001[Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music] foreign okay we would like to call this meeting to order if everyone could please stand for the pledge allegiance I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all okay okay I would like to take this time to welcome our community and our guests that are present here and also that are viewing online for our July 27 2023 Board of Education regular meeting I would now like to move to agenda item 1.4 and I like to entertain a motion to approve the agenda as presented a move to approve the agenda as presented can I have a second second all in favor please raise your right
002hand show signed by aye aye you know and now I'll turn it over to Dr Buck our next agenda item is 2.01 superintendents report and I have several things I want to share with everyone first off we had nearly 100 lsr7 students from eight of our schools selected the All-State honor choirs last week in Springfield so kudos to them congratulations Leah Wright um she is among other students participated in Pro X show summer showcases an internship a paid internship but then they also have a product and they have a competition at the end and I I think she won maybe 5K from her her win so kudos to Leah Summit Tech Academy had students from at least some at North End Lee Summit High participate in a national drone competition and they are the national
003champions not every day you get to say there's a national champions among you but three LS R7 kids did that so congratulations to Ian miles and Hiram big news out of Bronco nation across parking lot here or behind us if you will in the field our own senior William Williams I'm sorry Winery is ranked number one in the the nation for a high school football player that doesn't happen often I think I saw in one local media say it's the first time in the Kansas City metro area we've had a football player ranked number one in the nation so good luck to all of our our fall Sports coming up registration reminder that registration closes on Monday July 31st is it Monday or actually there's a there's a 31st a Sunday I can't remember is
004it Monday okay thank you so please complete that registration by that point um kudos to Dr Barger for setting up a activity for our District administration and building Administration we had a little uh thing earlier this week where we built 16 bikes from scratch and donated those to students in need via Lee's Summit social services so we donated 16 bikes and 16 helmets so Kudos and Dr Barker for organizing that Kudos is a board of education here there's 518 public school districts in the state of Missouri and only 17 of them earned the honor of governance award and so this board is one of those 17 so kudos to you you and one last thing I want to add I just want to reiterate what was said from the dice last month we know there
005is a historic assessed valuation increase in our County and we will roll back our Levy in kind if you go back to the 2019 increase the county had an assessed valuation we rolled back our Levy at 55 cents we won't know the exact number of the rollback until we get to September because that's when we get final numbers from both Cass and Jackson County because we do go into Cass County but just let you know the 2019-20 school year we rolled back our tax rate 55 cents in so we will when we get final numbers we'll know the exact amount but we want to I just want to reiterate well the signal from the diet said the the district will recommend and the board was committed to Rolling back our tax levy when it comes
006to September tax hearing and the next item we're going down to 4.01 and that would be board reports and meetings attended okay so at this time I'm going to start with board member Garrett on meetings attended um okay well had my calendar up here um so last week we attended um or I attended the city of Lee's Summit work session which was very interesting I think the word for the day was collaborate and it was very exciting to see uh meet people that work within the city city council small businesses or businesses and of course school board so um kind of getting together to discuss where you know Lisa has strengths and weaknesses and where we like to see our city go together so that was pretty much it it was fun okay I'm gonna
007go with board member Murdoch um pretty light month is my biggest meeting was with the mountains in Colorado which was fantastic to turn my phone off for just a couple of days I did want to give a shout out to Sarah for sending me the insurance team presentation ahead of time and I got back from my trip and realized that the email that I was supposed to be sending to you was still sitting on there but good news you guys took the options that I was going to be sending anyway so that worked out nicely but I did want to say thank you I appreciated you sending me the presentation ahead of time so it was good that's it for me thanks okay board member Miller I also attended the city of Lee's Summit Economic
008Development session and it was fantastic it was so fun to see our community come together small businesses and Community stakeholders along with just citizens coming together to discuss the future economic developments in our city and it was another reminder to me that you know all of us really do want a lot of the same things for our community and so that was a it was a nice reminder there the other thing that I had the opportunity to tour our new Early Education Center previously Paradise Park and so thank you to Kyle and his team for graciously allowing me to come and tour that it is absolutely incredible the transformation that they have created there it's going to be a beautiful space for our kiddos and for our staff to be able to learn in to
009teach in and really excited it has 13 classrooms it's going to house over 300 kiddos throughout the day and also opportunities for some real world real world learning for our older students in Hotel restaurant management and probably other things that we haven't even thought of yet so it's super exciting can't wait to see the finished product can't believe it's going to be ready in a couple weeks but really excited so kudos to Kyle and his team you guys have done a phenomenal job and that's all I have okay remember athletic sorry technical difficulties okay um uh earlier this month with uh vice president Foley and president Sparks we and Dr Buck we all attended the legislative breakfast um where we had an opportunity to hear from our County legislators and you know predominantly that conversation
010was uh dominated by the tax assessments they shared with us a multitude of other things that were going on but all that was discussed really was what's being done by our legislators to try and help constituents with the process that's happening and if there's anything that can be done to try to navigate the issues that many um hopefully not a lot in this room but I'm sure there's some have been experiencing with the appeals process so that was actually a really great meeting there were a lot of members of the community there from multiple surrounding areas I appreciated that our legislators took the time to come and hear from and answer questions directly from constituents and local leaders so very much appreciate that it's tough to be in their spot right now so um later
011in the month we had our finance committee meeting a little bit early and as we've kind of alluded to and discussed a little bit those that committee meeting is not going to be discussed much in depth anymore I think we've mentioned that before but in this meeting I mean but there is a live stream that meeting is always live in public recorded and available to anybody who wants to go and view it at any at any time so more detail there I also attended the chamber luncheon really just as a function of being out in the community and giving people an opportunity to interact with the school board and know that we support the business community and those in Lee's Summit so nothing significant to report and then we also had the Lee Summit Ed
012Foundation board of directors meeting earlier this week they are putting together a lot of great activities the community breakfast is going to happen again in September there's going to be the um the race for the Future run in October they're going to be supporting our new teachers at the new teacher breakfast in a couple of weeks so the Ed Foundation is doing great work if you want to become a member and support them they give directly back into the community for our teachers for our students so they're a great organization so always enjoy their meetings thank you Dr Camille Dr Johnson does she have any okay vice president Foley just for the record real quick we do have Dr Johnson I'm with us she's just not present but she is on our zoom and so
013she is here present for the meeting thank you uh similar what board member Eslick said we attended the Jackson County legislative breakfast it was a great opportunity to hear from the legislature about what is going on with the assessments um and then I also attended the city of Lee's Summit work session for the future of Economic Development and one thing that I did really want to point out about that was it was a great opportunity to talk about how our district has partnered with what was formerly the the EDC in creating opportunities for our students and collaborating with businesses to have apprenticeships and internships and the awesome work that happens at Summit Technology Academy and the people that are in the business Community are really responsive to that they're really receptive that they want to
014see it grow and so it's an incredible partnership that the district has with the business community okay um I would like to take the Liberty um before I get my report um to acknowledge Jeremy um I believe that this is going to be his last uh time with us in this boardroom because next week if I could August 3rd but on July 31st we have our training to turn over the new system to us but what if that didn't go well so we went scheduling from August 3rd okay all right so August 3rd I'll be able to uh tell him thank you but Jeremy has done a wonderful job for us here in lsr7 with his technology with his skills making sure that I'm recording um and helping with transparency for our community and so
015I wanted to acknowledge that and acknowledge him for what he has done for our community also I was able to partake in the steering committee for the CAC board I think that you'll be happy to hear that the steering committee is trying to increase its membership from the steering level but also for the committee at large and so they're trying to make sure that there is representation from idea representation from racial um representation but then also representation just even from families that do not have children's family that do have children so that when we are as a board are collaborating with the CAC that is a true representation of our community so that we can be able to make sure that we have our hand on the pulse of our community as a board and
016one of the things that Dr Buck was in there that we kind of really stressed was that the CAC is going to be our Avenue of really being able to pulse the community because it's going to be a large group there's going to be some invitations some PR's things around all of that but I'm excited of where the CAC is going they've done great work thus far and I just think they're going to do even better moving forward and so I wanted to report that to the full board I'm also I had three constituent meetings there were individual meetings with group of individuals and I would like to just thank the public and just remind you that we are available to you and so if you have questions for us please feel free to reach
017out to us please feel free to have coffee with us whatever may be because we all are public servants and that's what we're trying to do as a board even even I'm as a community and then last but not least we also know that we've lost two individuals even from our last board meeting and so it's unfortunate but we want to remain remember to lift up those families in our prayer holistically I mean even as a community because we know that that has to be trying and hard for those families and then like board member Murdoch said I was on vacation this month and I appreciate Miss Linda giving me that break and give me that time to breathe but she also I think it's let me just say this and then I'll stop but
018miss people don't understand the work that our board secretary do for us and so often we get recognized because we're sitting here from the dice but Miss Linda she truly is the gold mine of this board and I want to publicly just say thank you over what you do come for us okay we're now going to move on Dr Button next item is 5.01 and as you just heard Boardman wrestling say we're not going to go over all the speaking points but there is a link to the video and it was done last week because Nathan holder is on vacation this week but we do have two board members here board member esslic and board member Johnson via phone and we also have Dr Shelton if anybody had any quick question before we move on
019to 5.02 here in none 5.02 and I'll turn that one over to I assume board member Essence I I moved to approve the transfer of seven million six hundred and fifty six thousand forty three dollars and 47 cents from the general fund to the special Revenue fund you have a second second all in favor raise your right hand say aye aye motion approved and so we're going to 5.03 approved Treasures report and payment of bills I moved to approve the treasurer's report and payment of the bills do you have a second second all in favor raise your right hand say aye aye 5.03 passes next we have item six uh items for decision consent I would like to look in motion I moved to approve the consent agenda items as presented do you have a
020second all in favor raise your right hand say aye and item 7.01 item for decision is book appeal and I will turn over to board president Sparks all right there we go uh seven um .01 our book appeal um I'm just gonna at this point if I can entertain an emotion at this moment and then we'll open up for discussion I moved to retain oryx and Craig a novel do you have a second second okay I would like to open it up at this time um for conversation give me one I'll paper slick start again I did last time so um the last time we had our conversation I made some general comments and I'm just gonna repeat some of them here simply for the benefit of the fact that some people might not have
021heard uh the first round um so I just wanted to make a couple of quick comments on the appeals process um there's been some commentary from uh you know community members concerned about this process signaling to our committees that reviewed the books that we don't value their input and don't value the time that they spend on this and I just want to say that I do and I do value uh the time that they spent their opinions and I read everybody's comments excuse me that came out of this review process so I do value that and I think that when we're looking at an appeal process I think that we need to maybe just personally I just view it a little bit differently I see this process as an opportunity for us as a board
022to do what we are where we were elected to do by our constituents which is to provide our opinion and our leadership and use those critical thinking skills that people that saw in us when they voted us into these positions to weigh in on something that a constituent did not feel was addressed in a manner that was satisfactory so I think that when we look at this process I look at it similarly to for example when um an employee has a grievance appeal process and there's an entire step in that process that ultimately can end in the board having the opportunity to review and I don't view that as any different because as a board we wouldn't say you know the reason that we're not going to hear an appeal from an employee is because
023we trust the administration well of course we do but the point of the appeal process is for us to hear that person out and to be able to give them the opportunity to be heard and to feel the full scope of what they're trying to get at and weigh in on that conversation so that's kind of how I view this entire process I also view you know what we're doing as not something that is antagonistic or trying to undermine our library staff because in reality our staff has 13 000 books in the library and there's there's not that expectation from me at least that they have read every single book so the point of this process to be able to say I found something in our libraries that I think may not be appropriate or
024suitable for our students please take a look at this so when I look at this I'm not looking at it through a lens of I don't trust our library staff or I don't value what they do because I personally do so I just wanted to say those things um as I conduct this review process what I am looking at when I'm looking through these books that we've read so far I'm particularly looking at age appropriateness and suitability and educational relevance um I recognize that there's going to be plenty of books with diverse views diverse representations and I think that that's that's absolutely appropriate I think where we potentially depart and run into issues is when there's some really graphic descriptions and scenes that may not just be suitable for students remembering that we have students
025as young as 14 in our high schools so specifically to oryx and Craig some of the things that I found troubling with regard to what I would find suitable um would be the commentary from this book the descriptions in this book of child nudity there's some descriptions of children performing sexual acts on adults to include description of genitalia from the perspective of a child younger than eight um there's descriptions of sex acts that I just think goes a little bit too far and how descriptive it is while I understand I hope I'm not spoiling the book for anybody but I know at least everybody appears read the book so sorry spoiler alert but um you know some of the the main character in this novel is one of the main characters female she's the victim
026of uh child sex trafficking and she doesn't recognize that she's even been abused that it's wrong and that's the whole point of this dystopian novel is to present this world where child pornography and sexual extortion of minors is just completely normal because it's a society completely devoid of morals so from as an adult I understand that and I'm sure everybody up here that read the book also understands the intent however I think describing children doing sex acts in a pornographic manner because they are literally used as sex slaves in this book I think that that just goes too far for what is suitable for young kids and because we don't have a method in our school right now to flag a book that says this has this content and it could be troubling or traumatizing
027or you know asking a parent permission to say you know this kind of content is available in this book are you okay with your child accessing it we don't have those sorts of limitations in our libraries that allows parents the latitude to um put those safeguards in place should they want them I just don't know that this book to me has a place in a public school where young kids can access this information so in such a graphic graphic way so thank you any other questions or conversation around this topic or a member Garrett yes um everything that that board member esselict was speaking of it doesn't have to be on every page which is something that was brought up last month as to be considered inappropriate or um suitable for our school libraries I
028I just feel that some caution needs to be used for the books that we include in our school library now granted these books I I feel like okay for an adult all right you know I mean I think your mindset's a little bit different I actually read a review of one of this book from a person who read it from a younger age like maybe right out of high school or yeah they may have been like in college and then they read it later on um when they were much older and they had a different take a different view of the book the second time around so I guess the point that I want to make is that the mindset of of a student I still consider them a child I don't consider them an
029adult until they're 18. and I just feel like putting all that information um and making it into a story and that's suitable I I just don't think that it's appropriate for a school library um and also the other thing that that kind of got my mind going with the movie that is out today is the whole child trafficking which was something that was mentioned with child grooming and that the character that is groomed for the the sexual acts um was some later on in life didn't think there was anything wrong with it it was you know normal or and and then I think later on in the story too it talks about how um there can be no hard feelings from rejection from sex or anything like that and I was just like what is
030this trying to portray to our young people I don't I I just think it was too casual it was too normalized and I I just think that we need to be more cautious of the books that we put into our school libraries and that was all thank you board member Murdoch two two quick points um number one the normalized thing is exactly what the book is about so it's actually trying to say that we've normalized it as a society that's the whole point of the book um is to make sure that we understand that we shouldn't be normalizing it to your point I understand the rest of the issues and I think we're going to probably agree to disagree probably on this one but I do get what you what you were saying on it
031um the uh the second thing that I that I would say on this one is Rodney and I told Dr Buck this um I had read oryx and Craig I can't remember how many a little while ago it's been it's been it's been some time so then I went back and and read again um but I think one of the best takeaways that I had from it was going and listening to an interview with Atwood about it because it actually kind of got to your point of rationale and reasoning for writing the book um what they were hoping to accom what she was hoping to accomplish with and things like that and I I would just incur encourage people who are maybe going to check this book out or something like that or who don't
032know Margaret Atwood to take a look at a couple of the interviews that she's done in relation to some of the works that she's written because it's it's informative it's good um giving some of the some of the reasonings for it so um I just wanted to just make sure that people knew that the the normalization in the book is exactly what she's trying to point out and I think that that's an important thing that we recognize the committee I think recognized that and I think that that was important to um in terms of some of the comments that they made so thanks president Sparks thank you just real quick I I totally agree with you and honestly um aside from the really graphic depictions of child pornography I actually really enjoyed the book I
033thought it was very dark so this one was a struggle for me because while I think that the message is definitely worth discussing like the entire book and I think that this is very appropriate for like a college lit class and I think that there's a lot of meat to talk about in this book and a lot of commentary on social things so don't think that I don't value the book I do I think that it definitely better than the last book I think it's better more well written and has definitely more of a message but regardless um my only point is that I think that message could have either been a com if it was really a young adult book if it was really geared toward young adult then that message could have still
034been accomplished without the graphic detail of exactly what was happening in very like I can visualize this depictions and I understand why she did it I get why she did it for shock value for all of the things that make the book what it is which is a very depressing dystopian novel which unfortunately we were kind of seeing some of the things play out today unfortunately not on the pornography side as much hope hopefully but anyway I I still have trouble with that part and that's really the reason why I just think that this is if we had a process in our library to say you know this has content in it that requires parental permission we would have a different conversation right now but we don't it's all or nothing and if you put
035that choice in front of me I say nothing because I don't want to make that choice for someone else's 14 year old child and say yes this child can handle that it should be in the library that's not my position I don't think that's my position and again we're not removing it from the earth we're saying this should probably be not located in a building where our students are required to be legally for for school so that's my thought on it but I respect what you're saying in in large part we agree about the book in general so this is a um just a question with the point that you made um Boardman wrestling that if there was other options then we may be having a different conversation would you say that their um if
036there was a conversation amongst the board of a compromise of some level to maybe address some of the concerns that you bring that removal would not be where you would be today yeah I think that that would be fair if there were a way to say you know this this has content that requires parental approval and I understand there's a lot of argument and debate about whether that's right or wrong or what kind of other issues that would bring up in terms of access and concerns about that understand that would be something we would have to flesh out but yes if if I'm presented with these two options I'm going to err on the side of I'm not making this decision for someone else's family when they may not want their child exposed to that
037I'm not going to knowingly keep this in a library where they have access to it I don't care that they have access to lots of other things elsewhere we're talking about you know this is here make a decision board member wrestling I'm not going to make that decision for somebody else so if there was an intermediary and something else that we could do I would absolutely entertain that conversation and I may not be in the position of saying No it should not be in our library at all thank you for the response is there any other comments or discussion around this matter okay there's a motion on the floor to retain the book and so and then we already had a second let's go ahead and vote um Miss Linda if we can go into
038a roll call vote on this one please board member Garrett no vice president Foley no board member Murdoch aye board member Miller aye remember Eslick no board member Johnson president Sparks aye the motion passes our next item on our agenda for the items of decision is 7.02 that's Henderson engineering contract and we do have Dr Shelton as well as cowgirl here if you have questions okay board is there any discussion I'm on item 7.2 Henderson's engineering contract just remember I just pulled this one out because of my family relationship with Henderson and the work that he might actually be doing on this particular project so I'll be abstaining from this particular vote I was wondering how we got this contract before us yeah there you go all right is there any other discussion okay Miss
039Linda well actually this is going to do a show of hands on this vote um oh wait let's go in and get a motion first thank you I move that the board approve a contract with Henderson Engineers is detailed in the attachment kind of a second second okay all in favor raise your right hand say aye aye okay all right so we have six in favor and one abstain next item is 7.03 and before I turn this one over just let you know we had 57 books we did in the first tranche 33 in the second you have passed a new board policy since then but I think we all agree that we should use the former board policy since these were first uh initiated under the old policy so we're following the old policy
040with these 16 appeals so these are 16 of the 33 in the second tranche they're being appealed in front of you as we did last time you decided you want to read them or just retain them and so that's what's uh your options so I'll turn it over to a board member our board president Sparks okay at this time I would like to entertain a motion I moved to accept the recommendations of the review teams do you have a second second okay any discussion Boardman bracelet so was there any consideration given to the way that we approached the first set which was pulling out the one well in this tranche there's only one where someone made a recommendation to remove I don't know if that's something that the rest of the board would entertain um
041but I would I would like us again to give some credit to um the appeals process and the fact that we did have I will look through the the reviews too and just kind of did a tally and you know not there was one that was recommended to remove by one person and then quite a number of them also did have a recommendation to retain with restriction which I know isn't really a thing but when I look at that recommendation to me you had some recommendations where there was no restriction requested whatsoever it was just retained and then you had some where there was many as half of the committee members or three I think there were five or six people in each committee said to retain with restriction so to me that at least
042signifies that there's some mature content in some of these books that's when I read that that's kind of what I get from that is there was something that made somebody say um we should definitely keep this at this level and that just kind of gives me pause and I don't I have a feeling that the rest of the board probably doesn't have the palette to go any deeper than just the one book that has a remove in there but I would at least ask that we entertain the one book that had a recommendation to remove and include that in a review okay is there any other discussion give me hit my button just go ahead remember Murdoch yeah with the last you know we we had the four right um that had removed I go
043ask Alice is the one that's got to remove on this one and so I went back and I I looked at well one all of the uh complainant part of it than the committee part of it and the comments and stuff like that um I'm not as inclined to review this one as I was with the other four um for lots of reasons but I think in this particular case I I guess I just I'm gonna I'm gonna go back to in this particular Realm the Committees did what I thought was a pretty thorough job and again we're going through a process and taking and what ultimately now is going to be thirty thousand dollars to review books that somebody didn't read and so I guess this is me just kind of just looking and
044saying if we want to appeal something read the book read the book and so um and I say that by the way knowing that you know we're not immune to social media right so let's start with that but when somebody's gonna post just the the excerpts and then I go and I read the excerpts and some of them by the way I look at the comments that get flagged as supposedly to mature or or something like that and I'm just like nothing like literally I mean why would that even be included as something that we would be overly concerned about for high school for a high school reader which there are numerous ones for this particular book by the way because it's no secret that most a lot of the things that we're getting looked
045at are on book looks and so um you know you go and you read some of the comments you're just like there's no way that that should even be flagged right essentially um and so I just am going to lean this time I think board members like on the Committees did their job and if people want to appeal a book read the book so any other comments vice president Foley thank you I just kind of what I can board member Essex point that there there are members in those committees that did signify some level of concern either by you know voting to remove or to restrict and so for that reason I'm going to have difficulty just giving a broad approval to anything because if one of these books you know is is inappropriate then
046then I feel like I played a part in putting that in the library I appreciate that comment is there any other comments um board member Johnson Dr Johnson sorry hello can everyone hear me yes ma'am okay my apologies for not being there this evening excuse me I know I tend to be quiet in quite a few of these meetings but I just wanted to say when it comes to the book of pills I still stand by my initial thoughts when I ran for this election and that I trust the experiences and the expertise of our library Sciences employees of the teachers and the others who evaluate these books I'm going to continue to stand by them and their recommendations I believe they are the experts now there can be if there's going to be considerations
047and how all of the books are reviewed I think that'll be a long arduous process and I'm not sure that it would be most effective I would want to hear from our experts about that but I just want to speak to you again they are here we hired them to do this position even when we do the additional appeals there are volunteers and others who look at this the morals values and religions of each individual are the guard rails for your individual life and I think when we go to read these books we impose those on other people if you want to impose them on your own children I think that is fine if you want to impose them on a group of like-minded parents and children that is fine but we cannot remove access
048that has been expertly decided is okay from children so that they can have open eyes into a world that we may not understand and we may not agree with so again I stand by those who have reviewed these books for those who have the expertise when it comes to the books in the library that are optional thank you for remember Eslick I appreciate a lot of those comments but I do think that there's I don't think anybody in this room is trying to impose anybody's religion or values or anything of the sort on anybody else I think that there is generally a common understanding amongst parents that there is a level of appropriateness especially when it comes to sexual content and exposure that is not that's not a reflection of religious values that is a
049reflection of just a practical understanding of what is appropriate it's the same reason why there's a standard of dress it's the same reason why you're in a suit and I'm wearing heels and you're wearing a dress because there's there's standards um in our society that kind of we all operate under and exposing children to graphic sexual content is kind of one of those understood standards as parents in this community uh and in many communities that doesn't that kind of spans religion or I mean it's certainly morality I would I would definitely say that but that can that's a social construct a social agreement if you will that there are certain things that um we respect and while yes we can shelter our kids in our own home I think the difference is that once you
050put something out into a public library where our children are required to be in around whatever in a public school building um and you know that there's something there that is not appropriate or not suitable for that age group you're kind of you're setting a new floor and it's not really fair to parents who maybe don't want to expose their kids to that level of sexuality or nudity or sexual content or whatever to raise the floor for that family in a public school you can always lower the floor in your own home but you can't raise the floor in a public space where your children have to be you're relying on someone else to do that and right now the parents are parents in our community are relying on us um as the schools that
051are part of freedom of speech and there's a freedom of learning that we cannot take from other people again we have Librarians and teachers and from the appeals I'm seeing I don't see the majority of parents saying that these books are a problem I see a minority and if there are statistics that show otherwise I would be interested to see those okay vice president Foley thank you um in what we've been discussing today and in several other meetings I don't feel like this the the discussion that we're having today is going to change anyone's mind um I do appreciate that our board does come together and we collaborate on a lot of difficult issues and we work through them and we have very candid discussions and I would just like to propose especially after the
052discussion today that we do take a look at our processes in the future and maybe consider a work session or some kind of opportunity to talk about other Alternatives maybe something in the middle like you and board member esselict discussed if there was some kind of a way to just designate certain materials as having some you know restricted content to have kind of a happy medium I think that is something that's worth exploring I appreciate those comments also I think that is a valid point and I think obviously as you see you kind of knew where my question was going when I asked board member escalate that question um is there any other comments or questions on this particular item the only thing that I'll just add um and then we can go ahead and
053call for a roll call vote is I was exactly where you were board member esselict with reviewing this book um what concerned me the most was the fact that the one person that chose to remove the book didn't even make a comment on why they wanted to remove the book and I think that would have been some leverage to to to completely land where we were with the last set but when um because I just think when you're in the minority but especially when you're the sole no vote that um it's important to to argue your point right and argue why you feel that it should be removed and I think removing books is um while some may take it lightly I don't think that it's a lightly action right when you're taking the rights
054of a reader off of a shelf and so when there were no comments made that kind of had me to land to where I am going to support the recommendation that's on the floor but that's why and I wanted to share that with you in the full board okay at this time Miss Linda if you can give us a roll call vote board member Murdoch aye board member Eslick no vice president Foley no board member Miller aye board member Johnson I board member Garrett no president Sparks yes okay motion passes all right that brings us to items of information presentations 8.101 technology annual program evaluation and you have a pair of Dr Kevin Whaley at the podium nearby so tonight I'm going to present a snapshot of the the past year I want to point
055out inboard docs there's a supplemental written report too that goes into a lot of these things a lot more detail I left time at the end for questions but as I go along if you if you've got one just feel free interrupting me have to answer our technology department has 47 department members we oversee everything from server switches Network support we work with several different vendors device and Hardware maintenance so basically I don't want to say if it plugs into the wall we support it but we plug it we we actually support a lot of things to plug into the wall we collaborate with a lot of different buildings a lot of different departments and we try and basically support their work to make sure technology is not impeding that work but it's also helping
056along the way too all of that work is supported by the technology leadership team we call that TLT that includes myself Dan Mullen who supports web applications data Integrations Kenzie wooderson server switches Support also cyber security our technician supervisor is Mark McKelvey he supports our tier one and two end user support so those are our field techs and our help desk and then Michelle Siebert she supports the four of us through you know secretarial support but more importantly she coordinates projects for us and kind of kind of keeps the circus moving down the road so she does a fantastic job last year we had about a 5.3 million dollar budget plus some operating expenses and that's a significant number but would you consider kind of all the things that we support such as our district
057Microsoft license computer Replacements servers switches those are high dollar items so that's why that number seems really high compared to some of our other departments that could also go all the way down to cabling Chromebook parts and things like that our strategic alignment um we're directly aligned to the comprehensive School Improvement plan and that our main goal is to maintain a safe secure and modern technology infrastructure we also support individual building and Department goals as well so we'll oftentimes get a reach out saying hey can you design us you know this web interface can you help us with this data and we're happy to support all that work so to support those goals we had seven action steps that we focused on this year and I'll quickly go through them the first is to examine
058our existing fiber infrastructure we've got 110 miles of fiber that runs throughout the district it was built in 1998 so it's starting to age out the question we've had for a while is how old is too old and I think we're getting to the answer on that question for instance at Paradise Park we're trying to bring fiber in to provide internet and this week they opened a junction box our contractors did and discovered that the coloring of the fiber strands is starting to disappear so that kind of makes work difficult when you can't tell what's what we've had a lot of animal chews a lot of repairs and so we've started conversations with vendors we've talked to other school districts to talk about should we lease should we replace what impact does that have on
059federal funding and so we'll bring forth some considerations as we as we go through that process but that'll be a pretty significant project okay I have a question on that one absolutely interrupt you what's the collaboration of the school district with the city in terms of fiber replacement because we were talking about this last summer right that we were going to have to evaluate this so now we're circling back around how do we interact with the city on this particular project so before I got to this role we used to lease it's called Dark fiber or unlit Fiber we used to lease that to the city so as a partnership they paid us to do that then they went and developed their own fiber Network and so or their own network um and so the
060cow went their own way just because the support was easier for them we will coordinate with them as far as actual activities of getting fiber in place and we'll work with them to see if they're interested in leasing or if we can lease theirs and so they'll just be a part of the conversation yeah so action step two um obviously you've heard we're replacing the District phone system we're on track to complete that in October and that'll be the addition of of classroom phones or every instructional space that's for Safety and Security but also the existing phone system was old and outdated and it was just time to move on action step three virtual desktop infrastructure vdi we put that in place in the fall of 2020. what that allows some of you if you
061were here you might remember students were going home they couldn't access programs such as Autodesk or any Windows based program on their Chromebook so vdi allowed them to log in to the system and that presented them a Windows desktop on their Chromebook and they could access those programs from home so that really helped as we were in and out closure but it also helps today with homework accessing the programs for school where they don't have to be here they could be home doing homework or ill for the day so it really does help kind of breach that Gap so we've worked with vendors to make sure we maximize our existing system and out of that we're going to form a process action team this fall to talk about what that might look like to expand
062it we've got some machines around the district such as our computer labs you know each each computer is expensive we might through the through the team we're going to discover if teachers are open to the idea of replacing that vdi because some of those boxes you buy to access that are significantly cheaper they lost last a lot longer so we'll work through that and keep you updated along the way Dr Whaley if I can jump in so for those I think Ryan's probably the moment here for that decision so in 2021 we had about 750 kids who a Chromebook would not run the programs that they needed for coursework so whether even if they're in person they still when they went home they couldn't run the program virtual desktop integration allowed their Chromebook to access
063Mainframe uh you know basically a tower somewhere here that they could so that way if you're doing a project like the way engineering project no longer it was that you can only do it at class in your class space you could do it from your Chromebook at home in the evening too so you'll work on homework as well instead of only during class time so again it was about 700 750 kids then that needed it I don't know if we know the current number right now off top of your head I'm probably putting you on the spot I'd have to find out yeah so but it helps us give kids access due to magnets what is the barrier that was preventing that access so Chrome OS excuse me Chrome OS on the Chromebook it doesn't
064have a an interface where you can install software so you've got to have Windows or a Mac to leverage some of those programs so that was the barriers you can't install software so by using the web to access a machine that basically is a virtual Windows desktop you can access those programs all right um action step four we brought to the board um a recommendation to replace the secondary Chromebooks we switched from our past vendor to Lenovo and that was a pretty significant cost Savings of over a million dollars we're going to bring a proposal for K-5 devices this fall action step five and six five was multi-factor authentication for all staff which all this all staff members are a part of that is complete and action step six was Implement a modern endpoint security
065system so that brings some 24 7 monitoring to a lot of our things and that is now complete too the final action step seems a little vague it's really complicated um it deals with network security and how we Monitor and how we make sure things aren't trying to come into our Network or we're not you know being compromised in any way and so we always evaluate our current tools to make sure they're working or they're not we found one that is still working and then we kind of tap the brakes a little bit because we heard the state was going to release some federal funds through the Missouri state and local cyber security grant program that's a really long term so we applied for the grant in December because we wanted to see if we
066would get it before we purchase anything and we were awarded two hundred thousand dollars that's a 10 match and so we had to wait after it was awarded to purchase anything they had to get permission to give the green light to go ahead that was given in late spring so now we're working to the the procurement process we're gonna have to send that out for bid and acquire some of those products some more to come on that strengths and celebrations Centered for Internet Security is run through the Department of Homeland Security they have an assessment that we've done for the last two or three years and we had a growth of 20 points and what we did this year to achieve that we focused on seven areas and that's an indicator of your cyber security
067health and an organization and we're pretty far above industry standard and that's outlined in the written report we also finalize our incident response plan which means if we are compromised we have a plan to react to that and deal with that we finalize our Disaster Recovery plan that's different that would be as if a tornado were to hit one of our data centers how would we recover our data and keep School functioning it was reviewed by Missouri Homeland Security they had some suggestions for us so it is now final we refined our tier and tier one tier two support models we have combined or we've Consolidated the number of field texts and site texts that we have so by doing so we're you know we reduce the number from just over 32 down to around
06825. that allowed us to allow those folks to work year round instead of just during the school year and that's really significant because this might be the first year where we're going to come back all the labs are going to be ready teachers advice is going to be ready we should be ready to go for the first day of school and not have a lot of delays so we're pretty excited about that we obviously support a few construction projects going around the district right now so we're pretty excited about that a lot of those are wrapping up and then finally want to point out music which is the district's insurance carrier they release seven controls security controls that each district who subscribes to music had to be compliant with and the initial deadline on that
069I believe was July they postponed that to September but through some of our cyber security work we were in really really good shape so we are compliant ahead of schedule with all seven controls so we're pretty excited about that too yeah on the csat growth can you place that in some sort of context like what's this out of I just want to understand the value of 20 points so it's out of a hundred that's your score and so if you it's a newer assessment and to that could be a work session of itself there are hundreds of controls okay so that like an example of a control might be implementing multi-factor for staff it could be password length so little things like that to really complex things like planning having written documentation all those things
070so as we go through and evaluate ourselves we rank ourselves um it's it's measured against those who all other organizations that fill out that assessment as well and so you kind of get a score and kind of an idea where of where you are so obviously last year we were pretty low it's the first time we did it and that really helped Identify some of our Focus areas so we took the ones that were the easiest kind of the low hanging fruit also took the music controls kind of combined the two and so we've had a pretty good growth you'll see here in just a little bit we're going to continue that work our goal is obviously a hundred it's going to take a while to get there so we'll keep working through that so
071opportunities for improvement um for for me for our department we always evaluate we're always you know twisting vendors arms we're a big district with a lot of buying power we oftentimes will push back against the quote and say hey we've been with you for a long time you know can we can we negotiate costs down so we're always working to find some efficiencies eliminate things we're not using and trying to reduce costs um also with when it comes to cyber security or information security you know we could we could lock a network down to where it's unusable so we also have you know almost 18 000 kids and we have a staff that we have to you know take to school too and so we try and balance that to make it usable yet safe
072so we're always looking at ways to to do that better and then finally through our new support model we have obviously 25 fieldtechs and a site Tech they float around the buildings we're going to start cross-training Mark McKelvey again who's our technician supervisor he just started a Technology Academy which is similar to upstairs aspiring principal Academy so kind of leveraging some folks to to better their skills and kind of look at a a picture of what it might be like to move to the network side or to the data side or to the district tech level so we're going to start cross training make sure when people are absent we can pick up the work because some jobs we don't have a whole lot of people so we just want to make sure several people
073are able to do so uh finally very similar kind of touched on all these but these are our upcoming program goals and action steps fiber infrastructure vdi we're going to obviously bring the next Computing device for K-5 network security than the CIS controls and with that I'll take questions any questions from the board all right Dr Whaley we appreciate your presentation and appreciate your hard work thank you sir all right the next section is items from information written reports and you have 9.01 Aquatic Center annual program evaluation and 9.02 bond bot budget update report so if anybody has any questions all right um remember Murdoch I don't have a question I wanted to make a comment about the aquatics report because if you read through the entire report and you saw Revenue versus expenditure you
074might have a cause for concern but I hope everybody understands two things one the value that the Aquatic Center brings to the district overall especially in terms of allowing for a community resource because there's so many people from the community obviously who use it as well that's one and two facilities are getting harder and harder to come by As Cities especially figure out that it's really hard to operate a pool at any kind of essentially balanced kind of budget so the mere fact that we're able to one keep it open to have employees I mean that is a huge challenge as well obviously so I just wanted to say a huge proponent of the Aquatic Center it is I I get it it's the we would like to get closer obviously to a balanced budget
075in regards to revenues over expenditures I get that but um 100 supportive um of that particular Center so that's all absolutely any other questions okay that brings us to our last item of the day and that's comments from public uh 10.01 public comments and I'll turn it over to board president Sparks yes um I just wanted to for those that are present and also for those that um are viewing online the first thing I wanted to say is that us as the board we have gave the dedication uh to our community and we want to hear from you and that's all we have public comments um the move we're just trying to do something different with public comments but then also we know that there's a policy that's in place that allow our constituents to
076be able to add items to our agenda and so if you need some guidance on that you can be able to look at the policy and if there's any questions or concerns you can call Miss Linda and she can be able to guide you on what that process is also just real quick if Joe would um if you would come to the podium I just have a legal question this is Martha just clarification when it comes to public comments is are we within our right as a board to continue public comments yes are we also within our right as a board to dismantle public comments that is not required from us by any state statute correct yes other than those associated with resident initiated agenda items okay can um can you actually turn on the
077microphone I think he said he was having trouble hearing you there you go I can hear you loud and clear [Laughter] yeah the answer to your last question is the board does not have to have a public comment section except with respect to resident initiated agenda items which is part of the new Missouri statute that goes into effect next month okay all right I appreciate that um I just think that was some clarification that we wanted as a board to make sure that we were staying within the state statute um I'm now going to turn this over to our parliamentarian Boardman wrestling okay 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
078comments 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 bddh 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 to speak and you must directly relate to and it 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
079comments speak of them in a positive or negative light any such comments should be directed to the superintendent who will then determine if further action is needed because the board does not and cannot impose age-based restrictions on who attends or 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 threat threaten in any way the safety of others we also remind all those in the audience that board policy bddh prohibits the use of signs or audible noises this includes Applause cheers or jeers if you are in the audience and wish to respond in some way to a public comment you may contact the board or the superintendent after the meeting
080when your name is called go to the podium and clearly state your name and the organization you represent if any first speaker is Reuben Mitchell president vice president doctor I appreciate you coming out and doing this for us it's a hard thing to do to stay away from your family and um give of your time because this is not all that is here that takes place um I'm Reuben Mitchell I represent myself in no organization and I thought I'd tell you why I keep coming back every month to give public comments because it's typically if you wanted to do something to change something that you do in a different way you don't make three-minute comments and so I recognize that and I don't really have anything specifically that I'm trying to change that type of
081thing although there are things I would like to see happen not not happen but on a broader scale I'm hoping to inspire others to be involved to get up and do something difficult because it isn't easy to stand in front of professionals and and um especially when you don't you're not a public speaker you don't have a great coding presence and your mind wanders rather quickly when you're talking so that's the the key thing I think is to have to look to someone to say Well they're not very good I could do better and to motivate them to get out and to be involved because I I think I heard one person say that a minority and I I would agree that there is a minority because well it is very difficult to stand in
082front and have a different View so that is why I've been coming and I do appreciate you listening to my ramblings and and hopefully uh others are are emboldened and say I I can do that I could I could be involved and I I want to be a part of this so I appreciate it thank you for your time Beth Corey okay hi my name is Beth and I'm an lsr7 parent and alum the book on The Chopping Block today and thank you for those board members who did not ban a book in the Lee Summit School District was written in 2003 the handmaid's tale 1998 I could go on these aren't new books and neither neither is the idea of literary expression reflecting on the most difficult subjects in our world or providing different
083perspectives or thoughts on the past or future multiple sources indicate that the challenges to books have increased exponentially beginning in 2021 pandemic after masks became political then Equity became political then books became political School boards then were making political decisions elected people have decided that they won't run again it's due to divisive but how do we get here and why what's the point of all the folks on Facebook who aren't even parents or live in Lee Summits bounding spouting condemnation of our teachers of our board volunteers trying to undermine education isn't in game using culture War debates to erode school boards and teachers serve political interests have long-term Financial impact like voucher programs that provide public money for private institutions if you erode the public schools enough through adrenaline-laden shocking often barely related criticism hopefully
084that means more money for private or religious institutions Bottom Line This is a non-democratic and racist equation book challenges plus school choice plus false narratives like CRT equals a defunded education for middle and low-income people who can't afford private tuition a defunded education for the marginalized who don't have access or a defunded education for those with special needs who need more I challenge everyone to really examine the Dark End Game here you've already seen the path because it's lined with thinly veiled hate speech that flourishes in many local Facebook groups all in there but if you start a new school year I'll use my remaining 45 seconds just to say a blessing over the board if you'll if you some of mine so um God of all I ask you to bless these board members
085who are truly serving the least of us every single child who enters our schools Shield these volunteers from excessive polarization protect their families from hate and let their decisions be smooth amen thank you Melanie Olson Cox good evening I had let Miss iSmart know that I would be speaking about board priorities but as those are not available yet um I'd like to ask if I could just comment about the book Review Committee process if that would be so yes thank you I look forward to the board priorities so if we can reset the time if we can get the mic together if it's okay if she could just temporarily just move over to this podium thank you for being flexible have to be a little bit extra okay [Music] um I just wanted to mention
086I did participate in the book review committees and I think that the process and the procedures and everything was so um organized and clear um I I do feel the past three meetings I've sat through where I've heard the board talk about the retaining and retain with restrictions um so here's what I'd say all materials reviewed by our committees were already materials that were in the high school level as that's how they were presented to us so those materials were already retained with restrictions it was presented to us that they would remain that way so I think that it concerns me when I hear some of the board talk about that retain with restrictions would say that would mean some people were concerned of the content the process dictated that all materials were already available
087at a high school level only so I don't know that that really would give I think when we were voting retain and retain with restrictions were the same end result the materials would be available at the high school level only I think that seemed confusing when I was here in May I still heard confusion it seems that it's being somewhat misconstrued so just find that to be a point that needs to be clarified I think retained with restrictions meant it would be available at the high school level only so I wouldn't do that I would just say that this process continues to take time and money that could be used better in other ways and it was determined that none of the books reviewed met the definition of pornography by law so the continued attempts
088of a small group to remove materials continues to be not very effective so thank you Kristen Grubbs yes ma'am if you'll just come over here thank you Is this different my name is Kristen Grubbs and I'm here to address the changes this district is attempting to make in the public comment portion of these board meetings in the lsr7 comprehensive School Improvement plan goal three says we will provide meaningful public engagement that includes all stakeholders as vital Partners in lsr7 education action plan 3.1 comprehensive communication commits to employing multiple methods for regular and reliable two-way communication with all stakeholders action plan 3.3 community outreach and support commits to increasing engagement opportunities for all members of our diverse Community to share and participate in our efforts to prepare each student for Success how does this District plan
089to reach these goals by establishing maintaining and improving a systematic feedback loop to inform district and school leaders of communication Effectiveness and recommendations strategically balancing and adapting our portfolio of tools and services to maximize efficiency and Effectiveness and strive for operational excellence auditing engagement opportunities and participation and expanding opportunities for families and patrons to interact with the district leadership regarding climb priorities or climb topics it's worth noting here that communication is a two-way street the district can send out as much information as they want but to have real communication with all stakeholders it's going to take the district listening to the concerns of the community to reach operational excellence one valuable tool you've got that offers feedback to the district is public comment time at school board meetings we're now in the last year this
090three-year plan and you've already reduced the number of speakers allowed during public comment time to 7 from 10 and you're now moving the time for public comments to the very end of the board meeting what does it say to the community when you place the time for people to address their concerns before the board at the end of the meeting after all the decision making is done if one's concerns about a specific agenda item aren't heard until after the item's been voted on what would that what would make that person want to come back to address the board on other topics you're effectively nullifying public comment by doing this this doesn't even include the fact that at your June board retreat you made some tentative changes to the public comment time that also include not
091recording it and not just live streaming it how does this contribute to the district goal of meaningful public engagement all you're doing is muting the concerns of the community none of this leads to operational excellence all it does is alienate the very families that brought their students here to learn in this board members is a toxic way to run a school district please return public comment time to its rightful place before any decision making and discard any ideas of not recording and not live streaming this crucial part of public meeting okay I'm just going um I'm just gonna just okay let's go ahead and adjourn our meeting thank you [Music] foreign [Music]