LSR7 Board of Education Meeting -11/07/24

001all right good evening everyone I would like to call this meeting to order this work session can I get an adoption of the agenda I move to I move to adopt the agenda as presented second all right I have a motion in a second all those in favor raise your hand and say I I motion passes all right first up we have item 2.01 which is library media center process for material checkout right president Eslick would you like to kick this off sure will okay so um the reason that this item came up for a work session um is the result of um kind of several years of both public um concern that parents have brought up some speakers that we've had at the board meeting um and some dialogue that board members have had

002with uh certain community members so we thought it would be a great idea for the board to get together and just have some conversation with our staff about some of these concerns and figure out how we can kind of work together to address Community concern and address any gaps in policy or process that we might want to try and Shore up to help alleviate some of these public concerns and just kind of um be out front and just opening up the dialogue so that's kind of the purpose of um the reason for having this work session topic um and uh yeah that's that pretty much do you have anything to add good since we were presented with a um like a infographic document would one of you like to kind of share a little bit

003with us about kind of what that is why you put that together and just for the benefit of anybody that might be watching so they can understand what's what we're talking about today right am I good all right so I'm handing around copies of it for those of you guys who maybe don't have it in front of you and I believe I brought enough for everybody including Librarians and everybody sitting here so what I've put together is just some information about um our circulation statistics our collection development statistics some information about and then some information about readers advisory um and so what we did is we went ahead and we did did a fiscal year presentation of the numbers so these numbers go from July through the end of June for the years 2021 2022

004and 2023 and so you can see that we circulate approximately a little over 650,000 materials every year um and that includes Audi books ebooks um periodicals uh print books all of it and um it includes all of our buildings our resource library and it also includes summer school so uh some of our numbers in the past we had just kind of focused on year on the year but we decided to try to give a fuller picture so this is all of those statistics um and then you can see our collection development numbers how many books we add each year as well as how many books we weed or we delete each year um so and you'll notice there's some there are some fluctuations in those numbers primarily because of buildings being built so for example

005in the 2223 school year there's a large jump in the number of books added and that's because we added two schools to to our district that year so you'll see some some numbers jump in and out of there um also last year there was a larger number of books weeded and that was primarily because um we were moving Lee Summit High School into a new um space within their building and so there was decreased number of shelves so we had to delete more books last year because of that for space reasons and then I did include in there the formal reconsideration request that we've received over the last three years uh by title and then also by challenge as a result of the student having checked out a book and I included that information just

006because I know that there is concern amongst the community about books that are available to students and so we've had a large number of book re reconsideration requests in the 2223 school year however none of those requests were as a result of student checkout and if you see I mean we checked out 687 th000 books that year so I think that's an indicator that perhaps maybe the concern isn't necessarily at the student parent level and so that's why I wanted to share that information on the back side of the graphic is information about how we do our collection development um there was a video that we released during the 22 23 what's it make sure I get my right 22 23 school year about how we do our collection development um and so I just

007actually I use chat GPT and actually no I didn't I used uh Magic School Ai and I just had it kind of summarize what was in that video so that we could have kind of a a print copy of what how that process works um and then I included some information about readers advisory uh it is our goal as a department that our students graduate from our district being able to self- select that they can find books that they're interested in that they know how to how to locate them how to select them what questions to ask when it comes to what kinds of things they're looking for and so from little bitty on up our goal is to provide readers advisory lessons that help Usher them into being able to make those self- selections

008by the time they're graduated so we do things at the little bitty age about what's a just WR book and what are the different genres and that kind of thing as they get older we'll do questions about and I say will very Loosely I wasn't an elementary librarian but for one semester so they can pipe in and correct whatever I'm like misspeaking about but there there's times when maybe a child checks out a book and they have some scary dreams I know one of our Librarians was talking about that so they'll talk to students about well if it's making you uncomfortable or you are having some scary dreams maybe we should take a break or not not check those books out anymore so we do those kinds of lessons early on and by high school

009it's a lot of you C you can check out whatever you like you can skip Pages you can read the ending first if you want you can read whatever kind of book that you like but you need to consider what makes you comfortable or uncomfortable what the the values are of your family and and then make those decisions there um and as we ask answer questions and stuff we can get into those kinds of things but so I included the rights and responsibilities of a reader because that really is kind of our guiding document at the secondary level so I spoke really fast my apologies but uh I'm open to whatever kinds of questions you have as well as my colleagues here so sure yeah so I'm Amy Taylor I'm the coordinator of library media

010services for our district this is year 31 in the district for me um and it is year I think 20 or 19 in the library department and year three is the library coordinator and then I'll just pass it around and let everybody else right I am Tracy Baker and I'm the librarian at pleasantly middle school and this is my 29th year in the district but only oh gosh is it six of those has been in the library I'm Christy Brown I'm at East Charles Middle School my 30th year in education and it is my 17th year as a librarian hi Michael Russell I am a librarian at Lis some at North High School I have been at North as the librarian I'm going to go 13 years years I was at Lee Summit High School

011as a librarian for six and then I was at West the first three years it was open as a journalism and English teacher hi I'm Megan Chambers I'm the librarian at Lisa West High School and this is my 27th year in the district I taught for three years at Lisa high school was a librarian at 3 for three years Alis high school and then I opened West 20 years ago I'm also the lead secondary librarian hi I'm Annie Matthews I um in the librarian at Sunset Valley and Woodland Elementary um and I this is my 15th year in the district um my 10th year as a librarian um I also was a classroom teacher at Sumit Point Elementary and then um a parah at grade beginnings and I'm Kim rwis I'm the librarian at Summit

012Point Elementary and Great Beginnings at the Legacy campus this is my 29th year in our school district dist um 18th year as a librarian and before that I was a fifth and sixth grade classroom teacher at Meadow Lane all right so does anybody have any questions and I would suggest sorry to interrupt but um since we don't have a buzzer system I think it's appropriate if anybody just wants to kind of speak up at any time so I don't have to call on people and we don't have to raise hands if if everybody's okay with that okay um so uh I would like to thank each and every one of you for being here tonight and I I would like to thank each and every one of you for what you do for our littlest

013Learners getting them excited about reading I I can't imagine my life without a book um so I thank you for that um as a career teacher I believe and I still believe that the library is the Hub of the school and I know how hard you all work to um to to to stay on top of you know Trends and stay on top of relevance and stay on top of this is the Hot Topic that these kids are into that you as an adult probably think is stupid but they love these and so we you know do those things or whatever it is um and I'll date myself cuz when I was early on in my career you know it was all about oh now I can't remember the movie but um anyway so I

014appreciate tremendously what you do to try to help support the efforts of what then we do in the classroom that sometimes isn't as much fun as as the book that I get to go choose so my hats off to each of you for what you do go next I I actually I mean Stacy said it so well I just want to just ditto what she said I want you to know that I appreciate all that you do for our students and our littlest Learners all the way up um and just I love the I love how you described the re reader advisory I think that's fantastic and how we're raising readers and how what what does that look like at each level so I really appreciate the presentation but overall I just want you to

015know that I appreciate all that you do thank you thank you for being here and I just wanted to say recently board member Miller and I we went to I forgot what this name of the school but it was we for the preschoolers the prek um so we got to tour their Library very cute setup and they were so happy to have their books that they picked out so that has been my only experience that I've had as far as seeing the checkout system with the with the little kids it was really cute and they were so excited about their books that they picked out so I just have a ton of questions well I mean not a ton of questions but I'm just very curious like on the older kids level my kids will

016go to the library but I have no idea like how they do it and in the system and how it's set up so I will have questions about that but thank you so much for being here and kind of enlightening us and the public about how our libraries are set up so thank you sure Michael and I will kind of take High School um there's a lot of different ways that our students come and get books from us and um one of the most informal ways would be when a student is either before school during Titan Bronco time something like that they would just be coming in on their own to to pick out a book and usually that would be self-directed they can always of course always find a librarian find our clerk find

017one of our student workers if they need assistance but by the time they come to us they usually are pretty Adept at like using the library catalog they know how we're genri IED they know where to find kind of their books that they're they're accustomed to reading and so that's a little bit more of an informal process um when they come in with a class which would be you know typically an English class although sometimes I have history classes come in debates debate um yeah debate always comes in occasionally like a business class if we're doing something on non-fiction um but typically if a class comes in and we see all of our English classes the first six weeks of school do you do the same uh 9th and 10th okay early uh we don't

018always see junior senior until a little bit later but you know that first initial welcome back you know welcome back to the library just a few reminders you know if you're brand new to our our district here's how we do it here um here's you know where the books are if we've moved anything over the summer um and then we always kind of roll into those rights and responsibilities of a reader that we have here we have them posted several places throughout the library and so usually um I'll just kind of address it sort of you know with my speech about everything else and I'll just kind of say you know remember when you come into our library we serve 2,000 kids and we've got 14 year olds and 18 year olds we have all

019different kinds of interests um everybody comes to us wanting to know about something wanting to read about something different and so you know you're going to find a lot of books in here that you're going to really love and you're going to find some books that probably you're not going to Vibe with and that's okay and so as a reader you have the right to grab a book take it home if you aren't vibing with it for whatever reason you just plain don't like it it you know maybe is going somewhere you just don't feel like you're quite ready to go for and I will say if it's something that your family values don't really align with by all means bring it back find me find Mrs Alvarado my partner she's not here but um

020I would normally gesture to where she's at in the library find me find Mrs Alvarado um we will gladly work with you to find something that is a little bit better suited to what you're looking for and that's been pretty effective yeah I would say exactly the same thing um as you know book talk is huge oh yeah a lot of kids will come in and know exactly what they want book talk on Tik Tok I in case people don't know that yes on Tik Tok it's it's a it's t and so students will see recommended books they'll see trailers they'll come in and say hey where is this book and so we can if if it's in we can guide it to them and like Megan said you know we talk a lot about

021the rights and responsibilities of a reader and I would say in my experience we've had a handful not a lot of kids but there have been a handful of kids who have come back and said this really isn't for me or as we're talking to them um doing what we call readers advisory I also a student might ask what recommendations do you have um you know we kind of ask well what do you like what are your interests and students uh especially at the high school I find are very good at knowing what their household expects you know they've had conversations with their parents and um will'll say well I I don't really want something with a lot of kissing or maybe this you know this particular thing is out of bounds it's great let's

022let's not look at those let's let's go this direction and there's as Megan said we have a lot of interest we have a lot of books about a lot of things you know covering 2,000 students uh we have a very diverse collection and that's one of our goals is to represent everybody with something well and I think it's worth noting too like we have 7,000 books in our fiction collections alone not even counting our non-fiction so they got lots to choose from question I have and this is coming from personal experience with my son um so he's in Middle School uh he likes to read comic books and there was a comic book and it was anime so it was anime and and he um had it in the card so he would read it

023when I would pick him up from school when I drop him off in school we're waiting in line so he's flipping through the book if they come across a questionable picture of nudity what should i as a parent do as far as who do I talk to who I go about that book and then what happens after that well by all means I mean we would love for you to call the librarian principal um I mean we definitely work with our principles too um so we you know when we select books we use professional reviews because with the volume of books there's no way I can read every single book before I put it in um but I will say over the years there have been some brought to attention that we were like okay

024thank you very much you know and so then um depending on what's seen you know at at that point then we may reach out to others um have you also had questions about this and so sometimes the book gets removed sometimes it gets retained it all depends on I mean I don't know for sure what the picture was in that particular instance but well my son from the back seat said mom there's nudity and I'm driving so we waited till we got to the parking lot and I'm like well let me see what is this that you're looking at and granted I kind of flipped through the book and it was only towards the last maybe like the last two pages of the book I I kind of flipped through the rest just to make

025sure there was nothing else in there but at the end of the book there was um an anime female um who was completely naked oh okay and she you couldn't see her bits because she's the way she's posed she's kind of hiding those but the implication I mean like he knew what it was and then um there was a man ogling her like right next to the square next to hers yeah with his eyes popping out and drool coming out of his mouth so I mean that was very too much over over the top uh for uh a middle schooler he was sixth grade yeah oh yeah and I as a parent I definitely I mean it sounds like you guys had a conversation which I think is key um and hopefully if he runs

026across that again you know it's either a return or not to say that the book should stay or not say but without seeing it and looking at at as whole you know I wouldn't know but um anything else that you can think no I would just reiterate the same thing I would just want to know as the library and I would hope that you'd have you know that your child bring that to me and we could you know I could look at it and and see what needed to be done done from there so just yeah that is good to know because I actually got a picture of the cover and I got a picture of the graphics so that I had some evidence I could go but I honestly didn't know like where should

027I go should I go to the principal should I go to the librarian and then what happens after that am I going to look like a crazy person you know it's just one of those things that I'm kind of like where do I go what do I do yeah no absolutely not and that is in board policy you go to your library so if you ever have a concern automatically just reach out to your librarian share with them the concern and like christe said oft times what they'll do is they'll contact other Librarians of that same grade level they'll pull the book look at it themselves and then make a decision um and typically especially at our Middle School level they kind of do lock step together like so whatever they all they all kind

028of discuss and have a discuss uh and make a decision together as to what's supposed to be done so absolutely that is the first step if ever a parent has a concern call your librarian and then they will go and they will take care of it okay appreciate that thank you yes can I ask a couple questions about the screening process and how books kind of come into the library as a whole um so just in general could do you just kind of educate us a little bit on like the screening process if there is a screening process or just how a book winds up coming into the library absolutely so uh there's a variety of ways into it how we're searching for books so perhaps there's a particular genre that we're needing to beef

029up or um perhaps there's been a student request or a teacher request or whatever so we typically go to our book jobber which is Title Wave um where they provide lots of different kinds of recommendation lists and they also Prov provide professional reviews within their site and so we'll use that to type in whatever search criteria that we're what we're looking for and then we W I always picked and I don't want to speak for everybody but when I was doing it in the building I would always say I want at least two professional reviews so that any books that would come up in a search I would find books that have at least two professional reviews and then I could use those to kind of make a decision um and in those professional reviews

030they speak to what the con you know what what the plot of the story is who it might appeal to and then it gives an age recommendation some of them give a grade recommendation and not an age recommendation it depends on the review the reviewer um and so that's the process we tend to go through there are some exceptions so a lot of non-fiction reference books they don't necessarily have an age level recommendation in the review and so we'll do other kinds of searches for that like um what Rec recommendation list so at the Missouri Association of school librarians they've recently started recommending non-fiction books in grade bands Tracy here sits on that committee and so they'll recommend you know these non-fiction books for this age band um and so we'll use those to kind

031of help us pick you know also you know what belongs where um if there's a student recommendation we go through the same process we do for any other book we look at and see if there's reviews on it that kind of thing uh some of the books we'll have read some of the books we I mean as you can see what was it last year we added 177,000 books there's not a t enough time to read all 177,000 books so we go through the reviews um yeah I don't I is there something particular you're looking for do you feel like that answers the question yes it does I'm just generally genuinely curious about the process so just kind of like going a little bit further off of that so when you're kind of looking at

032the reviews is there something in those reviews that would ever make you say nope this is not right for our library this is not right for kids this isn't right for this age like is there something that would make you say um no that's not okay yes it I wouldn't and I wouldn't say that there's like a particular word that I look for um but and I I I should it might be speaking out of turn so somebody else can speak up if I'm you know if they have something they would like to add wasn't ever ever a particular word perhaps but you could get a tone or you could get a description that you're like so then I would always go and look for other reviews um the age recommendation was big if there's

033that age recommendation really helped kind of especially in fiction um and especially in graphic novels too so um that kind of helps us tone in hone in what we're looking at um does anybody have anything to add Amy just I say real quickly I might not be real quick um one I just want to be clear so when we're talking about reviews it's not like when you go on Amazon and it's a customer review it's professional Librarians who have done this as long or longer than we have who know their craft very very well and can read a book in advance you know before it's published and know you know what it is to then pass that along and so not only not particular phrases but you'll get that suggestion of this might contain more

034mature content and sometimes that's reflected in the age and sometimes it'll just say this is kind of a dull book it's not very good and I've not ordered a lot of books because the recommendation said it wasn't very good sometimes it will say you know recommended for very large libraries like indicating like this isn't essential you know it's yeah it it's okay but it's not great great um sometimes it'll have words like raw and edgy which might make you think okay I probably need to go find another review or two or three reviews or even like preview that one before it comes in so there are certainly indicators like Michael was saying they are professional reviews so these are people that are speaking it this isn't something that anybody else is going to go out

035and read it's for us it's for librarians to use as selection tools and so they are very explicit and like this is you know and they'll even say sometimes verdict is it is it slj school library Journal um says like verdict must need for all high school libraries or you know you can pass on this one and it'll like actually kind of spell that out um so I I do think there's that also you know sometimes we do get recommendations and things from kids that are books that we wouldn't put into our libraries I I think there is kind of a a misconception out there that sometimes it's like no holds bar anybody wants a book yeah we'll buy it and bring it here that's not that's not the case there are lots of books

036that we say no to to for dull not good not well written and content not appropriate to have in a high school we we aren't going to have every single book and we don't have every single book and I will say too um many of us are able to get I guess all of us are able to get Advanced reader copies so before the books are published and again we can't read 17,000 I mean I read 175 to 200 books a year he's a champ I'm not good but that doesn't begin to cover the the scope but there have been times where I've had Advanced reader copies for advanced listener copies um that the publisher has sent and I've thought this isn't a good fit for us and I don't order them that's helpful thank

037you um so sorry that's all I was going to say too is especially if it says like additional selection I don't usually buy it um and real quick how did you say you spelled was it book talk like t a l k talk okay book talk instead of like Tik Tok t i t it's book talk b o t but it's like hashtag within Tik Tok if that makes sense so like if you're in Tik Tok and then like you hashtag book talk find like and it's just people to people who love books and they like put little things about books and they have like you know very ASMR like you know with like the book covers flying in and like if you liked this you'll like this and that's what he was referring to

038yeah people just putting here's the 10 books that I read this month and stack them up and and if you go to like Barnes & Noble or anything right now they'll have a SC SC on book talk bookshelf right now because it's just a big thing okay interesting did you have any more oh I mean I have one more follow up I was just okay um so I'm kind of curious like how um we handle in our libraries like difficult topic books and uh I I know the big topic you know publicly has been topics that uh books that are related to sexual content but I'm also thinking of conversations that I have had with parents who are um concerned about this particular parent um brought a concern around being a victim of sexual assault

039for example and not having a way to discern in literature for those I mean I hope there's not a lot of students that have that experience but we have a lot of young kids all the way up through High School experience various traumas and not having a way to identify readily on a piece of literature that this could be something that might kind of bring up some very painful things for that student um and it could be anything from that to like I think of Huck Fin and some very harsh language in Huck fin not saying we shouldn't it's period literature and it has a place in our history but it's also there's some excessive language in there that can also be very hurtful to um to people out of context um especially our populations

040of color so it's not just sexual content it there's a lot of different things that could be um harmful sure language a lot of violence I don't know if we have like a copy of Mind comp on the Shelf but I mean things like that where there's there's a lot of content that can be difficult that can be triggering um and do we have a way where we kind of alert our our readers to that or um I guess I'm I'm just curious about sure that sort of discussion yeah absolutely so we encourage and train our students to read the inside cover the back of the cover first page anything like that that that will give them an indication of what the book is about what is in the book um so that's one of

041the ways that we teach them how to self- select um another thing that I used to do is whenever I would do my readers my rights and responsibilities of a reader I would say if there are are certain topics that you want to steer clear of here's some ways to make sure that you don't end up with a book like that and so I would train them in using Common Sense Media I don't know if you're familiar with that website but it's a website that you can go to for media literacy lessons but they also give reviews on books and those reviews actually are pretty like pointed it so it'll say if there was language in it you know how many of a particular curse word or whatever so we would we would talk about

042those kinds of things as well so it's you know reading the inside cover reading the back cover knowing yourself and and doing some research before you just grab the book off the shelf or you can always come and talk with us so some kids aren't comfortable saying what it is that's concerning to them but if they are they can come and talk to us I do have one kind of story about the language piece that you can bring up years ago obviously at least three or four years ago because I've been in this position for three um I had a younger a young lady come in and she had checked out a book and she I don't even think she had gotten through maybe the first chapter maybe and she came in and she said

043there's some there's a lot of language in here and it's making me uncomfortable I don't want to finish the book but I like the plot I like like kind of what's happening and so I said that's great kind of give me some ideas of what you like about it what you don't like about it we had a conversation about you know what she was looking for for and then she and I went and found and I showed her like how do you search for the book and different tools that she could use and then we found a book that was more appealing to her she loved the book came back wanted to talk about it we T and I had read it so we talked about the book and then periodically throughout the rest of

044her High School career she would come in and we would have these conversations about books I think there's a perception that if a child reads A a word that they don't want to read that automatically there's going to be some a negative kind of interaction there and it ended up being a very positive interaction it taught her how to advocate for herself and how to feel comfortable advocating for herself it taught her that I was somebody who was approachable and somebody that I would that would help her and it also gave her the skills and the tools that she needed to be able to self- select for herself in the future so I I understand and you know I'm a parent I have four children of my own I have three girls that have graduated

045and gone through the system and a fifth grader and um so I understand as a parent you know and I'm having some my own struggles right now I my first boy he's like you're interested in what so I I get it um but I just I just want to reassure people that it's not it's not negative or controversial or contentious it's meant to be a very open kind of dialogue so that's just my story I know we're both chopping to go in one thing I would say is obvious Publishers are in the business of selling books they want to make money and they're very good about being responsive to what the needs are I think and and our middle school librarians and and Elementary can speak to this separately but I know in young adult

046literature a lot of books now before you even start chapter one or the intro they will say this book contains this this and this if these are issues for you if these will trigger you if these you know this might not be a good book for you um as a librarian when I'm doing book talks with a class I will often you know if I have read that book and honestly most of the book talks I do I have read uh will say this contains this you know this book is about a young woman who's struggling with an alcohol addiction at 15 years old uh which is a a brand new book that we just got it's powerful it's it's valuable in some ways but um you know as as a parent um I think

047those are great things to have that you can just open the book and it's it's right there A lot of times on those inside the covers um it will address what that book is about as well yeah I was going to point out the the kind of trigger warnings on a lot of the books but I was also going to say you know when I do one thing we kind of skipped when we were when we do these readers advisory lessons um and we do them throughout the year but when we do these reader advisory lessons not only are we talking about rights and responsibilities and where things are at we also do book talks and you know so we'll pull three or four different books that we've read usually different genres um sometimes different

048formats and you know we'll kind of give a little you know 90 second blurb just kind of get them to the hook get get you to where you want to read that book right like that's our goal is to get them to want to read it and they do um usually it's especially I know in the middle school they have to have multiple copies of all the books they book talk but even at the high school if I book talk a book and that one goes I usually have two or three kids coming up afterwards saying do you have more of that one do you have more of that one and I will not talk a book that has sexual assault to freshmen or sophomores I'm I'm it is in the library it is available

049to them but the books that I'm promoting the books that I'm you know talking about are grade are are different for the grade levels we're going to talk about different books for our seniors than we are for our freshman first of all they don't want to hear about those same books if they've been hearing about it for the last four years but we do have have different things that we talk about with our students and I mean I know when they're coming in with the class when I'm walking around doing casual readers advisory just one-on-one I know Michael's a freshman and so when Michael says he wants a sports book I know which sports books to kind of take him to um because he's a freshman I'm I'm probably not going to give him this

050one but I am going to book talk individually these two or three with him so I just want to clarify that that is book talk t a l k not book Talk t o c um just t o so so reader advisory when we are showcasing a particular book we call those book talks t t those ones we do as yes yes so just clarification thank you thank thank all of you that was helpful so this oh sorry go ahead I just wanted to say too it you you never know what could be triggering for some kids you know I might talk about a book in a book talk you know about a a child who loses his dog and for some kids that could be very upsetting for other kids that's the exact book

051they need to read because they have something to relate to an experience they've just had and so you just don't know if it's going to be something that's very therapeutic for that child or something that could be triggering so absolutely and I'm certainly not in any any way advocating for insulating kids from experiences through literature so that's not really the the reasoning behind the line of questioning I'm just um trying to understand um so the other question that I would have is maybe not so much for high school because I think you know by the time a student reaches High School number one they probably know about many of the things that they're reading about anyway so we don't have to kid ourselves that you know a lot of the things that people might be

052concerned about them being exposed to Via literature they probably already seen from their peers maybe experienced it themselves or even seen it on online more than likely but what about some some topics that perhaps in our elementary and maybe early middle school maybe parents would rather be the ones to try and have certain conversations versus that being exposed via like books or something um you know I think particularly right now um there are probably some families who might be sensitive to um the lgbtq conversation happening at school versus them being the ones to have that dialogue and I know that we do have representative books in our libraries absolutely no problem with that whatsoever how um can we come alongside those parents who might be concerned about I want to be the one to talk

053to my kid about this but I don't want to have this conversation with them when they're in third grade so how how can um we all As um you know supporting our students and families on all sides of this discussion um come along those parents who maybe have concerns about that piece um thank you for asking that um I would say that one of the most powerful things we have as parents is um access to information for our kids right and with our circulation system um while I don't very regularly teach every kid in third grade how to log into their account I'm certainly happy to show a parent how to do it and I do believe recently we've made sure that that is much more um well known or or uh not you know

054it's never been a secret of course but just making sure people are aware that they can do that um and I think as a parent my children are 28 and 25 so at this point they're reading what they want to read but when they were younger I could it's just like I would want to log into power school and see their grades I would want to make sure I was at a parent conference or whatever those things would be I could see myself if I had my kids still in third grade um checking regularly to see what they're checking out from the library and and just being a aware of that because it's all recorded in that circulation system at that moment of this is what Eric has checked out um and so it would

055be one more of those little things that as a parent I'd be like oh well I can check in on on this or I can check in on that so at the elementary level while I like I said I don't always teach the kids to do it themselves um but I absolutely think it would be appropriate for parents to have that access and you know it's just the Google button for the kids so yeah does that help yes that does help um right now is there any sort of link I don't think I think I know the answer but I'm going to ask it anyway from power school if they're already logging into Power School is there any direct link just to be able to go straight and to log into the library because it's

056the same login I think I don't believe so and I don't know I can write that down as a question to ask I'm not confident that that is um that the program that we use for our catalog has an uh schooly integration however I mean I think we can just put links along the side I don't so we could certainly look into that well and you sometimes see books show up sorry you sometimes see books show up because they're overdue and so like and and I don't understand it I I'm not a I'm not a tech person I don't understand how they talk to each other but apparently every night they talk and they talk about who hasn't turned in their books and who yes they discuss we we'll change the verbage but every night

057power school and Destiny discuss um who has a book checked out and that's overdue not just checked out but overdue so you might be confused because you when you do go in sometimes you see that little book icon and so I I could see how that would be confusing as a parent when you're seeing the book icon that book's been gone too long um they've had it for probably depending on the level two to three weeks one week I guess for y'all um but they they've had it for a minute so going into Destiny itself and I think that would be a tech question if they could talk more than they already do but what I am hearing you say is they already have some sort of link so it might not be far-fetched to

058make that something that allows our parents to just be more engaged with that that piece that yeah that's a a tech question I know I'm I'm putting that on you and that's I don't expect an answer so thank you I appreciate that I'm gonna stop talking because I've dominated so I'm gonna I had another question um so I think I heard that there is a description possibly like okay recently my kids wanted to go to see a movie We're looking through them we're like I I'm very particular I want to see what people are saying about the different movies and um I think it was Beetlejuice and they said that there was a you know indicate I mean there was drug abuse or the possibility of drug abuse I mean she was the main characters

059taking drugs I think to keep calm she had a death in the family recently and so she's you know trying to calm herself um and I think there was something else I can't remember anyway is so our books have information like could have you know explicit language or it could have drug abuse or it could have alcoholism or sexual assault so there is an indication so my kid's not just picking up a book and then going you know if it's sexual content let's say so it that is up to the publisher so whatever the publisher puts in the inside cover or on the back cover is what is going to be a part of that book description what Michael was speaking about was that in recent years Publishers have started to put like trigger wordings

060on books to say that kind of information that you've you've described I what I would suggest is if you have somebody who has a particular concern that they go to I would suggest Common Sense Media because Common Sense Media does list like anything that a parent might have some concerns about I go to it all the time when my son is like I want to play this video game or I want to watch this movie or I want to whatever it is that he wants to do I'll go to it often so that I can see what's in it so that I can have conversations with him or restrict or whatever um as a parent that's just something that I typically do and that's same thing like if you know your kid is going to

061um the library the next day or the next week or whatever at the elementary school level it's pretty easy cuz you have like a scheduled Library time um I would have those conversations with my child prior to if there's a particular concern about a particular topic or whatever and and ask them you know to kind of be on the lookout for those those things or or with Elementary you might be more like let's steer you to something as opposed to away from something yeah does that answer your question yes and then also with that so are these books just on the shelf and they won't know until they pick it up and then they can kind of see like you said with the cover or inside the cover to see if there are those trigger

062warnings or are they in a certain area of the library no everything's just on the shelves yeah okay yeah everything's just there so I as a parent do I have any way to restrict my child from being able to get certain books you can certainly reach out to the dist or to your like your child's librarian and say that I would like for them not to read whatever and we can put that in a note on their Destiny catalog however we do have self checkout so if your child checks it out through the self checkout and not going through the um librarian then they they can obviously do that piece they can they can skirt the system so it would certainly be a conversation that I would have with my child as well as with

063the librarian so that if that were the case I mean that's a discipline issue that you're going to need to take care of you know your child's done something that you've asked them not to do however there are some dis some of our libraries that are fairly small kids are coming in on a regular basis um where a librarian and a clerk will be able to tell right away oh yeah that's that student I know that they're parent ask that they not check out blah and so we can but we do it does need to be a particular title as opposed to a genre or a thing um because that's too that that's too difficult for us to be able to say every you know every book that's in that genre do you do that

064make sense yeah I mean or topic or whatever true yeah is yeah and then okay so there is um what did you s self check is that what it's called okay M so before they self checkout they could have that book and I would never know it right correct yeah yeah or if they or if they steal it you know if a kid comes and takes the book and just walks away with it hopefully it's not that but I guess what my concern would be you know yes I can discipline my child if I know they checked it out but if I don't know they checked it out then how can I discipline my child you only I mean not checked it out but looked at it yeah you yeah that you wouldn't know just

065like you wouldn't know if they stole it so you like you just have to have a conversation with your child I suppose okay so if it's an elementary student typically now the last couple weeks have been a little bit wonkey with you know all the different things of professional developments and Halloween parties and all the things but typically you would know like like my my daughter checks out on Mondays and so I if I was concerned I could log into her account knowing like okay she went on Monday so Monday evening I could log in to see what she checked out for that day so you wouldn't know like I mean you could you literally I guess could know in that second like if you know my child goes at 12:00 on Tuesdays you could

066log in to their Destiny account at 12:20 on Tuesdays to see exactly what they have checked out does that kind of answer your question well yeah I think she had answered though I guess my point was okay if you check it out I know if you don't check it out and you're just reading it I wouldn't know okay yeah I think that would be a discipline issue with you and your child like I told you not to do it but if I don't know that they did it that's what I'm saying I can't discipline them if I don't know that they did it if they didn't check it out we don't often have kids like hiding in the corners of our libraries reading books under I'm iiz Frank and honest I mean like we just

067that's not an issue that I've ever seen I would be thrilled if we had a kid reading a book to be honest right covertly reading a book um I would follow up just yeah so when they do that self checkout it will show up on the record just like anything else um also not not all the Librarians um so like at the high school we are often so busy that we don't do those checkouts we don't see when those get checked out so we have students like senior students um who are paid to kind of work uh and check books out we have Library assistance as well um so it would be it would be challenging to say that you know you could go in and and put this many titles restricting someone you know

068on a self checkout and and say that in a high school setting an adult would actually get to look at it and would know that child was was checking out at self checkout plus there's 2,000 of them I would love to say that I know them all and that I would recognize from across the room when I'm teaching that this one's not supposed to check out this book but it that would be disingenuous to say that we could do that we could not manage that just as a quick aside I think Hollywood has done us a disservice and you you look at a the the image of what a library is um is frequently it's it's a quiet place I think the only I've seen it in Hollywood is Ghostbusters but I mean frequently the

069the the mythology of the librar is it's a quiet place somebody comes in and you're quiet and you check out a book um our libraries are very very active I mean we'll have 14 classes 20 classes within a day in multiples places and um you know it things move very very quickly we had four classes I think four hours of today and three classes the other three hours today in my library so there's no possible way I could guarantee that a kid that walked in on their own didn't get a certain bot yeah and if if that process was there where we had one of us had to check that would kind of have a trickle down effect of we would then not be able to to teach teach the research lessons as well or

070work with those classes I mean it would really just kind of Log Jam that system of um you know just spending time doing that versus the other things that we we do I think very well um versus you know parents having that conversation at home that's an easy easy way to do that have that conversation with your kid and no unless they're reading in the corner what they're doing just also say that I don't know that I just don't know that it's that that it's that it's become that big big of an issue um you know like I said we checked out 62,000 books last year and we had zero formal reconsiderations any parent and I'm not saying we didn't have parents call and complain or be concerned or whatnot I I I can't say

071for sure because you know I didn't take those phone calls I could say none of them got to my to me you none of them Rose to the level where I would take care or where I would need to be involved so I think that most of our folks that are having that have concerns like that they're reaching well I hope my hope is and so I'll say this publicly My Hope Is that they're reaching out to their schools librarian and they're finding a solution that fits their family and that they're happy with that solution I think that's probably what's happening I can't say necessarily for sure but that would be my that would be my hope and wish is that you reach out to your library and and that you guys come up with

072a solution that works for you and your family so I'm going to go in a different direction if that's okay we good back to book talk as in Old School talk um the other thing that I would just want the public to realize is that you all do the same things with your teaching staff so that people we kind of maybe haven't read the titles but we see them two or three times a year so that then you see kids reading in your room you know when they had their downtime and things like that and sometimes you can kind of make small talk about this or that or whatever but they they do a really really phenomenal job of course by bribing us with food but um but but but bringing the staff in regularly

073to have those kinds of book talks to um so I just would want the my board members to know that as well like it's helpful I just want to reiterate that you guys are amazing I just enjoyed listening to all the things that you do and thank you for what you do because I I don't know that I knew all the things that you do on a daily basis but it's a lot so thank you awesome I have a couple additional questions um so we we have the chart about the formal reconsideration requests and we've talked about how students or concerned parents could bring a concern to a librarian so I was just curious if that has happened you know especially over the past couple years because we have had you know everything with the

074national media and we know we've had the formal requests that have come in but has there ever been a student that has contacted any of you guys directly where you have decided ah maybe that is something that we shouldn't have here or kind of kind of what did that look like because all we hear about is just the big things that come to our board level but I was curious if you guys have any personal experience with that so A number of years ago Dr Carlson was my principal at Summit lakes and we had a parent contact us about a book and so um we took a look at the book and sure enough you know we just felt like it wasn't the right fit for Middle School and we were able to resolve it

075very quickly again you know with the volume of books there's just we do our very best to get the best books that we can that seem like a relevant topic for research that they were doing in a class and um just sometimes there there are those few and we greatly appreciate when parents contact us because otherwise I probably would have never known you know and we we want the best books for our kids I've been the librarian like I said for 20 years at West so I I was there I bought the opening collection so I know most of the books there um and in the 20 years that I've been there I think we got five phone calls so this doesn't happen a lot um those five phone calls one resulted in a formal

076and it was actually a student that brought that one so it wasn't a phone call he actually came by um but that one resulted in a formal Challenge and then we did have one other formal formal challenge but it was not a result of a checkout it was a parent that had read about a book online and challenged it but their student had not actually checked out that book but the other three you know consisted of a conversation between myself and the parent and you know it it kind of resulted in like rights and responsibilities we've got lots of other things and they were like oh I didn't realize that cool thanks and everybody went on about about their day and it it the process has always seemed to work pretty darn well I would

077draw it too um I've had the privilege to work in this district for more than 20 years my wife just retired last year was here for 29 I believe uh and like many of you we can't go anywhere in Lee Summit without people saying it's the Russell well maybe they don't say it's the Russell to you but um not once uh you know I mentioned earlier we've had some students bring something back or say this isn't appropriate but I've not had a single call a single parent say uh you know this isn't right on the flip side um I have had over the last couple of years probably 20 to 30 parents say I'm very concerned about the potential restrictions um that we might be challeng some somebody's challenging books they're restricting books for students

078um you know we my wife and I own a small farm we're at the farmers market every weekend and so we see a lot of people and that has come up a lot just about more of the concerns about restrictions not once have I had anybody say I'm worried about the kind of books it's more about the book Bal Banning and challenges than the other just want to clarify that for Michael I think you're talking about as a result of a child having brought home a book because we I think we've had like a an e we've had some emails or some phone calls from folks about books that they're concerned about but not as a result of a child having checked out that book right yeah thank you so I can just give you

079an example of like something that just couldn't happen organically so um I had a student who and Amy kind of mentioned this I had a student who was checking out books that had um ghosts in it and the student wanted to check the books out and the the parent came to me and said that the student was choosing the books in the library time but then coming home and having nightmares after reading them and she's like he's ending up in bed with us and so she said I want I want I would like him to take a break for a little while so the student and I had a conversation about your mom is saying she doesn't want you to check out this particular Series right now and so we're going to not check this

080series out for for now until you and your mom make a different decision um and I then I was at my other schoool the next week um and so I came back the following week and the the parent said oh he checked out books from that same section and so then we had the conversation of your mom has asked you to do this and then you've chosen not to listen to what your mom has and so then I I did I did let the parent know um that that was happening and then it became a conversation between the the parent and her child of I've asked you to do something and you're choosing not to to listen and follow my directions basically um and so from then on on the child has we've kind of

081checked back in but um he's been um picking some different different Series so it didn't happen to be Goosebumps was it it was not Goosebumps no Naf that's one that I think my son has read in Five Night at Freddy's oh oh okay sorry I don't don't I'm not I'm not that cool Sorry at least that's what he calls it yeah okay um now I did have an additional question kind of going in a a slightly different direction I guess um I was wondering if you guys could talk about the connection between our digital library and then the public library so what does that look like as far as the the tie and the access for students to see anything in the public library okay so the public library sorry it's interesting you bring that

082up because I just I was on a Missouri library leaders uh conf phone call today and we had the same conversation so uh or a similar conversation so first of all parents who um parents whose children have access to the public library have opted into that option so when they do registration there's an opt in option to get a public library card so that's number one so a parent is opted in number two is they are we are training our students to access Public Library electronic books through Sora which is the tool that we use Sora is ageg gated for lack of a better word by um and Michael could probably speak to this better because so I'll say it and then you correct me I guess so it's it's a it's age gated so

083that our elementary students have things that are available in the elementary collection Middle School and High School collection and so at the public library they also t their books by intended audience or whatnot and so if a student one of our students logs in and they're an elementary student when they search they will only see books that are in the elementary collection on our level and at the public library level now if the public library hasn't you know uh tagged something appropriately or whatnot we can we can deal with that and make a phone call and and work with them on that but that's pretty much how it works my do you have anything to add or that's really I mean looking down so a senior in high school could check out a picture book

084um they can go backwards but you can't go the other way I I'm am a big eBook reader and so I have sometimes I like to read adult books too and I use Sora a lot because it is our app at school um and I was finding that when I was searching for certain adult books I couldn't find them not in our collection or in Midcontinent well the company that pushes out Sora is a company called overdrive and they have a public app that's called Libby and I don't know if some of you have used Libby and so if I log into Libby with that same Midcontinent public library account then voila I can see those adult content book so the the Sora app was designed for schools to really do that filtering and to

085ensure that everything was as safeguarded as we possibly can be thank you that's very helpful now when students checkout books through Sora does that also get tracked in Destiny no it those systems don't no talk basically no some districts have opted to to make that connection we have not um for a variety of reasons that you don't will be boring to you um so we we've opted not to do that so when we do our you should to statistics we pull our sore usage and we pull our destiny usage and then we do the math I would say though from a parent perspective much like we were talking earlier if you want to know it's Google authenticated so if you can log into to see what books your child has in Destiny at the same

086time you would have to log in separately to Sora but you could log in as that student and and see what they have checked out I have another question um so first I just I just want to say that I you had mentioned community members being concerned about banning books and I acknowledge that concern and um I don't think that's anybody's intent even in having this conversation but I think that we can also acknowledge that there're all are some concerns especially like having been part of the appeal process and having read we read four of the 89 appealed titles three of them I personally said they weren't appropriate um and that is my belief and I still stick to that and one of them um you know I just kind of want to potentially discuss

087here what in the series of saraos was two of those books were the saraos series um and I know this group had said that you consult Common Sense Media so for example that book it's rated on Common Sense Media 177 and over dark fairy r sequel filled with sex Gore and magic and going through the parent reviews sex romance and nudity lots of language horribly smudy great for adults not teens I mean so that's a resource that you guys use so I think we there's just maybe like a disconnect with some people who say okay I see this book and it's essentially like the fairy version of 50 Shades of Gray and most might agree parents parents I'm not saying Community might agree that that's not something that they feel like their student should have

088access to and is suitable in an educational environment not that they can't go to the public library if the parent says sure I'll get you that library card and I'll take you to the library and you can get whatever you want or order it from Amazon but I'm simply saying in the environment of a public library for for students that are not 18 years old so I don't want to get into that debate but I think there that's just a concern that some people have um certainly so Common Sense Media and I should clarify it is not written by professional reviewers they are written by parents and by students and then I think Common Sense themselves maybe writes some of the reviews I'm not sure um so we don't use that as a selection tool

089same we don't use Amazon reviews for a selection tool we use professional reviews in um journals that kind of thing however Common Sense Media is a great tool for a family so that if you and your child have a particular concern and and me as an as a parent I use it with my family I don't use it to make Selections in in library content I use it to make selections for me and my child um and so that's and that's how I use it with students I recommend that they use it to for themselves to make a choice for what they want to read it's a self- selection kind of guide I would never recommend well I shouldn't say never I I wouldn't necessarily recommend that a student go to school library journal and

090read those reviews per se but I would recommend that they go out and use common sense media especially if there's a particular concern so I could see where the disconnect is and I apologize if I was wasn't clear on that part but that would be my my um explanation of that okay so thank you I appreciate that um so what I heard in our some of our previous dialogue was that it's it's both labor intensive and unrealistic to say that a parent can give a list to the library to say I don't want my kid to check these out because I can tell you this would definitely be on my list i'' be like that's not okay but neither here nor there that's a personal opinion but how again we go back to how we

091Empower parents so and this may not be for you this may be a board Direction on maybe there's an exploration if the board so chooses to explore options of some sort of software or something where a parent can say I don't want my kid to check these things out and it ties into Destiny somehow so that the parent has that Latitude while they're in the care of the school to be able to say I don't want them to be able to access that because I respect that we don't want to burden the library staff with extra steps for a parent family preference but then we have to try to have a little bit more give because just like uh board member Garrett was discussing you know K you know the kids are going to do

092what they're going to do and sometimes that you know the parent doesn't know um and yes that is a disciplinary issue but it would be nice to have the latitude and control available to the parents if they want to be able to have that say so absolutely so there are things that we can look into potentially doing it would in honestly in terms it would be labor intensive perhaps for us but also there's there's some technology issues that I don't I don't know enough about to be able to speak to my suggestion would be if you know if the board is looking for suggestions my suggestion would be first of all to in to investigate and to and determine whether or not like what evidence do we have that shows that the return on investment

093of this is is necessary and needed so do we are we having a lot of parent complaints are we having a lot of students that are getting things that they're that their parents are unhappy about and how do we track that how we do that so I would suggest that we maybe do some investigation to determine if there is a return on investment in that kind of not just money but time um and if and then if that committee or Pratt or whatever or group decides that there needs to be a next step then I would put together a group to investigate what the options are um and I would definitely make sure that we include technology in that because there's going to be some technological parts of that as well um so yeah that

094would be my suggestions I appreciate that so um I think it's perfectly valid to site that we don't have any parent complaints at the moment and that's totally fine sometimes I wonder if if that's because there's a lack of knowledge of what's there um because I mean reading some of the books that were appealed I was like holy moly number one I've never read that series before and I was like wow that's that's on our that's on our shelves that's you know to me that was concerning just as a parent as an individual so I just wonder like would there be more complaints if parents were aware of what was there and if it was something that they just really didn't want their their child exposed to um and I can't answer that so I

095think it's valid to say maybe we should collect more information um so if if I don't know what that looks like so I'm probably just asking questions in the dark so I'm just gonna leave it open to the colleagues I do think it's it's an interesting thing I'm a parent as well I have three daughters um one in college and two in high school still and you know it it is one of those things I would when speaking with families and I don't have a lot of people coming telling me they're concerned but um if I did and I I've had some teachers that asked when everything was going on like you know I I read what my kids are reading I mean thank goodness my kids aren't fantasy readers that particular series you're talking

096about is a fantasy book and I don't care for those th that's not my jam I'm a mystery girl I'm a romance girl like that's that's my jam um maybe dystopian but that's about as far as I get and you know I I frequently will check out what my girls are reading just because it's like a connection you know that's a connection Point man if you're reading this and I'm reading this and we're talking about this at home and I I just I think that's such a powerful thing also even for your kids to see that you like to read and I've gotten my husband to read a few books with girls and I just think you know when talking to families that way you kind of also get to know your kid as a

097reader and if your kid is into into Super fantasy books or into something then you're going to get to know more about it and you're going to get to like make recommendations and you guys can kind of talk and I think that's a super cool powerful thing that we don't you know we only get to talk to the kids we don't ever get to talk to the parents and so like it's nice that we're kind of sort of getting a chance write down to you know maybe opening up conversations with families on you know so awesome your kid checked out this book how can I get you hooked up on Libby at Mig continent so you can read the same book or listen to it on the way to work because how cool that you

098can actually talk about it at night at the dinner table like that's an awesome thing to do so I just not really answering a question but just kind of my own personal experience on how I manage that with my girls I love that thank you my my daughter and I Bond over historical fiction so I feel you there we read the same books thank you all for being here first of all and and definitely thank you all for the hard work you do um I will say I've been a Schoolboard member since April and I've gotten more than five phone calls since April about the material in the libraries so I guess I'm dealing with different parents than you are um but anyway um my question is going to uh initially start about the selection

099process um I based on what y'all are saying it sounds like we're all agreement that not all material is appropriate for all students is that safe to say I mean can we agree with that and we would probably agree that not all of our students mature at the same rate so how do we determine that a book is suitable for a freshman but it's not suitable for an eighth grader for instance I mean that's kind of a hard break and I'm just curious about the decision Matrix that y'all use to start to start the dialogue there sure so we we use professional reviews that give us age ranges and and grade ranges and that's primarily how we do it I mean they read them too I know our middle school librarians especially uh try to

100pull if it's something that's kind of like recommended for grades seven and eight but isn't L six then they may read it or whatnot I don't want to speak for you guys but that's that's one of our first things yeah we do have many books that are in our high school and our middle school and many books that are in our middle school and our elementary school so it's not like a hard and fast this is you know there are some books that are just at the the high school level sure Etc but we we share a lot of books which is nice because then we can also share books back and forth when kids want to read them and we would probably agree that seniors are probably on a different maturity level than freshmen

101and seniors may be ready for some material that freshman AR seniors are tricky I book talk a lot of Memoirs I book talk some more non-fiction because sometimes they're ready more kind of they're they're out of that young adult L stage not all of them but some of them but seniors are tricky and I I find it interesting that this is something we want our children to self-regulate on I'd like to hear a little more about that because there's not many things I think that we ask our children to self-regulate on and tell me how you didn't like that so I'm curious about that that seems like it's a little counterintuitive to me uh we want them to perhaps it's a difference in philosophy I mean when we want we want kids to graduate ready

102to take on their future and that means being able to take to make decisions for themselves so that's eventually what we want them to get to um so yeah I don't know if anybody else has anything else to say about that well well this is more about format than topic but I will say um like I just did a learning opportunity from my teachers about graphic novels which are novels that have both pictures and words and I talked to them about how in every culture um pictures have been a big part of Storytelling you think about tapestries and cave drawings Etc and when we're teaching a child how to read there's pictures and there's words in that and so I said you know it's not surprising that a lot of our sixth graders gravitate towards

103those graphic novels because they still kind of want that picture and word there and some of the teachers struggle because they feel like and parents struggle too my child should be reading a chapter book by the time I'm in sixth grade and so just kind of acknowledging where they are as readers um and again I'm talking about format not content but that's also a big part of what we do and I think that it's if you can kind of imagine that on the developmental level and in fact I even interviewed some kids and one kid was so eloquent he said well you know a lot of kids like they feel more comfortable reading picture books and so they do graphic novels and then when they try to step it up into those picture books and

104so I think that's some of the self-regulating that we want to do and that can apply to both format content um and I'm sure there are many families too where that applies to songs they're listening to TV shows they're watching movies um and again it all Wells down to those parents having those conversations with the kids and really just kind of um helping to guide them you know that's that's what we do as adults as we try to guide kids in the right way thank you I would would like to U Echo board member esi's request I would like for uh the Brain Trust here to try to figure out a way we can get the parents more involved in this process because um just based on the parents I've talked to and none of

105them have been you know hostile or anything like that they're just concerned about the material their kids have access to and quite frankly some of it they they didn't want their children access have access to it and and I can understand why based on the ages of their children uh and I just would like to to think that there's a a technological solution or something that we can use to have the parents um be able to set the bar for where uh their kids have access to material and they don't um and I'll Trust you guys to to stock the shelves with all the books but uh I do believe the parents should have some some say so in in that process I was just going to say you know to me it it kind

106of comes back to those conversations like we we've talked about you know be actively involved um with with your your kids read with them know what's expected and I think you know from at least my experience in the schools I've I've mentioned you know a couple of students have said this isn't right for us as a family and have made those decisions I just want to um just add like that's been something that I have three kids 17 12 seven so all different age ranges all different you know um personalities of course um and so and reading levels I mean my middle kid is dyslexic so I've watched her self-regulate I I appreciated that because she loves graphic novels that's where she found her love of reading and to for her to say she loves

107reading I mean that's huge you know um and then I my older child she was very she's very much into social justice and so a lot of the books that she was reading you know at first I was like oh my you know the content I was taken aback a little bit but it's it wasn't that it was inappropriate it was just it was hard to read right it was hard to read some of the things that she was reading but I did the same thing I I picked up the book we read it together you know things like that and I for me I think it has been about and there's been books that my daughters brought home they're like eh or my 12-year-old brought home that I think were probably more appropriate for

108my older kid but it was just she saw her reading and it she was interested but we had a conversation and guess what she took it back to the library and it wasn't a problem um but I just I do think it I think it falls on the parents um I think you guys do a great job of of doing your jobs and stocking our libraries with things that are um that are good for all different levels and um abilities and interest and that's a hard job um but yeah that's that's that's what I wanted to share I had another question so looking at the the paper and the graphic that we have here um about the books that were weeded let's just say for like uh I guess it was this last year there

109was 40,000 Books 4 3,966 books weeded what were like the main reasons for those being weeded I'm just curious oh do you want to go oh my um simple explanation for I readed a lot of books last year at both Summit Point and Great Beginnings it's all on me but I'll tell you why at Summit Point we were 17 years old that school the copyright dates of so much of our non-fiction in particular were 2006 2005 2007 2008 and in categories like cancer research or um you know just scientific things and just things were out of date um and in the fiction collection things that were out of date books that nobody had checked out in five years because they're they're just not in that's not what they want to read so at some at

110point that was sort of the thing and then at Great Beginnings kind of the same problem that school hadn't really had its collection managed properly and you know this is my eighth year there so last year was seventh so it's kind of also on me but it finally was like at a point where I said I'd rather have fewer books on the shelves and have those books be appealing and represent um the pride of the Lee Summit School District that we're not that I'm not putting out yet another book that's taped up to the Max and the pages are still falling out and we're sending that home and saying yes this is the kind of material we have you know for our preschoolers here in um Lee Summit and so it it was it was

111hard I REM I even remember the building custodian coming by when I did yet another work order to pick up another box and she's like another one and I said yep another one and I said not to worry we believe me if there's a book that is interesting to children or useful for teachers still in good shape and in in relatively um reasonable time frame absolutely were keeping it but you know there there were just some books that I just so I weeded a lot I don't I didn't do 40,000 but I did I weeded heavily at both schools in fiction and non-fiction in order to make the collection relevant um modern and to reflect our district to the best way it could be because that's I think what our kids kids and families deserve

112I was going to say too I I probably took the other half of that weeding um the plms library had a major renovation this summer in terms of new carpet new paint and I thought before pulling all these books off the shelves I need to do some serious weeding because why put all these move all of these books back on and so heavily weeded non-fiction um books where Pluto was still Planet there went out the door um yeah so I I could see you know the age of the collection um yes VHS tapes um there was a book where a girl was like was phone etiquette and she was playing with the cord on her phone I'm like oh no this you know just aged books and being the oldest Middle School you know we

113had a lot of things so I weeded boxes and boxes of non-fiction so we could get current relevant non-fiction in our library and then you know fiction a little bit I got to didn't quite finish that that'll probably be my big waiting Adventure this year but again a lot of it is having multiple copies one year for books that were really important and not needing multiple copies of those books anymore they're just not as popular and weeding it down to maybe a single copy um so that's a lot of how I went through that weeding process say the same I mean we we weeded a lot last year too but more more importantly it is kind of an EB and flow I mean last year was was our 19th year so of course we had

114to do some some dated things but also there are years you're busier with classes we've all we've talked about SN books which is great I love books yay um but like today I did Breakout boxes and VR goggles I didn't didn't talk to a kid about a book all day long and you know next week we're doing research lessons so we do other things not just the books and so sometimes sometimes there are years where we're just a little too busy to get to the weeding and so I I can stay speak for West Amy and I were not great weeders both know this it was not our our our strong suit but you know it got to the point where it it had to get done and research shows that if you have to

115many books on shelves especially looking ones the kids are less likely to check them out so that's why it probably looks like we're weeding more than we're adding it's by Design I would throw into just broadly as as to what we do um as Librarians you know we we try to keep non-fiction within 12 years or so for many reasons and and fiction ideally would be great 8 to 10 it doesn't always happen um everything else I agree with everything that they said but you know broadly some of the the geeky things that we do as as Librarians also it's as hard as you would imagine to take a great book off a shelf and weed it we we don't like that but that's just part of the process of what you have to do

116I I was so if you've visited a middle school or High School lately everybody has a Stanley Cup that they walk around with and I'm finding I'm waiting a lot for water damage too true lost I mean not 40,000 but yeah that and Lost Books yeah that number also includes once a book's been lost for a while we'll delete it from The Collection or weed it from the collection we don't do it automatically because oftentimes the book shows back up and so we'll wait AIT a bit um but sometimes like if we know for sure it's gone it's gone then we'll just delete it one more question and this just occurred to me I was thinking about my daughter in elementary school um she has sensory processing disorder and so so there was sometimes where

117she would be overstimulated and she just wanted to be in a in a corner somewhere um reading a book and so the teacher thought it was fine you know she wasn't doing what the class was doing but she was she was reading so that was good so she would go off and I'm just curious is there any tie in with with books that teachers have in their classroom for students at at that age elementary I don't know that high school or middle school has that in their classrooms but is there any tie in with what they have in the classrooms as far as what is in the library as well or what does that look like so classroom collections are curated by classroom teachers however we do provide guidance on how by Guidance I mean

118we give them you know what we kind of gave you like this is this is how we would suggest building you know or curating your collection so um so yeah that's there there's a guidance there but it's not tied to our department per se do you mean just independent books that a kid picks up in the classroom or something tied directly to what they're learning in class no that like I guess what I'm assuming because I I never really inquired but um the teacher well she told me that sometimes Lola just wants to go and do her thing and we just let her you know she picks out a book and just sits in the corner and reads and you know we figured that's good she wants to read so so I just didn't know

119like the books are they somehow regulated for like those are with the library those are usually purchased by individual classroom teachers were donated by families like especially like at the elementary levels um and not maintained by our department okay okay looks like we might be done with the questions thank you all so much for being here thank you for your time thank you for everything that you're doing for the district and for being part of this conversation today it was great to hear um from from your side of the table because often we you know we hear the the loud um people in the community or what's in the media or things like that but it's it's great opportunity for everybody to come together to have this conversation so thank you so much for being

120here yes thank you for asking us so much it's it's been frustrating at times to see that you know so much talk has gone on about our jobs about what we do about what we're very passionate about and frankly what I think we're good at um and so I'm super thankful for the opportunity to explain and and answer questions that you guys might have so thank you yes thank you very much okay so before we move on I just wanted to know from the board if there's some sort of consensus around like a next step is there something that is an ask from the board as a whole because we kind of talked uh through you know is there a possibility of some sort of software like what or do we want to investigate further

121with more community members to understand the scope of the concern and if that um like Amy was saying if that would be beneficial or if that's you know we're doing a lot of work for a few people's concerns so I'm just curious from like the rest of the board where you all kind of land on next steps okay I can go out on a limb um I think that if investigating a way for there to be um some additional software interface or whatnot to where um parents can have a little bit more of a opportunity to log in and see what their students are accessing or if there's a way to have some type of U something flagged on the account that says hey I don't want you know Junior to to check this out

122I think that's kind of what we're talking about and I beyond that um I've said this before I really believe that we have we are blessed to have a really large Library Department that is really really trained in what they do and I have to have confidence and faith that they are doing their job otherwise we probably you know have other issues to to to curate The Collection um I do think that there are just some very different parenting concerns Styles and issues there that there has to be probably a little bit of you know this is how we're going to handle it in my house and this is how we're going to handle it in your I think I think that's part of it which is part of what makes this discussion kind of

123uncomfortable and a little bit difficult right but perhaps we do look and see if there's a way to um the idea of the librarian knowing that hey I don't want my kid to be able to access this series of books or something like that maybe that's a reasonable thing to explore um I just just a thought I appreciate that I mean I agree with you I don't know if that's a surprise to anybody but um I I I agree I think just giving the opportunity for parents to have a say and to be able to um feel like they have that um ability I think would be helpful and not just in high school again there's like you said variety of topics variety of values that span the Spectrum and parents might just want to

124be able to have those conversations with their kids W without that um before before they're ready or something to that effect so um I'll just weigh in I think that um I pretty much did ow what um what board member what Stacy said um I think that to me it's about educating our parents about how to use the software that's already available to them where they can log in and see so I think that maybe at the beginning of the year when we're doing those educational nights in each school that you know that's kind of a part of the literature that you get you know as a parent is like here this is how you log in to see what your kids are reading if you choose to do that um I don't know I

125mean I I think we put the onest on the parents and give them the information that they need to make educated decisions about what's going to be read in their home and how to access it and and like Stacy said we trust the um we trust the professionals that are that are doing the jobs and doing it well from my perspective um and I I don't know that I'd be agreeable to spending money on softwares and extra things when I think that our kids need there's lots of other things that our kids need that um we should be spending money on and quite frankly spending a lot of time talking about so that's kind of where I where I stand on it way in um I'll just reiterate what I said initially I would just

126like to to get some Fe feedback from The Librarians um if they have a chance to look at solutions that can involve the parents I think that would be a win for everyone um I don't think that um parent a should tell parent B's children what books they can read but I think parent a has every right to regulate what their children are exposed to and I think we need to have a solution that accommodates that okay so do we want to have any um further discussion in the future on this topic or where do we where do we feel like we're we're landing on if there's a next step I think we kind of heard two options do nothing or um give some direction to explore giving parents more latitude and control over the

127library so maybe we could just do kind of like a thumbs up thumbs down and if we have kind of a consensus around giving that direction then maybe that could be the direction that we go just a suggestion or would it would it be reasonable to ask Dr Buck to do a little bit of uh preliminary investigation into what resources might be available kind of coordinating with the technology team Library team to see um what options might be out there if they are expensive um and kind of what that would look like to to know you know if if it's ridiculous then that might already set the answer straight there that we're we're not willing to make that kind of an investment but if it's something reasonable then we could look into that do we

128need to do this extra research first before we would consider making that kind of purchase and maybe doing a pratt or something like that was suggested down the road but we can just have an initial you know because I I don't honestly don't even know what technology even exists at this point that might be able to regulate it or is this something where we would be creating something brand new certainly we can uh engage with technology and Amy as well to to find out what options are and even put out there's like an RFP there's an RQ you get a request for information what is possible um we can put one of those out as well and I'm also we we do spiral how um parents can attach I'm sitting here thinking I wonder if

129we can put a link on our enrollment process because every parent has to do enrollment every single year if there's a link on we can put a link in there and saying do you want to learn more more about how you can check out what your book your child is checking out at any time um we could probably do that I'm thinking so um that way it's automatic every parent is seeing it um because we do send stuff home to parents do I see everything my kid brings home or do I see every read every email I get from school probably not um so I I think it's maybe we put it on enrollment to a link so I'll look at that and we'll also look at see if that um they do talk to

130each other if that book Mark and if can we have two different bookmark right it look like a little book symbol one for late fines and one for you want to see what your kids checking out automatically right now so we could we could also try to review that piece so happy to do that if that's what the will of the board is that sounds good and I also did want to point out um on this topic in case anyone did not know um on October 31st the district did put out the email it's the the R7 news update that did have this information in there for that guide for parents so if anybody's watching this video today and they want to know how they can access um their students account that is in there

131it's a kind of little step by step on how to access that which I really appreciated seeing for ready we'll go ahead and we'll move on to uh 2.02 board self- evaluation sorry I said we're doing a great job we go okay gotcha so so this actually will be pretty quick um so I know you all have seen um this version of this form before um we had it in a paper version that I was given at msba and we talked about maybe doing some kind of a Google form or just figuring out how to use this as an evaluation tool and I want to give a shout out to the lovely Miss ismer um because she did a lot of work um connecting with the msba team to figure out how we could get

132this this version of this form in something that is fillable um because in in looking at the question that were presented to us um in the last year was you know do we agree or disagree but it didn't really give us options to look at where we are and figure out how we can grow how we can grow and how we can improve um so what we have now you'll see there's those little bubbles in the corner of the form so we can all fill that out and then we can come back and we can have a group conversation about where we are at this point in time and then we can also look at how we can improve and we can have have a later board self evaluation further on in the year so

133we can look at at how we've grown um with knowing where where we might have some shortcomings that we can come together to to really work to improve on so at this point we're not going to have necessarily the discussion yet because you all have just received it um but I just wanted to give you the opportunity to take a look at that and kind of know that that's the plan um and see if anybody has any questions before that is um made the request for everybody to fill that out thank you and uh can you remind me we we discuss what the deadline might be for us to be able to have it for a group discussion so like a month two weeks okay I was going to ask is there opportunity for free

134form text or should we bring that feedback to the discussion I would encourage um if if there's not an opportunity on this form for free form if when you email Miss ismer if you include that in there that that way if you want to especially if you want to have it anonymized um but then also when that is released to us if if we have the results before we actually meet and discuss that gives everybody kind of time to ponder everybody's feedback um yeah our next meeting by the way is two weeks from today and we currently do not have a work session topic I don't know if that's too fast for this though if you wanted to you could try to rush it and have it for two weeks from now and that would

135be our work session topic but if that's too fast to fill it out and turn it in uh in time I I totally understand what would a what would the turnaround time look like for you to uh process the results what kind of a deadline would that give us to have to submit it by if we wanted to accomplish that yes how how does the rest of the board feel about kind of what kind of a timeline you might need to to be able to process through this and and work through the evaluation is this something that we would need a couple weeks for or do you think this is something that we could do a pretty quick turnaround time to get to miss I was going to say Do by the 15th it's yes

136it's next Friday right it's true but if we want to get it done before the new year I don't know if we have another option is there an estimated amount of time that it's supposed to take to fill this out or is it just however much time you want to spend on it however much time you want to spend on it so I mean we're going to have to spend a little bit of time on it to give it its due diligence so I mean I think two weeks should be adequate though s well I think the option on the table is yeah like we can have yeah a little bit shorter so that way two weeks from now we would be able to discuss it what would be the date we would have to

137turn it in to miss ismer then if you did the 15th which is a Friday or you did Monday the 18th she could still turn around and have it to you if you do it the 15th um she has a little bit more time then to get it to you ahead of time but we could also do the 18th on Monday as well and and still have the information ready for you for the work session I would like the I mean I could live with the 18th if that's that seems a reasonable ask to me okay does that work so do we need a motion or something NOP oh okay yeah right y work session okay okay all right well then we will have this um sent out to each each board member individually with

138the uh deadline to have it filled out by the 18th um would it if people do finish earlier is that helpful for you or do you have to wait until everyone's is in to be able to compile okay all right thank you so much all right does does anyone else uh have anything that they would like to discuss about this evaluation okay on that note then I think this concludes our work session thank you everybody