001okay welcome to the December 19th Board of Education regular meeting I'd like to call this meeting to order at this time Mr Kavanaugh will you lead us in the pledge okay thank you Mr Kavanaugh okay okay first item up on our agenda is public comment and at this time we are receiving in-person and um virtual and so we have one in person and if um Mr Dan Langford if you could come to this speaker right here and we'll give you three minutes thanks thank you um you're good I don't go anywhere near three minutes I promise okay you're good nope um Dan Lankford here for uh knea um just wanted to say that we're grateful the board is looking at compensation for our support staff colleagues um they're a key part in making sure that
002our students can learn in the safe and healthy environment so we appreciate that uh to acknowledge that we are in a teacher shortage and although Kirkwood may seem protected because of our good reputation and supportive Community we need to make sure that we are working to both attract new hires and also retain people we have and this means not only just compensation but also healthy professional workplace thank you thank you Mr Langford at this time Miss Heinrich can you please read the public comments this comment is from Michael and Vicky pillow Hobbs um we received a mailer from a group which is trying to eliminate books with concerning images masquerading as an educational non-profit organization this group is actually an anti-lgbtq Syndicate intent on Banning books and inserting culture wars into our nonpartisan Public School
003framework they hide their true intentions behind words like parents rights and academic Excellence let's call it what it is intolerance discrimination and bigotry towards students Educators and residents of our district who believe in an open and robust exchange of ideas about many subjects including sexuality thank you Mrs Heinrich okay I need a motion in a second to approve the agenda for December 19th as presented so moved second okay all those in favor please raise your right hand and say aye aye all those opposed motion passes next up we have some special guests here tonight um joining us that I am going to let Miss Dietrich introduce thank you very much uh so in this month's Awards and honor report we've included information about teachers receiving and renewing their national board certification Additionally you can learn
004more about our outstanding coaches receiving accolades about art students recognized through the Missouri State University's virtual juried exhibition for school Art and Design students and some great writing recognized by the New York Times in their 100 word personal narrative contest you can also see the fall athletic Roundup including the accomplishments of our boys and girls cross country teams field hockey football girls and boys soccer softball girls tennis and girls volleyball these student athletes put in a great deal of effort into their seasons tonight I am pleased to be joined by members of the boys swim and dive team along with Coach Matt Beasley if you all can make your way up to the stage the team took third place in the Missouri State High School Activities Association class two state championship many swimmers earned medals
005for placing in the top eight of their events two individuals earned state championships Junior Max Marcus in the 500 free and Senior JD Suarez in the 200 individual medley I am pleased to introduce the board to coach Beasley Andrew hubner Grady Ashley Stevie Potter J.D Suarez Josh dankoff Simon Araneta and William Chen at this time if the board would like to say a few words and then we will set up for a photo okay first of all congratulations to coach Beasley and all of of the gentlemen up here you know it is refreshing to see competitions come back and to see all your hard work along with academics and we're just very proud of you and this is exciting that you guys are here to be honored so keep up the great work coach Beasley
006and and keep up the great work boys yep yep okay so board come on over up with a quick Builder next up to keep us moving um is equity task force and so Dr Jeremy Mapp is going to be provide guiding us information welcome Dr Mapp thank you good evening to the board a great opportunity to update you as we have planned to talk about our Equity task force report looking at our staffing across our district in terms of numbers demographics and across our district and look forward to letting you know a little bit about where we are and some things that we're doing in regards to that so I'm going to go through a number of these slides because I know that it's information that you all have had and so this is basically
007the outline of why this is a thing this comes from our 2016 task force report that we said we wanted to know about what's happening with Staffing in regards to our staff across our district particularly knowing that it can have an impact on our black student achievement and all student achievement throughout our district and so that's the rationale that we have and why we have this focus and so why we will have this this presentation twice a year and so looking again at that intentional focus on racial diversity amongst our buildings and positions and so the report will look through specifically all of our buildings and look at where we are in terms of our staff of color throughout the district so that comes specifically out of effort 11 that tells us again that we'll
008have this report both now and December and also it'll happen again in July moving forward every year so this report comes out of our finance plus system for staff and then our Infinite Campus system for students the student piece you'll just have one slide it comes directly from our October board report that we had of an R enrollment across the district as far as staff you'll see as of December 1st our staff across the district and their racial makeup so here you'll notice and I have that corrected I apologize there for that Venture Club number we we had some some technical difficulties there but that is corrected on the on what we have and so um I don't have my computer here in front of me but it it it it yes there are not
009411 I'll put it that way of white uh Adventure Club staff but I do want to point out as we continue through um I'll talk real quick on this one you'll see basically our main thing there which is a 16.73 is where we are the terms of Staff of color across our district currently um and so that is actually up already the 10 that we set in our goal of our strategic plan for the year um that that's what we said our goal was was to get to 16.4 which was a 10 increase across our previous year and so we are there um doesn't mean that we stop we definitely have goals that we want to continue working to get even even further with that but that is what we said was a one-year measurable
010reasonable piece for us to expect so I'm going to go building by building here I do want to point out as I start with kecc and this was a piece that our administrators asked for us to make sure that we acknowledge our Adventure Club staff is hired by kecc however they are not necessarily housed in that building and so they're not reflected here but they are very that's definitely one of our more diverse groups of categories of employees and so I wanted to highlight that in terms of our kecc staff and efforts that are happening at that area as well but you'll see as we go through and I'm not going to give the number you read the number off to you for each one but certainly you'll see again how we roll out our
011certified versus our support staff throughout the district in each of our buildings and so you'll see where we are in terms of our buildings I'm again not going to necessarily read out loud but you could definitely see there where we are right around with you know really between 15 and 20 percent in most buildings some buildings were closer to 10 percent and so that's again specifically staff of color both support and certified staff throughout each building I'm going to keep going and talk specifically about some of the things around the changes as we get closer towards that the pieces around comparison so um as we get to and you'll see also we did break out our staff across our built not our students student attendance buildings so for example ASC our buildings and grounds crew
012and our our Huff Learning Center you'll see some of those staff is also highlighted there we do have about 14 in that staff staff of color and our Chartwell staff you can see they're almost 50 percent 46.8 percent our first student so we have drivers and monitors that are part of our staff for our first student and so we have 43 percent there and then Special School District you can see 9.46 specifically our special School District staff all across the district um and again I do want to specifically get to the comparison so here year to year looking at our December of 21 to December of 2022. we did have an increase in our staff of color as you can see they're about just about almost two percent across the board in our between different
013ethnicities and then a decrease of 1.48 and our White staff of color or White staff throughout the district and then that is broken up specifically or is first of all there's students as well and so our student makeup we have 21.73 percent of our student population and students of color and that's again the district level but you do have the breakdown by building there as well um we have it broke down by a certified staff about almost almost eight uh eight tenths of a percent um a decrease in White staff certified which means that we had that increase across our um staff of color and then support staff a decrease of 2.81 in our White staff again that would mean approximately that as an increase in our staff of color throughout our support staff population
014and then I just really mainly want to get to kind of highlighting some specific things that we are doing as a district in regards to this and so we have our minority Recruitment and networking event on February 28th which will be an opportunity for us to connect with regional Educators around the region who are interested in our district and really connecting with them and really making it an opportunity to truly connect it's um we don't really always know specific positions always at that time but it's an opportunity for us to show that again that sense of belonging and that connection and Community with people who might be interested in our district we do also have a very intentional Focus around our staff of color and retention we heard that specifically in our public comment as
015well you know it's great when we can Network and recruit staff of color but also it's a matter of making sure that we have retention of them as well and so we do have some intentional efforts that we have in terms of that specifically through our K Talk work and have an opportunity to look a little and dive a little bit deeper into that having been now five years that we've had the Kirkwood teachers of color which is great looking at our impact that we've had in terms of belonging and talking with our district our staff of color and really looking at now what our next steps to really make sure that that retention piece is there and making sure that we continue to support them to be able to be the best that they
016can be for their students and so there you can see also again empathy interviews to really hear from staff and this actually is not only just staff it's happening with students and even some community members as well to really hear you know what is happening well in the area of belonging and what are things the district could do differently and better to be able to improve that sense of belonging and finally looking at this idea of a grow your own program for our high school students this is something that was started by my predecessor and she had an opportunity to connect with our high school administration and think about students who might have an interest in the field of Education we are looking further into this and looking at our child development classes and looking
017at opportunities that we might have to be able to have a program where we are really establishing early on if students have that interest and then giving them opportunities to connect with our buildings connect back with our students and really be able to really kind of take the reins if that's a passion of theirs give them an opportunity to be able to really connect with other students prior to going off to college so really being very intentional about that and helping kids to be able to see that as a possibility in their future so those are a few of the things always many things that we are doing as a district but I really want to highlight those in regards to how we're doing in terms of our staffing across the district so I will
018open it up for questions at this time thank you so much Dr Mapp and at this time I will start down with Mr Kavanaugh I'm good thank you very much this all looks great and I really appreciate the comparison from 21 to 22. one thing about the grow your own program which as a former teacher I love um I and don't throw anything at me when I say this but I know that Webster Groves has a really robust grow your own program a lot of it was developed by one of our former people Carrie Aarons and I wonder if if we've thought at all about working with them brainstorming with them you will always hear the word collaboration from me and so that's definitely something that I I find very I'm very passionate about and
019so I will be making sure that we take some time to reach out um that's I mean that's kind of within our things that we're looking at you know what do we have established here and then yes what are some other pieces around with other programs around the area absolutely something that we will look into thank you thank you thanks Miss Motika for for sharing a known resource um Miss penguin I really appreciate this uh Dr map my question is more just a thought and a comment I guess um really want to focus on the retention I think right we can bring people to Kirkwood but keeping them I think that is so important as we're talking about um everything that you know you're highlighting tonight and then also I just I assume you're doing
020this but there are some buildings that haven't made as much progress compared to others so I assume you have strategies that you're really trying to work with those individual buildings on hiring for the future and retention on on the other hand absolutely definitely I mean it's not always a comparison but definitely we want to pay attention to if we have a building that's really there and the buildings that are kind of not quite there and so I will admit definitely our early childhood and our middle schools are harder positions to get to specifically staff of color because again you're talking about a lower number of even people to choose from because those are some some more difficult positions to be able to fill in general anyway but that doesn't mean that we don't continue to
021make that a focus I know that as I as we talk about this all of our buildings have had individual conversations with myself and with um with Roberta our Master mentor of teachers of color over the last couple of months myself and her went and have been talking with each individual principal and their administrative and leadership team um and their k-talk teachers of color building leaders to really make sure that we have some different things in place to support them and that and that includes support of our and retention as you talked about because that is arguably just as important if not more important even than the recruitment Mr boyko I'll just say that I I appreciate the uh report indicating a level of progress that we're seeing particularly among the certified staff and I
022hope that we're able to make that continue and if there's barriers to uh prevent us from being able to do so that you let us know absolutely thank you Miss Bernardi thank you I appreciate all the data by building as well and all the work you've done to improve and I just wanted to ask for the next time the comparison of the population of the students compared to the progress in the building because as I look at it briefly I see that you actually have made good progress that way and reflecting the student population is of course so important so thank you for this work and also I want to Second what Miss Motika said about Webster Grove and learning from others don't throw anything at me but I heard the same thing so thank
023you thank you for that absolutely we'll teach them a thing or two as well so thank you okay Dr Mapp once again thank you so much for for all your work this is important work um and we we have to be intentional with this work um and so thank you thank you for that and um great job yep okay next up is 6.02 administrator hiring process and we'll have miss our doctor Howard Fields up to to share with us welcome Dr oh Mr or Dr Oliver sorry it's fine before Dr Fields get started I want to make sure that um uh I let the uh the board know and our community uh who may view this later I guess Along with Dan uh is uh really the request for this information to be brought in
024uh to a board meeting I think the opportunity opportunity for us to be transparent with regard to our process so our community and our staff know exactly the steps that we will take uh very much appreciate this opportunity I know Dr Fields feels the same way excited for our three principals obviously Dr Havener Ms Sissel and Dr stoby have had wonderful careers in the uh in in Kirkwood and we're excited for the next step in their Journey as they move on to retirement um however these are prominent roles that that we will need to find the best people for our students and for our staff and for our community uh to serve uh in our schools and so just very much wanted to take the opportunity to say thank you um and uh it is
025my hope that uh As We Lay out these steps for all three of the processes our community has a confidence in the process that we are following to ultimately find the best person for the role Dr Fields thank you Dr Ulrich good evening Board of Education community and colleagues before I formally get started is someone who's an avid Note Taker I will say for the record this is the first board meeting I've been a part of where Webster Groves was mentioned twice and so that is reflected in the notes as Dr Ulrich did allude to I have the pleasure of leading the process for three of our leaders who will get a chance to join our district prior to giving you some of the overview in terms of process I do want to divert you
026back to two things in particular one of which being board policy specifically gcqd that speaks to per person professional staff recruiting as well as hiring in addition to that I do want to bring your attention to the standard operating procedure as a reminder on January the 10th 2022 I had a chance to present this particular standard operating procedure this process was the same process that was used for the search for executive director of Dei Chief Communications officer director of benefits as well as the North Kirkwood Middle School higher and we've learned a thing or two as we continue to strengthen the process currently this hiring process will be followed for those three positions that were ever mentioned the High School North Glendale Elementary School as well as Tillman Elementary School we'll start off with the
027high school this following timeline that we have is the timeline that we are standing close by as you can see Dr Havener did provide his retirement letter on October the 14th and from there it's been a lot of work since then had a chance to meet with Dr Havener 101 to get his thoughts in terms of meeting with the team team I am referring to High School staff who we have met with twice and I'll get into a little bit of that conversation shortly the first meeting did take place a week later on October the 27th we gave them information as it relates to the candidate profile that had just opened in a few days shortly after and we also talked a little bit about follow-up as well as this timeline the job was officially
028posted on November the 1st the candidate profile survey was open but it was also strategically included in The Insider as well as the spotlight you'll get a chance to hear me give kudos to the crd department who have just been phenomenal in assisting with the promotion and advertising for our various openings as well well as the surveys the candidate profile survey did close on November the 30th right after November the 30th I had a chance to myself and Dr Ulrich meet with the high school staff again in this Auditorium and we went over what you all are about to see a high level overview of those results The Exchange summary was conducted via thought Exchange the survey opened on October the 31st and again it did close on the 30th and there was one question
029in particular we were looking for that is in your opinion what quality skills and experiences are important for the next principle of Kirkwood High School as you can see we had 840 participants 534 unique thoughts and then over 11 000 being the rating when I speak to the rating you have an opportunity to rate all of the thoughts from a five all the way down to a zero if two individuals rated two fives that would be ten and then it's a cumulative total and that's how we got to the 11 000. now there are a number of highlights on the slide right now but I would be remiss if I did not speak to something we hear often in education which is student voice I would say this is evidence to support student voice in
030a sense that sixty percent of respondents were students I had a chance to be with Dr Ulrich as well as the cabinet listening to students in terms of what they thought were important and making sure that they sent out a reminder to their classmates again I thought that was just phenomenal you will continue to see the breakdown on the screen from staff from both the high school as well as staff in the district and so on and so forth this is a word cloud that essentially provides you with the frequency of words and so the bigger the word you will see it represented I will let you know two things one of which mental we certainly want someone who's mental having said that mental and health you can see are right there so if it
031would have been hyphenated mental health would have been together the second note I want to make sure you are aware of the positive sign or the plus sign that you see in the center of the word cloud that is the actual logo for Thought Exchange and now I'm going to break it down into the actual thoughts so when we take all of the thoughts or the comments that were generated you can break it down into all of the thoughts and these are the thoughts that you have in front of you that were the top thoughts as a side note anyone who had a chance to complete the survey you could see all of the actual thoughts so it's not a situation where you could only see a few you could see all of the thoughts
032depending upon when you signed in these just represent the top four for all staff based off the rating as we break that down you will see the top four responses from our KHS students our KHS staff our parents slash Guardians and all other staff as it relates to High School alum non-k KHS staff so Kirkwood School District staff who are not assigned at the high school and so on and so forth those are the top four responses based off the rating and so the rate at Dollar exchange is set up you can do demographic data based off of the particular demographics but you can also have themes emerge and what you will have in front of you now are the various themes that will emerge based off of the actual comments so you'll see things
033such as good communication mental health staff building connectedness diversity leader or leadership understanding of Staff Community Etc academically sound student or kids center and experience now a few pieces I do want to make sure you are aware of as it relates to the formalities of the piece there were seven thoughts that were reported when we say report it it ranged from just putting the D and it would have come across as spam and in other instances there were some pieces that were deemed not appropriate of those seven responses that were reported and again reported by someone who was taking the actual survey two of the thoughts did remain visible and five of the thoughts were actually removed due to the nature of the thoughts as we continue with the high school again that information was
034a high level overview of what was provided on December the 6th after December the 6th that information was shared in both The Insider as well as the spotlight and now we are looking for what's next with this particular position before we transition to another the position will officially close on December the 31st and so I know we are Live on YouTube if you are an aspiring High School principal or you know someone please we encourage you to apply you would absolutely love our team as we look at the paper screener once the position does close that will take place tentatively January the 2nd through the 4th followed by establishing interview questions as well as the process based off of the survey findings that particular document is a an important one because we take all of
035the thoughts the themes Etc and build a process as well as questions based off of what our community and shareholders believe is most important for that particular role you will see tentatively speaking the first round of interviews followed by the second round of interviews as well as the third round of interviews if necessary the next round will be a 101 with Dr Ulrich that will take place on January the 23rd the high school principal will be recommended tentatively at the January the 23rd board meeting and the very next day there will be communication sent out on the approved candidate for our community as we transition to North Glendale again you will see the same dynamic as it relates to speaking Dr Fields sorry to interrupt but I think this is a good pause okay just
036just to take questions before we move on I guess I'm going to do a quick look to see if there are questions um and I don't see any questions so sorry for interrupting but let's keep on moving Dr Fields great job no thank you so much Madam president because I needed some water so I appreciate that you you break for water anytime Dr Fields all right so for North Glendale as we look at the process as well you will see the retirement letter being received from Ms Sissel you will see a discussion with Ms Sissel to determine I'm speaking with staff and necessary next steps the meeting with North Glendale staff you will see the initial candidate profile survey did open and when the job was posted which in this instance was November the 8th
037the candidate profile will close on December the 31st from there you will see a breakdown of what you can expect as it relates to sharing the results with the staff as well as with our school Community when the position will close you will see the screener the paper screener as well as established interview questions and the process based off those results as is the case with the high school first round second round third round if necessary and a one-on-one with Dr Ulrich on February the 23rd or 24th you will see recommended to the board tentatively February the 27th and you will see the communication for the approved candidate for our community starting February the 28th the results are not present right now because that survey is still up and running as it relates to Tillman
038again the same Dynamic is there making sure we receive the letter from Dr stoby followed by a discussion a meeting as it relates to the timeline and the process the candidate profile the job being posted November the 28th the survey will close in January followed by sharing the survey results both with the Tillman staff as well as the school community from there you will see the paper screening interview processing questions first round second round third round if necessary one-on-one with Dr Ulrich and then in the event that we would have a special session that person will be recommended to the board March the 6th and that will be communicated out beginning March the 7th this next set of slides will provide you with our calendar if you have anything going on in January you probably
039don't want to include myself or Dr Ulrich because as you can see from the screen there's a lot going on and we wanted to make sure we map these things out because each process will have an individual process it is such that that was something that we heard loud and clear from both Community as well as staff making sure that this is quote unquote our process and all attention is on that particular process and so you will see for example beginning in November but what we have on the screen right now in January all of the various dates that are color coded by the high school North Glendale and or Tillman you will see the February tentative calendar and then you will see March as we continue with the standard operating procedure that was presented
040to the board in January of this year that process starts out with the actual requisition form and then it starts out it continues rather with posting the job both internally as well as externally though this is an example this is a practical example because for the high school the job was posted on more than 10 Platforms in addition to that approximately three thousand six hundred dollars have been spent on promoting the high school principal vacancy on your screen in front of you you will see two things the Fantastic work from the crd Department you will notice that even in the Webster Kirkwood time as we refer to as the Kirkwood Webster time we do have the biggest advertisement right there out of all of the various groups to promote the high school principleship you will
041see on the right of your screen indeed as the actual posting on those two paid platforms speaking of paid you will see the Saint Louis American and again us having the biggest or the largest advertisement right there you will have aasa which is the superintendent um searching website from across the country so from a national standpoint we are there promoting as well St Louis Post-Dispatch and although this was a free bulletin we wanted to make sure it was there as well and so I know I've given kudos to the crd department but the executive secretaries in the HR department have been doing a fantastic job of just trying to find any and every place we can post for the high school principal ship not just posting externally we had a chance from an internal standpoint
042to post I'm sorry add the actual invite for everyone to fill out the candidate profile that was on one of the cards that went home to all of our staff and community we have our internal communication mechanism which is the KSD Insider and again you will see all of the information as it pertains to promoting and advertising not just the jobs but also the thought Exchange as we continue with the standard operating procedure the information there just speaks to what we can expect moving forward and then just a few final thoughts a reminder for the high school January which will be the 23rd recommended to the board for the high school principal the next day we would communicate who that person would be pending board approval North Glendale Elementary School principal will be recommended to
043the board tentatively February the 27th and the next day pending board approval will be communicated to the community and last but certainly not least Tillman Elementary School would be recommended to the board tentatively March the 6th and communicated with the community the very next day on March the 7th again if anyone is watching um and all sincerity please consider applying for these fantastic opportunities and with that you can find those opportunities or more on kirkwoodschools.org forward slash jobs I'll turn it back over to Madam president to facilitate any questions and at this time start down with with questions don't see any um don't see any Dr Fields just thank you for taking the time to go over this for both the board and for our public these are extremely important positions and it's it's clear
044that that there's a process and there's great things happening so thank you for all your work and for everyone else's work that has gone into this thank you so much have a great evening you too okay next up moving on is 7.02 approval of the consent agenda I need a motion in a second to approve the consent agenda 7.02 through 7.07 as presented so move second okay all those in favor of approving the consent agenda please raise your right hand and say aye aye all those opposed motion passes next up is finance reports I need a motion and a second to approve the financial statements for November 2022 as presented move approval second okay and at this time Mr romay good evening our operating revenues in November were 1.9 million and we received our first
045property tax payment for the 2022 tax year totaled 000 most of our property tax payments will come in in the month of December and January or operating revenues in November were 7.1 million we did pay our annual Insurance assessment of just over one million dollars that's an 8.3 percent increase over the prior year that amounts paid to the Missouri United school Insurance Council or music that is a co-op that 95 percent of the school districts in Missouri are members of this assessment covers our property insurance General liabilities School Board liability workers comp equipment breakdown cyber liability and a treasurer's Bond in our technology fund we received a partial payment for the sale of laptops totaling 150 000 dollars the balance due on these laptops will be received after the condition of the laptops have been
046graded by the company in our construction fund we received approximately 199 thousand dollars in interest earnings on the Investments of the prop bar Bond proceeds and we spent about 2.2 million dollars on construction okay thank you Mr romay at this time I'm gonna look down the line for questions seeing no questions um we will move to a vote all those in favor of approving the financial statement for November 2022 as presented please raise your right hand and say I I motion passes thank you thank you Mr romay you might want to stay up there maybe no oh okay sorry um next up 9.01 support staff compensation I need a motion and a second to approve the support staff compensation as presented so moved second okay at this time Dr Ulrich all right thank you very
047much I want to just say a truth thank you Miss Andrews president Andrews and the rest of the board for consideration uh just by way of background if the board will recall in February of this year it was brought to the board to approve an RFP for the pick to have us take a look at our salary or our salary compensation for our support staff we have been moving throughout that process and in August you received a detailed report from the folks at cbiz who ultimately got that contract and then from that point we made a commitment to take a look and make that recommendation ours so I want to hold up the department of HR and the finance department as well as they have taken what can only be described as a granular look
048at the initial recommendation and what we have before you for what I hope will be final approval reflects those efforts and so while not every employee will be impacted the same no employees pay will be negatively impacted if approved the starting hourly rate for our KSD staff members will be 16.19 again if approved the average increase for our staff beginning next month in January of 2023 the average increase would be 3.4 percent and then all of our support staff would receive at least a one percent increase so the what you see in front of you reflects those changes uh and uh I will be happy to answer any questions I know Dr Fields and Mr romay will be ready to answer any questions that the board may have just a reminder this has been something
049we have brought consistently back again miss Andrews thank you for keeping this at the Forefront again to make sure that our Tran that our process is transparent and we can go back and map that transparency out over the last several months we've talked about this effort on behalf of our support staff um real quick before I I move on to take any questions for Dr Ulrich I think it's really important that you know the individuals who make up our support staff are an extremely dedicated group um whether they work one-on-one with students interact with kids daily or directly can all of them directly contribute to the effective operations of our schools we can only be successful in service to our students when all District employees work together and feel valued this comprehensive effort to ensure
050we are competitive and thus able to hire and retain quality members team members only serves to enhance our mission to equip our students with the skills knowledge and understanding to be empathetic successful and to Value all people so I just really want to take the time to recognize that this was a major undertaking and there was a lot of pieces and a lot of work that went into this and um we're just so thankful for that so at this time board members if I know that we they have kept us in the loop throughout this all all of this but at this time if there are any questions and I believe I'm back down to miss Bernardi seeing no questions down there I'm going to move down here okay so seeing no questions we will
051move to a vote so all those in favor to approve the support staff compensation as presented please re oh um okay so okay so do I do the abstention now sorry okay um please raise your right hand and say I I do I have a um any abstentions do I have any abstentions okay say it loud and clear no I'm just joking okay sorry that was a little wonky so this is um an exciting um an exciting time so thank you for all of your hard work and as we said this um will be great stuff thank you okay moving on to new business um substitute 9.02 I need a motion and a second to approve the substitute pay change as presented so move second okay at this time Dr Ulrich yes as though as
052I've kept the board informed of this as well as well this is very much related to our support staff compensation however it does need to be dealt with as a separate action item uh currently Kirkwood school district has the second lowest daily rate for Subs among our comparative districts the recommendation is to increase the sub pay to twenty dollars an hour which would be which would be a significant increase for those folks and as we talk about the folks that help us contribute to the success of our students one of the things is we have learned through kovid is for our staff our certified staff in particular to feel as if they can take care of their own wellness and as we try and get over that climate and culture that I lived with as
053a teacher which is it was it's harder to be it's harder to be gone sometimes and so you're going to drag yourself in I see Dan not and he said you're going to drag yourself in um we're we're past those days all right we need to take care of ourselves and we also need to make sure that we're setting a good example for our students and to be able to do that and give our certified staff confidence we have to be able to tell that staff that they can find good quality substitutes to be in their classrooms and and I believe that with the board approval we believe that we will take a major step towards towards that effort tonight president Andrews okay at this time I'm gonna uh no questions okay okay um so
054let's move to a vote all those in favor of approving The Substitute pay change as presented please raise your right hand and say I I all those opposed motion passes again as Dr Ulrich said this is an important group of people and and you know the board Echoes the the message that we want our teachers to feel like they can take care of themselves and take care of their loved ones and so um thank you Dr Ulrich for saying that okay next up um is the five-year maintenance plan I need a motion and a second to approve the request to seek bids for the 22 23 oh my to the 23 24 portion of the five-year maintenance plan as presented and I will throw this over to Mr Mr romay thanks for Mr Rome sorry
055guys thank you got to keep Laura Miss heidrich on her toes thank you um each year we go through this process of updating our five-year maintenance plan and this plan is funded by the dedicated tax levy the dedicated maintenance tax levy so we update this plan each year and based on our most critical needs throughout the district so sometimes as we look at this and update this plan sometimes things get added that weren't on it the previous year or sometimes we move things out into a later year to be able to address the most critical needs in the first year but I bring this to you tonight because we have to start the process of getting bid packages ready and then after we bid them out we'll bring them back to the board for approval
056so right now what we're asking is what I'm asking is permission to seek bids for these and we divided them into 8 different categories I'm going to talk about the largest categories first being mechanical which is about 2.4 million dollars this includes several HVAC units at the high school and KCC it also includes boiler and HVAC lease payments but it also includes HVAC windscreens here at the high school in the front next to where the new Welcome Center will be built so it does include that there's funds in this plan for Electrical Plumbing asphalt and Roofing repairs um there's also funds in this plan for just general maintenance including lighting door replacement floor Improvement painting things like that um next I want to point out our grounds category it doesn't this plan does include funds
057to replace one of the Robinson playgrounds it also includes funds to add playground equipment at Kaiser Elementary if you ever seen Kaiser's field in the back it's almost impossible to grow grass on that field and it's really because of the the small footprint that we have at that building it's our smallest footprint of all of our elementary schools and it happens to be one of our largest schools in terms of enrollment so there's not a whole lot of options for kids when uh you know and places to play and things to do at that location so we want to partner with the Kaiser PTO and add playground equipment and fall surface for that equipment it would be a 50 50 partnership with the PTO potentially and hopefully raising two hundred thousand dollars and then the
058the district committing another two hundred thousand dollars from the maintenance plan so that's the plan the PTO is is ready if this gets up approved is ready to start that fundraising process we may need to complete it in phases if they can't raise their full portion of the funds but we would like to do that for Kaiser Elementary it will really improve the playground areas that that school will have finally Safety and Security we have 875 thousand dollars in the budget most of that is to re replace the fire sprinkler system at KCC the piping system for that sprinkler system is is failing we've had to fix a lot of the pipes and so it just needs a total replacement so there's funds in in this maintenance plan for this summer to do that work
059as well so the total expenditure budget for the maintenance fund for 23 20 the 23 24 fiscal year is just over 4.8 million dollars that that will be paid through the reserves that we have in the maintenance fund we always carry reserves in the maintenance fund and we are expecting about three million dollars in Revenue next year we do have a couple other projects that we're planning the turf project that's the turf some of the fields here at the high school and then also renovation of the the existing Orchestra room at North Middle we're going to renovate that into a new boardroom so those projects are also in the works funding for that will not come from the maintenance fund so you won't see those projects in this uh this five-year maintenance plan but we
060will bring those bids back to the board at a later date um so I'm requesting approval to seek bids for the items that are identified in the 23-24 um portion of this plan and if approved then we will bring those bids back to the board once they are received later this spring great and it is the time to ask any questions and I'll start down with Miss Bernardi um Mr Kavanaugh please when I do right past you sorry I have three questions you're good okay my first question is do our cost estimates have contingency built into the mic specifically for mechanical electrical and plumbing yes okay and like decent because we're seeing like 40 to 50 increases right now for that type of work yeah we were budgeting pretty high on all these projects because
061we're just from the past experience with the prop R projects and from talking to we still talk to navigate about all the work doing that we're doing so we know that the costs are are high we also have concerns with the labor market which is also driving up the cost right okay and if there's any float in some of those schedules to save us money right like if we're anticipating things may go down in six months right just based supply and demand do we have that built into the that cost estimate or that what we're letting um that becomes kind of tricky because a lot of this work we have to do in the summer so okay we can't wait on some of this work um the the one item that I did want to
062point out is the fire sprinkler system at KCC that's something that we've been out a couple times already and we've only gotten one bid and the latest one we didn't even open it up um but the contractor told us it was very high because of those reasons that you just mentioned so we are going to rebid it we're we're scaling back the scope sum and and being from talking to our engineering engineers and Consultants we're being creative with how we're going to package this and we are going to allow them to do some of the work this summer and finish up some of the work over winter break of next year in the hopes of bringing that cost down so we're we are trying to do as much as we can but but knowing that
063you know most of this work has to happen during the summer when kids aren't around okay perfect no thank you I appreciate that and being thorough because I asked the same questions all the time my second question is the bids you have the two special projects are those being included with all of the maintenance projects or is that going to be a separate RFP it's a separate RFP perfect um and the the turfing project we're working on now the boardroom project we have not begun because we need the help of Architects to design that and we're bringing a recommendation to the board for architects in January okay okay and I was specifically thinking about the turf so perfect and then um just a note for future years in the maintenance fund obviously this next year
064is identified it would be really helpful to make sure that we're thinking of any other updates to our facilities extracurriculars or Athletics so um and being proactive and some of that instead of waiting until like the field got as bad as it is so just a thought to look out there thank you thank you thank you Miss Miss Pangborn Mr Mr Kavanagh Mr remain did I hear you correctly did you say you're getting bids on the screening for the HVAC units on top of the high school that's correct we are do I need to pinch myself I'm sorry do I need to pinch myself yeah it's kind of like our maintenance folks uh not believing that we're going to build a new Warehouse either so we are going to love it thank you we're doing
065the warehouse and we're doing the HVAC screens yes please don't forget about tearing down that yellow house thank you all right he's just adding to your list Mr romay okay um seeing no further questions um we we oh Mr Dr Holford sorry yeah yeah um Mr Romano we did we discussed this earlier and I know that our Board of Education will want to uh will want to hear these details our community's support of prop R had a major impact on what we could do with regard to our maintenance fund would you be willing if you can think kind of off the top of your head uh two or three examples and maybe some round numbers as to what the community's support of prop R is allowing us to do like things like screens for the
066roof of the high school of the uh if you would just please let the board give two or three examples just briefly prep our probably the biggest example is prop R included funds to replace some HVAC units four million dollars so we're doing that work and in fact most of it has already been completed but that then in turn helps out the maintenance fund but some other examples we use the maintenance fund to construct secured entrance at a few of our schools and so prep bar enabled us to finish that it relieves pressure on the the maintenance fund and then some other examples would just be Ada improvements so things like ramps and lifts those typically have come out of the maintenance fund Mr ome I would say off the top of your head great
067job great examples um and and Dr Ulrich thank you for having Mr romay because you know we want to always take the opportunity to recognize the the support that our community did give us in in passing prepar and just you know be being responsible with that so at this time everyone's had the opportunity oh sorry to ask questions and so we will move to a vote all those in favor of approving the requests to seek bids for 23 24 portion of the five-year maintenance plan please raise your right hand and say I I all those opposed motion passes okay next up is future events thank you Mr Rome sorry about that we will have winter recess from and school will be out from December 22nd to January 4th the students will return on the 5th
068correct um and then board candidate did am I good doctor Albrecht we we do have we do have school on Wednesday correct just week we do just making sure the way I read this it does say Wednesday December 22nd uh winter recess District closed that should uh there is school uh for our kids everybody out there listening there is school on Wednesday doctor wants you all to show up on Wednesday yes please because it actually is we're we are open for school on Wednesday yes we are open for school a long way today I I could see the panic in Dr Ulrich that I knew I needed to pause so we will adjust that so it's actually the winter recess will be um help me Dr alright it'll start on Thursday the 23rd 23rd okay
069great there we go now Dr Ulrich has the color back in his face the 20s the dates are correct the days are the days are wrong we got this guys this is teamwork listen Teamwork Makes the Dream work so here we go it's actually Thursday December 22nd okay the color is back in Dr ulrich's face students please do show up to school on Wednesday um I was actually panicking as a parent to be honest and then on December 27th this is the last day to file as a board candidate and the filing closes at five o'clock then students return on the fifth and then we have a board work session on January 9th then we are closed in honor of Dr Martin Luther King on January 16th and then we will have um another board
070meeting on January 23rd um board you've got Patron comments I do want to speak real quick about the board candidate file and closes on the 27th as I said um I'd like to just note a few following will affect candidates filing in the Kirkwood School District Board of Education candidates will file their declaration at the election board located at 725 North West Plaza Drive in Saint Anne um and so that is just a reminder there and I am going to call this meeting adjourned um have a great evening and um take time to relax and enjoy each other thank you