LSR7 Board Meeting - 02/24/22

001come here we're going to call the regular february meeting to order if i could everybody stand for the pledge of allegiance please it was actually a little tougher we got a little out of sync there so i was struggling just a little just a little bit there um we want to welcome everybody to tonight's meeting so thank you all for taking an interest in the district and attending tonight or if you are watching online we do appreciate you also keeping up with the school district so thank you and welcome to everyone who is here tonight especially our students who we we will be seeing here in just a little bit to board members we need to adopt tonight's agenda please i'll take a motion on that i move to adopt the agenda as presented you

002have a motion and a second to adopt tonight's agenda any discussion all those in favor please raise your hand and say aye aye any opposed motion carries unanimously we'll move on to 2.01 that's going to be our superintendent's report and dr buck turn it over to you good evening board of education and guests i'd like to share a few things in written report here first off it's public school week i cannot thank our 2700 plus staff enough for all they do for over 18 or nearly 18 000 students 2.1 percent of all public school kids in the state of missouri go to school right here in lee's summit and we perform academically excellently we do very well in athletics we take care of kids we feel feed over 300 000 meals every month we drive

003nearly 10 000 miles of roads on buses every day and that takes a great staff and a thank you to the board for helping support them so congratulations and thank you to everyone who serves in public education in our state um i want to recognize we have 30 business students from lee summit high school at least i'm at north high school and lisa mc west high school earn 122 industry certifications through microsoft so those are ircs so thank you to all the educators and those kids for all you accomplished there kind of cool here is that we had a a competition through the cyber patriots out of our summit technology academy and we had three different teams and they took first second and third in the state and the first place team which has kids

004from all three high schools is in the top 12 in the nation so they get to go compete nationally in the cyber patriot uh competition so kudos to them uh again that's from all three high schools and they're attending it at sta uh and competing in that cyber patriot competition we've had state championships in swim dive and wrestling this past weekend so congratulations to the following at least summit high school for earning allstate honors olivia placed 7th and 100 breaststroke the 200 free relay team placed seventh and then diving cali finished seventh so congratulations then and then the race wrestling state championships we had uh lee's summit north and lisa and high both get uh competitors to earn all-state honors so congratulations to trey charlie and trevor from north and jackson from lee summit high

005for earning all-state honors and wrestling meaningful public engagement want to share that on march 10th if you have a little one it's going to be in kindergarten next year every single one of our elementary buildings will have a kindergarten kickoff and it'll be starting at 4 30 and end at 6 30 so all 18 elementaries so if you have a little one it's going to be in kindergarten it's a great way to meet your teachers and find out about school and and get oriented with the school and last not on my written report i want to share that uh next week on march 1st some of us here will be part of the chamber going to the capitol and talking to legislators and then on march 7th some of you and i will also be

006up there with the missouri school board association so thank you for your time and talents to this all right that'll do it thank you dr buck appreciate it um we are moving on to item three these are our presentations and recognitions so for everybody here basically the best part of the night um and so 3.01 we are going to start our presentation with meadow lane and dr johnson and so we will turn the microphone over to them and the students from metal lane we practice in a really small office so they're not used to all this space no ready guys okay hi i am dr christine johnson principal of meadow lane um students and staff call me dr j typically because of my basketball skills and probably my height as well right um it is

007a huge honor to be their leader and work alongside not only our students and staff every single day this year something that we find a lot of pride in is building a community building a sense of belonging at meadowlane and so we're going to go over a few slides and some of the special activities that make us special as bengals at meadow lane and make sure everyone's included okay introductions with us mr micah fritz he's our assistant principal we have carter i'm not going to order carter carter tyler sophia abby and jamie are back there don't hide back there from me i see you jamie they are part of our student leadership team that we have at meadow lane and they're here to represent and kind of tell you about how we foster an inclusive

008environment at our school do we need to be on that side so we are excited to share metal lane with all of you this evening miss evers and miss wood are eld teachers at the lane and they have created a short welcome video representing a few of our 18 countries along with 15 languages spoken well it could not load so that is all right do you think you can get it to work or no that's okay there's a lot of people saying hello in many different languages sorry i only know english so now we'd like to welcome tyler to share about how miss rourke and other teachers greet their class each morning hello hello my name is tyler and i am in mrs works fourth grade class when our teachers greet us at the door

009we get to express how we are feeling they also do a check-in to make sure we have a successful day a password to enter allows us to feel good about ourselves i'm abby from miss walker's class here to share about morning meetings during our morning meetings our teacher allows us to share how we are doing my teacher will then check in later with students who might need to talk my morning meeting also allows me to see what other kids like to do and maybe do those things with them later thank you bengals there is much research about the success of students when they feel a sense of belonging at meadowland we are constantly striving to create an environment where all students feel seen and heard ivan fitzwater a former educator stated the future of the

010world is my classroom today we believe this to be true which magnifies the importance of belonging for all students and staff one way we try to generate a sense of belonging is by giving voice and ownership to everyone that calls meadowlane home so not only the adults and our educators in the building but also all students so these pictures we have represent just a very small sampling of what we are creating within the building those are two leadership teams the adult side is a group of our teachers that are part of our building leadership team that attended a professional learning community conference down in arkansas this fall and brought back some great learning and knowledge on how to build collective efficacy among our staff and then we have students representing the other part is it

011so free the student advisory team allows me to share ideas without judgment it is an open it is an open free space to brainstorm ways to make metal lane a more positive and inclusive school thank you okay one of the ways we want to build an inclusive school with a sense of belonging is through celebrating milestones celebrating builds those relationships among our staff and our students and we work really really hard so we celebrate even the smallest of wins and all of our growth whether it's academic or social emotional we do as well and part of that that celebration definitely boosts our morale hello hi i am carter from mrs kramer's class every time we meet a goal in our class we celebrate with other adults in the building such as past teachers counselors principals

012or any other caring adult in the building doing this is a mental reward and makes me want to work even harder to reach my goals adults in our building are also working on prioritizing relationships at the lane you can see our wonderful miss green here with a picture of a turkey which actually has my face on it this was one of our team building activities where staff participated in a scavenger hunt when they found a turkey it was turned in for a price we also did it with gingerbread men and st paddy's day is coming up so i'm sure we'll have some leprechauns around our building as well along with various scavenger hunts dr j has introduced us to bengal radio while wearing her dj hat she played songs throughout the day to celebrate miss

013sheetz's 32-year teaching career at meadow lane all the songs were from when miss sheets began in the 1990 school year good meadow lane is housed within our physical building just down the street if you ever want to come visit knowing students take many different career paths we believe in extending our reach to the neighborhoods we represent we know this takes time and trust and we are here for it sophia is going to share some more on how metal lane has connected with our families and communities this year hi i'm sophia from mrs williams class and in the winter we made cards for community members to fill their buckets this act of kindness is a way for us to pay it forward for others we love to partner with organizations and businesses that surround our building

014but we also found it important to connect with the residents right next door so we also have a picture of miss opal who is our neighbor right across the street she is 95 years old lives alone and she has seen a lot of change throughout the community in all her years there our students were also introduced to miss opal and they made her cards for the holidays as well during the winter months before break everyone is usually pretty excited our teachers do a great job of making sure we are learning and having fun one of the fun things our teacher did was the polar express bus on the bus they came by with cookies and hot cocoa to spread holiday cheer to students on and adults who also came dressed in their pjs hi i'm

015jameer from mrs kinney's class the teachers were also dressed up and came around with bells for kids it made me feel really good even though it's my first year meadow lane as the principal i definitely value the community we're building it's definitely our philosophy that all means all that every single adult and every single student every single family member is a huge part in our growth and our ability to achieve goals so we think this quote represents us who we are as meadowlane bengals and we think we have some of the best heroes at our school if you want to follow along and celebrate with us you can find us on facebook and on twitter hashtag emilyproud you can see all of our celebrations and we do have a parting gift for all of our

016board members um spoiler it's a book um but but but there's there's a catch here our student leaders actually made the wrapping paper and we selected books that we feel represent our learning community and they're dedicated to our library so if you'd like to bring it back to donate back to our library this is your ticket in the door for a tour and to come visit that is fantastic thank you thank you thank you meadowlane thank you very much i have to i have to point out while they're still here that i noticed somebody was waving it i believe it was sophia back there in the audience so good job where was waving okay that's always good right so i we appreciate that we're gonna get a couple pictures here what's up all right we're

017gonna have a 30 minute pause while we read and then we'll continue right right all right so thank you to metal lane good luck bernard campbell as we get here uh on to the next one um 3.02 we are going to highlight bernard campbell um so dr hutchinson if you would like to come in and introduce what we are doing here that would be great i believe we're going to see the steppers perfect all right this is william bernard campbell i'm going to be brief because this is the reason why we're here our amazing step team is two and a half years in this was part of our advisory club time during our school day tuesdays and thursdays during advisory time students have the opportunity to join a club so we have a hundred percent

018of our kids involved in some sort of club these young people have stepped up and not only do they do this during tuesdays and thursdays but now they're doing it before school after school they're kind of awesome so i'm going to turn it over to the real talent right here hello my name is mariah davis and i go to bernard campbell middle school stepping is a dance style with traditions in african roots dating back to the 1900s it is attributed to black greek organizations our step team is focused on teamwork unity connection and creativity i've enjoyed stepping with everyone especially being my first time in step club it has given me a way to be creative and get to know other girls i love the bonds we're making and how much fun it is to

019learn a new routine and perform hi i'm brooklyn whitefield i also go to bcms i like all the opportunities to make new friends and also make new routines and miss yates and miss palmer are great mentors for me and all the other girls [Applause] [Music] you're ready [Applause] m [Applause] i have to admit i wish we had wood floors right there right wait for everybody to kind of get situated that was awesome thanks bernard campbell there's somebody else's coat right here okay just keep just keep it done [Applause] uh thank you [Applause] you'll give them just a second here okay we are going to move on that was awesome for madeleine and bernard campbell thank you to both schools for being here that was fantastic so um we are going to move on to item

0204.01 that's our public comments for this evening so we're going to turn it over to our parliamentarian board member hedrick who will go over the ground rules for public comment thank you we appreciate your attendance and willingness to speak to the board please remember while this is a public meeting this part of the meeting does not contemplate a conversation between speakers and board members 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 if appropriate we will direct the subject to the administrators who are responsible for that particular subject matter pursuant to board policy bddh we will be limiting all comments to no more than 10 people with a limit of 3 minutes each your allotted 3 minutes will be

021counted down on the screen please conclude your comments when the timer expires only those who have signed up prior to the meeting will be allowed to address the board please refrain from using the names of any students or staff in your remarks remain respectful and ensure your comments pertain to district operations we also ask all audience members to remain respectful lastly when your name is called please come up to the podium and clearly state your name and organization you represent if any thank you dr hedrick appreciate it as we normally would do each month we'll announce the speaker and then who is essentially on deck so that you uh can be prepared our first our first speaker tonight is beth cory and then our second speaker will be la triviate grant good evening my name

022is beth cory an ls alum and parent of a third grader at hazel grove i worked in an urban school previously and one activity we did as a staff was to write down and talk about our racial autobiography like who our first teacher of color was when we first experienced something racist and fair and all and other things no matter our personal histories we all we had all committed to working in this particular school and more so we had committed to exploring our experiences and biases so we could be the best we could be for our students honestly my first teacher of color was in graduate school but our histories weren't positive or negative even if i had had a teacher principal or superintendent of color and lee summit or lived in a different country

023with people who spoke different languages practice other religions or where i was a racial minority we all had different biases we've all gone through a range of trauma these past years and we all process that differently i've seen a lot on and offline that reflects anger a lot of anger including up here at this podium what's funny about anger is that it's often the easier path avoiding any deep work of addressing why we're angry what we're fearful of or what we need to do to move through grief and hey we all need easy these days but not when it comes to the at the expense at the very least of someone else's child's belongings success or mental health in my own reflection in that staff exercise of how my educational experiences have formed my biases

024and opinions i was not alone in my discomfort and i didn't let it shut me down and it actually empowered me and to be honest discomfort turning into empowerment was surprising and exciting people say a lot wow that really opened my eyes and i bet they usually felt a little discomfort right before that happened i think feeling discomfort is something we've forgotten and it's not only something we need to learn but it's also something we need to model for our kids or actually learn from them all over again students have plenty to say about how to improve their sense of belonging at school but at parents are we listening are we just avoiding and embracing anger the tagline to this public comment is that i'm one of the many people in support of required equity

025training for all teachers and staff i support the d teams meetings and hope they will continue next year so we can build more bridges and create more brave safe and transparent paces and ask everyone to remain informed sign up for the legislative advocacy newsletter on the lsr-7 website and vote in the upcoming board of election board of education elections in april this is a non-partisan election and please ask the candidates questions but always expect them to answer you thank you our second speaker is la trivia grant and on deck will be aaron gregory i just i came here tonight because it's probably my last time there's no more mass mandate so i'm really excited and i wanted to thank you for that my boys are so excited about it and my oldest one to tell

026you that he appreciates you for that um i just want to talk about there's a lot of that crt critical race theory conversations now and i'm i feel like there's too much put on that and i think that's pressure on the kids when we start talking about racism just talk about love and loving your kids i mean without without anger like like she was saying before then there wouldn't be any racism wouldn't be any anger i think it starts at home if you love your kids and you treat your kids with high respect and you show them what it is to be be free and just be free they won't be racist racism is a mental health issue and it's not it's not something that is a kid's getting that i mean become naturally they're

027not naturally racist it's a learned behavior so i feel like there's a lot of focus on that lately in some of the board meeting comments i'm just thinking there's going to be racism there's going to be something but how do your kids handle it it's up to you to show them how to handle it and show them how to be a better person when somebody comes at him with a racist remark just be a parent say hey you know that's their opinion kids can't let the opinions of others affect them or it's going to cause them to be depressed have anxiety so like i said i just feel like to me there's too much emphasis on racism and all that how about raising your kids and loving your kids let's emphasize that being having a

028healthy home life you know sitting down with your kids getting on that floor playing legos playing trains you know instead of letting them play video games all day get down there with them i do we play dominoes marble runs do something with them and show them what love is and they will show it to others you know people always want to criticize this person this person what are you doing to fix it at home it starts at home if parents will love their kids like i do my boys because my boys they never say anything to anybody that's harmful they are very respectful to their teachers they say yes ma'am they say yes sir they are very respectful because i love them at home so i just want to i just want to i don't

029want to hear about this kid is this kid what are you doing to fix it are you are you being a loving parent at home are you being loving to kids they're not even your own i mean i embrace all my neighbor kids all of them i want them to know what love is i want them to reflect love if they know what love is they won't they'll reflect it to others but i just wanted to say there's so much emphasis on racism without something to do to fix it fix it be a parent [Applause] our next speaker is aaron gregory and then katie gobin hello thank you for the opportunity to speak tonight first i want to thank the board for focusing on its three priorities this school year evaluating students needs through an

030equity lens in order to realize lsr7's mission for all students now i have to say i'm pretty shocked i was excited at the notion that somehow my fifth grader was studying graduate level legal theory at school imagine my disappointment in pouring over her grade level curriculum which i easily found online and reviewed all of the information that her teachers are kind enough to prepare and send home and saw all of her learning targets and assignments that come home and nowhere do i see any instruction around crt the whole notion that crt is in our public schools is actually a political weapon developed by a major proponent of school privatization it's a strategy to confuse people and create chaos and it's working all with the end goal to privatize schools funneling taxpayer dollars to struggling charter

031and private schools those who believe otherwise don't understand actually anything that crt actually is about and i would point to a recent local podcast among boe candidates that perfectly illustrates the lack of real understanding on the topic tonight i'm not going to argue around the legitimacy of the theory but one thing that we have to stop arguing and lying about is that crt is being taught in our schools because it is not fellow parents we need to stay in our lane not to deny the number one job of a parent or guardian at all and certainly not to discourage advocating for your children we need to let teachers teach and we need to work with teachers as partners lsr7 teachers manage to prioritize our children even as they work beyond their contract time and have

032their families of their own we need to stop diminishing the role of educators in our children's lives through uninformed micromanaging toward an end goal of eradicating the good work of deib in this district our children see and absorb our attitudes and it's time we set a good example instead of disparaging our teachers our staff and their work students need to feel safe at school teachers need room to do their jobs and we as parents can set a positive tone so instead of some of the questions and accusations of late rooted in misinformation and fear here are some questions we should all be asking our teachers and staff how can i support you at home can i do anything to help do you need anything for your classroom how are you doing for every protest you

033organize organize a teacher treat day or school supplies drive for any nasty gram you email a teacher or a principal write an encouraging email thanking them for their work please let's lean in to support our lsr7 teachers and staff they are in a labor of love for our children thank you our next speaker is katie gobin is katie here no um scott sifton is our next speaker and then on deck daphne means thank you my name is scott sifton i grew up north of the river in gladstone i'm a north kansas city high grad had a lot of great memories of lee's summit high school from debate tournaments back in the day but i have spent the last eight years representing south saint louis county in the missouri senate and as of tuesday i officially

034filed my candidacy for united states senate and the seat that will be open in this november's election before all that for nine years i sat where you sit on a board of education in my case for the afton district including two terms as board president and i know that even in the best of times serving on a board can be incredibly difficult but i have to say there was i cannot even imagine what you all have had to deal with in this pandemic we never faced anything remotely like that during the time that i served on a board you have time and again had to make the tough calls on what you believe is best for kids and unfortunately you've been sued for it i just want to express my fundamental disagreement with missouri attorney

035general eric schmidt i think he's wrong on both the law and the policy and i commend this board for its courageous stand for what it believed was best for children and for public health but i think we all know that this is about more than just masks it is about the rising tide of extremism aimed at our public schools it's about the kind of extremism that pulls a tony morrison book off the bookshelves in a school library the week before black history month begins that happened here in missouri other side of the state but it happened here in missouri the kind of extremism that pushes for don't say gay legislation the kind of extremism that looks to erase painful but all too relevant parts of our history and ignore it last january 6th we saw

036an assault on our national capital and today those same forces led by steve bannon are working to infiltrate our public school system please to everybody take the time to study up figure out who's who and who stands for what and by all means please make sure that your voice is heard on april 5th thank you the next speaker is daphne means and then on deck andrea harris good evening thank you to the board and i just want to start by thanking you for your commitment and your service these are tough positions and we never go without thinking about the challenges that you face my name is daphne means i have a freshman son that just started high school at least summit north this year we're very thrilled with the diversity that we found in the

037student body at the school and also love the variety of activities that we see in our student body to support them as you probably know we have three key openings at least summit north right now our principal is retiring we have an assistant principal position open and our head basketball coach position is open which can be very important to our children and i just was here tonight to reinforce why goal six of our equity plan is so important and goal six is that we try to increase diversity goals while we recruit and hire diverse talent and just knowing that having students in an environment where they've got leaders staff and coaches and other role models to look up to is so key to developing confidence in the classroom and outside of the classroom i hope

038that we see the impact of this goal and our hiring decisions not only at least some at north but other places in the district i just can't stress how important it is for students of all colors to see people that look like them and other people so i thank you for your commitment to the equity plan and to all the work that you do and thank you for your time [Applause] our next speaker is andrea harris and then davoia marshall will be on deck hi good evening and thank you for your time and your commitment to our students my name is andrea harris i have a freshman at least i'm in north high school and i just wanted to say that if belonging is our goal then we are on the right track with including

039diversity inclusion and equity in our plan to help our children feel belonged but the best way to move forward is with a growth mindset there is so much division amongst a lot of our parents on the way that they see things a lot of our people that serve in [Music] leadership roles or running for leadership roles on how they see things and there's not enough people having a growth mindset to discuss topics that they disagree with and be okay with having those discussion with people that they disagree with and being not coming from a bad place or a negative place or calling them out just being open to that so it's time for us to set aside our conscious and unconscious bias for the children in our district we all have to be open to

040the opinions and ideas of others even if it differs from our own the most successful organizations are diverse and they're open to diverse ideas and cultures and as educators and parents we if we teach our children to be open to these differences and be open to having tough conversations with things that they do not understand they have not seen maybe even beyond our understanding as parents because we've gone through things but teaching them to live in this diverse world that we live in so that we can have that district that is thriving under diversity so that's my encouraging parents to lean and teach the kids to be open be open to even if you're not open to crt or other things that may challenge your ideas on diversity to teach the children to work together

041teach them because that's what it's about thank you for your time [Applause] our next speaker is davoya marshall and then our last speaker will be kristin grubbs good evening i wanted to start off by saying i love seeing the students here tonight because they are actually the reason why we are here tonight i did want to direct our attention to an issue that actually involves the education of our students our students the during the january 6 board meeting the director of assessed assessment provided the spring 2021 map test results the presentation highlighted the overall percentage of how lee's summit students performed proficient or advanced on the test compared to the state average it was mentioned that there were many variables that went into the data including having students to come in person in the schools

042to take the test during the pandemic the results were broken down by factors including overall students versus the state by grade and by ethnicity it was highlighted that all all ethnicities performed higher than the state average on many categories but there was one group of numbers that were alarmingly low and that was the black students the black students in lee's summit did test higher than the state but both numbers were still alarmingly low and i'm just going to give some of the numbers that she presented um in her presentation in reading black students scored 35 i'm sorry 34 the state average was 20 white students 60.2 in social studies uh black students did 29.4 percent the state average was 16 white students 57.7 math black students 24.1 state averaged 10 white students 52.1 percent lastly

043science black students 18.8 state average 11.6 white students 49.8 so if you wonder why equity is so important in school there is no need to wonder the numbers don't lie black students have the capacity to learn just like everyone else when they are provided the necessary resources and level of comfort i did a little research into why black students perform lower on national standardized tests the educational opportunity project at stanford university mentioned many disparities as to why there are such differences in the scores but one thing that was mentioned was the lack of diverse teachers i don't have to look far to get substantiation of these findings i had a conversation with my students one night and they both mentioned that if their african-american students teachers were not at their school then they would not

044want their younger siblings to go because they don't feel like it would be comfortable so overall i just wanted us to not turn a blind eye to the things that are important thank you our final speaker tonight is kristin grubbs i've spoken before you guys a couple times and uh i'm here tonight to kind of speak from the heart as my husband said i have been diving into the equity plan the equity issues that i've i've talked with so many parents and i'll just kind of summarize my overall i guess rose colored glasses type picture this is this is how i think a school should be and i think we can all kind of agree with this when the students come in the door they should be treated equal and i say this i know

045there's this this difference between equal and equitable this is what i mean when they walk in the door they should be equalized that student that it maybe has a parent at home that's ill maybe the other student comes in and they've got it's a single parent home and they've got mom mom's working three jobs to keep food on the table maybe they help take care of their siblings too maybe the another student has they live in the wealthy neighborhood another student lives in the in a small apartment somewhere when they walk in that door it shouldn't matter where they're coming from it shouldn't matter what color of their skin is it shouldn't these things shouldn't matter our students should be able to drop their burdens at the door and be treated the same when they

046walk in they should have equal access i think we all agree to every tool every tool in our shed they should be able to come in and we offer every single student whatever it is in other words instead of spending money on consultants and surveys maybe spend money on the tools buy the tools if we're short-handed on tools buy the tools get the tools get the staffing get whatever it is that we're shorthanded on provide it so that the students have those tools i keep hearing um parents say the tool you know these tools need to be offered to the students that need them where the tools provide the tools when they walk in they shouldn't they shouldn't come in and be talking about all the problems of the world i'm not saying they can't

047express their opinions and that sort of thing but and i'm not saying we should not account for the issues that they're dealing with outside of school that needs to be held that that obviously is playing a part in their education if they don't have time when they go home to do homework because they work a job after school if they get home and they're dealing with other stressors in the family dad's deployed something i mean there's stressors that affect them and we need to when they come in the building they're all the same they they get all the same tools they are love the same and the primary thing that that we all i think agree would be relationships to help them feel like they belong is relationships you can't force it through surveys you

048can't force it through curriculum building relationships with teachers and other students talking learning about each other that's what's going to help them feel like they belong [Applause] that does conclude our public comment for tonight so thank you to all of the speakers who did come tonight to speak we do appreciate uh you signing up to speak um we are going to move on to item 5.01 this is going to be our board reports um and meetings attended so we'll give a brief summary of kind of what's been going on in the last month um we're just gonna i'm just gonna lottery it here this evening it's more fun that way well you gave a thumbs up so you're first so board member fritzy well we will start with her so well i'm excited to go

049first because i have a special group of people who are sitting in the audience tonight that we want to recognize board member sparks and vice president marshall and i had the privilege of going to sta this past week tuesday and speaking with a group of students about our school board service and those students are part of the teacher educator academy and i would like every one of our teacher educator academy students to please stand up right now here they are thank you very much um i just want to say a great big thank you to their teacher ashley turner miss turner are you here there she is okay and um many of you may know her mom lana who let you in the front door if you come in during the day i didn't realize

050she was your mom until she told me that um but she asked us to explain our roles and i just have to say i've been doing this gig this going over to sta for about the last four or five years that i've been on the board to talk with teacher academy and i just have to say you guys asked the best questions of all the years that i've done this and the facial expressions when we looked out into their faces they were so enthusiastic they were tuned in they were thinking the entire time and if this is any indicator of our future teachers in lee's summit and other places i think we're going to be in great shape that's what i have to say about that i was very proud of them um the second

051thing i'd like to tell you about is the lee summit educational foundation of course coming up one week from saturday night is the taste of lee's summit it'll take place march 5th um and we could still use some volunteers for the evening for that event and those volunteers do have to be adults though i'm sorry i have to be over and 21 because they still need some bottles of wine for the wine poll and they also would love to increase the attendance at the event please help promote this so we can reach our fundraising goal of a hundred and ten thousand dollars we really wish everyone would just come to the event who's old enough because it's a super fun event and all of our fun to cause this year funding will support additional funding

052for our science kits for the 22-23 school year and if you know this our all of our elementary teachers receive science kits for their classrooms complete with all the materials they need courtesy of the lee summit educational foundation's funding so that's what this funding this year that's how we're going to pay for it is through that also some of you may have been asked by elementary students for to purchase a major saver card and that's for discounts to restaurants all over town final numbers are not in yet but we should be close to a hundred thousand dollars in sales this year based on our most recent report the cards can still be purchased online if you haven't just go to majorsaver.com and you can direct the money towards the elementary school you'd like it to

053go to or if you don't have a preference it'll just go to the foundation but the elementary schools numbers they get half of the amount that their students raise so and they can spend that on anything they would like so that's pretty cool um the last thing i'd like to mention is that lisa met educational foundation is proud and grateful to have been featured in an article in our most recent issue of the our school's publication which should have made it to most of your homes if you live in lee's summit by now but if it hasn't don't never fear it will probably get there soon okay um finally let's see oh sorry two more things this is pretty mike do you want to talk about team lee's summit when we get to that no

054you don't okay i'll count all right mike doesn't want to yeah it's your meeting right now so okay all right um i i'm gonna mike and i are representatives to the team lee summit group and one of teamly summit's prime objectives is to make recommendations to provide fair affordable and competitive salaries for our employees and teamly summit discussed salary information that will inform our march recommendation that they will that team lee summit will make to the board for salaries team herba updates at our last meeting from dr buck and dr potts regarding finances esser funds and retirements also one of the main things that team lead summit does is it really digs into the survey results from our staff members staff members from across the district fill out these staff surveys on district communication employing

055supervisor relations professional development and training employee well-being and employee benefits and what we do at that at our last meeting we spent almost the entire time we meet a full day all day at least six of those meetings we have during the year and we spent the majority of our time looking at the comments that our staff members made so never fear if you're a staff member out there if you think that those aren't red you are wrong because they are i guarantee you they are and then we look at the most um you know the ones that are mentioned most frequently so um anyway we will continue on our path there and um and then make a recommendation in march for that finally citizens advisory committee i think ryan you and i serve on

056that one we met january 24th and we took a tour of mason elementary the building tour was by principal beth ratty and our assistant superintendent dr heather kinney and we looked at we had an update on all of our bond projects from dr buck and then also we had a middle school programming update and from assistant superintendent brett potts secondary education dr brett potts where's dr potts right there also we talked about some legislative bills updates from dr buck and of course discussion about this year from our fearless leaders from the citizens advisory committee elaine blummel and stephen hill and that's it thank you thank you board member ritchie i'm glad we let off with you so there there we go to all the students that are out there that's a thorough report right there

057and just get ready for finance that'll be that'll be the barn burner of tonight's meeting um so we'll go to um let's go to board member campbell board member campbell i would love to go next excellent i enjoyed going to the mayor's character breakfast and seeing our lsr7 employees recognized at that character breakfast along with many of the other folks that live here in lee's summit that was just an awesome opportunity and i'd never been before so i really enjoyed it and i enjoyed hearing about all the folks that live in loose summit and do good work including our our employees so that was exciting i also attended the finance committee meeting with board member judy hedrick and she'll be giving the report tonight and i attended two meetings of the we're looking at board

058policy jeca around the attendance the district attendance and the waivers that we provide to students that live in our district that may need a waiver to attend school here so that's a part of a process action team that i'm enjoying being a part of and we're about mid meetings on those so more to come on that thank you very much board member alan thank you sir i'll be quick kim gave the report on team lease summit so i think we're pretty good though nathan holder our cfo also had a great report so i didn't want to forget mr holder out here he works pretty hard um went to uh ryan and i were at the lisa mcchamber government relations committee meeting on the 28th of january and really had a full full report from all

059levels of of government federal state county city representation our board had a report parks and and some of the city commissions i mean it was jam-packed and there was a lot of good information shared did attend the mayor's character breakfast um joel goldberg delivered really fantastic content he was great chamber annual dinner on the 12th where it was probably the best annual dinner they've had in years that's fantastic they did it did a great job and then one of the um it's not really an official board representation but i did want to go uh the 23rd just a couple days ago yesterday i guess lisa my workforce alliance which is a partnership that was really built um i guess in a partnership between the school district and the ls edc economic development council and and

060um miss chase has moved on to another county but um a couple of representatives from our school district have really taken and run with it well shannon booth and jeremy bonison and then we are building a strategic partnerships with a number of businesses you know across this region to really flush out and understand diploma press the diploma plus program so easy to say really kids even as early as elementary school with ideas of of what they really would like to do and allow them to flush that through and understand and build so kind of a self-awareness to curriculum awareness career awareness and readiness it was it was a really good good meeting and done it again i believe in march and april and keep that ball rolling or subcommittees will meet rick mcdowell gail bryant

061and stephanie bordner from the from lsedc is just doing great work so it was it was good really encouraging and unbelievable a touch on everything from um you know the market value assets um discussing and how to to build through and and and solve this achievement gap issue i mean a variety of different ways that that touch point will will do will be tremendous um and one last thing i did notice that uh there were a couple of quotes from um um in in fred rogers quotes i don't know if you guys noticed this or not but earlier tonight with one of the schools i guess it was meadowlane and if you've not read the book this is a great book and it's called the mr rogers effect mr rogers effect and man life's lessons

062from mr roger's neighborhood is fantastic get on that thanks thank you board member allen board member sparks all right i'm not going to repeat some of the other things that we've done together um and i appreciate the work that um all of our all of us do from the dyess um to get out in the community and to continue to do the work um i'm going to just acknowledge this since she is here um you know you get to hear me and megan always talk about the youth advisory council that we meet with with lee summit cares miss riley just kind of wave your hand she is actually the president of that youth council and so i want to acknowledge that's right [Applause] and she is also one of the future teachers um with the

063grow your own program and all the other kids the students that was able to stand up and so again i appreciate you being here um but then also um i had the pleasure of traveling to washington dc um with my counterpart vice president marshall and we went to the equity symposium and there so it was actually a two-part conference so there's two conferences um the equity symposium but also the um nsba advocacy institute and in that conference there was two things that really stuck out to me had classes all day but there was one speaker and he was a ncaa wrestler and he um had to have one leg amputated um and that posed a challenge for him um just in life um he also then spoke um to the only father that he knew

064was not his biological father but it was the father that raised him um just literally walked out in his life and left his mother and so here you have a student that already has what some would say would be a setback and then now the person that he called father dad at home to have him just to walk out of his life he was talking about the struggles that so many people don't know that our kids deal with when they walk through those doors and so that was not shocking to me that our kids have struggles but it was to remind us that our all of our students have issues that they come with to be honest all of us have issues that we come with and it's important for us as a district to

065always meet students where they are and to really show them that we care about their success and the way to care about their success the way we show them that you know it's hard to embrace because of all the political climate that we're in and all those type of things but what we can do is we can do some action items we can do things that is meaningful so that ultimately they know that we truly care and we're trying to give them what um they're seeking and what they're yearning for um so that they can be successful the other thing um that was beneficial from that conference not only outside of the network and all those other things and miss marshall will bring some of those things up but there was a youth panel and

066it was a panel of youth from all walks of life backgrounds um home situations um race um sex and it was unique to see them talk about the same answer the same question but al almost have some differences but most of them were the same answer about challenges that they have with teachers challenges that they have with with home life challenges that they have with learning and one of the things one of the students he said this and he was probably the most comical out of all the kids um but he said i just want to be left alone and let me work with my hands because that's how i learn and that stood out to me because all of our kids learn different ways and that goes back to the equity work and the

067things that we're doing and that is to we can't give every kid the same thing we can't because every kid don't deserve don't don't every kid deserves what they need but every kid don't need the same thing to be successful and so i just would like to um thank obviously on the board for allowing me to have that opportunity to go and to network and to attend the classes also how to be able to advocate for the students and not only advocate for our students but we know that it takes resources it takes money and many of us are going to be going down to jeff city on march the 7th and when we go um i think it's clear that these are not joy trips for us this is not just a trip for

068us to be able to go get in our cars and be able to congregate with each other and laugh and drink a beer or whatever it may be but this is us actually meeting with those that have power they can get more money in our districts so that we can truly meet the needs of all of our students and so i appreciate it i'm excited for march the 7th because i feel like i'm equipped to meet with those of power and let's get some things done for our district so thank you thanks board member sparks uh board member hedrick um yeah i have a couple of things to report on um we had a board policy committee meeting at the end of january following our last board meeting that group is finishing up our work

069on revisions to board policies in the g series which are the policies that affect our staff that work for the district we have another meeting i scheduled for next monday and i'll report on that next month i attended the finance committee um and then i also uh attended virtually as did board member campbell to the lee summit workforce alliance meeting yesterday afternoon and i i have to say every time i sit in on that i'm just like super excited that is a dynamic group and i just wanted to say publicly thank you to all the people involved in that we have a lot of businesses in our community who are participating in that and we still need other businesses so that we have all of our career pathways covered so i'm kind of encouraging other

070businesses who maybe aren't participating now that we could really use them involved in that process so um i just it's very exciting to work we have a lot of potential to actually help kids identify their careers at a young age i think and make them and also meet the needs of our businesses with that group so it's really super exciting to um the teacher academy students here you couldn't pick a better profession than public education so thank you for being here um i think that's my comments and i'll give the finance report here shortly thank you very much dr hedrick vice president marshall thank you president murdoch uh well just to follow up on what board member roderick spoke about that wasn't our race address the gentleman you mentioned was anthony robles and on a

071completely uneducated topic i will say that him and i sparked an interesting conversation mr robles and i uh because he was going for his third guinness book world record uh in a pull-up challenge uh which he did uh achieve which was something that was kind of cool to me because i know how hard it is to do pull-ups but board member sparks really touched on everything that we covered in the national school board association symposiums both both of the courses and to our grow your own students out here uh one big thing which we talked about when we were there was that yesterday we were there day four yesterday this week we were here sometime this week um while at the national school board association conference we had the opportunity to speak with board members

072superintendents from all across the nation from jersey to texas to just everywhere i had an opportunity to speak with educators board members from tribal controlled schools and just learning about their successes and their challenges that they have and learning from them how they best advocated to their representatives on a federal level so going back to what we talked about when we were there in your class it's very very important that you build those networks and build those resources with those around you as you begin to start your educational career on especially if you don't agree with those other individuals it's even that much more important that you develop that relationship to have that conversation because a lot of the changes that we seek to do um you know the blueprint is already there we just

073have to put our fingerprints on it so that is that's it for me thank you very much just uh one thing for me because i went to a lot of the same things that everybody else was at um i just wanted to give a shout out to all of the middle schools um for their parent meetings that they held for all of the fifth and sixth graders who are going to be making that transition next year with the change obviously in format and stuff like that going to the sixth through eight model i just wanted to let the principals know that they did a fantastic job of hosting all of the parents i know there's still questions that people have but they did a very nice job of answering those and as a parent of

074somebody going into seventh grade two of them yeah i wasn't really ready for that but you know hey here we go so uh but nice but thank you to the middle school principals you did a very nice job um and to all of the staff by the way who also were there the counselors i remember and everybody who put together the presentation so if i forgot people i apologize the entire evening you did a very nice job so thank you very much um on that um board member fritzy i believe you have one last thing here that she wants to add though it appears board member sparks is gonna tack on one one thing before you so there you go board member sparks go ahead i'm sorry i just don't want to get uh bombarded

075in and get jacked up outside in the parking lot i also attended at least summit north they had a divine nine in honor of black history month um to where they had all the greeks if you're not familiar with that but it's bringing all of the sororities and the fraternities that started at historically black colleges they come they did a step show but then also they um was talking about the colleges and so it was almost like a college fair along with them kind of dancing and showing off and doing their stuff so i wanted to acknowledge that also got it in just under the wire there you go nicely done uh and board member fridgey i thought i covered it all but wait there's more um i forgot to tell about a very important

076meeting i went to on january 25th and that's our struggling reader's parent meeting and um that particular meeting we that meeting was in this room and it was full of parents and educators and dr eric flack raise your hand back there dr flack i see him in the back row he led our group and he filled the group in on the district's current training for staff members to use the wilson learning as the resource for our students who struggle with dyslexia and the parents in that group continue to express some concerns regarding their students who continue to struggle it doesn't mean that we aren't making some strides but there are still students and who are struggling uh who have dyslexia and so as a result of that beginning march the 16th this group will meet

077twice monthly and identified groups to tackle the issues raised at that last meeting and so i just wanted to thank dr flack for chairing that group and for being very responsive to the parents who were in that group who were very passionate about making sure that their children have the opportunities and just thank you appreciate you highlighting that thank you very much we are going to move on here to item five excuse me item six which is our finance committee report and so we will turn it over to dr hedrick okay thank you our first contract that we talked about was with numeracy consultants llc with growing learning gaps in math due in part to the pandemic the administration is recommending numeracy a research-based math intervention program to help close the gaps at the elementary

078level this program is considered a tier 2a intervention and was piloted in three schools dr kinney provided the finance committee with additional information regarding the identification of students rollout and results that we would like to ask dr kinney to provide to all of the rest of the board and the audience at this point in time so we're taking a little change from our normal practice to have dr kenny address some of those things that she shared with the finance committee yesterday thank you we're super excited about it with sr3 funds this year we were able to hire an mtss a multi-tier system support specialist in both reading and in math and so to kind of help those learn address those learning gaps our mtss specialists sarah rostick and laura ward have spent lots of hours

079researching math um well sarah does reading but laura has been spent a lot of time studying math interventions and so we have found one called numeracy consultants and it's a grand total of twenty six thousand dollars but it will be implemented in all 18 of our elementary schools so a student can receive math intervention when they show significant um they have a significant need in either our universal screening measure which is either aims web or fastbridge we use a benchmark of 25th percentile or below to provide intervention so we use three different classrooms in the district pretty small group but we saw some really great results so we are asking for the online version which then will print into books so some future um i think it's like six thousand dollars to print workbooks that

080our teachers can have those prepared for students and we're hoping to purchase it now so we can kind of get it ready and maybe implement it a little bit this spring any other questions thank you thank you looks like board member campbell had a quick question and it's it's really i'm just highlighting like bubbling up a couple of the things so so many parents ask what are you using these federal dollars for to help close the gaps from the pandemic for students learning is this this is one of them right yes it is yeah i mean i could go on and on if you really want me to but math has been really hard there are a lot of reading interventions out there but math is really difficult because most of the time math is

081fluency based and so it's just learning the facts quicker and faster and in all all operations and so to find something that is deeper that teaches our kids number sense this has a multiplicative thinking portion and a fraction portion that's really that's really big and so teachers will help identify the students that will get access to this and if parents had questions they could talk with their teachers at that in the elementary school don't have it yet um but hopefully yeah it's gonna take a little bit of a roll out there are some there's some training hours associated with it but we're hoping to maybe math specialist to have it this spring but we have we have some pieces to kind of put together great thank you thank you i think that's it board member

082hedrick oh sure thank you um our next contract we talked about was with converge one meraki the network licensing and equipment this is item is for a variety of network equipment and licensing needs for several sites the timing of this purchase of these items is dependent on e-rate funding while minimizing the impact to operations due to shipping timelines and just for your information e-rate is a federal program to assist public entities with broadband cabling and all the equipment needed to access the internet internet and again due to the pandemic we've seen a lot school districts across the country have seen this is an area providing access to the internet um as a real challenge so this is this is definitely a good good use of that those funds we also talked about a contract for

083nevco digital scoreboards each of the three high school stadiums and the aquatic center are in need of new scoreboards to replace the existing outdated and non-repairable equipment a broad-based team researched and evaluated the type of scoreboards needed following this year's multi-year this team's multi-year process they are recommending the district purchase video boards to replace the existing equipment the video boards represent the industry's movement to led products and provide an opportunity for greater student engagement and revenue generation the rollout will involve a number of students and staff and be be completed over multiple months the district solicited bids from four vendors and will be recommend and is recommending navco we also reviewed the contracts fifteen thousand dollars unless we from the facilities department we discussed the contract for dora not a door this is really exciting

084for toilet partition partitions for lee's summit north to continue replacing the ones from on this on the second floor of that building we talked briefly about the bond report that business services is working on with data systems to rewrite a report due to some complexity of the bond projects spanning multiple years we also reviewed the transfer of funds the investment report and on the revenue and expense report we looked at the current fund balances but mr holder also noted that the fund balances in the nutrition fund has been impacted favorably due to the federal reimbursement for all student meals this year and that the bas fund balance has also been impacted favorably by receipt of federal funds from the paycheck protection program so with that i have a motion to approve the transfer of 2

085million forty 949 thousand three hundred forty eight dollars and forty two cents from the general fund to the special revenue fund second motion in a second on item six point zero two is there any discussion on the transfer of funds all those in favor raise your hand and say aye aye opposed motion encouraging and i'm silly dr hedrick um to approve and my move to approve the treasurer's report and payment of the bills second and board member alan snuck in that second um motion in a second any discussion on that item okay raise your hand all those in favor raise your hand and say hi hi any opposed motion carries unanimously thank you dr hedrick appreciate it um we are at item seven this is our id our consent agenda for tonight um so we

086have um item 7.01 through 7.09 so i take a motion on our consent agenda for tonight i move to approve the consent agenda items 7.01 through 7.09 as presented yeah i apologize i apologize did you you're fine i did the only thing that i just wanted to just point out was um from the finance committee meeting i just thought that it was important to highlight that even with the scoreboards that there was there's potential for revenue to be gained from it and so i was hoping that someone would still speak later okay yeah we have an item for decision on those that we can highlight sorry yeah no worries um okay so we have a motion and a second for i for our consent agenda okay so um everyone in favor of the consent agenda

087please raise your hand and say aye aye any opposed motion carries unanimously we are going to move on to item eight that's 8.01 this is our item for decision this is the digital video boards um and so do we have any other presentation would you like somebody to speak to that let's get the motion and the second on the floor and then we'll have somebody speak to it okay so i'll take a motion on item 8.01 please i move that the board approved the purchase of four nevco digital video boards at a cost to the district of approximately eight hundred and seven thousand eight hundred and fifty five dollars second okay we have a motion and a second on this item and now board member sparks would you like to ask that question or provide

088that there you go yes i just would like someone to just be able to speak to um the fact that you know some will see 800 000 for a scoreboard um but also what's the revenue that can be gained from it by having this high level scoreboard rich you can come up to when i asked district athletics director rich bouchard to come on up and you know again board member hedrick pointed that out at the beginning when we're talking eight hundred thousand dollars we're also talking each a scoreboard for each high school as well as the aquatic center and so really when we started the bidding process we thought the total for the four score boards would be in excess of over a million so when that bid came in at 800 000 we were

089really pleased to see that rich has done deeper a deeper dive as to the potential revenue so i'm going to turn that over to him yeah clear clearly the the revenue piece of this project is attractive and there's there's numerous ways to go about this and we just tried to try to get some estimates on you know what could we what could we produce with with these boards and in looking and comparing with some other schools and some of these are single high school districts so we felt like and we've been told by uh companies that that our potential is probably much higher but we just kind of looked at the number we felt like we could generate about 150 000 and that could be much more than that or maybe a little less who

090knows what what normally schools do to generate revenue they have four anchors and that's what we will have on the bottom of these scoreboards there will be four backlit advertisement signs so to speak so let's take rock hill orthopedics he's been one of our sponsors over the years with us in in the district and if they chose to be one of the anchors they would be on all three scoreboards the aquatic center will kind of run on its own it's kind of done that in the past is you know there's certain people that just want to do advertisements in aquatic center maybe their kids were swimmers or whatever the case may be so that will be kind of a standalone and and to be all and honest uh our hope is then our next step

091is video boards in the three field houses at the three high schools and that will also you know we can do it two ways we can go ahead and establish ourselves with what we're doing in the stadiums revenue generating and then indoors we can create an opportunity for other businesses because what we anticipate is that there's gonna there's not gonna be room for everybody to advertise because we will probably you got four anchors and you may have three levels the next level you may have you know sponsors in the next level there may be 20 and when those all fill up that's you know you're just done and what we found from other schools is there we have all kinds of stories of people saying well like an orthodontist in one of these communities he

092they they did the smile cam you know so during the contest like a time and that the camera would zoom around and and they'd do us and he went to that school and says i want to pay more because i want to be the only orthodontist that's on on your boards you know so and what we've also been told after that first night they said be prepared for your phone ring because there's going to be businesses that say i want to do that i want to be a part of that so we really feel like that we're we're going to have no problem finding the businesses that want to be a part of that and then um and i don't know we just want to know about the revenue side because you know that the

093student opportunities are are really if you could go and speak to that too i think that was very important yeah um what um what were you hoping anticipating you know our first step is just to get some adults trained so we know how to use these things and and get the sponsors going that'll be first step but down the road we we will see students that will run these video boards at the game you'll have a score per scoreboard person just like you've always had and then you'll have somebody on a computer running the board and those most timer students but prior to that moment they sit down to run the board they will have done things like maybe interview a board member about a certain topic that will go run during the contest or

094interview a student athlete maybe a soccer player or a football player and these are students that probably would never go to an athletic event but they're tech savvy and and they they all of a sudden they're doing interviews and they're creating uh commercials and doing all kinds of really neat things and what we're hearing from these other schools they step on a college campus and immediately are getting jobs running scoreboards at these colleges because they they know exactly what they're doing so that's just you know some of the benefits that we're really excited about there's some anxiety you know when we started talking to the teachers that maybe will have the classes that this would involve that oh my gosh do we have the equipment do we have this you know so we did have

095them and this has been over a year ago prior to covid we had them visit some of the schools and um they came back uh pretty excited and and i think it was well received by those teachers but there's some work to do there but some of that revenue that comes in we could use to you know get equipment for those classes that's needed training for those classes that might be needed for teachers and things like that so any other questions i think we have board member campbell i just wanted to highlight i appreciate so much when we are talking about some of these purchases thinking about how we weave the real world learning opportunities in i love hearing about this part of how can we engage our students what can the students do to

096participate and learn and i just hear that over and over in these purchases where we're thinking not just about the purchase but about what it means to our students as well from a learning standpoint so thank you for highlighting that welcome and we hope for a great fan experience too with these i had i did have one quick uh one for you because it says that we're doing the timing system after um in the upcoming months have we actually selected like do we know the timing system that we're going to use like for example i mean for example i mean it just says it's an approximation for the cost and that kind of thing but we do have our eyes essentially on one that we know is compatible is going to work all that kind

097of stuff yes quasi is done out at the aquatic center has done some research and we with nefco working with us know the compatible unit that we want to work with is really reputable and there was not a lot of choices you know the like i said the timing system we have now goes with daktronics and with this change and even with that cost we still felt really comfortable about having nevco as as our vendors okay thank you appreciate it any other questions okay is there any other discussion on this item all right we have a motion and a second on it so mrs mc we have a roll call vote please board member fridgey aye board member alan hi board member hedrick board member campbell vice president marshall aye remember sparks president murdoch aye

098motion carries unanimously thank you to everybody for your work on that one um item 10 we don't have any item uh or presentations in our items of information tonight we're going to move on to item 10 which is our written reports tonight we had three um including our board priorities update special education and our diploma plus so if anybody has any comments on the written reports now is the time board member fritzi okay and if any other board members would like to go before me please feel free as i told the students at our teacher academy the other day when we were there i think this is the section of the agenda that sometimes gets overlooked because they are written reports and i can say you all need to go out and read those reports

099but how many people are going to actually go read them and the thing is is the staff members who put together these reports there's good stuff in there and they spend a lot of time working on these reports so i'm going to give a report on each of the three and just please indulge me and i won't try to take very long 10.01 is the diploma plus annual program evaluation and shannon booth where are you shannon booth are you here oh okay well we have to be to watch i am actually missing my grandson's orchestra concert at summit lakes tonight to be here so i get it i get it well shannon booth i wanted to thank her she wrote an extremely thorough and detailed report on all of our career-related programs k-12 and it's

100very evident that much work has been put into defining uh reorganizing and implementing measures to ensure that our students are prepared for their future beyond lsr7 and i really appreciated the candid look at opportunities for improvement and a look at program refinement and finally i'd like to say thank you to each staff member and community member who has had a part in our programs and improving our processes the collaboration it shows it really does i think we heard some comments here tonight that prove that and i look forward to seeing how our market value assets that each of our students are earning increase in the future so thank you very much to all involved with that program now 10.02 is our special services program evaluation and ms dr stacy mathis raise your hand back there

101on the back row again she created this report and again another extensive report i would like to applaud your goal of improving inclusive practices for students with ieps and specifically i see the focus of efforts on co-teaching practices at the sixth grade level offering class within a class courses and no modified curriculum courses which provides the least restrictive environment for our middle school students also i love it that sped departments working to expand co-curricular and extracurricular opportunities for our students with disabilities across the district and in addition our special education teachers have been trained in wilson reading for students who are not responding to less intensive reading interventions as specialized instruction for their ieps and that's very important step in addressing the needs of our students with dyslexia i mentioned wilson earlier with our struggling

102uh reader's parents group and that's very important to our kids and their parents and all of us of course what a treat it was to click on a qr code in this particular report and see daniel's soaps and suds it's fantastic to see the emphasis on getting our students out into the community and to receive hands-on job experiences especially our sped students and most people don't realize all the planning and the strategies that it takes to educate our neediest learners of all ages from ages 3 to 21. there aren't enough words to express our appreciation for everything our special education department employees do day in and day out for our students please tell them all thank you finally um i just 10.03 our board priorities update i'd just like to say we recognize longview elementary

103and woodland elementary in those in that update this month and we appreciate all of their work on our board priorities and it's great to see that each school is do what what each school is doing to meet the priorities while serving their own school communities in the process and so um it's great to see those reports month in and month out so thank you very much to each person who created or people who created those written reports and we do appreciate you thanks thank you very much board member for ritchie other comments on the written reports i do have i have one um mine is on the special services report um the the thing that i wanted to note and just say thank you on um it's not a criticism at all is the planning

104that's going into adjusting for our fifth and sixth graders moving just like i mentioned earlier because i think from a special services standpoint that's going to take some juggling already has taken some juggling i know this year you noted trying to make sure that you were transitioning employees did get kids where they were going to be going to middle school so i did want to make sure and highlight that i think that that obviously is going to be incredibly important um as we move forward with so many kids moving into middle school the other part as being a parent of somebody who started at great beginnings and can't tell you the benefits of great beginnings and continuing to expand hopefully our preschool options for kids throughout the district as we bring paradise park online and

105things like that i i do hope that that last measure that we talked about increasing activities for um our students with disabilities will continue to be a focus because um sometimes i think that we do get a little bit lost nature center for example that obviously i'm using a personal experience that a wheelchair doesn't travel on wood chips very well you know and so things that we can do to continue to increase that access will be great so fantastic report though and i did appreciate um all the planning that's gone into this school year so thank you to all those teachers and staff board member sparks i just got to say thank you i do appreciate the reports um you know it seems like it's at the bottom but that doesn't mean that it's lease

106acknowledged um so we do thank you for the reports and i just would like to just highlight the numbers of the kids that we're serving um that's important and i think that's important because that's that's acknowledgment that we're meeting needs and so i just think that that's important too for us to recognize that and then also for the public to know that we are meeting needs of students in our district thank you any other comments board members 95 minutes 95 minutes that's pretty good it's pretty good for us this meeting is adjourned we'll see you all next month you