LSR7 Board of Education Meeting - 3/28/24

001all right we're going to go ahead and get started I'm going to call our regular board meeting to order um May the 28th 7 PM um if everyone will please stand we have Maverick from Underwood that is going to lead us in our pledge let's give him a [Applause] hand the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for it stands one nation under God indivisible with liy and justice for all good job absolutely than all right I would like to take this time and welcome all of our guests that are present and also that are viewing online um thank you for attending our meeting um at this time um if I can have an adoption of the agenda I move to amend the agenda to allow our public speakers um prior

002to our agenda items for decision do I have a second to speak right to speak prior to the items for decision right yeah uh second okay so all of our speakers that are going to be speaking to items that are on our agenda um they will be able to speak prior to those items for decision the rest of our speakers will speak at the normal time that's listed on the agenda um we have a motion we have a second um roll call please board member Miller hi board member Murdoch hi vice president Foley hi board member Garrett I board member Johnson I president Sparks I okay motion passes at this time um our next item is going to be superintendent report welcome everybody I love seeing the packed house so got a lot of things

003here I'm going to visit with you about um first off good news uh we'll hear be celebrating here in a little bit but uh we have Charlie dyes who's a state champion wrestler and I'll let uh president Sparks talk about Charlie but thank you to Jaden Cox two-time world champion spent 30 minutes with Charlie earlier this week so I just want to mention that um also the L Summit North Bronco Bots were finalist at the Central Missouri Regional competition and won the innovation in control award leit high school team driven won the Green County Regional competition in Tulsa Oklahoma qualifying them for the first championships in Houston the team also won the regional engineering inspiration award while at the competition team titanium robotics competed in the heartland region and were Regional finalists the team also

004qualified for the world championships in Houston with a wild card um Wes Ethan wood earned the Deans List finals award which is an individual student award and a high honor for out standing contributions to our team and to F FRC Robotics and he will compete for the Deans List award at the world championships and Wes also earned the autonomous award at their event so congratulations to them um I also want to say uh we had an event last night I want to thank our Education Foundation and all their volunteers that put on the well-being event we had at least some in high school had a lot of vendors there and it was a fantastic event um want to also congratulate congratulate educating Rising competition we had several folks are going to be competing in Washington

005DC this June um there's their students and our teacher educator Academy um so good luck to them so Carly Naomi Haley Tyler Lexi Jaden Emma and Audrey they will all be competing and you can see what they're going to be competing in in the superintend report online um next month we'll bring in lots of groups of kids and I just want to mention them right now because we're putting them on social media we have five seniors that qualified for Missouri School Scholars 100 so congratulations to those five you can see their names we'll have them come next month Missouri Scholars Academy for those of you who've ever been to MSA boomba um there's going to be five of them and just let you know MSA is between your sophomore junior year is for the 330

006brightest uh uh Rising juniors in the state and they have it at mu for three weeks in at uh in June so congratulations those five again we'll have them come next month um which is only two weeks away uh the Missouri Fine Arts Academy that's either between your sophomore and junior year or between your Junior and Senior year and that's at Missouri State and we had six um of our students qualify for Missouri F Arts Academy so congratulations to them um National Merit finalist we have two and you can see this on our social media again we'll try to get these students here next week or next month which is only two weeks away so congratulations to Alex and Thomas um congratulations to Lee Summit North High School which was named one of nine Department

007of Elementary and secondary education 2023 24 exemplary School libraries so six of those were high school so one of the six best libraries in the entire state is deemed by the state as Le at North High School library so kudos to them congratulations to Lee Summit West Air Force Junior Roc Cadets who excelled recently at competitions at Carl Junction High School athletic challenge the cadets secured first place in the co-ed Division and the male Division and the entire group was named overall Champion so congratulations to them congratulations to our very own y Club lease Summit site leader Lorenzo Harrison who was named a 2024 next generation of after school leaders so congratulations Lorenzo um there's a lot going on here uh for a second year Bernard Campbell Middle School art teacher um Katie messic will

008have her heart featured in the parade of Hearts so congratulations to Katie uh and all the hearts will be on display on April 12th at the American Royal and then they'll be dispersed throughout the Metro so congratulations to her two years in a row um thank you to everyone who was able to come out Sunday to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Miller Park build building at Miller and six it was fantastic thank you Mr Sparks president Sparks for your speech uh thank you to our multiple uh legislators who showed up and the nice honor that the house made uh to to acknowledge the fact that Miller Park has been there for 100 years it's been an elementary school it's been a middle school it's been a high school it's been central office it's where

009ADC started off in our community and it currently serves some amazing students so thank you to everybody who came out for that today we uh served out 14 of our 15 uh excellence and teaching Awards so thank you to our chamber our Le chamber has over a thousand members in it and they partner up with us and they review over 200 applications from teachers uh of nominations um and they pick 15 winners and we'll have an event April 17th at this time at Le at high school to celebrate those individuals at five o'clock um so we've given out 14 of the 15 we'll you'll see a list of all those come out probably over spring break and a little bit up to April 17 we don't put it out just yet because we got one

010more to catch in Surprise and then tomorrow we'll surprise our six support staff finalist of the year um couple of acknowledg announcements I want to make sure I hit is it um April 2nd next Tuesday you might know this there's a board election so please vote uh every election please vote and if you are going to be out of town in spring break uh you can go up to Independence and vote ahead of time uh once you're within one week of the election you don't have to have a reason why you just go up there and just they'll let you vote right there so please if you're going to be out Town consider going up to Independence and voting um least suit r s prek is expanding this board of education approved that last month

011um we're going to serve over 200 uh kids who will be uh oneyear shy of kindergarten so four years and up by a certain date and applications are out there um we already have a ton of applicants uh but we're still trying to get some more so uh the team here is going to be going around and trying to uh make sure we get as much interest especially within our students who are going to be in the in the rooms that are uh equal for free reduced lunch we already have over the amount we need for tuition rooms but we still have some space in the uh rooms that are going to be no tuition based uh so if you want to learn more please check out our website at lsr7.org pre um thank you

012to our student reps you got some of them up here but we have applications out for next year already so if you want to apply if you're a student out there and you're going to be a junior or senior next year you can go to our website and apply by April 15th um summer school we called SL here um is enrollment will open on April 10th at noon and close at 400 P p.m. on April 24th you want to see the catalog uh you can find that this week at lsr7.org backs SLI um and I'm GNA kind of switch gears a little bit um on Monday we had an incident at leis some at North which is an amazing High School absolutely amazing high school we were there today celebrating right um we had an

013incident where staff and LSPD were there and did their jobs and I can't thank them enough um for for what they did um but in a short 20 second period we had three individuals two cops and one of our staff members get hurt and have to go to the hospital so um thank you for what you do every day staff thank you Police Department for you do every day um it's unacceptable what happened but also they did their jobs and kept everybody else safe um so I cannot tell you how proud I'm am of Lisa M North every day and I'm proud of how they handled that event um and I will follow our policies and procedures we'll protect uh information from kids about kids because that's what we're supposed to do and that's what

014we should do um we'll continue to cooperate with our Police Department um but I can't thank the police department that was there and the police department that came afterwards and helped out with that event and if everyone else you do me a favor and keep uh those two police officers and that one staff member in your thoughts as a heel that'd be much appreciated Mr President that concludes my superintendent report all right thank you very much at this time if Charlie DK would come at this time all right and vice president Foley is going to share some information about Charlie all right so Charlie became the first wrestling state champion in Lee suon North history this year Charlie started wrestling in seventh grade at Bernard Campbell Middle School his freshman year he started the season

015on JV and finished with a 15 15 versity record and was District champion at 113 pounds weight class Charlie then dedicated himself to the sport of wrestling improving his sophomore year to 45-6 and finishing fourth at the state wrestling tournament his junior year Charlie finished the season 48-3 and second in the state wrestling tournament this year Charlie competed in arguably arguably the toughest weight group 126 pounds in the state of Missouri beating the class one and Class 2 state champions and a Kansas Class 5 state champion and several multiple time State Place winners he finished the season with an undefeated record so Charlie became the only the third lsr7 wrest ler to win four District titles in his wrestling career Charlie finishes his wrestling career as one of the most decorated wrestlers in lsr7 history

016Charlie won the conference wrestler of the year and the class 4 District 4 wrestler of the Year this season he just recently made a verbal commitment to University of Central Missouri to continue his wrestling and academic career he is currently looking at majoring in either education or business at UCM come on let's give it up for this [Applause] champion off hey Charlie I'm sorry I got so excited congratulations all all right we're going to go and move on to our next item uh 3.02 which is our school Spotlight we have Underwood Elementary all right thank you so much for uh having us here this evening and I would like to add before we get started Charlie was a product of Underwood Elementary so here we go uh thank you so much for having us here

017this evening it truly is an honor anytime we can be here to recognize the hard work of our awesome students I would say angels in this case because they're going to be showcasing a lot of the service projects that they did this year out in our community um and then also an opportunity to uh recognize one of our volunteers we have many volunteers but uh we do have a volunteer of the year and we're going to start with that so if I could please have Lindsey Gordon please come up to the front please and she's so excited to stand in front of everyone so uh lindsy Gordon has been part of our school Community for a number of years uh her journey started when she served U on the staff appreciation committee and then as

018vice president of PTA few months later she was promoted to the president of PTA and has been in this role for a number of years she does an excellent job planning all kinds of fun events for our students and our staff gym parties holiday parties staff recognitions uh and of course um staff appreciation each year um she has has a good team that works hard each and every day and Lindsay really is provides a lot of stewardship in that regard um talking with her at one point um someone asked well how how does she know so much well I'll tell you how she's in the office all the time she emails all the time she calls all the time she is truly a dedicated parent and we're very lucky to have her Lindsay is passionate

019and uh genuinely cares about Bridging the Gap between our parents our community and our district she has an amaz amazing family Emma Ryan and Kate I believe are here uh they are students at Underwood and her husband Steve who also provides a lot of time and although Steve's name is not on this I'm sure we can use a label maker and put it on there as well um she she is going this is her last year serving as our PTA president uh she will be greatly missed but she did say that she will always be available to volunteer so having said that Lindsay as a small token of our appreciation we would like to present to you a volunteer of the Year plaque thank you very much thank [Applause] you [Applause] Stacy Bryant and Kristen

020Whipple they sponsor our student council and we have a few of our student council reps here and I just want to say that I'm really uh excited about this because our students are amazing and um they are led by these two amazing uh sponsors here with Stacy and and Kristen I'm not going to forget Kristen this time um not only do they teach them to work hard in the school in the classrooms and display outstanding car character they also instill in them the importance of giving to our community and working out in our community so with that I'll hand it over to these sponsors I'll make this brief my name is Stacy Bryant this is my co-sponsor Kristen Whipple and we are thrilled that you are having us here tonight uh we are very very

021proud of these students uh they are composed of third fourth and fifth grade students who have been nominated by their peers and any time we ask for anything they always step up to the plate are very responsible uh we do ask a lot of them and they always come through every single time so I'm going to let them explain a little bit about what they do this year so turn over to Maverick good evening my name is Maverick and my name is Emma and we are representing Underwood Elementary student council we are we are so excited to be here and to share with you the wonderful things our group has done in the last year each quarter our student Council helps with our spirit assemblies our jobs include leading the pledge presenting the flags handing

022out Awards and the most fun job dressing as a school mascot this December our student council sold candy canes to raise money for the residents at Addington place of Lee Sumit we raised over $800 and we were able to buy many gifts and necess Necessities for the residents with the money we raised on December 20th we visited the Addington place of Le Summit our student council spent time seeing Christmas carols passing out cookies and handing out gifts to the residents we loved spending time with their wonderful residents and spreading holiday cheer at the beginning of February our student council hosted a food drive called the Super Bowl of caring students and staff donate non perishable item food items the week of the Super Bowl our school donated over 1,600 items to the lease suit social

023services our student council was in charge of organizing and boxing up food items in in November our student council members helped with our annual veterans assembly our school hosted over 50 Veterans for a breakfast and Special Assembly student council members greeted veterans to our building helped with the breakfast and spoke at the assembly last May our student council visited Lee Summit Social Services we were able to help them clean the Ware clean the warehouse organized food items put together care packages clean up the outside and make cards for people in our Community we love this service project and that's our presentation thank you come on let's give them another hand as their exent all right our next Spotlight uh School Spotlight is going to be Summit Lakes Middle School good evening Mr President Dr Buck

024members of the board thank you for the opportunity to come spend some time with you this evening and showcase some of the exciting things happening at Summit Lakes um tonight we're going to talk to you a little bit uh about our peer mentoring program a year ago that was the focus of our presentation we want to provide an update to you about that program a real world learning Spotlight that we're excited to share with you this evening um also highlighting an example of student engagement will be a focus tonight and last but not least we will recognize our wonderful volunteer of the month so as mentioned we want to start off first with a review of some of the work that's been done over the past year with our marvelous peer mentors and marshia Hasty

025one of our assistant principles is here to do that hello so last year I was able to share about our new peer mentoring program and this year I'm able to share with you that our 55 students have volunteered a total of 2,878 hours this year so far uh yes [Applause] yes they have done a wonderful job under the leadership of Michaela theer who is actually at a track meet tonight so she's not able to make it the next um opportunity for them to volunteer will be at unite the summit which is April 20th they will be going uh with other volunteers in the community um serving at Hope House and Eco Warriors and social leit social services so we are super excited about the work that they're doing and so very proud of them thank

026[Applause] you hello um my name is Beth groom and I am the Middle School broadcasting teacher which I believe is pretty much an extreme sport for teaching um in the best of times when we have cameras even with adults we get a little nervous but when you give them to middle schoolers so I'd mentioned in class hey we have these really nice new black magic cameras we have a cages that my boss provided for me but there's a one tiny piece that needs to go on this camera and I've mentioned I wish wish I could 3D print one Dylan Eyes Wide Open Says I can help you with that and so he I would say I did really none of the work but download a file and then he quickly went to work and it

027was about what a week yeah a week where he would print he would leave his classes his core teachers were all on board and he kept printing them and we kept printing them and we were able to provide them 13 cameras for me and then also give them to my um uh at or at um Campbell and at Pleasant Lee so um it was a real world experience because it wouldn't have happened without his gifted teacher um I believe last year you won a contest and actually um Jenna Nelson said that you were the reason why they actually got that 3D printer so Tracy Dick is his new gifted teacher and she's equally like yes he knows what he's doing so I am learning from him um that's part of what real world learning is

028is that we learn from each other thank you can I can Dylan can Dylan tell us what he printed can Dylan tell us what what what what's the piece that you printed I see the picture I'm just curious what it actually can you tell us sorry didn't mean to put you well I am putting you on the spot so never mind I'm I guess I don't mind you can just talk into that one yeah if that's um it's a 3D printed part that connects the uh frame of the camera to the lens mount so uh whenever if someone were to drop the camera it could protect the camera's uh lens for breaking off which is a very expensive mistake to happen okay perfect all right thank you very much I appreciate it good evening um

029one of a one of the goals at Summit Lakes is we want students to be engaged and we want them to have experiences outside the classroom um tonight I I want to introduce coach Carr and we have a uh opportunity to share a success that's happened in the athletic uh Arena and he's going to introduce some of his students and kind of tell you what what that is I don't think they were prepared for this uh Damon Carr head girls cross country coach at Summit lakes and we had a unique opportunity um starting last year to participate in the what they're calling the Missouri Middle School state championship um it's down in Wheatland Missouri at the Lucas Oil Speedway U board member esck actually uh came out and practice with us last year when we

030went to state and we had a pretty good showing but this year off the charts and My Girls team uh finished first place in the state of Missouri uh they these young ladies competed against these young ladies competed against 205 Runners and these were the best of the best and um we took first place um we had 14 girls and two managers go down with us and I put it out to the parents that we'd love to have them come and we had almost everybody come here um we are really excited about it and as you can see by the numbers um I know one of the board priorities was to get sixth graders involved and if you look at those numbers um on the boys side it's pretty balanced between sixth seventh and eighth

031grade but if you look at the girls side we were starting to struggle with numbers with seventh and eighth graders um and our sixth graders we had 31 sixth graders run cross country this year um and really helped anchor that team we had one eighth grader go with us down there um three seventh graders and then um 10 sixth graders bring home the state championship so we're going to look to repeat that next [Applause] year can they can they introduce themselves just as they go past the microphone just yeah we left guys if that's all right you guys say your name and your grade yeah um Morgan ther eth grade McKenna ha 8ighth grade Sylvie Warren seventh grade Piper mcnet seventh grade Lizzie Ellis sixth grade Brin Reed sixth grade Ellie Ashman sixth grade Charlie

032Ashman sixth grade Kinsley bathcock sixth grade Harper ther sixth grade Sophia Gilbert sixth grade Cameron Gilberts sixth [Applause] grade at Summit Lakes we are very proud and and fortunate to have a number of great volunteers as are all of our schools here in the leit community tonight we're proud to recognize Jonna kelzer as our volunteer of the month Jonna would you come up [Applause] please Janna has served as a member of the summit Lakes PTA board for four years is active with the Lee Summit West booster club supporting the wrestling program and the kids club in addition over the past two years Janna has expanded the summit Lakes Middle School concession stand efforts working countless hours at our home home sporting and activity events throughout the fall winter and spring Seasons the efforts she describes

033as work that comes full circle as the concessions help generate funding that aids in pta's efforts to support our Summit Lake students and staff thank you Jonna for your contributions to our Summit Lakes [Applause] Community if you don't mind we'd like to get the cross country picture too know I'm so sorry I'm so sorry guys one more okay ready one two three you're done good job [Applause] ladies all right now we're going to move to 3.04 which is our school board uh representatives and we're going to hear from um presentations from all three of our high schools and also summeridge Academy if we can yes let's just come to the podium and just come per School that'll be the best way to do it my name is Jaylen Campbell and I'm a junior at Lisa

034at North and so we conducted a survey and we wanted just feedback from our students and staff and here are some things that we're doing amazing at so the first thing is we offer a variety of extracurriculars such as our community days where once a month we basically you join a little group and you get to spend about 25 minutes getting to know people of different grades just give me one second yeah okay and we also do a large variety of clubs students have a lot student teachers work together a lot to create clubs I myself and I'm part of quite a few different clubs and I know um a few clubs that just started this year which is very exciting we also offer a variety of off-campus opportunities such as St sta which is

035based around medicine herden which is based around more technical careers and then also cast you learned about these activities at really start of your sophomore year and we got a lot of great feedback about our teachers and staff and how helpful they are and how willing they are to work with other students hello my name is Lucas Jette I am from Lee Summit High School uh some things that we did well overall in our school we have a amazing ACC an amazing admin to student ratio for our relationships and I feel like we build that a lot some recent events that are going to happen and have happened recently we are going to be holding our prom on April 13th at the John Knox Pavilion on May 2nd we're going to be having our academic

036awards for our top F our top five 100 Scholars and then uh recently the Vipers of Doom took silver at our state Special Olympics then we see that our bowling team took first in their state area on the debate team Eevee lman took um is going to state for informative speaking in April we are seeing currently we have a royal spirit week going on at our school for the opening day today uh we saw recently the NHS induction for all new Juniors incoming and yesterday we saw that the High Life newspaper and the reflector yearbook had a Jay day at missou for their Awards and we also saw many different personal achievements and colleges for next steps for students overall hello my name is annia dandy I'm a senior at um Sr Summit Ridge Academy

037and some things that are going well at our school is that we're um getting a lot of students um prepared to graduate so I know there's like a lot of oneon-one with students and getting them in line for the graduation process and then another good thing is um I had a conversation with the principal today and um I feel like it went really well I changed his persp perspective on a lot of things so I think there's going to be great changes coming to SRA especially um dealing with like social media and phones I think it's going to be good changes for the school so yeah that's all hi my name is Emmy Harmon and I'm a junior at lit West um some things that are going well currently mmaa has happened recently and many

038groups at our school has gotten ones throughout choir band and Orchestra for large and small ensembl um additionally with the music department Lis West Orlando music trip is coming up over spring break where we will go down to Orlando and all three aspects of the music department will perform um our scholarb team is having a great season uh for debate three people are currently going to the National Tournament in De Moine and two for multiple events um additionally IB and AP testing is driving up and at least some at West we have approximately 40 to 50 diploma and career candidates combined through the Junior and senior grades and the program is expected to grow next year um Additionally the National Honors Society induction will be coming up in April thank you all right if we

039can give all of our refs a [Applause] hand all right so we're going to go ahead and move to our next item which is 4.01 our finance committee report is there any information that we want to share outside of the video I don't have anything additional to share um just if there's any questions all right are there any questions from board members okay let's going to move to um 4.0 uh2 which is going to be our board reports and meetings attended let's start with Dr Johnson thank you for that curve ball you just thrown because normally Heather goes first so my activities for uh since the previous board meeting I went to Mason Elementary no one told me I needed a passport to get there it's very far away from us but I appreciate Beth

040ratty hosting me we had a great conversation and I'll be honest normally we go with more than one board member but going by myself was really good it made an intimate setting we can have some real conversations and I didn't feel like I was on stage so um it was really good their school is beautiful so for those of you who passed that Bond way back when it's a beautiful School U it's really nice out there I also attended um the struggling readings meeting uh just this past week at um library on curn which was very interesting I learned quite a few things I know we're going to be getting some new staff at lsr7 to help with some reading interventions and so I'm pretty excited about that I also attended sorry I wrote These

041down uh I I attended the insurance committee meeting so we will be evaluating the medical insurance this year so that's what we're going to be talking about next and I also attended uh the best Committee in lsr7 which is team Lee Summit so very good committee meeting again I just always want to highlight people from all different backgrounds all different employer groups can come together and come to a consensus to do overall great things for everyone in lsr7 in terms of employee groups so thank you to Dr Carlson and that group for all that they did all right thank you uh board member Garrett thank you I did attend the taste of Lee Summit which was a fun evening uh socializing and of course I love the auctions um and then I did attend the

042robotics um the R7 Alliance open house for Lee Summit North Lee Summit West and Lee Summit High School it was interesting because I think last year about this time when they had their open houses they were all at one and it was Lee Summit High School um and so it was great to see the new um workplaces that they are working out of now um so it it was just good to kind of catch up on what they're doing and then right before they headed out to competition and then um I did attend the Miller Park 100th uh birthday anniversary I'm not sure how you say that um and that was really interesting I had never been there before um I think I got routed to Miller Park which is not Miller Park Center so

043anyway I did enjoy the presentation on the whole history of it and um the renovations and how they're making it easier for all students and um I did also attend the teacher of the year uh committee meeting so that'll be coming up here pretty soon but um surprises right now uh parents of struggling readers that was the other night and I enjoyed their um it was different than the meetings that have previously been held and where they had different stations and where you could kind of interact and pick up uh different pamphlets of information and uh I think that was it yes thank you all right thank you board member Murdoch uh just a few things uh from me March 4th I was also on the insurance committee meeting um I have to be perfectly

044honest that's a sad committee for me to have to leave um that been a lot of years in a row um on that one um so appreciate all the work that that committee does and whoever takes that role um it's it's a big haul for all of the staff to make those decisions um March 13th was the pancake breakfast at Summit Point that was totally awesome thanks Chris cakes for being out there in Summit Point um for doing those they left us all of these notes um at Summit Point which was really really cool when we showed up um and they actually did it over the course of two days which is even more amazing for the volunteers that they had [Music] I was invited by a couple of lsr7 students to participate in the

045um or be on their I can relate podcast so that was interesting because I had never been on a podcast support it was so fun um also invited to speak at Lee Summit West their [Music] NSB um Club National coun excuse me nutrition Council so we have a nutrition Council here in the district and it's super cool so I don't know if anybody everybody knows this but um the nutrition Council they are made up of students from all well 17 of the 18 elementary schools and they come together once a month and they get to taste test foods that are possibilities to be put on the menu so I think that's phenomenal that they do that and again another opportunity to um to hear student voice and what they're wanting and what they're liking so

046that's pretty fun also the pancake breakfast at Summit Point was amazing um the lsta plms chapter of um well the plms chapter of lsta excuse me and I went and observed them when they went to read to the students at plle I went to the glow show which was an art show at Greenwood Elementary um we met with the student representatives and had a really awesome productive meeting with them Lisa West Industrial tech classes so I was invited by um Wesley whisker to come out to his classes and so I went multiple days um and was able to participate in helping them build the Buddy bookcases that were going to be given away so that was so much fun and when I tell you the camaraderie in that room um in that class that um

047that he's built it's it's such a beautiful beautiful thing and it's it's kids from all walks of life it's kids from you know different backgrounds and they're coming together working on projects encouraging one another and it's it's super cool so kudos to you um Titan smart I joined the Titan smart team um at LF as they talked about being Bucket Fillers and talked about bullying and things like that with the um with the kiddos um I went to the parents of struggling readers and dyslexic dyslexic Learners um event I also went to the well-being night hosted by our Lee Summit Ed foundation and our lsr7 student support team members and um it was an incredible night as well so that is my report all right War M Westley um I attended the tast ofely summit

048with most of the other board members here and it was a great event um once again was my second time going so um it's a it's a great fundraiser for the district and I love to see all the participation um I attended the workforce alliance uh quarterly meeting and got to hear from our sta Partners um about the student work engagement opportunities that they've been uh cultivating with our community business partners so that was really um engaging to hear about uh how they're trying to get our students involved and there's a lot of a strong partnership on both sides just trying to figure out the right way to communicate to our students and make sure that they're fitting them with the right opportunities um for internships so um I love that program and it was

049really great to hear about um that progress I uh attended virtually the msba uh spring meeting um was able to listen to most of that and a lot of that if you sat in on it I'm sure the rest of the board members are aware but we talked the the conversation was a lot about the legislative update um so that was informative I attended again virtually the Ed Foundation board meeting they were gracious enough to uh allow me to call in as I was traveling for work um I sat in with board president Sparks on the one of the teacher Academy panels and um I thought that was great OPP a great opportunity to have some dialogue with students who are thinking or committed to going into the field of Education uh some of them

050were teachers some had decided through the program that teaching wasn't actually what they wanted to do but maybe they wanted to be a parah or they wanted to do some other support role um within education so obviously that's a fantastic program to give them the opportunity to explore whether that's the career path for them and give them opportunities to engage with our grow your own program and lastly I attended the finance committee meeting um actually there is one thing I wanted to say in the finance committee report that I didn't um I just actually wanted to mention um the design contracts that we're approving in our um items for consent um because through in that meeting um if you didn't get a chance to listen we had some dialogue around um the cost of those

051uh design contracts and they are Hefty but I think one of the things that I took out of that was when we seek our 2025 Bond and we have the opportunity um to get that approved by the the public if it does pass then we're able to reimburse um uh up to 18 months of any of the cost that we incurred in relation to that Bond because these design contracts are for um making our large projects like Greenwood Elementary and um mic Renovations shovel ready uh so those are the two probably largest projects that we would be seeking for the bond in 2025 and that's what we're trying to get all the design Work Ready which is extremely labor intensive um which justifies of course the higher price tag so those were just the items

052that I kind of wanted to draw attention to um but that's all I have so thank you for entertaining my exception to the finance committee report we're all good all right vice president Foley thank you so um first I went to a government relations meeting uh where we learned about the mark landfill study then I went to the Lee Summit educational foundations tast of Lee Summit went to the Lee Summit North Lee Summit High and Lee Summit West robotics open houses um I have been able to watch a few of the matches online on Twitch and I'm excited to see it in person next week I attended a webinar on Le leveraging State data for an educator pipeline I attended the Chamber of Commerce forum for the board of educ education candidates attended the board

053leadership meeting the msba spring virtual meeting a Woodland Elementary third grade choir concert some Disney hits it was pretty awesome government relations meeting where I heard both perspectives on the upcoming 38 Cent sales tax that's going to be on the ballot the Miller Park 100th birthday and new building celebration the teacher of the year selection committee meeting and the appearance of struggling readers and dyslexic Learners literacy night and then today I went with a group to surprise the Excellence and teaching winners and the teacher of Distinction winners thank you all right um so my um monthly um events have been Le Sumit car's board meeting um I am really excited um to be able to continue to work on that um board we're doing a lot of revamping and we saying that um there's two

054events that I want the board to be aware of and that is April the 22nd that is on a Monday from 6:30 to 8:30 um it will be taking place at the Missouri Innovation campus and it's a uh purpose is going to be mental well-being and we're going to be hearing from Eastern Jackson County students and so this is going to be a student panel and we have all sorts of uh sponsors ReDiscover Lee Summit cares prodeo uh police department links to Lee Summit and of course the school district and so that is one event I would encourage you to attend also we're going to be doing our drug takeback um and so your prescriptions that are no longer uh needed um if you would please U be prepared to show up with them on

055April the 27th so that you can get rid of them um correctly um and again they are also sponsored by um Police Department Lisa Mare's First Call in um our district uh msba um cohort meeting um This was um um if anybody remember in um our um annual um msba they had two cohorts one for um um board members of color um and then also cohard for our rural members and so we are doing planning meetings so that we can uh prepare for the next um annual session for msba also tast of Le Summit was wonderful I was able to contribute and I know many of our uh you also did the same that is something we need to continue to do that is how we're able to provide grants and things for our teachers

056and so let's continue to support our um Ed Foundation also some point uh pancakes with Panthers um that was great um it was um the thing that's out front on the Das um is also um the students that's um recognizing the board of education for our service and our work and so uh if you have an opportunity please email the school and let them know um that you appreciate um their kind words and their encouragement to us um two days um with teachers Academy um with b m bre that she's mentioned um you know one of the things that I also think is fascinating to know is we have students that are going to be graduating that are also getting their substitute certification so they're literally coming out of our high school and they're preparing

057to start sub in our district and so when we talk about the shortage of um Educators and things of that nature I really appreciate Miss Turner because she's um creating this environment of excitement around education and I think we need to continue to support that work um Miller Park birthday party it was wonderful Katie you and your team did a wonderful job and it was obviously an honor to be able to speak U msba um president meeting this is something that's also new um that I appreciate Ruth Johnson um who is um our uh president for msba um she has allowed all presidents from the different regions to come onto a zoom call to basically ask any questions so to making us better um in our leadership role and so that is something that I

058think has been very helpful um for myself literacy night was awesome a big attendance also Lee suit High School hosting the student wellbe Summit was also awesome all of the vendors that decided to participate um that was also great to be able um to see and then last but not least um board leadership meeting um it's always an honor to be able to um give leadership along with vice president Foley in that way and so that um um concludes our report if you would indulge me President's Parks last night's the the wellbeing thing just a quick shout out to one of the vendors um screen sanity um excellent presentation and also I think they've been um in contact I think even prior to um the event last night and so I just wanted to give

059a quick shout out because that as more and more people have um highlighted screen concerns obviously throughout um just wanted to say that you know they were there last night and they had excellent presentation absolutely and and I and we could really talk for days with all of the information that they was able to provide um and then even just the resources that they had at the tables um you know they had the gun locks for you to be able to to lock your gun safely um in your homes and things of that nature so just the resources that they had I'm looking forward to seeing those things continue um and to make sure that we support in any way that we can as a district all right so um our next item uh we

060have um items for decision which is going to be Finance um can I have approval um approval of transferring of funds 5.0 1 I move to approve the transfer of sorry can't see the number here sorry I move to approve the transfer of 3,169 42719 from the general fund to the special Revenue fund do have a second second okay all in favor raise your right hand say I okay none oppose motion passes approval of treasur report and payments of the bills 5.02 have a motion I move to approve the treasures report and the payment of the Bills second anyone second okay all in favor raise your right hand and say I okay none opposed motion passes all right so we're now at our items for decision and as we um did a Amendment to our

061agenda um consent sorry what did I say oh no we're items for decisions for consent which is going to be 6.01 I'm jump in the gun um all the way down to 6 point5 can I have a motion I move to approve the consent agenda items as presented drop a second second all right all in favor raise your right hand and say I I okay none opposed there we go now we're at our items for decision um and we have speakers that are going to be speaking on um some agenda topics that that we're going to be voting on and so prior to us voting we want to hear from those constituents and so miss es if you can go ahead and read the parliamentarian rules and then we will announce those three individuals that

062are speaking to those items we appreciate your attendance and your willingness to speak to the board please remember that the board does not respond to public comments during the meeting but may ask clarifying questions your comments will be noted by the board and administration and if appropriate we will discuss further action with the superintendent only those who have signed up prior to the meeting will be allowed to address the board pursuant to board policy bdh we will be limiting all comments to no more than seven people with a limit of three minutes each you may not transfer any of your time to other speakers your allotted three minutes will be counted down on the screen please conclude your comments when the timer expires your comments must align with the subject described in your written request

063to speak and must directly relate to the business or operations of the district your comments may not discuss individual employees or students in the district regardless of whether your comments speak of them in a positive or negative light any such comments should be directed to the super attendant who will then determine if further action is needed because the board does not and cannot impose AE age-based restrictions on who attends reviews board meetings and because children of all ages frequently do attend board meetings comments may not include obscenities or sexually explicit content furthermore comments may not include threats of physical or emotional harm or threaten in any way the safety of others we also remind all those in the audience that board policy bdh prohibits the use of signs or audible responses this includes Applause geers

064or cheers if you're in the audience and wish to respond in some way to a public comment you may contact the board or superintendent after the meeting when your name is called go to the podium and clearly state your name in the organization which you represent if any I assume you want me to call out the okay the three at the bottom all right um first speaker is deoya Marshall good evening as mentioned my name is deoya Marshall most of you know I have four boys in the district I have just come from a Campbell track meet hence my attire I'm missing a North track meet right now with two students and I have another one rep track practice but this was really important tonight so I wanted to be here tonight I wanted to

065bring our Focus to the reason we are all here tonight our children I'm pretty sure our children don't show up to school in pieces where one day they only send one arm one leg and the head to school if children show up to school with their whole body why would we not address the whole child you may hear some numerical data related to our students tonight but I love that we heard about real world learning from our students so let's discuss some real life data did you know that at one point there was no school lunch the school lunch movement first began in Europe in the 1700s when Educators observed that many children were arriving at school each day hungry schools were not equipped to provide meals and hungry children had a difficult time concentrating

066on their studies it was through the efforts of individuals and private Charities that the serious problems of malnutrition in children's was first addressed public education brought the haunting image of a starving child to the attendance of society this is the reason um to society uh this is the reason lunch programs began and has persisted despite opposition in a pattern which began in Europe and was later repeated in the US what if we had never addressed this issue would students be as successful today we know that other factors besides hunger affect how children learn as our world progresses we need to progress forward not backwards there are a number of Social and emotional factors affecting the health well-being and personal physical social and emotional development of children such as gender types of families parenting Styles educational

067experiences cultural culture and racial diversity of course academics are a priority of course the safety of our students and staff is important social emotional learning is crucial to all of our students at every level of school which is why we need to vote to approve the use of character strong learning curriculum for 6th through 12th grade which brings me to our next point which I'll try to get through quickly variety the quality of being fair and impartial and the action or state of including or being included these terms are otherwise known as Dei but since there's so much politics and controversy surrounding these letters I decided not to use them as a community member relabeled them as didn't earn it there was an incident that happened in our one of our high schools this week

068that made the news it caused the community to respond and repeat some hateful language there have been public comments made from Lee suit teachers that have not been inclusive we've made the topic of safety divisive this is the exact reason why we need to approve the dignity Consulting proposal as provided for the 2025 school year so that we can continue to learn more about each other where we've been and where we need to go thank you thank you our next speaker is Emily James good evening school board members and residents of the Lee Summit Community I am here to discuss the importance of diversity equity and inclusion training and why it's critical and crucial for our teachers to have this train train I'll talk about six topics but first I'll let you know that I

069am a resident of Lee Summit my husband and I have been in the community for several years and we are raising four children in the district um so the first topic that I would like to talk about is the cultural competence that diversity equity and inclusion training brings it helps teachers understand diverse cultures backgrounds and perspective amongst all students fostering empathy and respect examples of this would be understanding the different social norms from different cultures and learning communication styles and styles of expression diversity equity and inclusion training um promotes Equitable practices Dei training equips teachers with the tools and recognizes and addresses biases ensuring fair treatment and opportunities for all students regardless of their backgrounds these are specific teacher practices that are applied in the classroom to proactively confront any barriers to academic progress that

070disproportionately affects minority students diversity equity inclusion and excuse me it provides an inclusive classroom environment teachers learn strategies to create inclusive learning environments where all students feel valued respected and safe to express themselves diversity Equity inclusion also promotes effective communication teachers here are um provided with the communication skills to enable them to effectively engage with students their families and colleagues from various cultural backgrounds diversity equity and inclusion also close closes the achievement Gap it does this by addressing the inequities and promoting an inclusive practice diversity Equity training helps Educators identify and mitigate factors contributing to achievement gaps among students from different demographics lastly It prepares our students for a diverse society when we look at the board and the wall behind us it says we prepare each student for success in life so we apply

071those metrics and and we apply those tactics excuse me to that diversity inclusion Equity training for our teachers it's it's going to encourage and promote the diverse perspectives um that's needed to cultivate an environment where where it provides what we consider group thinking this type of thinking results in more innovative solutions through enhanced collaboration enclosing diversity equity and and inclusion training empowers teachers to create more Equitable inclusive and supporting learning environments ultimately benefiting all students and society as a whole thank you next speaker is Kristen grubs my name is Kristen grubs and I'm here to address the contract renewal with dignity Consulting if I were to use terms like blacks and Blackness to describe a people group and accuse the group of being exclusive and entitled and of having an inflated sense of value I'd

072be labeled a racist a bigot and a white supremacist yet that's what our professional development book belonging through the through a culture of dignity does it blames whites as the dominant culture for unequal outcomes in public education if I were to walk into our schools tomorrow and blame our District staff for the achievement Gap and tell them that they must confront themselves and fundamentally change to produce an environment that's inclusive enough for all students to be able to learn I'd be escorted from the premises and called crazy yet yet that's what belong this belonging book says is necessary to be inclusive if I were to alter the definition of one familiar word then write a book and build a curriculum in a training program based around this redefined word I'd be laughed out of professional

073circles for having no credibility yet that's exactly what Floyd Cobb and John crle have done they redefined dignity and claimed the new definition to be common despite no major dictionaries using it these two have managed to gain the approval of this District winning contracts if I include tonight's uh renewal totaling over $276,000 and most concerning the most concerning part of these facts is that our district leaders have read cob and Crown's book and they keep going back for more for those of you in the audience wondering why lsr7 is not the destination District it used to be Wonder no more District leaders are constantly celebrating our teachers all while paying dignity Consulting to come in and tell our non-diverse teachers which account for about 90% that they need to fundamentally change on another note the

074district is presenting this contract renewal at a cost of $23,900 a cost reduction of 27,700 from last year's contract but what the district doesn't want to share or it has not yet is the hidden expenses like the $90,000 estimated to cover substitutes so teachers can be made available for this lifechanging training to our current board members and our future board members I implore you to do better do better for our teachers do better for our students and to everyone listening don't forget to vote on April 2N all right we're going to go ahead and go to our next order of business um items for decision we're going to look at .01 character strong curriculum for grades 6 through 12 Dr bck Who's going to be presenting Miss Sanders there Jesse Dr Sean will come up

075at first thank you so much for this opportunity I'm really happy to be here on behalf of the RFP committee that chose character strong as our social and emotional uh learning curriculum for next year do I have the floor or do I take questions first yes ma'am goad and you have the floor okay um I would just like to talk a little bit about the process and choosing character strong um this year we do have caring School communities K through five we've had that for a number of years and we use second step for 6 through eight so we wanted to have a curriculum that we have for 6 through 12 with Fidelity because Second Step didn't go all the way to 12th grade it ended at 8th grade so we knew the importance of

076the social and emotional learning curriculum remember for social we're just talking about our interactions with others that's all we're talking about for the emotional piece we're talking about regulating ourselves that's it so I just think about getting along with others and regulating our emotions so we can be successful at school when we can be okay when others are not okay in search of the curriculum we de our we developed our RFP team we started it in August and then we were told to pause because the state was trying to determine if they wanted to develop seal standards and standardize it across the state so we paused our process in the meantime we left the RFP open we had vendors continuing to submit and then we were told in November that the state said we don't

077have them identified we're giving the control back to the districts and so we um gave another month for the RFP to stay open open and that's when we closed it and had 21 vendors submit on the RFP interview team we had teacher representation counselors building level admin and District admin it was myself and Dr Herzog on the team we interviewed the top five that scored the highest on the the paper so we were looking for a number of specifics and we brought those five in character strong was the choice of all 11 RFP committee members um based on not only the paper um interview that we conducted but also the in-person interview that we conducted character strong just becomes a part of the school culture um the sessions are intentional engaging and they encourage students

078to respond with empathy and kindness the RFP committee liked them for not only those reasons but also it they do not require much prep um they're just ready to go and other districts also love the prep program we just want to teach our kids because we want to keep them safe we know that's a board priority and we want to keep our discipline down and We Know by some of our kiddos may have these skills missing right we focus on academic skills when those are missing and so here we can help our students um regulate themselves teach them about being kind to others getting along making friends and um so that is why we we chose the character strong curriculum at this time okay thank you for that presentation can I please have a motion

079I move to approve the use of character strong as our social and emotional learning curriculum for all students in grades 6 through 12 do I have a second I'll second it okay all right now open for discussion okay Boardman brle so we started to have the conversation on the finance committee meeting but I'm going to return to it now that we're in the board meeting and everybody can talk through it um so uh again I want to ask about the study that was done on the efficacy for um character strong um and just to preface I think anything that we select for our staff and I'm sure you agree if we're going to put our teachers through any sort of training and require them I believe it's three hours of PD um I just really

080strongly believe that anything that we do in that vein should would be demonstrated effective and proven so that's really why I'm asking the questions about the study and why I'm kind of invested in understanding um the thoughts around the study from the 11 committee members um so can you can you tell me did the the 11 members read the study prior to deciding they did um that wasn't a part of what we submitted in the RFP asking specifically for statistical significance um there were a variety of things that we were looking for however um I do appreciate that question about the efficacy of the program the effectiveness and the statistical significance so I read more into that as well and I know that our committee members really did the work that we asked them to

081do and the statistical significance wasn't on there but the effectiveness was overall but I do appreciate that and I would like to speak to that um you are right that it was not St statistically significant in all areas but it was in some they were trying to prevent biases because they did the study for eight months and the participation rate went way down after covid and so in order to prevent biases they used the um independent sample T tests and then they ran descriptive statistics for the outcomes so the independent sample T test showed statistical significance um as denoted as in the hedges G the effect size tells you how much one group differs from the other sometimes it'll be between experimental groups and control groups and in this case it was the pre- and

082post groups who who participated um there can be biased upward without the formula um if the sample size is smaller than 50 so it was not in this case and hedges G is sometimes um called the corrected effect size so the statistical significance that was shown was that the portrayed behaviors were more conducive to learning and the were higher levels of feeling safe perceived both by staff and students um the areas that did not have statistical significance were General absences from school and um serious misbehaviors so those were the outliers there okay I'm going to back up just a little bit really just for the benefit of other people in the room um and I'm just so the reason why the push back on the study in the first place really just for everybody else

083um the study that I'm referring to was conducted between October 2019 and may 2020 and this was the the um applied character strong in 14 Schools um and the concern that I had was that in March of 2020 um this uh study was still going on they had an initial pre-test number of 6,400 students and at the uh the post test where they're evaluating the effectiveness as compared to a control group and a non-treatment group um they had a thousand total students by the end of it so with the treatment group specifically they had an 89% attrition rate of post test survey students and on the post post test when they back filled with other students they Ed sixth graders um in the post- test group they didn't use sixth graders in the pre-test group

084so there's a lot of variance to me in this study and trying to really see how that um that be problematic when you're trying to determine whether a program is effective and you you have mass attrition in the data that you're collecting and the people that you're able to survey in the process and I think we can all agree that just the conditions the overall conditions of what was going on in school were not normal so comparing a normal school environment preest to a not normal school environment post test plus all the the attrition of the students taking the test in the first place I just it's difficult for me to see the value but to your the value of the data excuse me the value of the data um but excuse me to your

085point about what had improved so you said school safety for students for students and for staff okay so do you know what that this is on a fivepoint scale so we're um it would have been the student School climate survey okay so when you say the teach statistically significant the spread are you comparing it to the preest or are you comparing it to the control group when you're saying that that's more improved because the difference is 0.17 points on a fiveo scale is the difference between control and treatment yes and it's in it's in the hedges G um as well so that changes I know that changes the sign I'll be honest I don't know what that means because I'm not a statistician um and you're right and I appreciated the transparency that they provided

086in their research brief um to say that you know this wasn't this wasn't a typical year and the information that we gathered was was not typical and so they they tried to um make things to where they could gather it um with they could identify the significance um so they found a significantly higher level of perceived received school safety reported by the students in the intervention group compared to those who were in the control group um and then there I don't want to interrupt you but I mean how can that they weren't in school how how can they determine school safety I I just got don't understand maybe somebody else can shed light I guess I just don't understand how that is a valuable how we can even say that that's an improvement of course

087they maybe they felt more safe because they were at home I mean well it went from September of 2019 to June of 2020 um and so there were a few months where yes they were not in school but the the majority of that time they were um in school from September to March right board member if it would help Jesse is that's her her research is what they're reporting so it's hard for Jesse to answer for them I I just want to I want to make sure we protect what the person I'm not I'm not I understand sorry I'm not trying to like no you're okay you're the only person that is in front of me that had interaction with character strong and did was part of the vetting process so obviously I don't have

088anybody from character strong to ask these questions to um so um I hear you I I don't I just for me I just don't see um it's really it's not about the cost and despite what the politicized language and some of the comments from this evening have suggested Ed it's really not about the fact that it's seal because I agree with you I think that we need to make sure that our students are equipped with the skills that they may be missing to be able to um navigate personal relationships professional relationships and do exactly what it says up there and I don't have a problem at all supporting a program that says yes it works we applied it in a school here's the data to show it and these were the metrics that we saw

089that improved um I think another just problematic point for me and really this is just for our board for the rest of our board members is um in this room not not just me other board members and even some staff have acknowledged that the Panorama questions the way that they're phrased and the data that we glean from that is also problematic and in this study Panorama was used as the pre- and post survey that's what we would plan to use to gauge whether this program would be effective or not and we' we've had acknowledgement in this room in the past that panorama may not be the best tool to really get that type of information from our students everything from whether they participate wholly whether they actually um invest time in answering the questions and

090really give them thoughtful responses um and just the wording of the questions like some that I personally find a little problematic in terms of negative slant um at your school how unfairly do adults treat students that starts from the presumption that the students are being treated unfairly by adults so that's the framework that they're looking at this question and applying an answer to so you're probably going to get a negative response when you frame it that way because that's what you're presenting a student that's how they're supposed to think about it how much do you feel like you belong of course that's a question that we use in our CIP how much do you matter to others these are extremely subjective on the day that the student takes the test so and we we um

091we we acknowledge what you're saying as well and we if you guys were to approve this and we were to check it to see its Effectiveness we have um questions that we put in the CIP um specifically related to feeling safe so whether it's Panorama or us just checking in with students to make sure that they feel safe to make sure that they they belong and then of course we can look at our discipline data to see the effect of it as well because this would be tier one all students in six through 12 so um it doesn't regardless of the platform we use we will absolutely be checking to make sure that kids feel safe and in the verbiage that we use in the question we want to make sure that board members feel

092the the verbiage is appropriate okay thanks welcome well I I think that's that's all I've got um actually I'm going to say one more thing about panorama because I find this really fascinating in the study in this study um they cite why they use panorama and when they did that they explained that there was a study that was conducted on how high quality the questions were um that come from Panorama the study that was cited was conducted by panorama on Panorama so I think you can pretty much just throw that out because any company that is going to do a study on itself is of course going to give itself positive reviews you would probably never see a company that would say my product doesn't work so I'm not sure that that's really um proof

093positive that that those questions um yield results that they're supposed to yield and that they are statistically sound ways of questioning students there's a number of surveys out there by the way and I have no problem with a survey again it's just which one do we select so I just want to say that I don't have a problem withal programs it's just which one we select and does it work if we're going to ask our teachers to do it it should be effective there should be research-backed evidence to to prove that and we should be able to stand behind it when our ask when we ask our teachers to implement something um and that's all I'm G to say I'm done thanks for member Miller thank you for your presentation um I did some research

094as well on um character strong and um one thing I want to say is that I think um making sure that we are um we Implement programming um to support students learning about conflict resolution to learn about empathy to learn about emotional intelligence and emotion regulation I there's nothing negative about that and in fact if we as adults would have learned some of those things as children we might not be as divisive um divided and um so I think implementing a program that could help our students be able to resolve conflict and have empathy is really positive um I went through within you can all go to character strong and within the website they actually have sample lessons for different grade levels and so I went through the lessons myself because I wanted to see

095what they were all about um and um I was very pleased with the information that was provided it was simple for a person who hasn't been formally trained on the curriculum um it was simple for me to be able to go through and understand it and um I could certainly see how it could be beneficial IAL for our staff our students um one of the things that they said in there which I really liked was connection doesn't happen on accident we create meaningful small opportunities to pH facilitate building those relationships with one another and so and their focus is on engagement belonging and well-being all positive things um the other thing that I just want to point out is that um this particular curriculum is based in um with a foundation in Castle which is

096basically the gold standard when we talk about social emotional learning and in fact when I went to the National School Board Association conference this year in um DC across the board um people were talking about a variety of different um social emotional learning curriculum all based in Castle all of them are based in Castle so um I just wanted to just say I am supportive of this curriculum and I think our students our older students it be a very positive outcome um for both them and our staff so that's what I wanted to to share for member Murdoch uh thanks president Sparks um I have a couple of follow-up questions here um in regards to this first off um are what school districts in the area are using this um are there not in the

097direct vicinity close to us Carney is probably the one I know it's closest to us do we know how long Carney has been using it no um any is there is there others even within Missouri Kansas that we would be able to I don't know but uh about that but I know Dr bargar and I talked to um Carney last week and they said they're satisfied with it because we knew this was a a board agend topic coming up and we knew they used it okay um so to to both of the previous board members points right I read I mean we got your message and I went through the study too and I I I will tell you that I I do have find concerns with that particular study and I wish that in

098this particular case that there would be um some kind of follow up with districts either in and around our area um or some other study essentially even if it has to be and this is going to sound counterintuitive to what board member essc would even like here but something even from 2022 to 2023 once the pandemic was over from a school district who is using this to actually come to us and say hey this is actually working right even to some degree right you wouldn't even have the end results and I but I I think that there would be something more to be said than um trying to rely on um a study that that character strong published on their website the flip side of that is I did the same thing you did board

099member Miller I went I went and I looked at all of the sample lessons and to one of our teachers points who said the current seal curriculum is a little bit too childish which I actually kind of agree with I found the lessons much more appropriate in this particular site um I did have a conversation with another board member just to be transparent about this and saying that I'm not sure that we have the questions answered that we need to have answered to actually act on this um that's my personal opinion because we get the study data back which I think does raise some questions in red flags but on the flip side we have anecdotal good evidence from their website from what it's supposed to do and I am a strong supporter in that

100I think that we need a curriculum so president Sparks what I'm going to tell you here tonight is I would personally like this is only me I would like for us to table this for two weeks so that I can submit more questions um that's where I would like to be tonight um because I think some of the data we can flesh out I think getting to ask questions about some of the sample lessons um we would be able to flesh out um and to be able to learn a little bit more about the program than what we were able to glean from the packet answers um prior to today and so I I just want to be fully up front that I would like for us to table it for two weeks um and

101bring it back on the 11 since the next meeting is so quick right um I'd like for us to bring it back in two weeks so that we can ask more questions um because I don't think we have the level of detail necessary um to to pass it and I just want to be clear I I would not support it tonight so and we I'm sorry to interrupt you president Sparks um I just wanted to share that if that is the decision that um I know representation would be happy to come from character strong as well to answer additional questions um and we can definitely talk to other school districts to provide more information as well I think I I for me that would be helpful for me board member uh John Dr Johnson thank

102you so full transparency I believe Ryan was talking about me when we were uh talking about this topic here um um and I have to say I'm in support of curriculum I I'm in support of this I understand about statistical significance and things like that I also know just from a background of science sometimes anecdotal information and anecdotal data is important and has a lot of weight to it now that Roger I mean sorry now that Ryan has presented that I almost feel like my questions are kind of mute at this point but I still want to ask them because there's still some things that have been on my mind since since this has come up um we looked at the efficacy study for character strong were any of the other groups efficacy studies During

103the covid period and did they look similar I don't have the answer to that got you right and I didn't think so because I'm like we probably didn't look that far into the efficacy study since that wasn't the group we um looked at so and that I perfect I understood I mean I expected that answer uh the other thing is if if we could pick any group just Pie in the Sky you could have any seal you wanted sorry is this it or are there others and I'm I'm just curious or are others on this list I know there were 11 of you right so forgive me I'm sorry but were there rfps we would have wanted to see maybe and we didn't get them because there's a group we really like I will say

104that we we did our due diligence um and Christa bagle and her team were amazing we invited lots of vendors to submit and they did not submit um and I will say that on the team uh very valued and respectable team members on that team and character strong Rose way up to the top um way more than the other ones and um sorry if any of those vendors are watching this right now but that's just a matter of fact so we were very pleased with character Strong by everything that we were presented by but um not everybody submitted an RFP and so this is what we we had these 21 to choose from absolutely I totally understand do we anticipate that using this program for a certain time period because I see there's a roll

105off do we anticipate any harm in terms of time you know students or teachers anticipating like I saw this as this we can only go up from here even if we go up 5% we can only go up from here do we anticipate any downsides with implementing this program oh absolutely not okay no what I was curious to know right and so again it would if people have more questions I would like those to be answered but I feel like um again with the significance totally understand this having something statistically significant but I think in our case and in our state and our society honestly um even if they helped a thousand people in that study a thousand children touch seven other people you know potentially and so just thinking about again the emotional impact

106of that um I just think that you know that's something to consider when we're thinking about our children in the schools that even if it didn't reach as many in that specific group when we're all working together and learning together we also touch other lives at the same time and again that's not going to be a number we're going to be able to you know 1,000 lives touch 3,000 but I think overall increasing community and increasing that social awareness about yourself is helpful so that's all and the folks on that RFP are just really respectable folks in the district um colleagues who put a lot of thought and time and commitment into this process and we're really pleased with this program and I respect their opinions a lot right and I want to add that

107too again I'm always about the professionals I could not pick this curriculum um and so I also kind of feel weird kind of tearing it apart too I'm like I I don't know if I could pick this and so I do appreciate the expertise and I know we all do thank you thank you vice president fley thank you um so I think if we are gonna have a delay I think that would um remove a couple of my questions but I would just ask this up front you know even if you cannot answer it now maybe that's something we can consider in a couple weeks if we bring it back U but the the character strong website headline said say equipping Educators to support whole child's success research based curriculum or research backed curricula and

108training that increase belonging well-being and engagement for students and staff okay so since we've found that the study that they site is faulty due to lack of participation follow-up I find it concerning that this is what they use as their face their advertising being research backed or evidence-based um so were those phrases taken into consideration um when the decision was made to select them as a vendor like did that elevate them because they said they were research backed and if the evidencebased phrase was removed from their presentation do you think the group still would have supported it do you think they have enough uh references from from other districts that are using it that say yeah it's great even if the evidence isn't there because the study was during covid and it was a junk

109study like do you think there's still enough evidence right now that would say that it is a good program to use I I can only speculate just knowing that they don't have any data past the the 2020 um but I will say that that was one of the components that we were looking for was that it did have evidence that reporting that the curriculum was overall effective and so um that was obviously one of the indicators and so but we don't have any new data showing that um I I respectfully disagree just based on what the research shows that part of it was to statistically significant and then the other part of it was not and so um there's that to consider as well any other questions from vice president I know I'm making sure

110vice president Foley is finished no I I think I can wait on the other ones is it on this item okay board member Garrett thank you again miss Ean for all that information for the presentation um with anything new and I I totally had the same concerns that uh board member U Foley had and I just wanted to make sure because of those questionablensfw that we don't you know agree with this side behind us and that we don't um support social emotional learning because I think a no vote is just because we don't have all the information to be able to totally get on board with this particular program and I think that was an excellent idea to for um board member Murdoch that to go ahead and and table it and let us have

111more information and that we can discuss this at the next board meeting so um I just appreciate all the information though and thank you you're welcome um Dr Johnson um did you push it again okay go ahead and I I also want to point out um that so I did contact contact Dr Buck earlier today and ask the numbers students we had 6 through K and looked at the cost and I know we're not saying that cost is an issue but we are talking about a three-year period and we're talking about $7.94 a student I say that to say I want to also consider the amount of energy being put into this that could be helpful for less than like a a Big Mac meal at McDonald's like really I I mean if it I

112want the teachers to be happy and I want them to want something also but again even talking about the amount of time spent already on all of the rfps and the amount of money is going to be spent we're talking $8 a a student and is that going to hurt for increase in emotions in social learning M Murdoch thank you sir um for the other six with as long as we're talking about this how about I just ask my my questions that I was going to submit is that fair let's just let's just do it right that's what you would like to do let's let's just let's just do this um that way then if we want to make a decision tonight we can make a decision tonight um okay so I have F five

113questions in and I I think you'll be able to to answer answer most of these I don't think I'll be catching you to too far off guard um on on this okay so um L to to the last point right we have thousands of students obviously that would receive it since this was a tier one support um can you give us essentially a timeline on ramp for for the programming here going into the fall like from a training perspective to what we anticipate from a timeline of it filtering down into the buildings to to the students and then essentially when we would hope to hope to start to collect some of the meaningful data on the back end with that would that be a question for Dr herkal since it could be just G invite

114Sor it could be either absolutely EI either way would be fine because it is the three hours of professional development that he could speak to for the secondary folks on when that time would be allotted okay that that would be great yeah so the question I heard was like timeline onramp correct yeah from from a training essentially from a training module the three hours right to us hopefully getting it implemented and door it filtering into um and working within our buildings to then the first meaningful data that we might receive in terms of um the results that we might be getting yeah I would say from a PD perspective you're looking at three hours which we have we have that available to us in the fall um in August we would have that time back

115to school we would also have that time in in November as well um those are the two dates that are really available to train staff so you could effectively train all staff through the first semester of of next school year um if you onramp that and move into starting in a second semester timeline that I feel like you could Implement in second semester potentially and but you'd still be looking at probably another year I mean you're only doing it for one semester so you need to keep doing that into the next school year so you're probably looking into the 25 26 school year to get meaningful data back after implementation is that fair uhuh yeah no that that that's fine yeah I say fall 25 earliest and then for for data coming fall 25 earliest

116likely spring 26 would be would be more realistic for a full year implementation okay so in the so second question second question from character strong is the one of the things that was noted is that the cost would decrease in the in the following years can you articulate exactly how that is going to decrease the the why for the decrease for people who obviously probably didn't read the contract um things like that can you tell us why that's going to actually decrease yes um the first year was the 45,000 um that included the three hours of training for every certified staff member who would be implementing this program so um that's where the heavier load comes from and then after that it's 17 for the second year and 17 for the third year and that's

117because there's no involved that would be for the programming and access to the lessons and the resources okay question three is actually more towards um where board member es had even mentioned before in terms of how we're even going to come across or get the data that we would actually want or the questions asked you indicated in one of your previous answers that then if we needed to develop another tool to actually get the information that we would seek right to see if the program is working or not um that we would be able to do that can you give me some kind of background on what that looks like and how much our district already does things like that so right now we do use the Panorama to Garner information about belonging and safety

118um I was just saying that regardless of the platform in our CIP we do have questions around perceived school safety um how others get along in the building in the sense of belonging so regardless of the platform that is used those same questions will be asked of our students and of our staff um and Dr Buck so question four Dr Buck this may come to you because I know that you had mentioned even prior to tonight that there was another District obviously Clos that you thought was closed Carney um that was using this and so my question that I would have sent tomorrow morning would be is when we talked to Carney to actually figure out um if the program was working could could is there any way for you to elaborate a little bit

119on kind of what we asked them about Andor what they like about the program didn't like about the program that kind of thing Dr bargar might be able to better answer that because she had a longer conversation with them so they're using it they were satisfied with it that's that's what I got from them but no I have no data and I wasn't meaning that I was just more curious what the conversation um really was surrounding it what I've got sorry um just from the districts that I've seen and they're not local um but just that it becomes like a part of their language they just say that they're a character strong school and literally like it it's staff and students and it just becomes a part of their culture the lessons are things that

120they can do with each other each day like go up to somebody and give a compliment you know and just kind activities and so it just it's embedded in who who they are and how they treat others so I lied I actually have six questions um the the fifth question what's the flexibility within the the lessons that are available and how they are presented at a staff level especially as we understand the mass differences in the development of middle school kids in this exact arena in Social and emotional learning and their capabilities um to regulate themselves versus an 18-year-old senior who obviously has completely different um ways to regulate themselves what's the flexibility within this particular program to address that so it's differentiated by grade level when you go in and and I saw that

121on on their webs I guess sorry and I didn't mean that was really rude I shouldn't have cut you off um but within the lessons that I was actually looking at even are is there flexibility then once the teachers have had training even to then modify those or are they going to be asked to follow those essentially pretty rigidly you know Dr Herzog and I haven't participated in the training but I would think that um it's not a script they're not reading a script um they just have resources that are provided for them and so that and it tells the teacher like a guide post of what they're presenting on so if a teacher wanted to implement another activity that was related they would have the flexibility to do that because it's not scripted it

122just has um components of the lesson embedded that the that's easy for the teacher to follow but certainly if they had a class that they needed to differentiate um they would be able to do that President our board member if I could I'm struggling with this so this is a third of the cost of capturing kids Hearts which we did in one building um we didn't ask this many questions to them and yet we know the discipline data went down I I feel like we're getting into weeds we have a committee 11 people who spent a lot of time on it so um I don't I feels like we're really getting into weeds here but I don't think that's this is going to touch seven buildings for a third of the cost we touched one

123building two years ago and let let me um I've been patient um and I tend to try to be patient to allow the board to weigh in and to have their input but I I um I'm gonna I'm gonna say my comments and then I'm going to call to question and if y'all choose to vote it down then that's fine and then we can come back and then we can move forward but let me make a couple statements um well first um no I'm gonna make statements I'm not going to ask questions my first statement that I want to make is this we've spent almost well I'm gonna first say this there's two topics in this District since I've been part of this District that mean before I was on this board that we do

124this type of grilling and we labor on but then we want to be the district that is about belonging and let me tell you those two topics the two that we're dealing with tonight one on our Equity work which we now frame it with the words of belonging and then the second one is around social and emotional learning and while I'm happy that everyone that's running to be on this board supports we don't have in our secondary level but then we'll be the first ones to complain about being in the news or being in in in in Lee suit Tribune because we have students that don't know how to deal with emotions and I'm struggling I'm struggling that we have kids that don't know how to suppress process conflict and here is some material curriculum

125that has been presented to this board by the very people that everyone would say we should be listening to teachers principals central office staff and we have a superintendent that brought this before us and then we're going to sit here Grill staff we are not we won't even do this grilling over the $8 million that we about to pour in salaries but then we have people that are saying we need more staff so excuse me for my emotions right now but I am struggling I'm struggling that we are literally spending an hour about a $45,000 contract and we spend 80,000 for a logo on a field so Dr Buck I appreciate you stepping in and telling us that we're over step in our boundaries and we're in the weeds but if we're going to be

126in the weeds then let's get in the weeds let's pull this let's pull the budget apart and let's look at every single item but when you go to msba when you go to nsba they will tell you where your money is where your money is where you spend it that's where your heart is and so if your heart is to prepare prepare each and every student for success in life then what does it take and I'm going to tell you what it takes it takes us addressing the entire and the whole child that means we need a kid that can actually sit still get in the classroom and be able to have a teacher that can give them instruction so that they can learn it's about embodying and enabling parents to be able to continue

127to nurture that child in their learning and then ultimately it's about our fun project which is to show up the graduations and to see them walk across that stage and make whatever decision that is that they want to make that's College that's a career path or that's going to serve our country through via military so we have a motion we have a second and if I need to call the question then that's what I'll do Miss Linda roll call vote please board member Sparks I'm going to ask you to reconsider that so people can give a final remark no more questions everybody should be allowed to give a final remark because if you're going to expect me to make a vote tonight which I've never voted against this stuff and you're going to lecture me

128on it then you I at least am should be allowed to tell you why I'm going to vote one way or the other everybody should be given that I will give everyone that privilege but let me say this bman wrestli while you're shaking your head okay okay why you're while you're nodding and and I I appreciate you're notd but but call me out will then call the action out appropriately this was me nodding to his comment has nothing to do with you I agree okay so so let me go on record I acknowledge your nod to board member Murdoch and what B board member m Murdoch just said was that he has supported this kind of work that's what he said unfortunately I can't say that about your vote about this type of work so

129that's the reason why I'm acknowledging that okay member Murdoch and any board member that would like to speak with final comments please do so and then we can take this vote my my final comment is is very simple okay in that I agree we need ancl curriculum I agree age that we have kids who need this kind of of of lessons and one of the things to Dr bucks point maybe I shouldn't ask that many questions but these were questions that I would have wanted to ask the following day to get to the support that I have given to these programs all along okay and board member Sparks president Sparks I would tell you that you probably are aware that my questions would have gotten me to a support right I don't think think that

130that there's that there's very many people out there who think that I would vote against anal program okay and so calling the question tonight understanding that we can have some of the data and we can continue to ask questions which I probably will just so you know ask a few questions I can I can turn right back around and say I'll support this with everybody because I've done it all along okay but I do think it's important that people are able to ask those particular questions um when they have them surrounded contracts but I do acknowledge Dr Buck to your point right that and it's one of the reasons I even told you earlier this week that I was behind on even getting the questions in that that's incumbent upon me even on the others

131that I had to get them sent in ahead of time right totally respect that okay so that's where I will end tonight is there anyone else that would like to weigh in with final comments um board member Miller Dr Johnson vice president Foley okay so first I want to say um I mean we have well-educated staff um that's taken time to vet all of these vendors come to an agreement on what they think is best for our district and our students and I don't know about you but if we're paying um staff to make decisions then we should value the decisions that they're coming to us with and um on the note of of expense I mean that hasn't been the biggest topic but I will agree with some of my fellow board members who

132have talked about that I mean if we just look at the amount we spent on books and the $30,000 on all the things all the work that was done on the band books or the $30,000 this is $45,000 that's it so and the last thing I'll say is um I mean just to kind of go back to what I said previously which is I truly believe that when we give our students valuable tools to understand their emotions and to be able to foster a sense of wellbeing belonging that's really powerful we actually had our um student Representatives this evening um in Open Session and they talked about a sense of community and a sense of belonging and some of the work that's being done or that was done and how that made them feel and

133so I think this is the same type of work they're saying that they want it so if we're wanting to listen to the students and what they're needing and what they're wanting they they sat there and told us that so that's all Dr Johnson I'm going to ask that we vote to spend eight on my two children vice president um board member asck I'm really trying to figure out how to respond to the the diet tribe that just happened [Music] um it's not about the money as I said um when I spoke earlier it's not about the money we're asking our teachers to buy into a system that has no evidence that it works and I'm just going to go back to that that's that was the entire Genesis of all of my questions and

134it's not about whether I support a program that would help our students understand their emotions and work with other people that is very common sense thing we see it all the time right now in the conflicts in the schools but if this whole interaction I was very professional I wasn't attacking anyone I cannot say the same for what just happened on the dis which is honestly in the in the two years we've worked together the first time something like that's ever happened so that's pretty disappointing but um a couple of things have been implied about uh my disagreement with um the efficacy of this program it's that I don't trust teachers I don't trust our staff um and that uh just me asking questions about something being being um effective is somehow divisive so I

135I I just disagree with all of that I think you can ask questions I think you can challenge whether something is effective based off of a study and none of those things should be considered anything more than what they are trying to prove that what we're asking our staff to do is going to have an impact on our students that is all I was getting at and none of that has been demonstrated to me from the information that has been provided or the dialogue that we've had that's all I have to say VI um board member Garrett thank you I don't know if it was my words that kind of triggered all this I mean I did say about investing in this program I didn't mean MoneyWise I meant signing on the dotted line on

136a contract that we don't have all the information that we're asking for I mean that's what we're supposed to be here we're supposed to be here to ask the questions to ask the hard questions and to be able to say yay or nay that's going to impact all of our kids' lives now I do support this I support this sign here that's why I ran um I support social emotional learning but are we getting the right program that is my only holding back if you will that once a contract is in place we have it for a period of time and if it's not really effective then what well we've already invested three years or however long the contract is so you know we're just going to keep right on chugging along and that's where

137I'm my heads space is I want to be 100% sure have all the information before we signed that contract and it really didn't have anything to do with the money and maybe that's where this came from I don't know but I was talking about signing a contract and investing in the time for our teachers to it to be able to use this program for every student that's where my head space was when I said invest I wasn't talking about the money but that is a factor as well but that wasn't the top of the the list so I I think before I came on board there were other programs that were invested in that I don't think we're highly effective I'm just going to be honest there are uh our constituents that have voiced different

138opinions and I think we are obligated to take everything into consideration and maybe come into a middle ground somewhere I I'm willing to do that I'm always willing to listen to both sides and and try and meet people in the middle but it just seems like we're we're relying on um data that we just don't have enough information for and that's where I you don't have me 100% on board for this particular program at this time now if we had been given more information I could have been sold on it and so that's where I'm struggling right now and that was all I had to say before I call on vice president Foley remember Garrett you you mentioned in your comments just now that there's other um there was other things that have not proven

139basically a waste of money would that be a fair I don't want to say a waste of money I want to say that maybe it hasn't been as effective okay can you can you share with the board those particular um um contracts that have not been affected well I'm just talking about the diversity because that's coming up here pretty soon so I might as well just put that one out there that one was voted on before I got here is that the only one that you would say that has that's probably the only one that I'm aware of yeah okay okay thank you vice president foldy I agree that we need an appropriate curriculum but when I see a vendor that CES a faulty study as their main selling point it gives me a concern

140in the finance committee discussion yesterday the staff proposing the contract admitted um that they hadn't even fully gotten through the study yet so why should I expect that all of the vetting committee had read the study if our staff didn't I do think we need anal curriculum but I just don't know that this is the one I know covid was a big disruptor and I don't fault them for having an incomplete study but if I would have heard today that Carney has been using it and if either one of you two would have said that they've seen results I would have supported it okay I believe everyone has had a chance to give their final remarks so I'm going to give mine and then we'll vote um let me publicly um apologize to board member

141Eslick um calling you out from this dis was inappropriate and I should not have done it um it was very um reactive um and I'm publicly apologizing and in due time you get accept it okay um let me also acknowledge that um I stand by everything that I said um and I appreciate the acknowledgement that um I have not had a coral with any of my colleagues for the last two years and I'm going go on the record and say I've Not had one in the last three years and I respect my colleagues and I respect the work that we do and the sacrifices that we make um but I'm also going to say this as my final comment if we're going to ask questions then let's ask questions about everything and what I'm saying

142is I'm seeing the pattern that we pick and choose when we want to ask questions especially when we're really in the weeds of things and so that's the point that I was highlighting is that if we're going to ask questions then we need to truly ask questions about everything and not just on certain issues that rally our community up or because we're in the middle of an election that then these become Hot Topics that now we want to make points on and I would not be the leader that I am if I did not make those comments and so um Miss Linda roll call vote please vice president Foley no board member Miller I board member Johnson I board member Garrett no board member Murdoch I board member Eslick no president Sparks I motion passes

143four to three thank you our next item is um dignity consultant um contract renewal for 2024 25 that's 7.02 good evening I wasn't close enough um so um happy to be here for year three uh for this contract um just ready to keep doing the good work um we you know have been talking a lot about data and and statistics and quantitative and all that stuff um and we talked a little bit about qualitative and I had the opportunity to um facilitate the parent dteam session um uhhuh and um we had some newbies join but we've also had um some members that have been on the team for three years um and just our conversation in our last meeting um I don't know that we always get to hear those words and it was just

144framed around this meeting three years ago we couldn't even be in the same room without a police presence standing outside of our meeting with yelling and screaming right and here we are today three years later and we can sit in a room and have conversations and share our different perspectives and we're okay that's what this work is all about right and we will continue to do that work if this contract doesn't pass we're going to keep going because we now have created a safe space where not only our kids can exist but our parents can too and they don't have to agree on topics but they know that they can come to that space um and let their hair down and talk about what's most important important to them and that's their kids and in

145that space I get to be a parent too and so I get to talk about my kids because that's what we're here for right so while you're going to see that our student and staff data has moov some and we'll continue to work on that quantitatively and we cannot forget the qualitative data that is collected in our daily experiences with those we get to serve so I will open up for questions question I sorry I will open the flooor for questions if there are any okay the board um any questions oh yes sorry thanks Bo Murdoch um open a motion please I move that the board approves the dignity Consulting proposal as proposed as provided for the 2024 2025 school year to complete the training with our designated groups from The Proposal drop a second

146second okay um any discussion board member es I'm just going to make a quick statement because uh Shelly and I have gone back and forth for the last three years talking about this very topic even before I was a board member um and she knows I have big beef with cob and Crown Apple for a variety of reasons in the way that they approach this topic and it really is not the concept of respecting someone's dignity it's honestly um the way that those individuals have gone about um speaking of belonging as the Cornerstone and the only thing that matters before someone can begin to learn so just theoretically and philosophically I just disagree I think it's a I think it's a circle a circle of belonging and I think it's a partnership and that's how

147you create belonging it's a partnership in society where we we we accept somebody they prove they're part of the team and we all work together and it's more of a circle instead of this hierarchical thing that has that their consultancy has has developed so one of the questions that I had asked about was whether we're ready to move forward without dignity Consulting because I don't I mean there's nothing in me that would want to say cancel the program I've been part of your DT meetings when you were when I was a parent and I've been to your DTE meetings as a school board member and I've seen the great conversations that have come out of all of that work um I just don't want to pay these people that I vehemently disagree with their philosophy

148that's really what it's about it's just this this particular consultant and the way that they they view people and education and some of the things that they have said about education being uh what's the word they use apar tide um in how they describe academic tracking um so it's really the book and the platform more so the concept of implementing belonging in our schools because to your credit I think you've done a great job and I've enjoyed a lot of the sessions that I've been part of so it's a twofold I know I'm trying not trying to call your baby ugly um by criticizing Cobb and Crown Apple but I really don't like them but I love your program and what you've done with it so it's kind of a two-fold uh compliment sandwich um

149the other comment that I really wanted to address was um the comment made because we're still on this topic of these these topics that um board member Sparks viewed as being something that we spend a lot of time on I I don't know if Kyle gerell is here but if he were he could attest to how many times how much I dig into a lot of his stuff and how much I have dug into a lot of his things in the last two years the last board meeting we had pre I asked a lot of questions about pre um because I wanted to make sure that if we were going to try and invest in that and give up some of the things that we have as priorities that I was concerned about that there

150was a valid reason and a good plan um so I ask a lot of questions and I kind of resent this concept that I only ask questions about politically IAL topics because that's frankly garbage for anybody who's actually sat in one of my finance committee meetings with um Dr Shelton and Kyle gerell or a board meeting for that matter so um I dispute that I 100% disagree I ask a lot of questions about a variety of topics because I care and it's not because I'm trying to make a political statement this topic could have been pushed off another month until after the election I don't control the agenda the two people over there do so I didn't put it on the agenda to make it politicized I just had questions about it and comments and

151I'm going to vote how I vote I haven't supported dignity Consulting um for the last well the last one time that I was able to vote for it and I'm not going to start now because my issues are still present so again compliment sandwich I love what you've done um but I don't like cin Crown Apple so I appreciate you though I think I think it's important uh for us to all acknowledge that it's not my baby right like I got two babies in their home one slice of my pie and if you ever want to come and spend the day with me um and see what that looks like I can't carry the load by myself and and the comment when you said my baby I think there is an expectation for me to

152carry this work on my own um and we we've built some capacity and our def facilitators are amazing but it's also to remember that they are teachers they are administrative assistants they are nutrition services coordinators they got jobs too right and so right now as long as it's just me I need help right and and I think that's just important to remember because I just don't serve 177,000 kids I just don't serve 3,000 staff members we serve the whole Community right so that you know as long as it's just me we may be up here having this conversation every year right but I appreciate your comments board member Murdoch my only question is in the adding the facilitators how many are we adding because I didn't did I see that number did I miss it

153no you don't have that number so last year was the first year of the facilitators we had 55 this year we were up to 82 okay right and so this year we had every building plus nutrition services plus Transportation plus SLC has four trainers and so we've sort of Spann out and I had an amazing conversation with Kyle Gill today and we're going to Beef It Up for facilities and like it is so much fun when Kyle gerell Flags me down in dteam training and says I need you to bring this to us now and I said Kyle I need you to give up three hours in the summer with your staff and you know what Kyle says we can make that work what else do you need right like that's the commitment to this

154work and when I say it's not my baby but our baby that's proof right no one person does this alone so we just the goal obviously then is to keep branching keep building facilitators but like that's one layer right and now we have this layer where where people are talking like well this situation happened like what do I do here I need a think partner like we got to build that out too because right now people call Shelly or they call Heather or they call Chad or whatever they do like we got to equip our people to be able to have somebody to have that dialogue with so that we can make better decisions for ourselves and for kids and for each other thanks appreciate it we member Garrett okay um like I said before

155the program was implemented before I even got here and I understood that there were questions with this crown and apple um dignity program and it's not that I don't don't agree I yes I think that most people up here do want our children to learn how to respect others that are different um and treat them with kindness and honestly before crown and apple was even around in this dignity program these are things that I learned I learned as a child where maybe my parents maybe um religion maybe society and I know things are different now and I know that we have to focus on getting our kids to respect one another and it really saddens my heart when I keep seeing the fights going on in our schools it hurts my heart when another student

156tells my child that white people there's no there's no um discrimination against white people and why it hurts my heart is because I'm Mexican and my child looks white and people look at him and judge him because he's white he looks white and so personally that affects me and I don't want to bring that in here but if our kids aren't being taught how to respect one another I can't be 100% aboard on this of this program now there are other programs out there that might not be so divisive and and that's where my frustration lies is did we not research and look far and wide for the best program and that and that's where I have this pause with this particular program where there wasn't enough information because like I said if our kids

157are discussing these things at school and saying that you know you can't discriminate against white person and I'm sorry when I was running for Schoolboard um being confronted with people that didn't like me for whatever reason didn't um agree because of my my ideals tried to say tried to talk about white privilege now honestly in our our meetings that we've had as as a community I I thought it was great I don't know what's going behind closed doors when my kids leave and they go to school and what's being discussed and what they're learning I don't know that until they tell me and then where am I supposed to go when I hear these things you know that you know it's it's affecting my child you know that they have to be careful in what

158they say and what they say can be turned and manipulated and then they're targeted for being a racist that's something that I'm like wondering where is this coming from are we lifting up other people within the community and lifting up other students within the community above others I don't know but I have to wonder why is it that we're putting so much focus on certain people yes I want to focus on all of them I want all of them to be treated with dignity and kindness and if we could have a program that that amplifies that I would be 100% on board because it it hurts me when I see all the divisiveness in our schools but I see it on social media so it makes me wonder where is this coming from is it

159coming from the homes or is it coming from school or is it coming from social media there's a lot there but I want some something that they can be proud of when they go to school and they can be included in the learning because honestly my kids don't take those Panorama surveys I don't trust them I I honestly don't and I would rather be the person responsible for my child and how they behave in school and if they're not behaving they're going to be held accountable I am not a parent who makes excuses for my child and I will discipline them and talk to them at home about their behavior in school school and I think it should be every parent's obligation for that I honestly I I don't even know I know there are

160some students that are in homes that don't look like mine I get that and those kids probably need that support and I think all all the students should be respectful of those students as well and I just want a program that establishes that because I don't feel like this particular program has that was all for member Miller kind of lost my train of thought for a second um I was just gonna say that I've talked to in in my school visits and just in my time in the community I've talked to staff and teachers um who really appreciate this work and have benefited from this work and um want to see this work continue um so I just want to say thank you for all of your work and I recognize that you're one person

161and you can't do this by yourself um so um but I just want to say thank you because it is making a difference um even again in the um the things that our student representatives were talking about tonight um my understanding is the things that they were talking about were were coming directly from the dteam work um the the sense of belonging the sense of community that's being created in their in their classrooms and so um I do know that it's making a difference and I just want to say thank you okay um my um only comments are um thank you for doing the work um thank you and everyone that has been doing this work um and um we got um former board member vice president Kim frie in the audience and she knows

162this journey and to to know where we started and to know where we are today I'm satisfied I'm satisfied not happy because we got more work to do but I'm satisfied with seeing the progress and I'm SA IED with seeing the dialogue that is happening from this dis of us continuing the work we have a motion we have a second roll call vote Miss Linda board member Garrett no board member Johnson yes board member Miller yes vice president Foley no board member Eslick no board member Murdock I president Sparks I motion passes 43 we'll move to our next item uh 7.03 um suspension of board Pol Boe policy uh gcbda um and the guidelines for pdos uh used letter i for school year 2425 and we have Dr Carlson joining us so good evening and

163um yeah just I'll give a brief intro to this you know in the team Lee Summit survey emergency days has been a persistent topic for years uh to be candid um and uh that was also identified by team Le Summit as a staff well-being topic so what this item would do is uh it's a recommendation to suspend board policy gcbda and GD BDA under the heading in that policy guidelines for PDO PTO use letter I that's the section that is referred to as the the emergency day section of the policy so it would suspend the practice of having emergency days for PD and PTO usage for a one-year pilot to collect data and evaluate the impact on school operations okay thank you for giving us that synopsis is there um a motion for this item

164I move to suspend board policy gcbda GC gcbda gcbd is it in the oh my gosh I can't run sorry it's been hours now I moved to suspend board policy gcbda GD BDA guidelines for PDO PTO letter i for the 2024 25 school year do have a second second okay um any open for discussion for member Murdoch thank you president Sparks um Dr Carlson I sent you obviously some questions regarding regarding this one um first off for board uh clarification I'm in full support of this here so um but I do I I am curious about two things surrounding this um number one is if we suspend the policy specific to that letter do we is there does there need to be something at the building level to indicate how they are going to essentially

165do a lottery if you have so many people who end up applying well in advance for the day before Christmas break for example like I'm concerned like I I don't want it to be essentially subjective on how we're going to deter determine if you have a lot of Staff who end up applying for one particular day is that are we going to be able to are we going to do that after the fact is there something that we're thinking about in regards to that good question this was actually discussed at Team Le Summit so uh we'll be following the rest of the board policy so keep in mind we're just suspending that one letter I the rest of the guidelines for PDO and PTO use will still be an effect and part of that is

166supervisors making decisions about absences uh there will not be a lottery it will be based on essentially first come first serve when the days are requested the supervisor supervisor will then evaluate and approve those days um and then it's been a practice and and on non-emergency days building leaders have been able to or Department directors if it's in transportation or nutrition um RN sometimes have to do this uh where they will identify a day as an emergency day because of the number of absen they have coming up will happen sometimes um on Fridays in the spring um on a random Friday so um Beyond a holiday or PD day or the last week of school so that would be the standard so an example would be uh principal might say you know we're up to

16715 18 20% of our teaching staff being gone at this point I need to make it an emergency day and we won't be able to approve more okay which brings up kind of the the second part of this question um for me and just something I just want the board to be thinking about even as we collect data on this piece right is we have drastically differen sized schools right and so the in the questions that we submitted and then the answers that were provided obviously one of the things we would not be able to sustain would be for example in some of our smaller elementary schools losing for example music and art and all that all essentially on the same day whereas or even to the example I think if it was you answering

168that that gave the example of multiple ones within a grade level right um and so but then all a sudden you have Lisa at elementary who has one teacher right and and while I understand that you know they are gone in other times and stuff like that I do I do wonder is there going to be is there going to be an unfair burden on the teachers in these smaller departments smaller schools things like that who might not actually be able to grab these days before after holidays and things like that because they are even more indispensable that's a terrible word that I need to stop that and come back on that one that was awful um is are they is it a little more unfair to those teachers because people who have four gym

169teachers at the high school for example one of them could miss that day but a gym teacher in an elementary school can't all of a sudden does that make sense where I'm going like I'm I'm concerned that some teachers are going to be able to take advantage of which I love I think that's great I think there's going to be other teachers who all of a sudden aren't going to be able to and how do we navigate that yeah and I think I understand the question so but redirect me if I don't answer it so I I don't think a PE teacher at a at a smaller elementary school or one of our elementary schools is going to be the issue the issue is when you know one in five of your teaching staff is

170gone so um so I I think the example as a Middle School principal the example I I always use from a middle school perspective is if an entire team of teachers was going to be gone that day then a team of students is going to go through their day with four of their seven teachers being subs and that um can present challenges for kids um with the the change in expectations and sometimes the the testing that happens with sub so in a situation that like that I as a middle school principal might ask a teacher um if they're the fourth teacher going to request to be gone on a team and they're um wanting to go on a shopping trip or something like that hey C can you can you reschedule that another day so

171we don't have four Subs gone that day um but I will say that if on that day they get sick that morning they need to be gone they need to stay home and get well so that's the balance and and I trust our leaders I think what's going to be challenging with this is um it is a change because as I'd mentioned in the in the questions from the board um HR has managed these emergency days and and approval and denial of those days um and and it will be different for different buildings based on who's gone on what days and uh supervisors will have to make those determinations um for their school and what's right for their school I appreciate that very much right I mean as I said I I support this the

172only other comment I would like to make president Sparks is that I do wish in this recommendation that we had left the first week of school because I think that that's a a pretty critical compon oent to meeting the students right as best we can we always want as much of our staff to be there in the first week now that being said I don't anticipate right staff just like in droves just skipping the first week so like I I I'm not right I mean so that that's one of the things that and so I don't I don't worry about necessarily about that but I wish we we had left that you know just for peace of mind for even parents and stuff like that that's all and to file that up we had more

173absences today than we had any requests in any of the first days of of of school and the team lost four to one I didn't say it was that reason um so just to um kind of touch on board member Murdoch if I know that this is a one-year pilot if we see prior to the completion of one year that we're hurting our students what do we do I I can answer that for you so I can remember our uh 2021 we we decided to make a certain number of days to forgive and then we came back two months later said yeah that's not working and we changed it so board policies can change anytime you guys want to vote on one that is what I would like the board to always consider are there

174any other questions thank you Dr Carlson oh board faor Miller just on that point um um are so will we get like an update of some sort of how we think the pilot is going is that the plan yeah our our plan is to collect data the data we're talking about collecting right now is uh absentee rates uh for those days how many staff we have gone compared just like Dr Buck mentioned today you know we were looking this week and we're looking at tomorrow before spring break what our what our absence rates are but also part of is our fill rates and I'll say Kelly Services this year our fill rates have been um I can't remember them ever being as good as they are right now I I just can't um so we

175are we are we are confident I checked with Kelly Services again today on this specific topic that um next year if if things continue the way they are I think we'll have we we believe we'll have enough Subs to cover absences as long as they don't Spike beyond the 200 250 U range that we've we've topped out at before thank you and to the board I just leaned over to Dr Buck and just said there we run into issues he needs to bring this back to the Board of Education okay if there's um did we get we already got the motion on this one and we got the second a roll call vote please board member Johnson I board member Murdoch I board member Eslick I board member Miller I board member Garrett I vice

176president Foley I president Sparks I unanimous vote motion passes our next one is uh 7.04 our compensation package for 2425 school year Dr Carlson um well H as you all know we discussed this at work session uh so I won't uh restate the things I shared earlier I do want to take a moment I noticed we have some team Le Summit members in the room and I want to thank them for giving their Thursday night to be here and uh um just remind folks that this this is a collaborative process we have five teachers uh five support professional staff members we have five administrators on team Lee Summit uh working to those goals to work towards uh through through our Norms to create a recommendation for our Board of Education to consensus which we were

177able to achieve today uh for the package recommendation that is here um that I also touched on gave a brief summary of during work session so happy to answer any questions you may have all right can I have a motion please I move to recommend approval of the compensation package for 20 24 through 2025 as submitted second okay we have a motion in a second is there any discussion where Mur just one just just one thing I just wanted to highlight just like we did in the in the work session I I did appreciate the answers specific to as we talk about how we move through each one of the the schedules but also then how we determine what we're doing for clubs and stuff like that that's the only thing um since there's so

178much on in that particular in that particular document and just like I said also uh in in the work session I sincerely hope that in the coming years we will continue um to beef up as much as we possibly can the amount that we put towards the insurance packages to make for the full compensation package for for staff to make that attainable especially for those who need to take family coverage right I mean that's that's where it really starts to to hit home so thanks absolutely um we have a motion we have a second if there's no more comments then roll call vote please Miss Linda board member Miller hi board member Garrett hi board member Murdoch hi board member Eslick hi vice president FY I board member Johnson I president Sparks I motion passes

179unanimously we're going to move to our next item 7.05 renewal of administra administrative uh staff U for the 2425 school year year before we start I want to make sure you look at the list and if you have any relatives we have to pull them off because you have to abstain because you could lose your board seat for voting for a relative so make sure you do so if you need a definition on how far that is we have Joe over there who will have it memorized two if you want to talk about anybody individually we have to put that into Clos session so please look at that list to make sure you're not related to anybody Jody you want to come up and tell them how close we're related I don't miss Linda actually

180sent every she already did so you already had the definition sent to you yes we're we're good and ready to go hopefully you looked at that list if not uh you're in trouble uh all right so do I have a motion I move to renew the administrative staff for the 2024 2025 school year second okay we have a motion we have a second is there any discussion okay Miss Linda roll call please board member Murdoch hi board member Eslick hi vice president Foley I board member Miller I board member Johnson I board member Garrett I president Sparks I okay motion passes unanimously we go on to our next item 7.06 a renewal renewal of the probationary teachers um for the 24 25 school year ditto on the relative part do I have a a motion

181I move to renew the probationary teachers as as submitted for the 2024 2025 school year do office second all right we have our motion on second is there any discussion okay roll call Miss Linda board member Eslick I vice president Foley hi board member Garrett hi board member Murdoch hi board member Johnson hi board member Miller president Sparks I motion passes unanimously we are on to our last item for items for decision our comprehensive School Improvement plan uh Dr christe Burger is going to be presenting good evening we have moved forward actually two pieces of the CP one that is in the item of decision that we're looking at right now and another piece that shows up later in the item of information in the item of decision is the results of this first almost

182in second semester's work of a team of 50 people who utilized Community feedback and worked very well collaboratively to move forward uh the part of the CIP for 24 to 27 that is our strategic goals and objectives that's the portion that will be board approved for the purpose of solidifying it moving forward it is partnered with an item of information later that was also developed by that same team with the intention of being three years of proposed strategies um and the reason that's an item of information is for the agility we don't necessarily always know you know we want to be a little bit alile with a strategy between year one and year two without necessarily having to bring each strategy back for board approval but definitely want to keep the board informed I appreciate

183that do I have a motion I lost it sorry I move to approve the 2024 through 2027 comprehensive School Improvement plan strategic goals and objectives as presented second okay is there any discussion okay board member Eslick and then board member Murdoch um so my questions about um well now I lost it the document that was in front of me um where are we going to there's some metrics in here but there's not a lot of beginning and end point as far as like benchmarks like we're starting here and we want to improve this much um is is that going to be down the road when we get a more like full um like the document that we have currently with CP you know has all the information kind of broken out um like page by

184Page and there's U some metrics in there where there's a a benchmark and then a goal um so some of these are one well they all should be measurable of course but um you know a a couple of them have some sort of uh percentage like for example 50% of students in each subgroup um including the all students group will reach their identified nwaa fall to Spring growth goal um so some of the other ones like you know under strategic goal number two there's some questions in there that have to do with the belonging survey and do we have benchmarks that we're going to plug in there to say we want to improve this much um for any of these so really that was a very purposeful a shift of practice really trying to talk

185about moving forward to the things that we see as benefits in terms of that versus what might end up feeling like arbitrary selection of percentages to show a certain amount of increase do we have Baseline data that we can speak to absolutely I think where you most likely we'll see that start to finish measurement like you might typically have seen in our previous cips we would call those smart goals where there is that very measurable we want to increase 2% by would be when we report out on the strategies work some of those strategies like how many market value assets we have what our graduation rate how many um how many CCR uh assessments we have that's really where we would be bringing those quarterly or whatever rate the board wants updates on that strategy

186work with the start finish but with the document that we wanted to be board approved what we didn't want to do is either set a goal that felt arbitrary because we picked an increment but really also wanted it to be more about holistically what do we see as the benefit we see incremental growth as the benefit so we tried to articulate that through ongoing growth each year if we get to the point where a board says you know what you only grew 2% last year like Chop Chop I want to see 5% next year it also gives the board the ability to give us that that nudge for for um High expectation as well okay it makes sense I'm just trying to figure out how we would measure whether something was successful or not without

187some sort of begin and end point um but I hear what you're saying I'm just trying to figure out what that looks like practically applied to us kind of receiving information and deciding okay well what's the next step if we didn't decide what was success to begin with can make sense can I try to weigh in and being on the committee one of the things that we discussed just just as board member Es as a part of this whole um formulation of the plan was we have board priorities that we had already put that we wanted to make sure that we stayed in alignment with which already had a lot of the data points that we would be using as we can look to try to succeed we just had the communications audit which is

188why we were able to put a more tangible number right as a part of of of this of the engagement that we want to be able to see and so we had the different data pieces that all came together whether it was the survey responses that we had that we that we all had had divvied up and partnered in and looked through to try to um figure out some of these we had the board priorities and the data associated with those and then we had a couple of the other pieces surrounding communication um and the belonging piece that that then we were able to pull together so I do think that there is data behind behind it while you may not see it necessarily right here on this particular page it already is essentially one

189broad huge thing that we wanted to stay in alignment with like we were really really cognizant to not push the CIP away from the board priorities like that became really really important right so that we're not chasing different things all at the same time so I do think you'll be able to see some of that success that you're looking for thank you Brian well said yes that's all I was basically going to say is all three of those should align and that's if and as the CIP um continues to involve um you know three four years out then we should make sure that they still align with our board priorities and as the board priorities shift then we should then be shifting RC can I say one more thing go ahead um so the only

190thing that I think would be not the only thing but a thing that I think would be helpful um like I Look to strategic goal number four because when we're kind of talking about the things that we think our kids need to be successful um I think I'm assuming we do some sort of feedback loop with um the employers that we work with that our students go out to to say this student was great in all of these areas but I think they could use some work in this area not specifically for that student but really just to understand are we hitting the mark when we're saying we're preparing our students to go out into the workforce are there skills that they're missing that maybe here in the four walls of um the school building

191that we think we're doing a good job of delivering students that are going to succeed out in the workforce um are we and maybe some sort of you know survey back to Our Community Partners I know we have some feedback opportunities with like Business Roundtable and we have workforce alliance I don't know that those groups are necessarily that function um and I don't know what that looks like but to me to really understand whether those uh internships and apprenticeships are both beneficial for the student and also for the community and for what we're trying to do which is to ready our students to go out into the community and work um I think I don't I personally think that would be valuable information to have and I don't know probably for um us as a

192district to be able to know whether we need to correct course or add resources to help build skills that are missing uh for our students so remember I think we can certainly build that in because I think that's what we we take the admin team out often to um and we're going to do it again this summer to U businesses we always hear that they see an applicants right now the best skills they've seen but they don't get along with each other as well um so that's we hear that but yes so if you talk to old TRS they've had over 60 in the last six years they'll have valuable information about what are they seeing what we could do program programmatically and they already do that and directly with the instructors but we probably

193don't capture it at us because they're working right with the engineering inst structures to go to ultrax right so we probably could capture that and that's a good idea well and I think this exchange here really speaks to the format of what's board approved and what becomes strategies because when we have conversations like this great idea let's get get it tacked onto the strategies right and it can be tacked onto a strategy in a very agile way when something comes up like that and in the same way we find out something's not working we can like you know nudge a strategy out and replace it so um no reason that can't be added to not not by our item of information but there's no reason that that can't be added to the strategies long range

194okay is there anyone else have any questions like do I answer all right we have a motion we have a second roll call vote please miss Lindon thank you Dr B board member Foley I mean vice president Foley hi board member Miller I board member Garrett I board member Johnson I board member Murdoch I board member es I president Sparks I motion passes unanimously uh thank everyone for all of those items um items for information presentation Health Service program evaluation now board we need to be very nice this is her first time presenting before us we're gonna Grill [Laughter] you thank you all right um my name is Lauren Lee I am the new health services coordinator as of March 1st um I am excited and honored to be a part of um lsr7 personally

195I grew up in Lee Summit I graduated from leis Sumit North and I currently have two children in the district in the district so I have a vested interest um in our school district um professionally um I worked as a pediatric nurse at the University of Kansas hospital and more recently I worked as a pediatric nurse practitioner here in in Lee Summit um and I'm excited to bring that experience and knowledge um into this role and to help our um Health Services um staff um thank you for the opportunity um to present um the program evaluation tonight okay on this slide you'll find our mission statement of the health services department um our primary goal is to promote an optimal level of Health and Wellness for all uh staff and students um our staffing structure

196um so in 2002 or 2022 excuse me the Staffing structure was changed to include a full-time RN in every building this change provides the opportunity for all students and staff to have access to a professional nurse every single day and this change also aligns with um the recommendations of the position statement of the National Association of School nurses uh the Staffing numbers here include our float pool as well as two one:1 LPNs or licensed practical nurses the the recent approval of an internal float pool for our staffing model um has allowed for consistent coverage um in the case of absences in the health room continuing um in addition to their full-time uh building we have RNs who provide emergency coverage for Summit Ridge Academy Miller Park Center Summit Technology Academy and Hilltop and in the

197future we'll be adding a full-time RN for the new prek program um next year okay um let's jump some of our staffing structure uh or from our staffing structure to a few slides on Department St statistics fully acknowledge that this slide is really busy um so I'd like to highlight a few key points using the 21 to 22 school year as a baseline you can see that the number of students being sent back to class from the health room has gone up every year which means um or which which results in more instructional time for our students this year the health services staff performed over 177,000 treatments or procedures and over 10,000 Health screenings lastly um they've provided over 2,000 visits to staff um I think it's important to point this out to note that

198we care for staff and patrons in any District facility in addition to um the students in regard to student health concerns I'd like to bring your attention to the increase in um both type one diabetics and mental health diagnosis I'll use this information uh to focus Health Services professional development days to better prepare our health services staff um with with training to be able to um respond on to the needs of the increase in these diagnosis so this slide further breaks down um mental health concerns these numbers are reported by parents um I think that's important to note um that most likely these numbers are much higher um due to being under reported um mental with mental health concerns so Health screenings um the reality is that the school nurse may be the only opportunity

199a student has um to have access to a health care professional um these screenings play an important part in identifying health concerns um they can directly have an impact on a student's ability to learn vision and hearing um are two of the the screenings that Health Services provide and you can see our um screening numbers there okay the next two slides highlight programs The District offers in Partnership um with outside organizations healthy kids screening program um is provided through the firsthand Foundation um which is sponsored by cernal Cerner excuse me and this year five schools participated in this program these are the screenings that they offered big smiles is a mobile dental clinic and this year we had 13 student or excuse me schools participate um they sered 306 students and uh performed 161 restorative

200procedures at school um again this is a way we can help minimize um hours loss of school time getting them back into the classroom while getting these um important um Health procedures as well okay um Health Services goals for 20 uh 24 to 2025 um so kind of looking ahead to next year here are the three goals um that the department will focus on will continue to increase professional development opportunities for health services staff number two we'll increase standardization across all District Health rooms and then number three will'll improve work to improve the new hire on boarding and orientation as a way um to increase staff retention um since I am so new I will taking this next year to really build relationships with um my health services staff um and then really take a

201deep dive um to have a better understanding of how the health rooms are currently operating um and then in order to to assess the areas where we need to improve I'd like to end on a celebratory note with a few recent staff accomplishments um we have the number is actually seven I got notified today that one of our nurses um recently passed um um certification exam so we have seven nationally certified School nurses um Molly Boyd um are in are in at Mason Elementary um was The Honorable mentioned recipient of the Missouri Association of School nurses outstanding service of school nurse award for this year and she'll be recognized in April in St Louis at the Missouri Association of School nurses conference Deb Jenkins our RN at Summit Lakes Middle School received this award last

202year and then I think it's important to note that Rebecca Linton or RN at Richardson Elementary is currently serving as the president of the greater Kansas City Association of School nurses thank you for allowing me to present tonight um again I'm excited and and honored um to join the team here and to contribute to Health Services thank you thank you for that presentation uh we have Warman bradlick and then vice president Foley welcome Lauren thank you I'm not going to grill you as was implied I just have some questions um so I was curious about I don't know what slide number this is but the one that's labeled health concerns and the one that's labeled mental health concerns there the line there that says mental health diagnoses and those numbers how do those relate to

203the Chart below it mental health concerns are those numbers supposed to match those totals or what's the difference um I'm trying let just understand which which slide so that one okay sorry that says mental health diagnosis you know 6,400 4,100 students 7700 students and then if you go to the next slide all of those so are those numbers included in that previous number the same year um and correct me chel if I'm wrong but I'll try to explain the best of my understanding of how this data is derived and how we pulled it so under the medical diagnosis here where it says mental health diagnosis um say this represents the conditions reported not a number of students because we have multiple students that that could have multiple um mental health diagnoses so it's not really

204per student it's per diagnosis so I guess my question more is uh is the is the diagnosis are the concerns enveloped in the diagnosis number does does that make sense um I'll just to see if this helps clarify so um the mental health concerns that are broken down those are are parent reported but not necessarily I diagnosis but it could be so it could be includ so what I was trying to understand is do we have 15,000 students because this year 7,700 plus almost 6,000 students that are included in the mental health concerns or is there some overlap in those two numbers I was just trying to understand because that's first of all that's a huge jump um on the health concern slide from 4,100 to 7700 that's just a really alarming jump and I

205was just trying to understand if it's even more than that um and so these are all again this is the 7700 parents reporting those diagnoses to lsr7 right yes so that okay wow okay I don't really have a question about that it's just it's alarming well and I think to her point you can also see this jump because kids are coming in with multiple diagnoses right so it's not necessarily an increase in more kids but you have kids that are com coming in with multiple diagnoses and we have several parents who will say my kid has this this this and we may not actually have the medical diagnosis to go along with that right so you can see some discrepancy in those numbers right so you're not asking for proof you're just saying okay check

206check check got it all right thank yeah the health room doesn't require proof if you're if it affects an IEP and it's part of an IEP decision it would come in that respect but not everybody who has a mental health concern is going to get an i there was someone else but I took it off vice president fley me thank you uh so my question was actually on this same slide and this is just out of my own curiosity as being a person with a severe food allergy uh when I saw these numbers I wondered is this just people that have self-reported they have a food allergy or is this the number of cases that have uh experience anaphylaxis no this is going to be um a student that that is reported to the health

207room as as having um a food allergy from a physician and they would have an action plan to follow that not necess that they've had an anaphylactic reaction resulting in those numbers thank you is that clarify y board member Murdoch my two fast ones and maybe Dr Buck you could answer the first one does um cmsu help out at sdic in regards to this issue like with so this issue I'm sorry I'm trying to find question Staffing with helping with the like staff if there's so we were struggling two years three years ago shell came on we were really struggling with LPN and that's why we switched to the RN model and we're doing really well now that we switched RN model because it's it's just hard to find LPN and Sh can add more

208detail to that but I think we're in a better place than we were two years ago if that's what you're asking well I know what you're asking because we don't have any there anyone there does UCM serve students out there yes yeah sorry that's what he's asking ideally our it's our seven we serve and so we have Serena Saxon who is on call and Megan luster who are on call at least I'm at north um Lauren will also be on call to get over there so they can float over there they float over there and then we will Shuffle people down there to them like we have this very unique plan that if something happens but that front office over there knows that if it's a concern comes up that they call Lee Summit North

209or they call here okay and then we we work through that perfect okay that's how we support them and we do the same at Hilltop um the the same strategy so okay excellent um and then my only other question because during my tenure on the board we had this happen right with needing the AED right um have we made good progress essentially in terms of AED training across especially among our coaches and all that kind of stuff in terms of making sure one availability right and two that there's somebody there who knows how to use it I'll take this yeah sorry I I know that catches you off guard and I apologize so I'm so glad you asked that question um prior to this to July we well we currently do but soon that will

210be resolved we have five different types of aeds that are floating around in our district okay so it was hard to do consistent training because they all work differently right and we had some schools particularly our high schools that had three different types of aeds right and so um you all passed a contract last July with centus to get us transitioning to Z three which is the same AED that the fire department and the police department use we will come back to you Lauren and Nicole are working on that contract for the other 32 plus two extra because what we found this year is that if one goes down it is probably beneficial to have some sitting around somewhere so we don't have to borrow from a high school um so our plan is by

211next October November we should be completely Z and then what we do is we've also purchased trainers that people can that our RNs can take out and our trainers can take out and they can actually train um staff in the building so they have separate trainers um but the beautiful thing about the zes is it is um digital and it walks you through what to do so anyone can use them we also found an inequity and the number of aeds that were at various schools specifically our high schools um so we had one high school that had six we had another high school that had three and what we realized is that that was happening because of donations like I want to donate an AED or I you know and so we got the one

212high school that had three up to six we have a set standard that every high school has six every middle school has three elementary schools have won and so what we've done is said that any AED that is going to be purchased needs to go through health Services we can no longer take AED donations but you can gladly donate money that will be then funneled through for purchases and then we may increase the standard at high schools but they're at high schools on fields and different parts of the buildings and the pac's and the Bas I mean all you go on they're all over the place so um but yes we have worked really hard to try to standardize aeds across the district I appreciate that very much thanks is there any other questions okay

213thank you for your presentation you and welcome absolutely and welcome to the district I got to meet you yesterday absolutely all right we now have our written reports um and um do we want to go one by one or just kind of look them at as group and if there's something that you want to speak on just highlight which one you want to speak on anyone who would like to highlight the reports all right well we appreciate apprciate all the reports and all the work that um everyone has went through to provide to the Board of Education um our last item is public comments um do we need to re yes let's do we need to reread it okay we don't need to reread it if you'll just read the names hbor and brli our

214first speaker is Kim frie the just hit it some my dad always used to say to the TV just hit it okay well good evening thank you all I know you're probably tired I I get that um um my name is Kim frie and tonight I am here representing the Lee Summit retired School Personnel Group um and which is the local group for the Missouri retired Teachers Association so I just have a little bit of an ask for you uh what is the Missouri retired Teachers Association and the public school Personnel mrta well mrta is the only organization dedicated to the protection and the preservation of public education pension and benefits mrta is made up of Democrats Republicans Independents msta members M Nea members and aft members mrta incl includes teachers administrators staff and Friends

215of public education who are not employed in education and we have 30,000 members strong mrta actively Works to educate and inform its members legislators and the public on governmental issues which benefit public schools and public school retirees tonight I'm going to here's the ask as retirees from the district and members of mrta we're asking that the board gift the first year of membership to mrta to all future retirees currently about 50 school districts in Missouri give this membership an appreciation of their retirees dedication to their District local districts of mrta already gift new retirees with the first Year's membership to their unit membership is $44 per retiree if a retiree joins in May his or her year of membership is 19 months so this is the bargain 19 months for the price of 12 a

216momento such as a clock or a plaque is certainly appreciated but retired teachers do not usually need more stuff instead we hope you will agree that being part of an organization which lobbies the legislature to keep special interests from harming our PE peers in our psrs retirement system is infinitely more valuable in the long run making Ure that a pension check which arrives each month and is on a livable amount is the most valuable benefit that any retiree can receive just a few little facts our employees pay 14.1% of every paycheck to P psrs or peers and the school district pays a 14.1% match to that amount second surrounding districts of us also pay for the the retirees for the first year in District Two of mrta belon Blue Springs exceler Springs Grand View Lawson

217Oak Grove and Pleasant Hill pay those memberships for the first year yes your time is am I done oh wait oh sorry the last thing was just a thank you okay we thank you can you can you can you can you provide the board the information please sure I'll I'll see if I can make some copies for you thank you okay thank you sorry you didn't have the buzzer no more buzzer okay all right thank you you've always wanted to do that to me next speaker is Rebecca Shipley thanks for leaving it on Kim good evening my name is Rebecca Shipley and I'm the Le suit msta president March is School Board appreciation month so I'm here this evening to say thank you to each and every one of you for your commitment and dedication

218to the students staff and families in our district on behalf of Ls msta you have a certificate at your table as a small token of our appreciation for the work that you do thank you our next speaker is Storm Dylan Schneider I have to have a uh little piece of paper here a notes so I don't get off Target I am a mother who knew the complete utter and total Joy of raising four Sons and I have four grandchildren I'm also a mother who have experienced the unimaginable tragic death of my son from a fit and all overdose on June 25th of 2021 the scariest thing I have heard since I have become an advocate for fit and all awareness is not my kid it's not my kid until it is your kid I was

219looking looking at the J Jackson County Public Health Website it has a health report for our city Lee Summit here's the list of health risk behaviors binge drinking 21% smoking 133% physical inactivity 18% and sleeping less than seven hours 35% there's something wrong with this report where's the drug where why are we talking about drugs it's killing our children I want everyone in this room right now to picture their children their grandchildren their nieces nephews think about him right now here's the terrifying fact the new National demographic for overdose is 11 to 14 years old Jackson County has had over a 700% increase in overdose deaths in the last five years according to Dr ly Lindsay halderman the Jackson County Medical Examiner in 2022 opioid overdose was the number one killer in Jackson County here's

220a fact one in five of those deaths were under 15 years old these are our children Oregon was the first state to legalize hard drugs back in 2021 they are re criminalizing them re criminalizing them now because there's a 5 8% increase in overdose they also did a survey on their students 13 to 17 years old only 32% of those children were aware that there was counterfeit pills out there with a fitel in them the DEA released a a report stating that seven out of 10 of those counterfeit pills they've con confiscated have lethal doses of vitanol in them they've also passed a law now that schools have to have a mandatory drug awareness curriculum I'm begging you guys for our children we need to work on that I have been talking um I have

221been checking out impact some of you guys have spoken to me about it I know the police department have it so kudos to the lease at police department but it's not enough they're still dying so it's not going to matter if we prepare each student for success in life if they're dead thank you for listening thank you okay that completes our meeting thank you everyone