. Um and then you go across the board and looking at our Hispanic or multi-ra and white students, that number has increased. Um fall 24, we had some high numbers with our Asian and black students. Um in the fall of 23 is the highest number of of our black students with 52 of them taking 63 courses. Uh but if you look this year we have 44 taking 69
035courses. So they're taking more courses just maybe less students. Um and again last year you look at 73 uh courses are being taken by 46 students. And so um again this is not the end all beall but it's definitely something for us to just kind of keep track of and just making sure that our students are challenging themselves but also that we're challenging them as well. Uh, in looking at our ACT scores, um, right here again, I got the high the areas that are highlighted, um, is the highest score dating back to the 2122 school year. Um, our average was 23.5, which just a hair lower uh, than what it was the previous year. And also understand that sometimes this number may fluctuate depending on which students take the ACT that are still tied to
036Kirkwood High School. Um, and again, in 2425, you look at our black and African-American students um are Native American students, white students, Asian students, and students that identify two or more races. Uh you can see where um it's the highest number it's been since the 2122 school year. So again, uh this being an assessment that other students take across the country, it's good to just see where our students at Kirkwood High School compare. looking at our dual credit numbers. Uh, one of the thing I think is important um is just increasing the dual credit options that our students have. I think this is really really good because one I think we have great teachers and if we're students are already going to school, it's nice that they can get high school credit and they can
037get college credit at the same time. And so most of our college credit is during done through Missouri State University. Uh, but you can kind of just see how we um our our course offerings expanded. That number actually on the 25 26 is really 90. Sorry, it should not be 92. Um it's 90 and then 92 and then 65. And the reason why that is is because AP human geography is only offered every other year and that's a dual credit option where they can get uh they get the first semester credit, second semester credit. So that's why uh really you would take those two away. Next year it would be back up there. And then the number of sections is basically because we have uh so many students enrolled that it's increasing our sections and
038you can see how that number increased. credit. Now, we'll roll into just some of the things that that we touch on as it relates to our strategic plan and the areas of our focus. I'll turn it over to Dr. Gavin who will touch on our priority priority objective 1.2. >> Okay. Good evening. Uh related to ensuring instructional practices are student centered and responsive yielding positive outcomes for all students. uh if we look back to a year ago maybe uh March, April, May, one of the conversations that we were having as an administrative team was as it relates to our PLC's and PLC processes uh what are the things that we could be doing sort of as instructional leaders that are going to give teachers empower teachers to kind of make better decisions and to increase
039their efficacy around the process that we were going and having this been Dr. Harold's third year and my fifth year in the in the deal. You know, I think we were uh seeing and we know, you know, one of those photos is a picture of our PLC teachers meeting after school kind of comparing their uh tip goal. We know how committed and hardworking our teachers are and how uh big a problem solvers they are. uh but also sometimes in our PLC process over the past couple years we noticed teachers looking to us more frequently than coming to us to say this is what we need this is what we need to do. So as the year was wrapping up that was in our minds as being important and then serendipity occurred where I ran into
040Brian Painter at an event and he showed me his PLC dashboard at Tilman and I left that lunch and told Seth I said I have dashboard envy. uh in part because what Brian had done was really uh lay out all the different kind of components of the PLC process so that teachers in one spot had at their fingertips all the things that were district initiatives, building initiatives, learning and so forth. And so uh I we went about kind of doing the work and we piloted it in the first quarter with just our PLC leaders but now we've kind of transferred that to the whole school. So teachers can really go and see like what did we do on this PD day? What is the district's goal related to this? So we were really looking kind
041of to to push for them to to empower and add efficacy. Um and so then as we were doing that, a couple of the topics that we did is it's been over a decade since we've engaged and defined learning uh with our CT partnerships with special school district. And we didn't talk about uh the achievement gap as it relates to students with IEPs, but in our data that we look at, we know that that definitely exists. And so working with Colleen Card and working with Dr. Gran and Dr. Dickinson, we were able to sort of we landed on a text which is like 30 days the to co-taught classroom which was sort of very concrete 30 things you could kind of do to build your team to make it efficient, effective. We integrated that into
042our PD program at the beginning of the year and we have kind of a circle back at a couple different times. But we have received a lot of feedback that just giving those partners some basic ground rules and structures has been really instrumental in helping that team work effectively. Um, you know, as we're going to talk about, uh, we, uh, brought a total participations technique textbook to the to the school and our PLC process a couple years back. And that was really intended to be a resource to help teachers as they were problem solving around uh growing students or tackling challenging things is what are sort of some universals or some common uh or brainstorming topics of lessons and activities we could use that would en ensure total participation. And so Dr. Herrell as we
043continued the year said, "Hey, I want to make sure people stay focused on that." And so the cell phone ban offered us sort of a new option where part of our back- to-school learning was really kind of thinking about what does a classroom that's tech-free uh require and offer us and how might our Tpts be used to promote connection between students and so in that way we we have uh continued that work. Um we had going along that line of empower and advocacy uh We were given a lot of tight and loose structures, but a lot a fair amount of loose structures from Dr. Grown and Dr. Dickinson in terms of what the work was to be done by our staff on our PD days. And we had a couple backto-back days that went in
044October and then election day. And so what we were able to do was sort of lay out for teachers where here were the sort of non-negotiables, but given your goal and given these time pieces, how do you want to spend that time? how do you want to uh target your uh tip goal that's linked to that power standard? And so we had uh PLC leaders who kind of created those plans. Those plans looked very different because people were at different places in the process both in the curriculum revision process in terms of maybe the staff members that were a part of that group and the challenges or opportunities that that were uh being had. And so uh you know we talked a little bit about after school learning. You know Dr. Herald brought back uh
045in part last year to build community some afterchool learning that had not happened at Kirkwood High School since I had been there in a very long time. And so continuing on this thread, one of the paths that we took to afterchool learning last year, a lot of the focus was kind of whole school community building where we shared tips and kind of tackled a topic. But uh this semester we really pivoted and converted that afterchool learning sessions to being based in the department or the PLC uh in conjunction with supervising principles where we kind of allowed groups to sort of target their needs and time based on you know what was going on and and what was needed. uh we've talked a lot about restorative practices and that has been a focus and so uh
046doing restorative circles as a proactive sort of means of uh of that has been a focus and so uh a lot of our PLC sessions a lot of our afterchool learning sessions a lot of meetings that have been led uh by supervising principles we've begun that experience with the circle work in part just to show teachers an exemplar of how that could be used to build community but also how it could be used or integrated into a means of sort of content review or introduction. So, we're kind of doing multiple things. Um, you know, Dr. Grana has brought the clarity for learning book to to us with Dr. Dickinson and that was one of the tight components of our first semester. uh where uh one of the things in that book it highlights is the
047significance or importance of teachers having shared conversations over what does sort of uh expected outcomes look like and examining student work. And so one of the big things that and we met with our PLC leaders last week and overwhelmingly their repeated c one of their repeated celebrations for the year was that time in on the November PD day where teachers examine student work and had conversations about you know is that meeting an expectation almost meeting the expectation exceeding the expectation. And the other positive piece of feedback that came from those teachers was because we had sort of decentralized those days, people didn't feel stressed to sort of get through a series of of checklists. And so they said, you know, we could meander and we evolved into a different conversation which wasn't exactly scripted, but
048also helped us kind of advance our understanding of some of those clarity for learning components. So I want to uh be sure to celebrate that. We also with Dr. Brown and Dr. Dickinson, they provided us an exemplar for how some of our singleton PLC's will work. Obviously, you know, our our professional learning communities when you're talking about sophomore English or biology, those are big groups, multiple teachers, but we do also have a fair number of sort of singleton courses. And so one of the repeated pieces of feedback that we got from teachers was if that's sort of my deal, I'm not always feeling totally valued, heard, advanced in the moment. And so Dr. Brown and Dr. Dickinson brought this tool and we also got positive feedback from that um at at the end at the
049end of our experience. So I think that in totality those would be sort of the highlights of our experience was really you know empowering teachers, building efficacy and we could see throughout the semester. You know, we it wasn't all perfect and sometimes in retrospect, we say, "Okay, we're going to have to do a couple things different." Uh, but I think by giving people choice, they've really been dialed in and have given us really frank feedback too about these are things that we need to do a better job of. These are and so, uh, we thought that that's been a real great point of celebration. Thank you. Yeah, just kind of adding to those last parts, you know, one of the things we we try to do is is just touch base with our PLC leaders
050and our teams, department chairs, just to get feedback. And so, uh, we definitely know some things that that we can always do to get better and and also celebrate some of the the great wins we're doing because it's it's a lot of hard work academically, um, you know, to to teach and I think most people know that, uh, especially when there's high expectations from not only themselves, but the community and our students and so, uh, they do a lot of great work with their PLC's. Another thing I'll touch on with Dr. Gavin, um, last year he started just working with our first and second year teachers. So, so this year they would be secondyear teachers and then our first year teachers this year. Uh, just to keep a little bit of consistency. They stay kind
051of um w with the same purpose and and focus um a little bit more on on some of the stuff that the our our new teachers get at the beginning year at the district level, but then also working with Amanda McCay, our building mentor, uh, just to kind of keep some things consistent. Uh and Dr. Gav Gavin has done a good job of arranging some learning walks where uh we just get uh our our first and second year teachers some coverage and we allow them to go out uh with a colleague or two and they go and just observe some classrooms just to kind of uh see some things for themselves. So they're constantly just trying to pick up on some new things and I've heard some good feedback of of those teachers being able
052to go see some veterans teachers. So that that's been really good. Appreciate the work there. Uh we'll now move on to talk on um priority objective 1.3 and I'll turn over to Mr. Mark. >> Yeah. So, one of uh the ongoing focus for us is uh this priority objective 1.3. Um finding and creating real world experiences for for our students. Uh whether they're collegebound, whether they're not. Um so, this is just some of the things that we are doing um on campus and throughout um you know, the St. Louis area. Um but this is not an exhaustive list of everything that's happening um in terms of community- based vocational instruction. Um so this is where we're providing students with disabilities um experiences to prepare for the workforce. So this would be you know on campus.
053We have the Pioneer Perks coffee shop. Um so this is um a coffee shop located right outside of the cafeteria where students with disabilities work there. They serve the students. They are dealing with money. They're building, you know, creating real real world application as far as like bu skill building. Um so we also have partnerships outside of Kirkwood High School. Um so we have a partnership with Mayor Mayor Grove uh which is a nursing facility in Kirkwood uh Shnooks which is in Depair um and then the Accent Group Solutions which is a print and design company. Um our business department is doing some wonderful things with our students. Um so in I think it was October we um the advanced marketing classes had a guest. It was a former Kirkwood graduate uh Abby Vat. Um
054she was a 2019 graduate from from Kirkwood High School. She now currently works works for the St. Louis Cardinals um in the promotions um division. So she came to campus, she met with our advanced marketing team. She um tasked them with creating groups and to create a giveaway basically. Um so students worked in groups, they gave their best pitch. Um, and one of the ideas was to create a David bobble David David Fest bobblehead giveaway night. Um, this is the 15th year anniversary. This coming year will be the 15th year anniversary of the Colonels won the World Series. Um, so they thought it'd be like cool to do like a giveaway for David Freeze, hometown hero. Um, one of their ideas was like was to do a limited edition bobblehead. So using David Freeze's last
055name, Freeze. So having it like be made of ice, not of ice, but like looking like ice. And that's like the limited edition. So, just a cool little thing that they created. Um, hopefully, you know, she was really impressed with it. Hopefully she brings it back to her superiors and it happens. So, if you go to a Cardinals game, you might be able to get one of those bobbleheads. Um, they also um work with Musavania, which is a creative agency out of Maplewood. Um, this is the sixth year that they have worked with them. Um so the picture on the bottom right is our students going there um taking a tour of their facility working with some of those agents um to um you know they were teaching and mentoring our students how to create
056a integrated marketing campaign. So everything from social media to ads to you know everything that that encompasses. So just a really cool environment for them to go to. Um but they also meet once a week through Zoom with some of these agents. Um, so as they're building their integrated marketing campaign, they're getting some feedback. They're pitching ideas to them. They're hearing things back from real world um, you know, agents who can tell them, "Hey, you know, have you thought about this?" And then the culminating project at the end of the um, semester for our students is to to pitch it to, you know, to their classmates uh, in in class. So again, just a really cool activity um, and an opportunity for our students. Um, for those of us that went to the Chili Bowl
057um during Turkey Day week, if you saw any of the ads that were going on, there were commercials um for our local businesses that that donated um the chili um that was created by our students. So, just again a lot of really cool things that our students are doing outside of of campus. So, Dr. Ford is going to talk a couple more pitches. Um as we continue along the path of real world application, I first want to draw attention to our Southtech and STL cap uh partnerships that we have that is through South Tech is through a partnership with our um SSD and STL caps is another local agency. Um, one person that I want to just kind of personalize this and just from each one um, particularly from South Tech, there's a young man
058named uh, John. He was uh, with us actually came here uh, from North Kirkwood uh, middle school. And John wasn't the most ideal student. He was one of the students, you know, why am I doing this and why am I why do I need to do this or when am I going to use this? Um, but after being uh accepted at South Tech and I remember having conversations with him and I would always just ask him and check in. Um, and his responses were so much different than his experience was prior to it. Um, and basically at South John found a purpose in going to school every day. Uh, John now knows that he will uh go off into a trade. Uh, particularly maybe right now he's focusing on HVAC. he knows exactly what he
059wants to do now where I don't think he would have had that same vigor and um excitement about going to school and learning had he stayed at Kirkwood High School. Although it's a great place and in a traditional format, it just wasn't for John, right? Um but he still comes to school in the morning at this time. Uh but he if you don't catch him in the morning, you will not see him later on. he'll come to games and stuff but John loves being at Southtech as he has found his purpose there. Um another situation with STL caps they place students in engineering arenas uh medical fields, business fields. Uh one student by the name of Sam who um had a great interest in the medical field. Early in the semester Sam began to go
060to the hospitals as they are really boots on the ground hands-on experiences. And what Sam found out is that he does not want to be in the hospital anymore. Um, and it was it was I mean we laughed, but it was like a very serious thing. There were certain parts of the hospital and areas of the hospital that um he just wasn't uncomfortable with. Um he had a conversation with Dr. Lukey who uh who leads SDL CAPS and we changed uh worked to change Sam's schedule to get him back acclimated. So he was a full-time student at Kirkwood High School. But those those two examples highlight one finding what I want to do or finding a purpose and two um finding what I don't want to do. And so just imagine as Sam goes off
061to college and says I want to be a doctor of some type and you know he and his family work hard to pay to get through school and then he realizes that this is not what I want to do. Sam got to figure that out free of charge. um he got to figure it out in the safety of this partnership that we have with STL caps and he is well on his way to continuing um into his new path that he wants to go into the business world now. Um so those are just some u small examples. There's so many other students that are at uh South Tech and CAPS who are thriving um through those programs and partnerships. A few other things I want to uh point out is how our uh journalism department
062every year they attend the JA uh conference. This year it was in Nashville. Uh several students once again uh won awards. Some where they have to submit them ahead of time. Some are done on the spot where they are given a task and they either have to create or write or do something. Um and those are judged by these um advisors that are there and there um are several workshops where they get to partner with professionals in the industry as well as peers from across the uh country. Um every time that we go and I say we as in Kirkwood um we walk away being one of the um highest rated schools in the nation and that's a u a proud marker that we continue to carry. Um, also within that, multiple students currently are
063working and writing for and with the Web of Kirkwood Times. Uh, there was some work that was published uh on a Turkey Day uh spread that was done, this um latest issue that was done by a junior um a current junior that's in Dr. Gavin's class. Uh some other things that we have going on are uh through our fax department as well. Uh we have several fashion shows that we partner with uh Webster Groves with and we uh partner with Lynenwood uh University and we attend and participate in their fashion show. Um their advertisement this year for this year's fashion show was one of our students who's a senior this year. uh she was chosen as the I guess the covergirl you can say for their fashion show and it was uh featuring a dress
064that she designed out of ties. She took I don't know how many ties but several ties and made like a corset type top and a skirt. Um and I actually was looking at the fashion show for this year and there were two other designs that I think copied hers. um because I hadn't seen it before her, but there were two other students in this year's fashion show who who used uh ties in in a similar manner. Um so those are just some things that we have going on. Also with in our fax department um starting last year uh this year will be the second annual trip to New York fashion district uh where students will have um several opportunities to experience cultural um events. I can remember one student last year who was very excited
065to go. Um, and just in conversation with her, she was like, "Not only am I going to New York, but like this this is the first time that I've ever been on a plane or been somewhere this far away from home." Um, and so for some people, you may not think of that. Um, of how that impacts students, but they are able to go to workshops on Broadway costume dresses. They go to the fashion district. They visit Central Park. uh they visit the obs uh observatory observatory deck at the Empire State Building and meet with other professionals in the u fashion and tech textile uh industry. So that once again give them more upfront uh upfront personal uh connections to the things that they think they want to do um in the comfort of being
066in high school. So now as I leave and I go on to my next journey, I I have something to grow on. I have a foundation to base my opinions on when it comes to choosing um my career paths. >> The next slide Dr. Jensen will cover. So, uh, Kirkville High School continues to work. Kirkville High School continues to work to ensure that our students um, and the work that we do reflects the equity and diversity and inclusion that's very important to Kirkwood High School. This is my fourth year at Kirkwood High School and I believe each year um, at the high school we get better at identifying practices and policies that we can implement to help our students. Um, restorative practice, which I believe Dr. Gavin kind of mentioned, but I will say there
067are about 43 staff members currently trained um in restorative practices and I teachers are are using the circles because I can see them as I do evaluations and walkthroughs in the classrooms. Teachers or using restorative practices when they're having conversations with students um maybe about challenging things. So they have utilized restorative practice as a way to have those conversations to ensure dignity is kept um when they are talking with students. Uh that middle picture, not the top but the one in the middle is a picture of our chaos ambassadors. Uh chaos stands for keep healing and overcoming struggles. Dr. Candace Cox uh is a licensed therapist and we worked with her last year. She came that's her in the middle with a white t-shirt. She came in and she trained teachers, students, uh, counselors, teachers,
068students, counselors. Yeah. And on her keep healing and overcoming struggles concept. And basically, it's it's a way to identify students who may be dealing with trauma. So, we talked with our students and we're like, "Hey, the goal is not for you to identify every student in school that has trauma, but as you are in classroom, as you are in the cafeteria, a as you're at football games, be aware of your surroundings. Be aware of things that other students may be going through, peers, and use the strategies in which you were taught within the chaos model to to try to diffuse that. and also look at reaching out to social workers, teachers and administrators to help with with those challenges. And then teachers will also be doing the same. We are currently working to and we
069are hoping second semester we will have a concept where there will be a chaos teacher facilitator along with the student that can help uh facilitate minor challenges maybe cell phones tardies uh these chaos leaders and teachers will sit down with students and have those restorative courageous conversations um special Olympics so that picture at the bottom to bottom right, left, bottom right. Um, that is a picture of our one picture of our Special Olympics activity. Kirkwood High School has hosted Special Olympics for these past three years. Um, and last March, we had over 150 students with disabilities across the St. Louis County area come to Kirkwood High School um, and work with students that, you know, that don't have disabilities. And I would say that Kirk High School students really really stepped up. I think they
070really enjoy this opportunity to be leaders and to participate in such a special um activity. I know the parents love it. Special school district students love it and so do our Kirkwell High School students. And in extension of Special Olympics, uh, Kirk High School is looking to work to become a unified champion school, which with talking to Miss Cord will allow us an opportunity to continue to identify uh opportunities to bring students with disabilities and students with non-disabilities together to participate in additional activities um additional co-curricular activities. So, we are working on that. The At the bottom left is um a picture of our BACC group. Uh well, I can't just say it's BACC, so it could be University students. It could also be Webster Grove students along with Kirkwood High School. Um that's just
071a picture of our annual trip. Uh we went to Arkansas and we are actually standing in front of the Little Rock 9 school. BACC continues to be an avenue and a place for students to come and have courageous conversations. is open to all students. We invite all students to be a part of BACC um to discuss academic and personal goals. Next, no this week BACC is actually hosting after school extended library hours for final exams. It's open to all students. So, we're hoping to, you know, get a good crowd. The picture at the top is mental health awareness. Um our social worker, Miss Gibbs is the sponsor for this club. There are 150 students on the roster, but she said about 60 are truly active. And the goal is to ensure students are aware of
072mental health challenges, but to also let them know of the positives about mental health and to supply resources, um to provide activities that are calming, um mindfulness activities just to ensure that students are able to have, you know, a good a good school experience. Is it's hard being a teenager, right? So this is the mental health awareness club helps with that. Peer tutors um are students that uh we have a program in the library that's after school students sign up to get assistance from students. Um Dr. Harold shared with me this morning that the numbers were last year I believe there were 38 students that requested assistance and there were 38 students that were actually tutors but this year there are 50 plus students that requested assistance and then 70 plus tutors. So as we
073can see students are okay with asking other students for assistance. Could that be because of restorative practices? could be because of chaos or just the way Kirkland High School build relationships, but we are glad to see that that the number has increased. And I just want to add uh being a peer tutor also is an opportunity for students to earn A+ hours, which is another alternative that students can use if they decide not to go to a four-year college. >> Thank you, Dr. Jens. Uh next slide here looking at uh how we're we're uh focusing on our school climate of belonging and and fostering that climate of belonging and a culture of dignity across our our high school. Um you this is where a lot of the things that we try to do which we
074do have fun at the high school. I know sometimes it seems like we're always businesslike but we do try to have fun with our students uh and some of the things that we're doing. We we've touched on a little bit with the circles and that's just been really good. We started our year with the the supervising uh principles uh working with their departments to uh introduce circles and talk about things that are not school related but then also school related and then each after school learning session we've had we've uh we've picked that up of us doing circles with our staff and and trying to build that community. So I know it's been touched on but that's been really good. Uh we continue to try to expand our PIS positive pioneer shoutouts and that's just
075where um Amanda McKay again I mentioned our building mentor who's established a process for uh teachers to recognize students and then students and families to also recognize teachers and then and then uh staff to recognize staff. And so, uh, it's been powerful just to see some of the things that come through. And I spent some time at one of our faculty meetings earlier this year just reading some of those off, uh, because I think the biggest thing for me is when you see the parents that respond back because that email goes to parents, uh, and and seeing the parents that respond back about thank you so much for recognizing, you know, my son, my daughter. Uh, we really appreciate it and you guys do a great job. Thanks for going out of your way for
076my child. And so, it's just good uh, to continue uh, with just those simple recognitions. Another thing that uh I I feel very proud of. Uh is just our our district maintenance team uh really helped us um with our guidance counseling area. Uh we we had a a particular space that really was kind of one big conference room. Uh and our team came in and put a wall up and basically create a a a space that's got comfortable seating. Uh it's somewhat confidential now. Uh in our counseling office, every single room is full. It it's being taken that we just we don't have the space or availability for space, but by doing this, uh, it it's allowed our our counseling team to have kind of a a nice calming, quieter space in our counseling office.
077And so, very appreciative of that. Uh, the picture on there, the bottom left, that's just in our library. Dr. Yaken Jaggin talked about pure tutors. Uh, Miss Leatherberry and Miss Janet Me Reinhardt, our librarians, do a fabulous job with programming. Uh, they're awesome. Uh, each and every day they're they're trying to find ways and uh, to engage our students in that space. Uh they're always creating activities. They're promoting books. Uh they're keeping up with what's current around the country as it relates to promoting books uh and getting students involved in a high school setting. So I just got a picture of their maker space there. Uh they're really trying to do everything they can to just to make the library space that students uh enjoy coming to. It's it really is kind of the hub
078of our campus where it's located. Uh and there's a lot of activity in there. Our students that have independent periods will come there. Obviously, we have our pride center which we have content teachers there every class period helping students. Uh we feel like we've seen an increase. I think some of the feedback I've gotten uh this year is we feel like we've had an increase of students going to Pride Center. Uh and some feel that could potentially be just be because of lack of cell phones and things of that nature, not being able to to play around on their phone in class. So, they know there's something I need to do. So, they're spending more time uh getting help uh in the Pride Center, also testing centers in that location. So, our library has been
079a great space. We appreciate a lot of the work uh that our staff does. You see the picture up top with the dress. Uh the clubs and activities obviously are very very important and we try to make sure that we promote that as much as possible. Uh you know, there's about 1500 students that are involved in club and club clubs and activities and that's and that's going to be multiple students in in several clubs. I get it. But again, we look at those rosters being about 1500 that are showing up to the events that we're either having after school or doing home room is really really good. Uh our our Spanish club hosted our third annual Hispanic Heritage Celebration again this year. Uh and that's the picture up there. Um that you see with the
080yellow dress. We have some different cultural things that were on display. Uh Miss Pangorn, I did not get to try your enchiladas. Um but I wish I would have because I heard that they were good. Um but but that was that was a really really that was a really really good event that we're proud of. Up in the top right, uh we had our new student social that again we've done three years in a row. Uh these are just students that are new to Kirkwood High School. They've not been in our district before. It's all grade levels and we just bring them in for a home room. Our PO helps with with getting them donuts and and breakfast treats and snacks and we just play some fun interactive games with those students and uh just
081a good opportunity to kind of mix those students in with other students. Um down at the bottom right we have our wonderful school resource officer. Uh he's quite the chef. Uh he worked with our FCCLA group as they did cooking with cops again and we get um how many about eight to 10 something like that police officers that were up here on a Monday night and they each had to basically pick their what they were going to cook. Some of it was secretive and then our our team went out and got the ingredients and then they all competed for a competition and uh we had police officers that were paired with students. Um and so that was just such a neat experience to be able to do that. That middle picture is our Best Buddies
082program who continues to go above and beyond to make sure that we have an inclusive space at school. Proud of the work that they're doing. Um, you know, obviously that's one thing we always tell our students and families when they come to Kirkwood High School, especially as eighth graders, as freshmen, is about getting involved and how there's something for everybody. Uh, we pride ourselves on being able to do that. Obviously, we have a lot of athletic teams. Uh, I think 24 25 athletic teams that students can participate on. Um and and that's you know always continues to be successful. Uh and that's just across the board. Um obviously we had a successful season this year with our football team. We also had our boys swim team took second in state. Uh and so that's phenomenal.
083Girls swim team last spring took second in state. Uh they continue to do well at the state competition. Girls water polo took second. Track team took fourth and and that's two years in a row that our boys track team has placed at the state meet. And so I'm probably forgetting somebody but I'm just trying to go off the top of my head. very proud of our athletic programs and coaches and those that are involved. Uh we had our our play in the Blackbox Theater this past week and and uh if you have not seen a play, I highly encourage you to do it because our students do a fabulous job. Uh it's so uh interesting to see them because we see them walking through the halls and in the classroom sometimes, but when you see
084them in a in a acting as a character in a play, it it's fabulous what their uh talent level is. Uh and we've had several students that have gone on and and have performed on Broadway or at the MUN just like this past summer. And so we're very proud of of uh our performing arts. Obviously have band and choir. Went to a choir concert earlier this year and I I saw um a couple students in their cheerleading uniforms and then a couple football players in their uniforms and come to find out they they come up from the field and they sing really quick and then they go back down to the field and so um I think that's good. And Festival of Choirs, Mr. Andrew Gib Clark did that. All of our our performing arts
085programs now have kind of a festival event where we have district uh elementary and middle school students come work with our high school students and they put on a concert and I think he had 427 uh students up there for that evening concert. They were on our campus all day. So we had fourth graders on up uh on our campus and working with our students and I think that's such a neat experience to expose them to a high school campus. You see a lot of fourth graders eating lunch in our commons. strange on a school day to see that their voices are different than what we're used to. Uh, and I found out that there were several requests to go to the nurse. So, our nurses were busy that day. Uh, so I, you know,
086I I haven't g to our elementary schools yet, but I would give them a shout out because, uh, they do a great job and I understand a little bit more about their work now. Um, no, but we're just proud of our performing arts, everything they're doing. Again, going back to some of our clubs, um you know, one thing that has been a huge positive again as it relates to our elementary schools is just our math club. We have so many students that do a tremendous job being a part of our math club and they go to our elementary schools and work with those students. Um I think e once a week um or or for sure a couple times a month they're going to those schools. They go towards the end of the day and
087they work with those students. And uh it's so neat because I've I've ran into families and that have students in elementary that talk about that that they they've seen them in the classroom. Even my own child uh has mentioned that as well. She got to see high school students in a room and and kids think that's so cool. Whether it's math, whether it's singing in the choir, they think it's cool to work with high school students and I think that's that's so awesome. Um coming up will be our third annual I think we've done it before. It's three years in a row. We may have done it before, but I think it kind of died out just a little bit with with CO. But our equations club does a competition on our high school campus
088uh on an afternoon uh the last week of this semester. And so we have elementary there's there's about 100 students. I think maybe four different elementary maybe all of them are hidden, but we'll have about 100 elementary students come to our school and our students help with this equations competition. And so uh I think that's so cool. Anytime our clubs can give back to other schools within our district, uh very proud of that. Um, it's pretty much it on our clubs. I think I hit on most everything. Like I said, it's just it's very very important part of our work and we try to make sure that we're keeping that stuff going. One, it's it's fun for our our staff, but definitely fun uh for our students. Just a couple things to wrap up this
089presentation. Just want to touch on just a little bit with our our climate survey data because I know that's something that within this district um is important to our work. And so this is just the top responses of our student survey. Okay. And so you can see at the bottom there uh the number of participants. You can see how much higher just this year was uh than the last two times we gave the survey. And that was important for us just to make sure try to get our participation back up there. Uh overall the the one that's got the the most favorable responses would be our supportive relationships. Uh I just really like the question of do you have a teacher or other adult from school who you can count on to help you no
090matter what. And for 87% of our students respond favorably. I think that's really really good. And that's that's an increase uh of five percentage points from last time we gave this as it relates to belonging. That's really the only question uh that that or or one particular area that is related to belonging. So it's just an 83% respond favorably in that area. And then lastly, school safety because it's not to mention that's extremely important to the work we do is ensuring that our students and staff are safe every day. Uh and so how often um students get into physical fights at your school? 83% responded favorably. And I think that's very very important because I'm going to be honest, I feel like anymore conflicts are handled differently. Uh I just feel like students uh tend
091to have their hands on each other more often than what they used to. Uh just conflict and that's what you know Dr. Jensen's touched on some of this stuff, but um one that's I don't feel that that's a major issue for us. Uh, but it is one that that can be really really disruptive. And so I put that up there because I think that's important to highlight. Um, that that that's an area that I feel like we're doing a good job in. Um, just a couple others real quick here. Um, as it relates to belonging, how connected do you feel with the adults at your school? Uh, 83% of our students responded favorably. And then you see kind of the breakdown by ethnicity. For for whatever reason, Hispanic was not on there, but that is
09277% uh on there. Uh and then you can see that's a 5% increase from the spring uh this past spring when we gave the survey. So we're proud of those results knowing that we still uh have room for improvement. Um and then just looking at like the the last couple years and what that goal looks like and and kind of some of the progress we've made. Again, obviously as it relates to sense of belonging, we want to see that 61% be uh a little bit higher. Uh but we do like the trajectory of where that's going. um and the 61% in the area sense of belonging uh being higher than than last fall and this past spring. So, uh that's good to know. Also, as it relates to that, how much support do the adults
093at your school give you? And 72% of students responded favorably. So, this would be one of the highest ones in that category. And then if you look at our eth ethnicity breakdown, obviously there's some areas that we still need to focus on. Uh but overall, you know, we've improved in this particular area as it relates to the survey. Uh, and I I think we've improved in some specific areas as it relates to this. And I think that's the last one. Yes, that's the last one I have. So, >> so I want to thank the high school and I know the board will have questions. And I know that was a lot. If you guys think about our high school though, everything that happens at a high school in terms of the pathways for students, in
094terms of the activities for students, in terms of the support, um, it's the end result. It's it's a place where we kind of keep score regarding graduation and and set students off into that next level. and some of the things they they don't I mean because there's so much going on if you didn't get a chance to walk through the hallways for Turkey Day and everything that just again shows the sense of community uh and pride that goes into that and I'm always impressed at the level of of professionalism those kids put into those hallways. Those things are pretty cool. Um but just the different activities that this goes on. I joke with the high school team that every single day something is happening at the high school. It doesn't matter if it's a a
095Monday or a Saturday or an evening or whatever it is. every single day something is happening at the high school and it's a place where our kids find um where they go and and what they want to do and where they want to go to. So, thank you for letting us have a little longer time than what's typical just because there's so much going on. I'll turn it back over to Judy for questions. >> Thank you and thank you all. Um that's was a really great presentation. Um we'll start with Dr. Nicole. >> Thank you. Um great job. Um I'm love to hear about the opportunities and the exposure that we're providing for our students. Um, good to see that BACC is still holding on to the traditions because I was part of that inaugural
096group that started it and went on that first college tour. Um, I guess it's kind of ironic. I it was what inspired me to go to an H.B.CU and I have my alma mater on today. So, great to see that. And then also just working in U city like the camaraderie and that community partnership is great. Like our kids look forward to it and they have met lifelong friends through that. So great job with that. Both ways. Yes, absolutely. Um as well as those community connections with Kirkwood Police Department. I didn't know that was a thing. The the cooking with cops. That sounds like fun. Um, I think we should probably try to do like the chili cook off. Can we do it? Can we do Can the board come taste? Um, also the work
097around mental health with Candace Cox. She is amazing. So, kudos for that. Um, it was also great to see the increase in student group testing scores. Um, that was great. Um yet um with that increase um I just know that there were not there wasn't one African-American on the National Honor Society for this year. So that was kind of um I mean if you have that data I don't know and I'm not asking a question. I'm just wanting to put that out there that we talk about sense of belonging. Um when kids work hard and and achieve great things, they deserve to be in spaces where their peers are. Um so just keeping that in mind, my word is intentional. Let's be intentional. And when we're in those spaces, just asking that question, who's missing
098from the table? Who we look at this? Who's missing? Um that's like lowhanging fruit to me. Um so but just otherwise keep up the great work and um yeah, great job. Thank you, >> Laura. Yeah, it's a lot of information and I'm sure there's a lot of things missing there. Um, just a comment and I know you guys addressed a lot of things like this, but um, those of us who went to the Missouri School Board Association um, back in October, we had the pleasure of hearing from uh, Temple Grandon. And I can't stop thinking about some of the things that she talked about with how many people are out there that aren't necessarily celebrated because their skills, their talents, the way their brains work aren't necessarily the ones that society celebrates. Um, and I
099feel like we as a community a lot of times focus on the AP tests and the honors and you know when I look at a lot of those opportunities with um, you know, Mussolinia and a lot of these classes, I can't help but wonder if those self- select for a lot of um, a certain kind of student and it does look like we have some opportunities for um, you know, our average students or you know students who aren't on a college pathway and things like that. So, I would just say um I want to make sure that we continue to look for creative ways to make sure that all students are really getting a lot of opportunities, creative opportunities, exciting opportunities. Um, you know, things that would inspire them and maybe help them find the
100thing that lights them up. Um, and you very well may be doing that. We definitely heard about a few of them, but uh I just think maybe as a society we don't focus on that enough. So that's it. Thank you, J. Marie. You all are busy. Um there are so many great things going on at at KHS. Um your focus on relationships is um evident in in your in the work that you're doing. Um, I can see it. I can feel it as you all um talk. Um, your work with new teachers and um the work with the SSD teachers is going to have huge impacts on on student achievement. That is exciting to hear. I also really um thank you Dr. Gavin for uh being willing to learn from our Elementary. How cool is
101that? That um you know, you you saw an idea from our elementary and you're like, "Hey, I've got dashboard envy." And then you you had leaders that supported you to to make that happen. And thank you for recognizing Dr. Dr. Painter's work in this that we need to celebrate each other because this is hard work. And so, um, I really appreciate that you continue to have a focus on different pathways for kids. You know, as as Dr. Ford was saying, um, the different examples like I could picture, you know, picture kids really finding their pathway. Um, which is is great. I also really appreciate that parents have access to the career tool. I think that um you know as parents oftentimes they're they're just looking for tools and looking how to help their student and
102so I think that that is great stuff. Um can you tell me just a little bit more about the the work um you shared about um the SSD and the I want to make sure I'm understanding that Dr. >> Sure. So, you know, every year uh you know, we have teachers who are engaged in co-taught classrooms or experiences >> and we have tried to develop or nurture those relationships by keeping highly effective relationships connected when at all possible. Um, but also just as we were kind of working through the last couple years, you know, you see uh things that are lovely but things that could be better. And so just out of seeing those things that could be better, you know, having a conversation with Miss Card and saying, you know, what is the first
103step to sort of a more structured way of building relationships and kind of saying, "Hey, here are the five questions maybe we should, you know, define, make sure we've all define before we start the year or um, you know, what's going to be a phrase or word to use maybe when we're having a hard moment or and so what we liked about that book because it was uh you know that there was another book floated that was kind of spiral brown, but this was just sort of like targeted, you know, and we we did a couple of them that everyone had to do and then we let groups sort of flip through the book and sort of pick a couple other of those days to do that. I I love this because you saw something
104that has such potential to have great impact when you you have great relationships with in a co- but you looked at it and you're like okay we've got some work to do and you buckled down and you did the work and um that that's so exciting to me. Um, I also wanted to kind of check in. How is the cell phone situation going? Go going. >> Uh, I mean, it's going. >> I I think we've seen several positives. Uh, obviously the learning environment is uh less distractions in the in the classroom setting, which has been a huge benefit for our teachers. Um, >> and I I think for a lot of students, they they've at least some feedback they've liked not having to to have their phone and kind of like that structure a little
105bit. Uh you're still going to have your challenges. >> Sure. >> Um I've run into some issues. Uh headphones are still kind of something that that tends to um be somewhat of issues. Students having wireless headphones. It's just something we're just try to stay on um and and continue to reiterate expectations. Uh it's a huge change, especially think of seniors who've not >> had to deal with this in the three years that they've been a student at Kirkwood High School. Uh and so um you know just some of the coming and going with with students that may have off campus may go to Southtech or SDL caps or off-campus lunch like you know it's you know >> Yeah. All of a sudden they've got to get back to campus. >> Yeah. And and they use
106their phone to I mean what the biggest challenge early on is is friends that try to coordinate lunch plans together and they don't have a way to do that. And so um it's just those little things that just kind of create a little bit more of a management thing for us. But it's not I mean it's our students have been phenomenal with it. They really have and so is our staff and our families have had great support. Um it's like anything. I mean you're going to have times where where it just needs to be addressed a little bit more and then times that it's it's going really really well. >> Okay, great. Thanks. And then the last piece I I don't even think that I have a question. I just want to um in terms
107of the students that aren't on track. First of all, um I completely appreciate that you are looking at that data and really t, you know, breaking it down because those are students and um we do need to make sure that kids have have the ability to graduate. Um and so I guess I would just ask um you to think about if there's anything um else that's needed to that for support um that you know you can let us know and you don't have to answer it now um but if there's anything needed I think that um I don't know I think it's important that that we make sure that we are meeting all of our students needs and it's not a very big number um but But it is a number that we can pour
108into and we need to pour into. So, um, thank you again for all your work and your dedication. Um, and your your just ability that you're looking at things and making changes to areas that aren't aren't working. So, great job. And with the question about graduation, I do want to make sure because some folks may not know that when we have students that um have significant disabilities that go on to what's called vocational skills program. So they can stay in school until age 21. It's why we're probably never going to have 100% graduation because those students technically don't count as graduates even though they're going on to programs that they should go on to and that they should do. Um, and so one of the things that I know the high school does is use
109the early warning system to really look at those students and then those numbers dwindle down. So you might see the year start with 14, but by the end of the year those are down to the bare minimum. Um, and students can still take summer school and go through those pathways. But that's why we look at Missouri options which does allow a student to graduate in a non-traditional pathway but still earn a diploma um, and look at other pathways for students as well. So you're you're correct. they they really um I will say that the uh emphasis that we have in our Pioneer Pathways program with the class size and and the um intensive support that's there is something that's pretty unique and and provides a lot of opportunities for students as well. But I just
110wanted to make sure that in case people were unaware of that vocational skills program, it's exactly where the kids should be. Um and unfortunately the state of Missouri penalizes us is counting them as a non-graduate for a couple years. um even though technically they they are continuing in a program that they should continue in. So >> thank you Dr. Bailey for that. >> There it is. Okay. Um first I just want to say Dr. Ford I love how you talked about the class of 2026 and you said that they all really seem to just love each other. That was such a great like strong statement and shows your connection with the students and it was just it was really great. I also really appreciated how you talked about everything that we're doing is helping students
111find their purpose because we for years I feel have talked about again like our goal is you know we're looking at graduation rates and ACT scores but we are ultimately trying to get students to be in the best place of themselves as we're putting them out into the world. That was just a really unique way to to say that. Um, I wanted to just mention a couple things. You we've had an increase of students taking the dual credit program through Missouri State, which is great. Um, as a parent who is going through that, um, there's a lot of support that parents need uh, to go through that program is impossible to go through. The number of times have to call them to even get the credits or answer questions is just is a nightmare. So
112just flagging that because I've had so many other people also complain and they're like we don't know who to ask and it says you have to go to Missouri State and they don't answer the phone. So just flagging that. Um I also loved learning uh uh Dr. Gavin about you know you you heard about the dashboard from Dr. Painter. We as a board are always asking like how are you sharing this information with other schools? How is that being shared with another elementary school or up to the high school or you know vice versa? And I think that's a great example of our leaders really like doing and sharing what we are asking ourselves constantly. So just again thank you for sharing that. Um it's it's just a great example. Um you mentioned the mental
113health awareness club. I've heard from a lot of students about the work that's being done there and a number of them have asked you know if there's more opportunity to get district funds to help more student like more students and I don't fully know what they do or anything but I guess is that something that is funded by the building or is that like a how is how is that club funded? >> Most any request we can make happen. That's one that I don't know that I've received one on. you know, they do they do a shirt, which I know I think it's a fundraiser. Um, they'll sell shirts and I and I think that may be a fundraiser for them. Um, they've done like hot cocoa and things like that on campus. We fund
114it out of our office. So, they'll they'll marshmallows, they'll do a couple different hot chocolates, whatever they do for all of our students, and that's something that that we funded every year. Um, so as far as, you know, opportunities to do things like we tell them, what do you want to do? Okay. And then kind of go from there. >> And I'll connect with the sponsor Miss Gibbs just to see because I know that um I've already committed to her that if you don't make it through the shirts, my office will cover the cost. They've got a field trip that they do like towards the end of the year. So, but um there's never enough money, I guess you could say, to provide everything and in what we could look at, but I'll make sure
115that we talk with Miss Gibbs because we don't want that to be a barrier for providing kids what they need. So, >> okay. Yeah, it just seems like there's number of increasing or a number of students that are, you know, being aware of it and that's great. that's what we'd want. But um that's really good to hear. Um Dr. Harold, you briefly mentioned the nurses um up at the high school and I just want to give a shout out to how great they are doing up there um their responsiveness. Um and I feel like that should be a way we could measure something um in the future, right? Just the way that our students that have to have really strong relationships with the nurses. Um, I mean, that's a sense of belonging in and of
116itself that I don't know if we're capturing. Um, and Julie has such great leadership up there. So, again, just something to consider. Um, I was really saddened to see our safety score is lower than we would desire. Um, and I am wondering, and I'm looking at Martis back there, sorry. Um, I'm wondering if there's an opportunity to invite or get student representation on our external safety meetings. I don't know if we've ever had students there, but for them, I know safety can mean a lot of different things, but I just wonder if that's an opportunity for there to be more awareness, even maybe our journalism students, of like all the things that we're constantly talking about. So, just a thought. And then my last thing, um, I think what really jumped out to me when
117I read through this presentation, Dr. Harold, is your slide, uh, that shows the graph on our sense of belonging score. um from when you started with us three years ago to where that score is now that is a drastic increase and that is something that we should be celebrating that we should be recognizing. You can see that our students are you know they are feeling that they belong here at an increase that it that should we should be we should be celebrating. Um, I don't feel like my term on the board that we have had such good feedback from our students and our staff about the connections with the high school, with the administration and just everything. And this this shows that this demonstrates that the work and the leadership that you have brought to
118our district is working. And so I just want to commend you on that because that that graph for me says everything. So, thank you. Yeah, I'll I'll echo that sentiment. Um, congratulations on that on that metric. Um, I would like to everything I was going to say has been covered, but um to the data which I believe is panorama driven. There's a lot of student data, but I'd like to see the staff uh data because I know we pull them on similar questions, too. So, um, and that necessarily wouldn't just be the the high school, but I think all all levels if we if we have that. So, at this point. So that's it for me. >> Just want to echo a lot of the um sentiments and comments that people have made about appreciation
119and excitement for all of the great work that's gone into um pouring into our students, not just the high school level, but that cascades down into middle school and elementary as well. And so creating that larger sense of belonging, not just at the high school, but beyond. Um Dr. Dr. Hill, you mentioned kind of at the opening of the presentation really the focus on the 100% graduation rate. I know Dr. Ba, you mentioned we're really never going to get to 100% in particular. Um I appreciate that you're you called out not just the graduation rate, but you want to ensure that the students are really prepared for what's next in life and you um said you wanted to provide an exceptional educational experience. So, I really just want to double down on that and say
120I think that's extremely important and perhaps maybe the most important thing for the span of our students kind of academic career in the Kirkwood district from KECC all the way through Kirkwood High School is to feel like they had an exceptional educational experience and they're prepared for what's next. So, not just graduation isn't the end, it's the beginning. And so, the the more that we have our students prepared for the next step is really what we should be aiming for. And I appreciate that you all are really thinking about that. Um, and thinking about the individual needs of our students. Um, and notice that we identified 85% going to either a two or four year university with 15% going elsewhere. I'm curious the extent to which we track that. I know we talked a lot
121about the things we're doing to help students think about their individual paths. Do we track that 15%. So, one of the things that we're required to do is do a six-month follow-up with all of our graduates. And that's how we know where some of these students, so this is where they committed to, but we do a six-month follow-up to look at, you know, our students staying in college, if they went there. Are they in a career that aligned with some of the goals that they had in school? So, we do we do track as best as we can. Now, I will say that that does rely on people responding to the information that we send out, and we're we hound them a lot. We work with uh Steph Dedric's office through that as well. Um,
122but we do the best that we can to track what that looks like. Yeah, >> that's great. I think that's it really important to get that feedback loop so that we know for future students where they may, you know, how to prepare our current students for some of the similarities of of past students and where they ended up. So, that's great. Um, the other thing I wanted to call out in addition to lots of other topics that were covered, um, love really hearing about those important opportunities that we're creating for the students to explore their own personal interests. um whether that's uh potential non-interest as well. I thought that was a really important call out that it's about what what do I want to do and what do I maybe not want to do. Um
123so we just want to continue to push ourselves to find any outlets of you know paths we might not even think of as adults. Um how can we foster that ability for students to be able to explore their own interests and things that they may or may not even know exist. So um I think those partnerships across our community are so so important. Um, and that really helps their motivation and potentially help things like graduation rates and where they go after graduation. Um, and making sure that they have that internal motivation and excited to continue um, into their future. It helps with mental health in terms of um, hopefulness and just who they are as humans. So, really excited about that. And, um, I think Gene Marie kind of earlier mentioned, you know, how can
124what can we do to help? if there's anything that the board can do to support that exploration, um, partnerships in the community or or anything else, please let us know that we're here, um, to provide that support. So, thanks again for everything. >> This is great. Um, quick question. Do all the students still take the ACT? >> Yes, all juniors. And one thing we did this year, uh, because we'll kind of ACT's changed quite a bit. So, all juniors will take it each March. Um, this fall, our juniors took the preac and then our sophomores took the practice ACT. And so, this the first time we did it. We tested both sophomores and juniors. And then what we're going to try to do based on the changes with ACT and how it the they the
125practice ACT really kind of aligns more to sophomores is we'll we're going to test sophomores with the practice ACT their sophomore year and then they'll take the ACT um their junior year. >> Great. Great. Thank you. I I just think that's so important that every single kid has that opportunity. And some of the kids who take it might get a score that makes them think maybe I can't go to college. Um and also when we look at our average scores, not every kid in the state takes it. There aren't that many schools that I think make every single kid take it. And so I think that makes the gains that we've seen even more significant. So I really appreciate all the intentionality with that. Um I love the close transition that you guys have with
126um the middle school as they head to the high school. You gave a shout out before to Dr. Libertton and Dr. Havner and and that's so important because that is such a big transition, but they're feeling like it's more normal, that's going to help them. And then one of the things that came out um in in the last section was the connections between the high school and even the elementary schools and that again is so important so for for both sides. So I really appreciate all the effort you're putting into that. Um speaking of intentionality, when we go to 1.2 which is a lot with PLC's and everything. I love that you are giving the teachers voice and empowering them to figure out what fits for their PLC for their discipline rather than saying oneizefits-all.
127And I um was also really happy to hear the connection between what you're doing with your teachers and what you're getting from Dr. Grana and Dr. Dickson that everything is working together and that's so so important. So, um, thank you for all of this. Keep up the good work and, uh, it's great. Our kids are lucky. We're lucky. Thank you. >> I'll just reinforce um, thanking this team. I They celebrated almost every area they looked at um increases in the data in the achievement in the belonging and um this is year three for this team together um and I think it shows you just use the word intentionality about when we have a plan and the team is sticking to it that we see results. Um I'll highlight again Miss Pangorn mentioned the belonging data
128going up consistently. Um the high school also heard the challenge that we wanted more of the students taking the survey this fall. And so um not only did it go up more than double the number of students took it last fall to this fall. So not only is the belonging increased but significantly among the students that took it. Um the other thing that I think is great about this team is while they celebrate some of these gains, um they don't stop where they're at. It's about successive approximation. Where do we go to next? You heard a lot about excellence. You heard a lot about all students. And you heard a lot about community. And every time we meet with this team, that's what we hear over and over again. And so I appreciate tonight you
129thanked so many of your colleagues both at the high school, at other levels, and other schools. Um it's clear that you are leading the way for our district in a one high school district. Um your leadership for everyone else is equally important and we all, as Judy said, we celebrate you tonight also. So thank you all very much. And now we are moving on to 2.02 um the Piper Sandler Bond 101. Mr. Cook will introduce them. >> Okay. We have Dr. Brent Blevens with us this evening from Piper Sandler. Uh Piper Sandler served as our market analyst for general obligation bond since 2020. And uh Dr. Blevens is new to our account, but uh he and I first met in 1999 on opposite sides of the sideline in a basketball game. And I'm not going
130to tell who won that game, but uh so we've we've known each uh known each other for a long time and excited to have him uh working with the district. So, uh, tonight just talking a little bit about, uh, how bond issues work and some of the pieces that go into th those decisions. We have new faces on the admin team and some new faces on the board and seemed like a good opportunity to provide some education around that as uh, as we move forward. So, I'll turn over to Dr. Evans. I also have a debt dashboard document that I'll share with the board that you can take with you tonight or we can distribute that while he's here if you have questions about that. um as well just kind of a snapshot of where
131we are in regards to our debt an outstanding debt in regards to our bonds. So turn over to Dr. >> Before Dr. Bleven begins I just want to add we received the question you know when some people saw this presentation tonight does this mean we're preparing to go out for a bond issue and the answer is absolutely not. Um the reality is we have a responsibility as a district to always be looking at our long range um financing our um funding um and just to be aware of the current landscape and where we're at. And so that's why tonight we saw this as an opportunity really um we called it bond 101 but an opportunity as a new team um each year we bring on new board members to really understand our finances a little
132bit better and that's the purpose tonight. >> Thank you Dr. Robus and Mr. Cook. Yes, we go way back uh too far back I guess aging oursel a little bit. Now I appreciate the opportunity to be in here. Um like it was mentioned really what we're here tonight is just talk about education. Uh, as you all probably are aware by now, school finance can be a little bit confusing at times with all the different funds and levies and the things that go into that. Uh, so I was asked to be here tonight just to kind of do a little bit of what we call bonds 101. Talk a little bit how this works. Some of you may be very very uh, fluent on on how this works. Uh, and some of you may not be.
133Uh, I would assume some of most of you the latter. By the way, congratulations on the presentation. Obviously, great things going on here at Kirkwood High School and in the district as a whole. Uh your reputation precedes yourself itself across the state. Uh so we do have a presentation tonight. Uh hopefully I think everyone has that. And so I'm going to start uh going through that. Uh as you can tell just a little bit of background of myself. I am a retired educator. Uh I've been retired now for nine years I guess. So it's been a while. Um was a obviously a teacher. uh district administrator, retired at the Lee Summit School District as a superintendent of schools. Uh spent several years obviously in public schools and education. Uh now I've been doing public finance
134I guess going on nine years. So doesn't seem possible. So some of the things you'll see in here that I'm talking about probably is going to sound like educational jargon. I apologize for that. As you go to the first page, you can see objectives one, two, three, and four. That's typically not banking style, but I do uh blend in a little my educational background with that. Uh so we do have four objectives tonight. Bonds 101, quickly talk about lease purchase 101, talk about long range planning options, and then method of sale. Uh there's some different ways in which the district uh the board of education decide moving forward when that time comes for a potential no tax rate increase bond issue and how that meth method of sale uh will be delivered. Uh so with
135that said, the first thing is bonds 101. Again, this is going to be just a lot offormational data for you to hopefully help you understand your debt service fund. Uh, as you all know, you've got four funds. You've got your operating fund, you've got your teacher fund or special project fund, your debt service fund, and then your capital project fund. What we're going to be focusing on tonight is what is your uh debt service fund. I I like calling that your bricks and mortar fund. You have what I call your kid dollars and then your bricks and mortar dollars. As you all know, you have a dedicated levy in your debt service fund, and that's really what we're going to be focusing on tonight mostly. So, what are those bonds? When you sell bonds and
136you get those proceeds, what can those be used for? Because there's a lot of questions sometimes about, can we use bond money for teacher salaries or for educational supplies? And the answer is no. That is a dedicated separate fund for bricks and mortar. So it can be used for renovations, repair, improvements, uh furnishings, equipment, obviously new construction. You can purchase land or property, uh you can purchase equipment, fixtures, and then one of the things that you can do is also purchase lease debt back. And I'm going to briefly hit on that. I've got one quick slide I'll talk about here in a minute. You do have one other access to capital uh for projects, for building projects, and that's through a lease purchase. Your district is utilized that in the past. In fact, you and
137that expenditure comes out of your capital project fund. So, it's an annual appropriation by the board to pay back that lease purchase. Um, the board has actually been engaged in that over the past several years, but you just made your last lease payment, I believe, this last fiscal year. And so, you no longer have that expenditure coming out of your capital project fund. So, it's not really relevant to this to this point. But I will say that some districts that do not have the bonding capacity to go out and do a no tax increased bond issue, but need proceeds can do a lease purchase. Those lease purchases can be paid on a up to a 25-year note, but they can also be bought back with a general obligation bond issue with proceeds for that. So,
138that is an option as well for your bond purposes. Next slide is authorization requirements. Ah, that's what I was looking for. Thank you, sir. So uh bonds must be approved obviously to an election. Those election dates are February, April, August and November. Uh no simple majority allowed to be passed. It has to be 47ths on all April elections. 47th on evenumbered August and November dates and then 2/3 on all majority required on other all other dates. So, uh, I won't give you my opinion on that in regards to democracy, but it does take a 47 vote to pass a bond issuance, twothirds if it's on those, uh, those dates that I just mentioned. So, bonding capacity, a lot of people get confused on this. You really have two types of bonding capacity. You have your
139constitutional bonding capacity, which is a state statute, actually state law, and then you have what you can afford, what I call affordability capacity. your affordability capacity. As you know, you have a debt service levy. What you can afford with that debt service levy on an annual basis, in other words, payments over a 20-year term is your affordability. Your bonding capacity, your constitutional bonding capacity is 15% of your assessed valuation. And I will tell you that the district uh is in no uh not even close to your actual bonding capacity. Uh currently you have about $94 million outstanding in general obligation bond debt. Your constitutional bonding capacity at 15% is 316 million. So what that basically means is you're in very very low debt uh given your 15% constitutional bonding capacity. I will also tell you
140that Missouri is one of the most stringent states when it comes to going to get uh capital in your debt service fund. There are states that have 20 25%. Some states have up to 100% of their bonding capacity they go out and issue general obligation debt for. In Missouri, it's only 15%. We do have some districts that don't have a that don't have a very large AV, but have lots of numbers. Uh in some of our metro areas that we work with, uh we work with about 120 school districts across the state. We have uh now 45% Piper Sandler works with 45% of all the student population in Missouri. So, we're pretty proud of that. But we do have some some uh uh cities around, for instance, the Springfield area uh in which they're a
141residential community for Springfield. They don't have a lot of commercial AV and so they actually have the capacity with their debt service levy to issue more bonds and can afford it, but they don't have the constitutional capacity of their assessed valuation. So they run into situations where they cannot actually access capital. Uh Kirkwood is not in that situation. Like I said, your current constitutional bonding capacity is 316 million and you have 49 million outstanding. Um so uh structure repayment sources and security bonds bonds are basically a debt instrument. In Missouri you have up to 20 years uh in which you can go out and borrow on those issuance. So, when we go borrow for a bond, no tax year in case bond issue, we typically those are on a 20-year note. Uh the structure is
142driven by annual cash flows, which we're going to talk about in a minute. In our long range planning, obviously, long range plan of the district, maximize investor demand with structure that fits the district goals. Uh the repayment source, as you know, is a dedicated levy in their fund three uh which your district obviously is at 27 cents and has been 27 cents for the past several years. um it is an advalorum tax. So the board is required by law uh to levy a tax sufficient to make those bond payments. So what that means is you probably know this when you go out and do a no tax rate increase bond issue, it actually has to state that the debt service levy is estimated to remain unchanged. That's our job to make sure it does remain
143unchanged. But for some reason, if you were to have a dramatic situation in your your assessed value and you did not have the resources and with your current levy to b pay back the bonds, you would have to set that levy whatever you needed to to make those bond payments. Which is why we're going to talk about long range planning and why we hope that never happens uh with any of our school districts and have not had that happen. because of that, because it's an advalor tax, um you actually get such great interest rates because investors that buy your bonds, especially with a highly rated school district like Kirkwood, understand that they're going to get that investment back. Therefore, you get unbelievable rates, well below uh market rates for if we were to go borrow
144for a house or whatever it might be. Um because your investors know this is very secure. So, this is a very secure investment for them. their portfolio likes to see those small uh portions of that portfolio and those strong uh uh guarantee of investments and so you see very low interest rates because that addorum tax. Another reason you see low interest rates is this is triply tax exempt. So the investors that buy school district bond issues have pay no income tax, no federal or state uh tax on those bonds. uh regulations and laws require those to maintain compliance on those on those subsidies. Uh bonds must be issued for the purpose allowed within the federal tax code. Uh there are taxable bonds that can go out. So uh we have at times sold taxable bonds,
145not very often, but uh it can be in a situation that districts do out go out and access taxable bonds to where they're not tax exempt. And then bond council. So, the district has a bond council which makes sure to do all of your compliance uh all of your uh legal work in regards uh to to the district's uh legal legal ramifications for bond issues. Reason being is you do not want to lose your tax exempt status. So, that's why we involve bond council in regards to all your financing for your general obligation bond issues. So before we go on to lease purchase 101, which will be much quicker, uh do any of the U board of directors have any questions at this time in regards to general obligation bonds. >> Um hi, I'm the
146newbie on the board, so please uh appreciate your patience with some of my maybe novice questions. Um I just wanted to double check when you were describing the ad valerum tax. Is that how you say it? >> Adorum. Yes, ma'am. >> Adorum tax. Um and you were describing the fact that we get much better rates because investors kind of know that this is a secure investment given the district um and the area and um rates on housing and things like that. Um is that what's connected is that connected to the um bonding capacity? So I guess my question is the you mentioned that we have uh $316 million debt capacity based on the constitutional capacity in Missouri of 15% but we only have $49 million of debt outstanding. What's the benefit of that? Is that
147related to the advalorum tax? >> It's not necessarily related to the advalorum tax but it but it can relate to your your rating. Okay. So when we go out and do a no tax increased bond issue for a district like Kirk's uh like Kirkwood, >> we go get what we call an underlying rating through usually standard and poor, which is uh they will take a deep dive. It's it's a cost of issuance that you do, but you actually get it back on rates. And the reason is you're very highly rated school district, a double A rated school district. And uh one of the things they look at, they look at actually all of the district's uh processes, procedures, fund balances. Mr. Mr. Cook would have a wonderful hour and a half conversation with S&P going
148through uh many different documents, long range planning, all the things that go into it. They also take a deep dive into how much debt burden the district has, which yours is very low compared to your assessed valuation. They also look at your uh community economic indicators. They look at home values. They look at home salaries, income, things of that nature. and then they give you an underlying rating that goes into what you call an official statement. Those official statements go out to investors prior to selling your bonds. So, we're pre-arketing those bonds to hundreds of thousands investors out there to try to get a lot of interest in pricing your bonds. That rating that you get through S&P is very important, that enhancement rating, because investors see that the district uh is a very highly
149rated school district. So it's not necessarily directly related, but it is indirectly related because that one of the one of the indicators and the methodologies that they look at in rating the school district is your deferred. >> Okay, that that's really helpful. I think the important piece takeaway for me is because there are so many factors that go into determining what that ultimate rate is, it's important for us to be very as a board, it's important for us to be very um conscientious about some of the decisions we're making and how it could affect some of those different elements. >> Sure. >> So in the future and that's I'm sure a longterm all of those elements are um developed over a long period of time. So we have to be very conscious about decisions we
150make now that could impact us five 10 15 years down the road. >> Yeah, that's correct. And that that will lead me right into here in a minute what we talk about long range planning and how we structure and why. So yeah, great point. >> Thanks. >> Any other questions on that piece? Okay, we're going to quickly talk about and by the way, if you think of one, I know this is a lot of information fast. By all means, come back and Yes, ma'am. So, how many um like bond opport I don't know I'm not gonna say the correct word, but like bond opportunities are there for us. Does that make sense? >> Yeah, it makes a lot of sense. And so, I have, you know, a stack of information for Kirkwood School District, but
151I won't go into all of tonight. I'd love to take three hours if you don't mind. Uh but no, so uh this is going to be another part of our conversation here in a minute. when we talk about long range planning, but the district's in very good position. So, when we're trying to when we structure your no tax increase bond issues, we're looking at your debt service fund balance. Right. Right. And we want to structure your payments on your existing and outstanding debt and future issuance that your fund balance stays within somewhere between 80 to 100% of your next fiscal year's payments. >> Okay? And then we try to take your assessed value increases and estimate them what I call >> uh conservatively realistic. >> Right. >> And I'll explain that a little bit more
152in a minute. Well, I'll just go and explain it now. We've got it out here, so why not? >> Sorry. >> So, no, no, this is great. No, I appreciate it. So, your AV growth over the last 10 years is 5.7%. Your AV growth over the last 20 years is 4.2. So, when we're building in your hypothetical no tax increase bond issues, moving out, we've built in 3%. So, we try to do that conservatively. We know that's lower than what you've had, but we'd rather you be building a long range facility plan on conservative growth rather than growth that you currently have because as you know over the last 20 years, you know, we saw a great recession uh at 08. We really didn't come out of it till about 1516 until we started seeing
153AV increase again. Then we've seen just the opposite over the last few years, right? Where we saw AV increases significantly higher than what we've seen in a long time. But I can tell you, you know, being a superintendent that lived through the great recession, I saw assessed values in the negatives. >> Exactly. >> And so we look at it from a historical value, like I just mentioned, the 5.7 and the 4.2. Okay. And then we try to put a number in there that is what I call realistically conservative. I don't want to put one or two and you're building a facility, a long range plan that's not really realistic, but we also want to make sure it's conservative so that you make promises that you can you can implement. >> Yeah. And I guess that's
154kind of something that I think is important that we um kind of focus on because you know it um in the past the the um assessed valuation when it didn't come in it it can really hurt a school district like Kirkwood, right? Because we we basically outpace ourselves, right? So we have increases but our our evaluation didn't come in and so then we kind of outpaced ourselves. Um and that you know years ago led led to needing to go out for a tax increase and that kind of thing. So um that's something that I just want to kind of keep in mind as we're >> Yeah. Yeah, and that goes back to to really why we keep that fund balance between the 80 to 100% of your debt service fund balance. We've had some board
155members say, "Why do we have so much set in our debt service fund? Can we go ahead and and spend that down and try to do a no tax increase bond issue?" The reason is is we want to be very conservative to make sure that the the board keeps the debt service levy where it's currently at, right? And so if you have some assessed value years for two, three, four, five years that you don't the growth that we've projected, number one, a very conservative growth compared to what we've seen in the past 20. You have those fund balances to offset that for the years until you start seeing some assessed value grow again. So that's why we that's why we um keep That's right. build that fund balance in our debt service fund. >> Very
156good. Uh so we'll move on to the lease purchase 101. Again, I won't spend a lot of time on this because um I know your district has had this and in fact, I won't even read through it. Basically, a lease purchase is does not require an election, does not require a referendum. The board of education can decide to go into a lease purchase, take a take a note out, borrow money. That expenditure does not come out of a fund three. It comes out of a fund four. You've had one of those in the past. Fund four meaning your capital project fund. Uh so, they can be utilized if needed. districts don't have the bonding capacity or they truly have facility needs that the that the kids need um and don't have the bonding capacity yet,
157they may take those lease purchases out, try to bomb buy them back with geo bond issues or try to pay them off with their capital project fund. So there is another avenue for districts to go out and access capital through that fund for but it's not through an advorum tax. It's not through a referendum. It's through an annual appropriation by the board of education. So that is what a lease purchase is. Some people get confused. What's a lease purchase compared to a general obligation bond issue? That's the difference. It's an annual appropriation that does not require referendum that is paid for out of your capital project fund compared to your advalorum tax, your debt service dedicated fund and your debt service le. Okay. Any questions on the difference of the lease purchase? And again, your
158district just paid off the lease purchase that they had. I believe was it last year? Is that right? I think it was your last payment. >> Okay. Yeah. Yeah. >> Yeah. >> Okay. Okay. >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. >> Yeah. >> Sorry. Go ahead. >> We did some work on um some lighting >> and um some boiler work and and um Say that again. Um, I don't think cameras were in there, but that's that >> it was kind of bundled all in there. And so that's what we paid off. >> Okay. Okay. Okay. >> And so a lot of districts do utilize lease purchases that have ROIs. In other words, the savings that they have for the boilers or the HVAC or the lighting or whatever that might be offsets the cost of the lease. Therefore,
159you're not utilizing your geo bond issue dollars for those projects. They have uh what they call performance contracts in which those savings go back into your operating fund, therefore making the payments on those leases. >> Yeah. Yes, >> that's exactly >> very good. >> So, are there Sorry, sorry. Can I So, are there certain things that um you know Do you use the lease purchase for more than other like >> not necessarily? Now the the um the projects we just talked about the performance contracts that have the money that goes back and the operating to make those payments are the best util utilization of a lease purchase. There are some districts um honestly that don't even have a debt service levy. uh a lot of I won't say all small but sometimes very small rural
160school districts and they uh don't have enough money in their operating or capital project funds to get projects done may take out a lease purchase. We have some districts that can like I mentioned afford in their bond issues to do more but they're against their constitutional bonding capacity. So they have a levy large enough to do a larger bond issue but they don't have the constitutional capacity. So what they'll do is they'll take out a lease purchase and like I mentioned earlier, we structure bond issues where districts can usually go out about every four to seven years depending on their AV growth. And so they'll pay interest only on a lease up to their next bond issue and then put that in their bond language to buy back that lease with the next go. So
161in other words, they're kind of just taking it advance getting the project done when they need it and have to have it and then buy it back sometimes with general obligation bond debt. So, we're going to talk a little bit about long range. Go ahead. Sorry. >> Well, I I just have kind of a question about um when you know, do you see districts typically have like a um like a set timeline on when they're going out for for those things. like you said, some districts go every four years and it's just kind of every four years. This is what they do. Um, >> so what we typically structure and and this is you're leading me perfect in the next segment, but no, that's great. Um, you know, we do long range planning with school
162districts, we want to always listen. Our job is to build a finance plan backwards that meets the facility needs of the district. As you know, you've got a comprehensive school improvement plan, right? Inside that comprehens. I'm not here to tell you all what to do. I'm here to give you options. I'm here to listen, look at your facility needs, and then build a finance plan backward that I would call uh works with your debt service levy in place. Right? And so when you ask that question, typically we try to structure districts like Kirkwood. you need to be in the market because as we know on our educational spaces, not only new construction renovations and then classroom renovations, uh our programming changes rapidly as as it should, right? We don't know what programs are going to
163look like, what classroom space needs to look like in the next 5 to 10 years. I can tell you it's changes in the last nine since I've been out of it. More flexible classroom spaces utilization and things of that nature. So, we want to make sure that uh typically for most school districts, unless Kirkwood would tell me different, we want to make sure that we structure to in a way that about every four to seven years. So, your last issuance was in 2021. You're in a situation probably as early as 2027 if the if it meets your facility needs to come back and do a a potential no tax rate increase bond issue. Because in a district your size, you've got millions of square feet under roof. You've got hundreds of acres of asphalt, parking,
164playgrounds, outdoor athletic facilities, sidewalks, those natures. It is nearly impossible. It actually is impossible. I'll tell you because I was in a district with 18,000. It's nearly impossible to take operating dollars, kid dollars, teachers dollars, and take care of all your renovations outside of your school district. And that's why your constituents have a 26 cent debt service levy to say, "Hey, here's a levy. Take care of our facilities. Build new ones. renovate what we have, do what we need to do. So, we try to structure, we don't want to tell you to do this amount and then keep you out of the market for 12 to 15 years, right? And then in five, six, seven years, you've got classroom renovation space that needs to be updated, right? And we can't do that because we have
165maxed out your bonding capacity. So, we try to make sure there's flexibility that you do. We don't want to do it so soon that it's not what I call a relevant number. We want to do a good large number if we're going to go to our voters, but we want to do that in a matter of about every four, five to seven years so that you can access that capital as the district needs it. I think it's important that we let our community know that number one, we have a dedicated tax fund for operations. Um but that is not meeting the needs of our operation. Like it's not um we have more needs I think than that can can cover. >> Right. Right. I think that that's just something important >> to keep in mind.
166>> Great point. So I always like to Okay. Long range planning options. Uh and that's okay because you you're going to speed up my presentation because I've answered some of your questions already in the future. That's perfect. Thank you. And like I said, I could be here three hours. I love this stuff. So, uh, here's here's and I have no idea. Oh, it's on there. Oh, no, it's not. So, I was looking at this when I was sitting over there. I'm like, I have no idea why 2526 isn't on here, but I've got the data. Uh, this is kind of your levy. As you know, this is what we talked about earlier. Incidental teacher, there's the debt service levy. We talked about your capital project levy, and then your total levy. So, as you can
167see, I went back to 0506. You can see your levy at 390 and I think at the highest uh it hit 482 in 1718. Uh again, and I'll quickly explain why that's during the recession. You all are probably familiar with the Hancock amendment, right? When assessed values go below CPI, your levy rolls up to be revenue neutral up to the CPI or the lesser of 5% growth. As you can see now, and I'm sorry I don't have 2526 on here, but your 2526 is 84 cents in incidental. I can't do this without these. Sorry. $1.96 and teacher and change, 27 cent debt service levy, capital projects is 40 cents. Uh, so your FY26 is 3.4891. Okay. It's not on there, but it's down from 390. I believe that's right. Is that right, Mr. Some recruitment
168back in? Yeah, some recruitment levy. based upon some some tax uh protests. Yeah. So point of it is is as you all know your your assessed values have increased. People say why is our levy so low? Well because your AV is increased. So therefore you have to roll back your operating levy to be revenue neutral up at the CPI or 5% whatever is the lowest. Last year CPI was 2.9% which is lower than the 5% allowed. So you had to roll back your operating levy to that uh 2.9% CPI. So you can see you're actually operating at a very low levy at 348.91 plus whatever was put in the recruitment. Um but as you can see you can see in your debt service levy the highest it has been it was 36 for several years.
169It's now down to 27 cents. Uh I'm assuming in your 2021 issue, you probably did an issue and then transferred some operating levy or some debt service levy to the operating levy which requires a referendum. So I just always like showing that uh that capital project and debt service and teacher incidental fund long range planning. So this kind of is going to really dive into what some of the questions we have on how we structure, why we structure and how that works. So we usually do multiple hypothetical issues. So, at some point down the road, hopefully, uh, I get to come in during a work session and dive into numbers. Then I then I really get windy. Uh, and we get to talk about when's your next no tax increase bond issue that meets the
170district's facility needs and it still meets the financials and your debt service fund. I like I mentioned uh again we'll I'll work specifically with the administration as they'll be working with you all to get the long range plan in place so that we can talk about what that next issue is. You have a fairly substantial amount that you can go in 2027. It may be 2028 whatever meets your financial or your your uh facility uh long range planning. But when I show you that, I'm also going to show you your next issue and then probably your next issue. And that really separates us apart from a lot of our competitors because my educational background uh wants to make sure that you are focused not only on the next issue, but what does that look like
171for the next one and the next one and sometimes I may even show you the fourth one because I really get out there ways and uh and we know that's liquid that can change based upon your AV because as you know this is all relative to your annual AV growth. So every year I work with your school district to get your updated assessed value. I put it in your cash flow analysis. I update it and then we have a new plan moving forward. So, uh, you know, at some point, uh, hopefully I'll be in front of the board to sit here and discuss what that long range plan looks like, when your next no tax increase bond issue might possibly be, and then what the next one is after that, whether it be five, six
172years down the road, and then the next one after that. Because what I find out, and like you mentioned, there's always more needs than you have money for, right? Especially in facilities. I know a lot of your facilities are aged facilities. They're older facilities. Lots of renovations. Uh maybe not as much new construction as as renovations. Construction inflation continues to go up as we know and it costs more to do projects moving forward. So, we want to make sure that you itemize and prioritize your facility needs moving forward. And when you go out and you're doing no tax rate increase bond issues and you're selling to your constituents, these are the projects we're going to do. As you well know, sometimes you get the question, well, what about this project and what about that project?
173And I don't want to vote for it unless that's included. And so that's why we like to do long range planning because as the as the district can go into long range facility planning, they can now say, well, hey, that's phase two, right? These are the pri these are the projects that we've recognized as our number one priority that we're going to get done with this no tax rate increase bond issue. And then in five years in our 2032 issue, that's on the list. And I think that a lot of people uh appreciate that. They're like, "Okay, that project's not been ignored. That project hasn't been prioritized yet." But if this one passes, then that project happens on the next goound, if that makes sense. So, we found that to be, you know, we're all
174about uh transparency. I I mean, I have nothing to hide ever as as a banker. I think our industry sometimes has a bad name, but uh I probably share too much information, but I want the board, your administration, and your community to be very clear about everything that we're doing as I know you all are with your constituents. And so that long range planning process and talking about issue number one, issue number two, maybe issue number three, and starting to identify projects and where they lay, I think is suits very well as you're trying to share that with your community to make sure that those issues are passed. Uh again, district facility needs design uh financial plans. So my job is to listen to the board of education uh and your administration in regards to
175your facility long range planning and build a finance plan backward to meet that. My job is to be transparent and show you options, which is what I love doing and I have large uh amounts of mass that I won't share tonight in regards to that. That'll be something down the road hopefully that we can sit down and talk about options and what that looks like moving forward. But I do like providing options for the board. Um, timing. Uh, again, we do long range facility plan structuring. Uh, no tax rate increase bond issues so the district can access proceeds on a regular basis. Again, going back to that four to sevenyear. We don't want to what I call cook you to where let's say you can do a $40 million issue, but you can maybe afford
176a $60 million issue, but then that locks you out of the market for 12 to 15 years. I wouldn't want to do that, right? We want to make sure that we give you an amount that you can come back sooner than later uh because we just don't know what the needs are 15 20 years down the road. Uh conservative future AV growth and interest rates. I talked about your long range planning, how I how I've estimated 3% instead of the 4.2 that you've seen over the last 20. Another thing I do is we put 5% couponing on it. So we also estimate higher interest rates because that's another anomaly we do not know and that is what our interest costs going to be in 2028 in 2032 in 2035 whatever they may be. So we
177try to put higher interest rates than what we typically would see or at least what we'd see in current markets. And then structuring the debt we structure the bond payments to provide the district three things. Maximum proceeds at the lowest interest cost with the same debt service levy. And those don't necessarily don't go hand in hand. That may depend on deal to deal. Uh you know people say they want to focus on the interest cost and that is very important. But it's really about the structure and the debt service levy that drives the best interest cost for the best deal. If that makes sense. So if we can structure something that meets the financial goals of the district to get certain projects done now instead of five to 10 years down the road by the
178utilization of maybe some premium bonds and pay a smaller interest rate that your debt service levy will take care of actually benefits you financially because now you've gotten projects done now instead of five, seven, 10 years from now where you're seeing five to 7% construction inflation. So you paid a minor increase. Your taxpayers necessarily didn't pay a higher amount because your debt service levy is the same. Your interest costs may be a little bit higher to access premium. you get more projects done and you alleviate construction inflation over the next five to 10 years if that makes sense. So we try to get you the most proceeds that meet your facility needs at the lowest interest cost with that structure and at the same time making sure we protect your debt service levy where it's
179at. So that's kind of what my goal is. >> One of the things and I'll be quick about this piece of it. One of the things that we do is levy management. I'm sorry. Did we have a question? Oh, I'm sorry. >> Yeah, I was just curious. Um, when we're talking about the long range planning, I don't know if this is so much of a question for you or maybe for you or Dr. Rumpus, I'm not sure. How does the long range planning from a financial perspective align with the long range planning for our facilities? So, do we look out as a district? Do we look out 10, 15, 20 years? Just curious on >> it's it's an opportunity we have. I can't speak specifically. I I think it would be the other board members
180or ministers as to how aligned those have been in the past. Um I do feel like there's a bit of a disconnect. Um we had a long range plan facility plan that was just completed in the last couple of years. Um and given the number of our buildings that are approaching are at 100 years old. It is significant a significant investment that we'll take to keep them usable moving forward. And so it's one of the things that we as a team are exploring as we move forward and part of why we're having this conversation tonight. >> Okay, great. That's helpful. Thank you. So, one of the last things, you know, what I just talked about, one of the most important things that I do in structuring your debt and building your future, no tax increase.
181When I say me, by the way, I've got a huge team, so it's not just me. Uh, I have a I have a partner and we've got a huge quant team. Uh, and Piper Center is obviously a large company. We get to utilize some very, very smart people, much smarter than I am. Uh, but one of the things that I do as I'm watching and structuring and looking at no tax respond issues and that is I want to it's levy management. So this is about your 27 cent debt service levy. We we want to make sure your constituents have said hey that's it right. We've we've approved a 27 cent debt service levy. Uh I'm assuming at this time the board doesn't intend on doing a tax rate increase. So we're going to structure this
182and I will continue to structure these moving forward with that debt service levy in mind. So, I build in a 3% AV growth like we talked about and all of a sudden the district sees 15 18%. Right? Like we've seen a few times here in the last few years. What happens? Your debt service fund balance inflates. You're like, well, that's a good thing. It is, but you're required doing your form C calculation when you do your your tax rate hearing every every September, you can only have a certain amount to your calendar payment, your debt service fund. So if that fund balance gets inflated and it's an anomaly for maybe a year or two and then it's going to be spent back down, how do we protect the debt service levy to not roll it
183down because then we can't get it back? Does that make sense? So that's one of the things that I do is to ensure that that debt service levy is protected. And one of the ways to manage that debt service levy on those years that we see high increases. Either you're going to run a no tax rate increased bond issue. We build in payments in your form C calculation or we can do what we call defeasance or prepays and what that means we can go grab your outstanding debt and prepay some of that debt. Therefore, that increases your expenditures for those calendar years which keeps your form C calculation where it needs to be to keep your debt service levy at 26 cents. Okay. So, it's just it's just a prepaid. It's like making a payment
184on your home mortgage, right? We're going to prepay some of that debt and we have to do that at times potentially if we've had AV growth over our estimated AV growth and we don't have a bond issue plan in the next few years. So that is a that is an element that we can utilize uh if need be if your fund balances get too high in your debt service fund. question. >> Did you say we can't have um in the debt service you can't have two years of you can't have over two years of can you >> payments? Yeah. >> Yeah. So for instance your when you did your tax rate here uh hearing and your form C calculation in September. >> Yeah. uh you can take your calendar year 26 and calendar year 27
185payments, right? And you can't have a fund balance that exceeds those two calendar year payments. >> So you can't just go build a big fund balance in your debt service fund >> uh trying to wait for a bond issue in 2027, >> if that makes sense. So we've had a lot of districts obviously through some higher reassessments that what we've seen in the past years has had to do these defeasants or prepayments. If not, then you would be required C calculation to roll your debt service levy back. And unfortunately, that wouldn't be that's that's kind of an anomaly, right? In in in those particular years where you had high debt service levy and you would not be able to necessarily recapture that back. Um so so we try to do levy management and keep that
186debt service levy at the 26 cents. And one of the things that we can do to to do that is those fees and prepaids if need be. You're not in that situation, I don't believe, right now. And so we're we're good to go. Obviously, as we look at long range planning and decide when you want to go out for your next next no tax rate increase bond issue. We'll watch that. We'll adjust that and make those decisions if need be. >> Another question. >> Yes. >> Yeah. Um you you you keep saying our facility plan or like alluding to that does that also include our maintenance fund? >> It does not. So these your maintenance fund is really out of your capital project fund fund four and I don't Mr. Scott can probably speak to
187that. You have you have a maintenance budget that takes care of what I would call uh annual maintenance costs. I'm more talking about the bricks and mortar, the new construction, the renovations. Uh sometimes you have enough money and probably have to do smaller projects out of your fund for but those larger bigger projects, you just don't have those resources in your capital project fund >> because we've Oh, yeah. That's right. Right. >> Okay. Because we have paid for things that out of both funds in the past, which can get confusing, right? Because we've paid for things out of our >> facility, our capital improvement money, right? Just again based on like where we had funds, but it does get confusing. So, just something to keep in mind. thinking about messaging for the community. Thank you.
188>> Yeah, that's a great point. And I'm probably not a very good businessman, but I'll tell you the best way to borrow is cash. Don't use me. Uh and so obviously we don't have enough resources to do that with everything. But that that's great that you do have a little bit of a levy in there that's driving some some money into your fund for because I will tell you your debt service levies is very low. A 26 cent debt service levy. And don't quote me on this, but I think last year when I looked it up, the average debt service levy was around 65 cents, something of that nature in the state. So, our debt service levy is super low, but you do have some of that levy and capital project fund, which is great
189because that allows you to utilize cash and not borrowing mechanisms to pay interest costs to get a lot of those projects done. So, that that's a great thing for your district. I I would draw attention I think as the facility plan was completed if I read that correctly that just using that temp levy to accomplish all the goals would take 45 years I think is what I read. So so that's that's where this conversation sort of segus into >> that's not long is it be ready to ready to start your next round of projects. So the last thing uh that I've been asked to talk about is method of sale and so there's really two ways that the board can hire uh either a municipal advisor uh or an underwriter through a competitive sale or
190a negotiated sale. And there's lots of conversations about this across the state. And so I'll start by saying uh and I think I have the numbers here. I think of our hund and some districts, I think we have 10 that utilize the competitive MA route and probably 90 or so that use the underwriting. And there's no right or wrong. Okay, I want to make sure I I do that. This is nothing but again, like I said, my job is to inform the board so that they can make good decisions moving forward. Uh the competitive I just want to kind of tell you the difference of the two because sometimes they get confusing. Competitive negotiating it sounds the wordy the verbiage of competitive sounds like a better word. It was actually designed back in I think
191I want to say the is it the 50s um on these two definitions, but a competitive sale and I've listed that or solicit bids from underwriters. So what you would do is you would go get bids from underwriters. Underwriters are who price and sell your bonds to investors. and you're gonna they're gonna off you're going to pay an MA through a competitive sale and then you're going to bid out your underwriter to go out and try to get you the best price for the bonds and then they're going to go price those in the capital markets. Okay? So, you have an MA, then you have an underwriter that you hire and then they go out and price the bonds. That's a competitive sale. say it's competitive because you're going out and pricing out your your
192underwriter. Okay, a negotiated offering is when you hire one company, negotiate the fee to go out and price your bonds. And so we price to the exact same whether we're a competitor, a competitive sale, negotiated sale, we price to the same investors. So some people say, "Oh, well competitive is better because you're pricing competiti, you know, competitive are bond sales." Your bond sales are competitive in both negotiating and competitive. That makes sense. We are pricing your bonds as your underwriter or your MA, the district that hires the underwriter is competitively pricing your bonds in capital markets. Either way, your bonds are being sold to the same markets to the same investors, if that makes sense. It's just a way of whether you want an MA and an underwriter or whether you want an underwriter. And
193so I'm going to talk about benefits maybe of both. Uh so in in a competitive offering, uh the underwriter buys the deal, right? Sells those bonds. And some of the things I want to talk about, some of the bullets, that's a fixed sale date determined well in advance. So let's say I'm your MA. We go out, we hire an underwriter. We set a date to price those bonds. We structure those bonds and then we turn it over to the to the underwriter on pricing day. At that point, it's out of our hands as your MA. Does that make sense? They're pricing them and we get what we get at that point. Uh on the negotiated side, if I'm your underwriter and you do a negotiated pricing and we make a determination on the on the
194pricing of that, how we're going to price those bonds, we go out For instance, let's say Piper Sandler as your underwriter, and we're going to price those bonds in the capital markets off our desk. So, we've got a we've got a a desk, right, that we sell bonds off. Um, we actually take those, we set the date, we structure the deal, and the advantage for some districts that like to utilize this is the flexibility for us to have control over. Does that make sense? So the flexibility means that we've set a price for next Thursday. We've structured the deal. Something happens in the market and we see it all the time. We move the pricing. We can pull the deal the day before. We can pull the deal the day up. Does that make sense?
195The second advantage that people feel, and again, no right way or wrong way uh from a negotiated sale using an underwriter is why we're in pricing. So, when I'm pricing some of my clients deals, I'm literally watching I'm working with our syndicate desk, which our syndicate desk is in Minneapolis, and I'm working with Christian. We've got our head analyst working with her. We're watching the pricing. We're seeing orders come in. We're seeing pre-orders, and we see it. So, we set up maturity. So, we're selling these what we call big boy blocks, $5,000 notes that we're selling to these investors. And we have a maturity, let's say, in 2038 at yields of a 380. And they're not pricing well. Okay? In a competitive sale, they're pricing at those yields if that makes sense. Regardless of what
196they go and it may be good for us, if we see things going bad and for instance in the 38, we can move those. We can say, "Hey, let's move that maturity to a 2037 because the 37s are double or two times over subscribed, right? We have the flexibility in the middle of the sale to start moving that to meet the needs of the district in regards to what you're needing for your proceeds." Okay. So, competitive sale, negotiated sale, MA uh underwriter. And one of the advantages of a competitive offering compared to negotiated, I give you the advantage of negotiating is as a under or as a competitive sale as your MA, I have a fiduciary duty. What that means is uh and I I can't really What that means is I cannot uh erroneously
197give you bad financial advice. Okay? By law cannot as a negotiated offering. I cannot give you bad financial advice, but I guess there's no legal ramifications if I do. I probably wouldn't have 110 school districts and you'd fire me pretty quickly if I did that. But that is something that some people like in regards to the the competitive set is the fidiciary duty. You say, "Well, what does your job look like, Brent, from a if it's a negotiator or whether you're an MA?" You wouldn't know the difference. Uh the only difference you'd know is when we price the bonds, we'd go out as your MA and hire uh we'd structure it. We'd do everything about it, but then when it was ready to price, we would price we would bid out the the underwriter and
198send it to them. So you would pay me, you would pay the underwriter and then they would price the bonds and and and they go well. Some a lot of the times as you're negotiated as your underwriter, we're going to structure it. We're send it to our desk. You've already got the price, right? The price has been agreed on the negotiated amount and then we have control over that pricing that day if that makes sense or not if we so choose not to. So uh some districts like the flexibility. Uh there's no right or wrong, but I know that the district has has uh has the option to do the competitive sale through a municipal adviser and has the option to do negotiated sale as an underwriter. And I I can't tell you what's right
199or wrong. I can just tell you kind of bullets of what that is, some advantages of each and by all means, we'd be happy to answer any questions regarding that method of sale as well. >> What have we done in the past? >> You have used competitive offering in the past and I think one of the things uh I know Mr. Cook and Dr. Rumpus have in the past, you know, we work for Francis Al School District as well. They they do underwriting uh at Mount Vernon. They've done underwriting in the past. Um it's just not what you've done. And I think they just wanted the board to see options uh if if if they wanted to do something different or not. Uh but at least like I said our you know they've asked me
200to inform and educate and so that you can have that conversation and make decisions moving forward. >> Bren I don't I'm not asking you to speak on behalf of the state auditor but often in the audits of school districts you see the recommendation to use competitive. Um do you know the rationale for that? >> Uh so I wish I could tell you the year. Um early 2000s maybe maybe the 90s um when Macascal was state auditor someone might be able to help me there I can't remember the years I'm losing get no uh there was uh in in her opinion at that time when she was state auditor they decided and we really don't have no rationale for it there's all kinds of studies showing you so oh that's I'm glad you said that when
201you say well what's more expensive say they're they're pretty much I mean one may be a little cheaper the other way depending on what your feet what what what cost you get for underwriter, but realistically they're the same cost. Um, so to speak on the on what what Macascal felt when she was state auditor was probably given and I and I I don't I don't want to speak for it. So this is oblanism so take it with a grain of salt. It was probably just a uh my wife hates that term but she hears a lot. Uh, it was probably when you read the the verbiage, the competitive versus negotiated, the competitive just sounds like that's a competitive sale. And as a public school that's trying to be transparent and get you the best deal,
202competitive is a good word. But really, the competitive is not about pricing your bonds. It's about utilization of your underwriter. Does that does that make sense? And so, I think just that term, and we've had several districts that we underwrite for that in their state audit that says, you know, they use a negotiated sale, we recommend competitive. And I think the school districts in the past uh including Francis how has maybe made the statement that we felt like we had a very competitive uh method of sale and got very good interest rates in our bond issues and it's been the end of it. But but you're right that has been identified by the state auditor and I think it's just stayed in there over the last 20 years plus uh as a as an as
203an as a note of reference in the state audits across the state. So, yes. >> Any other questions? >> Thank you. This was super helpful. >> You're very welcome. Yeah, appreciate the opportunity. >> Yeah, and I know this is a lot of information. If you go home for some late night reading and and go through it, uh feel free uh to reach out to Mr. cook and ask any questions and I'll be happy to respond back and and get you the information >> real quick. So, will we have like a longterm financial plan built? Is that >> So, so I think that there's a lot of questions in the next few months to to think about how we might proceed. We certainly have made no decisions and just wanted to provide information at this point
204in time, but there is there are uh using the current approach as to how much debt we could take on within a couple of years and moving forward. Certainly no decisions have been made there because we could also choose to prepay debt. We chose not to go out for an issue. So, uh there are some of those out there. I think as we discuss and think about an approach we would maybe want to use, it may it may be a good idea to do an RFQ uh to to seek out who our partner would be. And I'm just going to talk like Brent's not in the room, right? But that there would be a vetting process to make sure we had the right partnership and and that the board felt good about the approach we
205might might take if we were to choose to do that. Does that make sense? >> Yes. Laura, did you have any questions? >> Thank you very much. >> Oh, Nicole, Dr. Shern, sorry. I did want to say though it's just reassuring that you have experience as an educator in doing this work. So kudos to you because >> that's a interesting way to you know >> go from education >> finance. Thank you. >> Still get to serve kids. So that's what I love. >> Thank you. This was incredibly helpful. >> Very good. Thank you for your time. Appreciate it very much. Go quickly here. 3.01 tomorrow begins the board candidate filing. Um and it lasts until December 31st. Upcoming meetings. Next Monday, December 15th, we have a business meeting and then our next meeting is January
2065th with awards and honors and a work session. And Now we are going to adjourn this work session and move to close. >> Motion to enter. I need a motion to enter close session to discuss personnel subsection 610.0213 and 13 of the revised statutes of Missouri statutes. So moved. Andrews >> second. Penguin. >> Miss Neman. >> Ben. >> Jennifer. >> Yes. >> Jory. >> Yes. >> Laura. >> Yes. Nicole. >> Yes. >> Motika. Yes.