LSR7 Board of Education Meeting - 10/21/21

001this is an invitation to secure your place on an exceptional team dedicated to safeguarding and serving our community's greatest assets you become family and not just with the transportation department with the whole school district you feel valued the parents trust you you hold a great responsibility for the world caring the most precious thing we have their children their heritage their legacy this is an invitation to be the first face our leaders of tomorrow see when they start and finish the school day i can't take summers off because i get depressed i miss the kids i was looking for a job change something different the opposite of what i was before which was sitting in an office you know more of a sense of purpose this is an invitation to be supported with full benefits and

002paid training and permitting so whether you are a retiree new to the job market or just excited to positively impact the generation of tomorrow apply to be an lsr-7 bus driver today just need to come try it out i think you'll like it this is your invitation to take a drive with lsr7 [Music] this is an invitation to secure your place on an exceptional team dedicated to safeguarding and serving our community's greatest assets you become family and not just with the transportation department with the whole school district you feel valued the parents trust you you hold a great responsibility for the world caring the most precious thing we have their children their heritage their legacy this is an invitation to be the first face our leaders of tomorrow see when they start and finish the

003school day i can't take summers off because i get depressed i miss the kids i was looking for a job change something different the opposite of what i was before which was sitting in an office you know more of a sense of purpose this is an invitation to be supported with full benefits and paid training and permitting so whether you are a retiree new to the job market or just excited to positively impact the generation of tomorrow apply to be an lsr-7 bus driver today just need to come try it out i think you'll like it this is your invitation to take a drive with lsr7 [Music] this is an invitation to secure your place on an exceptional team dedicated to safeguarding and serving our community's greatest assets you become family and not just with

004the transportation department with the whole school district you feel valued the parents trust you you hold a great responsibility for the world caring the most precious thing we have their children their heritage their legacy this is an invitation to be the first face our leaders of tomorrow see when they start and finish the school day i can't take summers off because i get depressed i miss the kids i was looking for a job change something different the opposite of what i was before which was sitting in an office you know more of a sense of purpose this is an invitation to be supported with full benefits and paid training and permitting so whether you are a retiree new to the job market or just excited to positively impact the generation of tomorrow apply to be

005an lsr-7 bus driver today just need to come try it out i think you'll like it this is your invitation to take a drive with lsr7 [Music] this is an invitation to secure your place on an exceptional team dedicated to safeguarding and serving our community's greatest assets you become family and not just with the transportation department with the whole school district you feel valued the parents trust you you hold a great responsibility for the world caring the most precious thing we have their children their heritage their legacy this is an invitation to be the first face our leaders of tomorrow see when they start and finish the school day i can't take summers off because i get depressed i miss the kids i was looking for a job change something different the opposite of what

006i was before which was sitting in an office you know more of a sense of purpose this is an invitation to be supported with full benefits and paid training and permitting so whether you are a retiree new to the job market or just excited to positively impact the generation of tomorrow apply to be an lsr-7 bus driver today just need to come try it out i think you'll like it this is your invitation to take a drive with lsr7 [Music] um okay we are going to call our regular october meeting to order here is it seven o'clock if we could have everyone please stand for the pledge of allegiance all right thank you very much and welcome to everyone who is in the room with us tonight and to anyone who is watching online or

007who may watch this at a later date thank you for being a part of the meeting and caring about what's going on in our school district we do appreciate it just because we need to there are two people um in the room with birthdays tonight dr miller dr wright both have birthdays happy birthday thank you for sharing it with us i'm sure it's exactly what you wanted to be doing so happy birthday so uh we appreciate both of you and to anybody else in our school district by the way who has a birthday today happy birthday so there we go um 1.04 we do need to adopt tonight's agenda so we'll take the motion now from one of our board members please i move to approve the agenda as presented second motion in a second

008to adopt tonight's agenda is there any discussion all those in favor please raise your hand and say aye aye all those opposed motion carries unanimously we are going to move to 2.01 this is our superintendent's report and we will turn it over tonight to dr buck you have an attachment in your uh agenda here but i'm going to hit a couple and i'm going to add one so first off congratulations to the rector girls at lee summit west who are the state champions and doubles tennis they defeated st joseph in the state championship congratulations to lee's summit west softball team who won districts and they actually because of reign got to play that on our brand new turf field over at least a minute high at east trails i know it's a lot of connections

009there but lisa west is continuing to play on in the playoffs all 18 elementary schools including sunset valley who's in the house tonight have earned a project lead the way distinguished school recognition so it's the highest honor they can get and so congratulations to all 18 elementary schools i want to thank everyone who is here that participated in yesterday's legislative day and give kudos and thanks for senator razer representative roland mayor baird council members diane forte andrew felker and fred tomorrow for showing up and participating it was a huge success so thank you to them and then what i'm going to add that's not written there is that the night before last i had the good fortune to go along with laura maxwell and dr herzog as well as hope who teaches over at least

010summit west with matt good to celebrate matt good as one of the seven finalists for missouri state teacher of the year and i thank the governor governor parson and commissioner van deven and the state board for putting on that event so it was fun to celebrate matt and cs3 boys so excited to share and and as he represents so many good teachers in our district so thank you to matt for all he does and thank you to all educators for what they do appreciate that but you're not off the hook because now we're just moving right to 3.01 and this is going to be you as well so all right it's jennifer oscar and ryan evans you guys are here come on up so i'm going to have them come over to the podium area

011and then i'm going to go over there and speak about them over there it's already on for me um so these two individuals work at woodland elementary um they're they're worth their weight in gold i can tell you as a parent of children in good woodland elementary in fact jennifer here is the nurse she got to help my daughter out who broke her arm playing football and pl in recess on tuesday so thank you jennifer as a parent uh but whether or not here to celebrate the fact they helped my daughter when he broke her arm um they're here because we had a staff member who had a medical issue and uh was unresponsive and these two people here saved his life coach evans saw the individual ran and got jennifer then as jennifer is

012attending to ran and got the uh the aed and they resuscitated the individual and literally did save his life and and you know as you know when you're in that situation seconds matter so thank you both for everything you did and i appreciate you and i'm one-handed so i don't know which one's on top so i'm gonna hand it to you to let you open it and then matthew's going to want to get our picture but thank you jennifer and ryan give him our part mild bag okay we're going to move on to 3.02 but that's kind of tough to follow i just so um but uh 3.02 is we are highlighting sunset valley uh this evening and we have rachel flood and amy westacott here to highlight sunset valley and so we are going

013to turn it over to them and their students testing are we good okay thanks for giving some of your time tonight we're very excited to be here and i brought two student leaders with me we have started an initiative at sunset valley to really follow along with our mission this year which is engage embrace and empower students so who better to tell you about it than them so i'm going to let them get to it hi my name is charlie atkins and i'm a fifth grader at sunset valley elementary i'm here tonight to tell you about our leaders our new leadership academy leadership academy focuses on empowering students and increasing relationships every third through sixth grader at sve has a leadership job my job is a lunch leader my favorite part of being a lunch

014leader is that i get to help and younger kids look up to me one time i was walking into school and i got off my bus and a younger kid saw me and recognized me from leadership academy and gave me a hug now aiden will share a little more about leadership academy how leadership academy is helping our school hello my name is aiden york i am a sixth grader at sunset valley elementary i am a part of the leadership academy there it gives me a great sense of responsibility and pride to be a part of this program i wake up with a smile on my face on the days i know i get to be a lunchroom leader i enjoy helping people who work and learn at my school i get to help people which

015is my favorite thing to do and i also help the lunchroom staff wash the tables i enjoy being back at school this year with my friends and fellow students after being home for so long because of covid now here's a video created by our media and communications leaders thank sorry to give you [Music] the leadership academy is a chance for every student at sunset valley to shine and to share their special skills with our whole school community our leadership academy is a way to build your friendships with others and help each staff and students communicate in the building i feel happy i feel like i want to do it all the time bunch of people have a job and they want to keep it that way they have to work super hard for that job

016just helping me to be educated on different diverse groups [Music] then i can make sure everybody's safe there's certain jobs like cleaning up the playground or taking out the trash just better helping our adults here at sve helping people helping like the office ladies helping the teachers or the lunch ladies um i think it is important for students to develop those leadership skills of knowing where i'm supposed to be what time i'm supposed to be there and what is the job i'm doing um to help and to assist someone else it makes the teachers feel happy inside because the kids are helping to teach teachers do their jobs that they use they have they had before they're really getting a sense of what it means to form a community within a school [Music] i think

017it's important that they're not just learning what they learn in class but also other things that can help them with life everybody being a part of something with some kind of role it just makes it very impactful for the building in general it just feels really cohesive and good the staff doing all the work the kids need to help too so we can help out the teachers so the teachers don't have to struggle it helps show them responsibility to help the teachers out i think the jobs help sunset valley because it helps us all as a community take care of each other and take care of our school so we can learn how to do it by ourselves one day they're gonna be so glad that they got that dog and they're gonna be happy

018[Music] i love most about the changes is the excitement among the students and staff of working together and also make good friends with the people that you're doing your job with um i love seeing students walk around the building with such a purpose and such pride and such ownership in um in our taking care of our building and taking care of each other and in taking on those leadership roles right that way we want to spend a good life here and have lots of fun here [Music] and just one final thing that i have to add is that video was 100 percent created by the kids in our school i think it was two third grade students that they did all the filming all the editing they laid the music behind that and prepared that

019for you guys tonight so pretty cool to think about the the opportunities that we're providing for our students so thank you for letting us share with you [Applause] thank you very much for that presentation appreciate it um 3.03 is going to be our east trails middle school bond project update which is going to be delivered i believe by deandre and jeff here from account gordon so we'll turn it over to you gentlemen well he's going to want you to speak into the mic so that people can pick you up on the that are watching online here so oh i'll just say it again i'm jeff clemens the general superintendent over the east trails middle school i'm over the entire project and building hey i'm deandre guidry project engineer over at east trails we've got a

020slide presentation we're going to show everybody and talk to what's going on on the site so this is a drone video of the entire site you can see we've got the turf laid on the softball field and they've actually used it for i think three games now and then we've got the baseball field turf done we're going up with the rest of the dugouts we've got about half of the asphalt down in the next two to three weeks we're going to be asphalting the rest of the site then here's a drone picture of the progress on the build the main building um we're actually getting ready to make the last three slab pours in the next um probably three weeks where we've got another one tomorrow then here's a picture of the very first game

021that was played on the softball field then this picture is in the area a of the classroom wing which is the sixth grade wing this is actually the wood shop area then this is a shot of the tile that we've got laid in the bathrooms another one of the restrooms then we've started installing lockers in the um sixth grade classroom wing then i'll let deandre take these next couple okay right here is a area b which is the seventh grade classroom classic wing right now we're just doing drywall finishing got some paint started in some of these areas but like you see in the last slots you'll see some of the towel and case work and lockers start coming in here shortly same here this is area c just a little bit farther behind than

022the rest of the areas same thing going on here just laying drywall prepping for paint and floors and tile then this is area d which is the commons area lunchroom and then in the back parts where the library is going to be in media center this is the stairs in area d um the roofers in the next probably three weeks will have the roof on this area then this is area e which is up on the west side of the building which will be bathrooms weight rooms um locker rooms music rooms music rooms yeah then this is inside the competition gym we do have the roof on it now so that picture is a little bit old and this is in the auxiliary gym which is also the tornado shelter we've started overhead rough-ins there

023so probably within the next month we'll be painting in there is area g which is the kitchen we're almost finished with all the block walls in there we're starting next week measuring for kitchen equipment then this is also area e which is the locker rooms weight rooms any questions does anybody have any questions or comments here in relation to the pictures uh for the bond project uh board member sparks no questions just thank you for the progress thank you thank you all right there we go by the way if you don't follow jeff on twitter he puts pictures up every two or three days of that progress so you can watch the entire they won't know what your twitter handle is i don't know maybe you don't want to put that out here i don't

024know i'll give it to you it's actually jay clemens jeff um but yeah i try to put pictures on weekly sometimes twice a week depending on the progress we're making just to show everybody the progress we are making on site thank you again for being here both of you we appreciate it we are going to move on to item 4.01 this is our public comments um for tonight and so to go over kind of the uh processes for that we'll turn it over to our parliamentarian board member hedrick thank you we appreciate your attendance and your 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

025meeting 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 three minutes each your allotted three minutes will be counted 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 student staff in your remarks remain respectful and ensure your comments pertain to the district operations we also ask all audience members to remain respectful last lastly when your name is called go to the podium and clearly state

026your name and the organization you represent if any thank you very much board member hedrick um we it looks like we have seven speakers for tonight so i'll announce the first one and then also say who is coming up so that you know if you are coming up next so our first speaker is dana white and then i'm just i'm just joking we have five so the first speaker is robin gray and then the second speaker will be shelly poppin good evening hi my name is robin gray i'm a counselor at least up at north high school and i've been in the district 17 years i'm here to speak with you all tonight about the importance of black student unions in our schools i am the head sponsor at lisa north high school of our

027black student union black student union started in the late 1960s and as we fast forward to today they are still necessary in our schools if you were to examine the student organizations of surrounding colleges including mizzou umkc rockhurst ucmku state even johnson county you will see some sort of black student organization represented this is the first year that all three high schools in lsr7 have black student unions and each one has their own personal mission but our missions come from a very similar and familiar need the need to be heard supported and encouraged bsus serve a important resource in high schools a resource that can provide leadership development opportunities as this was the case when students have our meetings and prepare agendas and develop future events bsus are safe spaces for students to express themselves

028without fear of judgment bsus provide community involvement as was the case when i took a group of students to lee's summit elementary school and prairie view elementary school to discuss seat belt safety safety excuse me with students and two years ago i took a group of students to columbia missouri where columbia school districts have a program called max scholars max stands for multicultural achievement committee and they have a program that encourages underrepresented students to pursue higher level courses honors courses a b c ap courses and they work with mizzou to prepare students for their futures so black students have been instrumental in providing support uh to persist students for graduation and in this day our students are paying attention to what's said and what's not said in our school districts and around in society they

029experience or have experienced conversations behaviors activities throughout their educational lives that make them really uncomfortable but they can't they don't have a safe place to talk about those things so bsus give them that safe space to express how they feel with their fellow students bsus are inclusive we have white students we have asian students we're predominantly black but we have all students we include all students and they're constructive for all students so we feel i just help that the district will see the necessity for our bsus to be a part of the curriculum in the silly school district excuse me it is my hope that students faculty and administrators will continue to support them because they fit perfectly into the mission of lee's summit which is to prepare each student for success in life and

030our visions lee's summit r7 is is an exemplary school district graduating students who are college and career ready with competitive advantage necessary for success all the things that we do in the bsu fit into the vish the vision excuse me in the mission of lsr7 so it's my hope that uh lsr7 will get behind our bsus since we have them at all high schools now and will support us and help us to grow so that our students are successful thank you thank you very much second speaker is shelly poppin shelley no our third speaker is michelle barnes and then it'll be ashley auschwish my name is michelle barnes and i have three daughters in the district after hearing on the news this morning that school leaders are asking the board to continue the mask mandate

031i'm going to assume you all already know how you will vote without even listening to the parents according to cdc.gov as of yesterday there have been 542 deaths out of over 73 million kids the fatality rate of kids under 18 is less than .003 percent how many students in our district have died of covid how about we compare that number to the suicide deaths in our district the past 18 months the same kids my daughters sit next to all day with a mask are the same kids they hang out with after school the same kid kids my daughter has to stay away from at recess are the same kids she has sleepovers with you cannot sit there and tell me that wearing a mask for eight hours a day does not have a negative effect

032on their immune system or mental health why is something that affects every single one of the students in this district not up to the parents at all you know the majority of parents don't agree with their kids being masked all day yet you continue this unconstitutional mandate which one of you will stand up and say it's enough the majority of parents also do not agree with critical race theory in our schools they just don't realize that you are hiding it behind words like equity diversity and inclusion parents if you do not agree with critical race theory in our schools then you have got to speak out before it's too late do a little research and it won't take you long to realize the end goal of things like equity and inclusion public schools are the

033perfect place to indoctrinate our kids if the national school board asking the fbi to label upset parents as threats and domestic terrorists isn't enough to wake you up what will what will it take for you to realize what is happening to your children at school how far will it have to go for you to speak out in the book we will not be silenced erwin letzer says parents clothe their children feed them and send them to school but the hearts and minds of their kids are being stolen and molded by a world many of us don't understand as sad as it is he's right the job of the school board is to represent the parents and our kids but lately it seems like school boards are representing the government and not the parents when we

034no longer feel like you are representing us it is not only our right to speak out it is our duty as parents your job is to teach science math and history not label parents as threats think please take the masks off our kids thank you next speaker is ashley alsoish and then with our final speaker is calvin werner and rhonda ireland which are listed together good evening i am a concerned taxpayer and constituent in this district because it is my job as a parent to oversee curriculums and ideologies that are exposed to my children i submitted a missouri sunshine request to lsr-7 earlier this summer asking for a general overview of elementary level curriculum i then received an invoice for over 17 thousand dollars my husband and i revise our requests and then we ask

035for just a general search query most people can actually make that of a list of over 50 terms this time our invoice was around but in a professional email response this board actually responded saying there would be an approximate 41-year wait for you all to organize and deliver the information that we asked for for these reasons among many others you have seen me here over the last six months attending and speaking at board meetings i am a concerned taxpayer and constitution constituent in this district i am saddened that the national school board association with the current department of justice has now labeled me a domestic terrorist and a threat to you all this is something that is a direct violation of my first amendment rights and the missouri state school board association actually agrees with

036me this state school board has publicly has released public excuse me several public statements um disagreeing and dis distancing themselves from the nsba missouri is one of 18 states to do so however sadly this district wants to continue silencing us and our concerns the kansas city star summarizes statements from lsr7 with the following statement several education officials in missouri welcomed the doj effort saying that it may help teachers and board members feel safer lee's summit schools spokeswoman katie burgin says that the district is actually pleased and garland is prior prioritizing the protection of school employees and elected officials and threats of violence from threats of violence harassment and intimidation from that i have several questions for you all when have any of you actually felt threatened or unsafe at any of these board meetings we're

037not independents we're not even park hill why do you continue to attempt eliminating the parent prong in education growing up i always heard from my teachers in my school administration that there were a triangle and the prongs of education there's the teachers the students and then the parents and it just seems like we're not going to ever be able to find a solution with you all if you'd other if you would rather us not be here tonight how is it that we're ever going to work together in the future thank you for your time [Applause] thank you our final uh comments from tonight calvin werner and rhonda ireland hello my name is rhonda ireland and i've taught for 29 years in our school district know several of you and i have spoken quite a few

038times in the last five years and i'm excited to be here tonight i am here to talk about how excited i am about our three high schools and our black student unions and the work that we are doing to help our students all of our students feel safer in our hallways and in our classrooms and a year and a half ago when a group came to me and asked me to be the sponsor i was humbled and very excited about it and we were able to get it past during covet and like my friend and colleague robin gray has shared the need for it is ever present we are a public school district we service all in our community and as our community has become more diverse so is our school populations and we need

039to make sure that we're providing safe spaces for all of those students for all of our marginalized groups and i'm excited to let you hear from our bsu president calvin werner hi um hi everyone my name is calvin verner i am the president of harmony council and bsu at least the midwest and i just want to take the little bit of time that i have to tell a personal story but also the story of many other marginalized students in our school this is really a matter of safety when we really go down to it coming to school i feel very uncomfortable and i know this is the same experience that many other students have marginalized backgrounds whether they're disabled whatever it is feel coming to school every single day a large portion of my work

040outside of school consists of fighting for these students every single day and other students do this as well with me and at this point we should not have to beg for the bare minimum period it is not my job to be honest i should be doing my homework i've been met with resistance from staff and students alike in this struggle and frankly i'm just very tired creating a safer environment can look like many different things it should not be this difficult and you know we're not asking for a very big you know this very big change you know even a small start would do fine for now this can look like training for teachers to be culturally competent or cultural competent activities for students anything we exist whether you guys like it or not and

041therefore we have to be accommodated for equity is not a box to check off it's not a buzzword it's not some scary thing it needs to just be ingrained into the dna of the district and making sure that all students are protected and safe i thank you guys i just want to thank you guys for the work that you do but um we have a lot more so that's all thank you and i'd also like to invite you out to one of our bsu meetings so i will be sending everybody an email thank you thank you to everyone who came and commented during tonight's meeting we are going to move on to item 5.01 this is our board reports and meetings attended portion of the meeting members did submit the different meetings that they have

042attended especially in terms of committees but we will quickly highlight those and we will start with board member campbell this evening board member campbell great i attended the insurance committee meeting and again the team that works on that sarah mcmillan and her team did a great job sharing information with the committee there were some new committee members so the first thing they did was review kind of what the committee is asked to do we have that committee that includes building representation from every building in the district and basically that committee is asked to come to the meetings gather information and share that out with their buildings sarah also clarified what they're not asked to do they're certainly not asked to give you know insurance information advice or talk through any claims information that's why we

043have the insurance team um so that was a great way to kick the meeting off and then sarah and her team went into details about what the insurance open enrollment looked like what the plans look like for this year sharing that out so that all of our district staff will have that information as well so appreciate that meeting and appreciate that participation because we had great participation in that meeting as well a couple of other items i want to highlight i went to the miller park center homecoming picnic and really enjoyed meeting teachers staff current students and past students that had come back to visit for the homecoming so that was great and i also got to hear dr buck speak at the lee summit chamber of commerce state of our schools appreciated so much

044his partnership with the other schools that that were there representing school districts or schools that were there representing as well and he did a great job just really highlighting all the great things about our district i also attended the legislative session at sunset valley i think dr buck gave kudos and thank yous to all the legislators that um and representatives that were able to attend i would also like to extend the thank you to rachel flood and amy westacott for hosting us at the school and i really enjoyed the touring and talking with students and and talking with them so it was a great morning again of discussion and sharing information and that's everything from me thank you very much we're going to kind of ping pong back and forth we'll go to board member

045sparks we're doing something new i wasn't quite ready i know sorry i was just like you know we haven't done that before so i was just like hey i'm used to change so it's all right all right listen so i'm just going to just highlight my first um school tour which was at miller park let me tell you mr kelly the principal there hey miss alonzo vice principal they have great a great program they actually have three facets to their program i did put all that information in my notes but the biggest thing that i was able to take away is the love that they have for the students they truly love the kids and that's why you'll see me in schools as much as i can because that's what i want to do and

046be about is the art students thank you thank you board member sparks i'll try to alert us next time when we when we start going back there we go so all right so back to the left we're going to go to board member hedrick the only report committee i had was the finance committee and board member campbell will be given that report enough shortly okay thank you very much board member fritzy okay thanks very much of course i'm going to report on lee's summit educational foundation and our big event which just happened a couple saturdays ago was actually race for the future it was very successful and we're still awaiting the financial report to find out exactly how much monetarily but nearly 900 people registered for race for the future this year which was fantastic

047it's approximately 250 less than 2019 but it's a whole lot more than we had virtually last year so we were really happy about that big increase and just seeing everybody out there having a good time it was a beautiful day and all the participants it was just a wonderful thing we our top three schools with the highest participation did win grants and our third i'm going to go third to first third third place was woodland elementary and they get 250 for their school second place was hazel grove elementary and they get 750 grant and first place this year was sunset valley who you just saw here a little bit ago with a one thousand dollar grant for to promote education in their school so we're very happy with our participation from our all of our

048elementary schools who helped participate um we're coming along pretty well with our friends of the foundation campaign that we keep mentioning that we've raised over a hundred and thirty thousand dollars so far for this fiscal year and um we have a current list of sponsors which you can get to if you want to go to my report which is in the packet um also tastevely summit remember that we didn't get to have it last year this year we will have it on march the 5th so mark your calendars that'll be a great night to come out we're going to have our first meeting in december and we are excited about having a real taste for taste of lee summit this year just a little reminder if you do do holiday shopping through amazon which a

049lot of people do remember to go on their amazon smile and select lee summit educational foundation through the amazon smile program and when you do that they donate 0.5 percent of eligible purchases to our organization and that helps us have money to put back into our kids so in our schools thank you very much just some of the same things that um board member campbell mentioned um you know we did attend the miller park homecoming barbecue and had a good time just seeing all the action and meeting the kids and parents again the lee summit chamber of commerce state of the schools addresses again dr buck great job along with our the blue springs superintendent dr jerome and the summit christian academy and st michaels all gave reports and i really appreciate the chamber having

050that event that it's great to hear from all of those and see the camaraderie among the schools the legislative meeting yesterday yes absolutely a high point lots of great information at a wonderful school sunset valley and then today to cap it all off had so much fun i got to visit trail ridge elementary right before i came to the work session tonight to with lee's summit educational foundation to see their broadcasting team in action these are kids from fourth grade through sixth grade and they received the funding for their software and some of their equipment from a lee summit educational foundation grant that they got a peak grant they got last year and so it's always great to see the schools using that to help kids have great experiences and so just a just a

051real pleasure to serve in that capacity thank you very much thank you board member fridgey board member alan thank you president murdoch my quick report will be the fact that i assisted at race for the future and was lucky enough to be able to um make some announcements and um cheer folks on and also welcome dr buck certainly ahead a couple of humorous comments at least that i thought were humorous about that but also uh matthew ketuman last year's teacher of the year and kim his wife sang the national anthem which was a fantastic treat and they did great so that was that was awesome um chrissy sims gave me three or four pages or so for script and i think i read about a half of one page and kind of went off from

052there but attended the legislative meeting yesterday that was outstanding and uh really was pulled away from a few things that i would otherwise attended hence the chamber luncheon but uh was in er with a member of her family at that time so i didn't quite get there but that was good thank you board member marshall thank you i had the pleasure of attending a lee summit cares committee meeting and i had two things to report back the first one this saturday october 29th they will be doing a drug take back a disposal of drugs safely and that will be uh 100 to 14 10 o'clock to 2 p.m 10 o'clock to 2 p.m yeah you're welcome this saturday one location will be at john knox village which board member fritzy will be there accepting drugs

053and disposing of them safely okay got you uh there's two other locations the the police department and lisa medical center now if you go to the lisa mccarran's website there is a link to where you can find other locations if saturdays does not work for you and you can get your drugs disposed of safely another thing that we discussed was the different programs and initiatives that lisa mccares covers in their in their overall organization one thing we talked about was the youth advisory board whose overall mission um is to promote mental health positive mental health and other challenges that their peers um face and the unique thing about this committee is that it's focused um with the the lease summit community as a whole because as we know lee's summit is in some other districts

054so right now they are focusing on um bringing in more volunteers uh in the adult capacity to assist with these young people as they you know begin to advocate uh they advocate at city council meetings they even go down to jeff city to promote these things that are impacting the youth so there will be more information to come for that and how you can get involved and help mentor and advise these young people as they pretty much lead the way and see was there one more thing nope that was it that was it thanks thank you very much just a couple of things uh for me i also attended the insurance committee meeting with board member campbell and i'm going to continue to every time i'm on those calls indoor meetings ask the question of

055how is this sustainable essentially um because it's not so we're going to keep working on that component and that's not anybody's fault by the way so but i do think it's a question that we're going to have to be continually asking every year we also then dr buck and i attended essentially our quarterly meeting with mayor baird and city manager arbo to talk and continue some of the collaborative efforts that we already have started with those city leaders and i think it would be okay to tell the board members we are looking at doing a joint meeting between the city council and the school board um hopefully in in december or january somewhere in that time frame we're still trying to get that scheduled but we do think it would be very productive with the

056number of initiatives that we have that are combined between the two entities so we think that that will be really important to make sure that we all are on the same page that we all are communicating out to constituents throughout the city the positive things that are going on between our school district and the city because there are a lot of things a lot of good things happening so um yeah absolutely is that okay okay um so uh that that's the other thing and then we did have our district leadership meeting of vice president marshall and i with dr buck and we'll continue doing that here in a couple weeks the last thing all the board members i believe are going to be at the msba conference here in just a couple of weeks so

057we're going to spend a weekend together going through some different presentations and stuff like that it's here in kansas city this year which is exciting that we don't have to travel so we'll be doing that in a couple of weeks and that is all from me we're going to move on to our uh item six which is our finance committee and our finance committee report and it sounds like it's gonna be board member campbell this month it is thank you um we met yesterday as board member hendrick shared and we reviewed the contracts 15 and less we also reviewed the konica minolta project information and so this is a great initiative because they're actually going through and consolidating printing and kind of moving away from everybody has a desktop printer to that consolidated printing focus

058with that with this item that we'll be reviewing tonight they'll have 28 new printers 60 will go on service contracts and 175 will be eliminated so that was great great work on that on that part they also were reviewing the paper corporation a paper bid award so you might remember a few weeks or a few months ago we talked about um paper and approved that this is a little bit separate because with storage concerns this allows our district to be able to purchase the amount of paper that we can store and not have to purchase things that we can't we don't have room for so we'll be reviewing that for approval as well heartland seating is at lee's summit high school in the bee gym there have never been bleachers so if there is an

059event there um or some type of uh competition they put out folding chairs as part of the overall construction some of that storage space where those folding chairs are stored is going away and so these bleachers are the kind that collapse down so they'll still have room for student events in the gym and then they'll be able to pull these bleachers out so that's up for our approval black and mcdonald do network cabling for us and so this will augment the resource that we have in the it department that does a lot of the network cabling to assist with work that we need to have accomplished also there will be network equipment purchased through converge one so we're reviewing that for approval one that i'm very excited about is you know we've talked a lot

060about clinics in school medical care behavioral health care mental health care in our schools making it more accessible for our students making it more accessible for our parents eliminating that sometimes need for a parent to take off work to be able to have some supports for their students and so this agreement opens that door from a mental health perspective so burrell behavioral health is a company that currently is in the springfield nixa area they are looking to expand their footprint to the kansas city area and this agreement will allow us to open that door with them looking at potentially five behavioral health counselors that will be in our schools right now those won't be fixed locations because we want them to be able to float but are part of this agreement is providing that space

061for those services to occur and then parents would engage around that students would be engaged for that and the fees would be through the parents insurance and those kinds of things so one question that we discussed is what insurance companies do they accept and those kinds of things so as they're moving to this area they'll be looking to increase that to some of the kansas city area insurance companies as well and so just kind of walking through how that would work and there will be more discussion around this after we sign that agreement but it would be services available on school site during school hours for our students which is i think just that great first step and definitely mental health is the start medical services more to come and more to discuss and follow

062about that so i'm really excited to see see that progress any questions on that item okay great um okay just a quick question you mentioned about the collaboration with the insurance are there uh procedures put in place for those community members who may have a barrier in that area who don't have insurance so yes the plan is to open up access for all students and that there would be grant money or different avenues they do they will accept medicaid that kind of thing as well but also for students that do not have insurance to ensure their services for those students as well great question and thank you because i i wanted to highlight that as well so thanks um kaplan kirsh rockwell um another company that we're going to work with they provide legal services

063in a space that the current legal you know we've talked a lot about attorneys that we work with as a school district this group is specifically in the avenue of aerospace and so they will work with us and help us as we're discussing with the city of lee summit um that collaboration around our new aerospace academy so this is an approval just for us to work with this firm and then we did have a couple of human resources items non-allocated requests for an assistant director of design and construction and we know how hard kyle grill and his staff currently work this is one more position that will assist them in all of these bond construction projects because the work is huge and this will definitely assist them in getting that work completed and managing that

064work really well for us another non-allocated request for a paraprofessional specialist to work one-on-one so there was a student with an iep that needs this one-on-one paraprofessional that we currently cannot fulfill just with current staffing so that's what this is about and then around the bond budget update really excited to share and i know earlier in the work session dr miller highlighted some of these items as well but currently the athletics is continuing to be 1.75 million dollars under budget lee's summit high school currently is around 2 million under budget we are keeping those budget numbers in place though because we do know that's a three-year construction project the new middle school east trails middle school is currently running 1.3 million dollar under budget and with mason general you know we have the guaranteed price

065the guaranteed maximum price and with the construction a lot of that work being completed now we will get a return of 300 thousand dollars coming back in that building's line item from the construction company so that's very exciting as well also in the work session we highlighted paradise park the security and then some of the middle school renovations and the additional monies that would be allocated around those so i just wanted to highlight those from a bond budget update and then we'll talk a little bit more about the transfer of funds we will let you go ahead and do that okay thank you and i'm clicking and i'm clicking to do that i move that we approve the transfer of three million four hundred and forty four thousand nine hundred and eighty four dollars and

066thirty seven seven cents from the general fund to the special revenue fund second motion and a second to approve the transfer of funds is there any discussion on 6.02 okay all those in favor please raise your hand and say aye aye aye any opposed motion carries unanimously board member campbell the finance committee recommends that the board i move that the board of education approves the treasurer report and the payment of the bills second okay motion in a second to approve uh 6.03 and pay the bills any discussion on that one all those in favor please raise your hand and say hi hi opposed motion carries unanimously thank you board member campbell appreciate that thank you we're going to move on to item 7 this is our consent agenda for tonight we're looking at items 7.01

067through 7.15 it's at this time that i'd ask any board members is there any item that needs uh to be pulled and discussed individually board member campbell i don't want to pull it and discuss it individually but i did just want to make a comment on the board policies we would pull it if we want to have a discussion about it we will pull it and make it an individual item okay then i'll skip it you sure yep thank you okay yeah it's no problem okay hey you'll be able to on the next time since it's only the first read too right so okay i moved to approve the consent agenda items 7.01 through 7.15 as presented second okay we have a motion and a second to approve the consent agenda tonight all those in

068favor of the consent agenda please raise your hand and say aye aye any opposed motion carries unanimously we are going to move on to items uh for decision tonight so in eight we're going to start with 8.01 this is the non-allocated request for the assistant director of design and construction and these first two were just mentioned by board member campbell um do we do you have anything to add dr buck or dr miller well this position well this is probably last time you'll see these separates because you just approved it and consent agenda it's been historical we just wouldn't want to give you the heads up before we made the change it's been historical we list them again but it is redundant because if you didn't vote now but you did just vote for the

069personnel which vote do i go by so um the second the second one we would be careful because there is an individual attached to that so um in fact if we have to have discussion second one that needs to move to closed session so we can make sure we don't disclose information we shouldn't disclose but the first one is uh you know you know there's a lot going on renovation wise and now we're getting into middle school renovations um renovations are harder so kyle and he has one assistant now this will be a second assistant to help him um complete our task at hand okay so we'll take a motion for 8.01 just understanding that this will end up in the personnel report from here on that's what you're saying right yes it already is

070right right in future meetings we won't see these okay i move that the board approved the request for non-allocated assistant director of design and construction okay we have a motion and a second for 8.01 is there any further discussion all those in favor please raise your hand and say aye aye all those opposed motion carries unanimously we need a motion for 8.02 for the paraprofessional specialist i move to approve the request for a non-allocated one-on-one paraprofessional specialist second motion in a second for item 8.02 um is there any discussion on this item okay all those in favor please raise your hand and say hi hi any opposed motion carries unanimously item 8.03 this is our 2022 middle school boundaries uh discussion for tonight um in terms of trying to make a decision on what we're

071going to do with our middle schools and elementary schools you have the attached powerpoint board members that is very similar obviously to the one that we received before in the work session dr buck dr miller is anything that you would like to add at this time i think dr miller's going to come up the recommendation has been made by the committee and the committee is done so if you have questions she's here to answer them she tried to answer questions for you as well in between when they made the recommendation and today and so you have some documents there that are part of those answers but she's happy to answer any other questions and the recommendation is in front of you so at this time board members if you if you have any questions for

072dr miller or [Music] comments regarding this i do think what we should do even before we do that is i do think we should have a motion on the floor before we start questions or discussions in regards to this 8.03 i move that the board approve the proposed middle school boundaries for the 2022-23 school year as presented sir second i will second it for the discussion okay so at this time if you have questions for dr miller or comments now's the time board member fridgey okay um first of all i wanted to say that i deeply appreciate all of our community volunteers and our school district volunteers who served on this committee i know that that's not an easy job and that it took lots of time effort study maybe even some stress and tension

073in the process because this is a huge process when you're trying to decide boundaries anytime you go that direction i truly do appreciate the time they said over a thousand hours i believe in our work session collectively that all of those folks spent um in this project i keep coming back to as i look at the final two plans that were presented to us and considering the comments that we've received from many of our patrons our parents and keep looking at the numbers and then i guess my biggest point of reference is working for 18 years at the middle school level as an assistant principal um watching the kids walk through the door on the first day of school we've got kids anywhere from about four feet tall to about six feet tall and the

074range of emotions that come through on the faces of the kids as they walk through the door on the first day of school the amount of anxiety that i see in those faces sometimes some kids are fine but there are a lot of kids who are worried they're worried about a lot of things when they start middle school it's the first time for them to change classes they're worried about how if they're going to make the class on time they're worried about can i open my locker they're worried about the possibility of taking showers and pe they're worried about lots of many different things because it's unknown territory for them as they're coming from elementary school their emotional needs are one of the things that i just really keep coming back to as i look

075at the plans for splitting students from several of our elementary schools many more than more than we do excuse me than we do now i have a hard time with that splitting our kids from the elementary side to the middle school side i can't quite wrap my head around that why it's so necessary for us to take our kids and from our elementary schools and take them from their friends as they go into one of the most stressful transitions that they will experience in their school career honestly that move from middle school to high school is not as traumatic as the move it is from elementary school to middle school and um i just need to say that i cannot support the pink option that is being suggested and i think of the two options

076the two final options that were presented prior to that the landing on the pink option that i believe the purple option is actually better because there is only one elementary school in the entire district that is split under that option to send those kids from elementary school to secondary and this really hurts my heart because i hate not to support our administration and our teachers and our parents who work so hard but i just in my gut i just can't do that thanks board member hedrick pretty much my comments are pretty much ditto what board member fritchey indicated that's the big sticking point for me as well on the pink plan is the number of elementary schools that are being split and i do have a serious concern about doing that so that's my really

077my only comment board member campbell so i so much appreciate the people that volunteered to be a part of the committee and all of the work that they did and i appreciated um at each step of the kind of the project the timeline the check-in here with the board this is how we're progressing the committee representation in those discussions and coming to the the board with the updates and and sharing that information i also appreciated that at the open sessions you know where the public was invited to come in that those were led by the committee members and they were there to answer the questions and really after each one of those open sessions and after each survey point went back and did the hard work and the evaluation to really come to the very

078best recommendation that as a committee and as an administration is being presented for us here tonight i think and we talked a little bit about this in the work session that in our district in our growing in our growing community in our growing district we have got to be thinking about change change for our families change for our students and that is hard and it does go to pulling heartstrings about your child and making those decisions around that i know dr miller and i'd like to ask you if you would reiterate because we talked a little bit about the social emotional supports for the transitions as well as for the students that might have to make multiple changes where a parent or a student is concerned about that what options they have available if we

079did progress with the pink plan well i think first and foremost um our building leaders take this very seriously right and so you know one of the outlines that we we've provided to the board is really boundaries are established we establish staffing and then it quickly shifts to focusing on students and making sure that we connect with families bring kids into buildings and really kind of get a sense of ownership if transition or to is to occur the second component to that is there's safeguards in place board policy jcb administrative procedure two really takes into consideration students with unique special needs that needs to be considered by administration we have that ability to do that for for students and so it's really a matter of enacting that thank you thank you for highlighting that and

080dr buck in the work session we discussed a little bit because this concept of change for for our district the thought of boundary review and when what is the right cadence of when we're discussing as a community when these boundary changes might need to be made and how we're evaluating that can we talk a little bit about that as well so there's kind of two times that happens one when you're opening a new building like we are right now in the fall of 22 that necessitates a boundary change obviously but there also is a time where you might outgrow one facility but be under in another facility but you're not to the point you need an extra facility so you need to shift to stay in your current facilities without going out for a bond

081and that's what happened previously with our high schools and their previous boundary change so those reviews on the previous ones we can do on a regular basis how often i don't know it really depends on how fast you grow but we can try to set a standard number of years to at least look at it then and i'd rather i want to get with our demographer and kind of figure out when that would be but obviously if if things grow fast you know say if pri land starts growing fast and we we get this 30 000 more of patrons here uh in the pri land faster than than later that moves that up faster so it all depends on on our growth and where our growth within our district's happening but this one isn't on

082a regular piece this one's on we had a new building added and it automatically connects us to a process of doing a boundary and and i appreciate the six months and and over a thousand hours that the committee put into this so thank you and and with that just the concept of a person looking at houses and thinking about that maybe has a two-year-old that they're buying a house in the lee's summit high school area by the time that that student is ready for high school in a growing community that may change those boundary lines may have to shift that's correct and so i'm a product of that as well i'm a parent and i have a seventh grader in one middle school being a different middle school is an eighth grader regardless if it's

083pink or purple or any of the other 50 options they look at just based on where i live i was guaranteed to switch so my seventh grader will be in four buildings in four years without making a move from sixth grade to seventh grade to eighth grade to ninth grade um but that is part of being in a vibrant growing community which we all want that growth and that vibrancy absolutely all right thank you so much board member sparks i would like to say i appreciate the dialogue and the conversation has taken place i [Music] understand the sentiments of kim and the um the fact that we're dealing with students we're dealing with children that have feelings they have emotions they have concerns they have care i think that's why it's important the work that

084we're doing because our job as a district is to on day one to make sure every single one of our students no matter what building what bus what teacher they feel love they feel cared for and they're getting exactly what they need to be successful and so i think with creating that culture and i um through some of the in-persons um opportunities that um stakeholders had um to give their input and when those concerns came from parents and being able to engage with them and to be able to see dr miller interact and answer some of the questions and the fact that we may not have options of grandfathering in we may not have other options but the one option that we that i do know that you explained was if for whatever reason if

085a kid feels that they're not safe that they're not welcomed in a particular building then their steps in place regardless if we was doing a boundary change or not for those families to be able to um to make sure that their kid is cared for in in in it and is in a great place ultimately i don't want anyone to feel like it's a particular building that makes their kid feel loved i want it to be that this is our district this is our full community that makes everyone feel loved and ready to start on day one the other point that i just want to bring up that i think is very important is the free and reduced lunch percentage i think that's a very um big point to highlight that the team did work

086hard that those were the metrics and the facts that they looked at and um i think regardless however a board member may vote for pink or purple i don't think it's discrediting the work that they're doing but i i want to truly go on record saying that i want more participation from the community and i think it's important to if we're asking for the community to be part of the process and to do the work then we must trust that they're truly doing the work that's going to benefit not their own individual student but our student population at large and so i'm going to trust the recommendation and i just pray to go along with mrs campbell's um thing is we need to be having these conversations before it's time to make this shift and

087if this we know that we're growing we're in a growing community so let's start having these conversations let's bring in the individuals to the table that is necessary to have these conversations so that when families move here to lee's summit as a community we know that changes are still taking place and that we're making the best decisions because also what i don't want us to do is to just be building buildings and not making changes um and then we have to do changes to try to play catch-up and so i much rather us to go on pace with the growth that's happening in our community so thank you for the work thank you for all the stakeholders and then also if you have not participated in the things in the um this is an opportunity

088to get involved um and that's why i think it's important that katie continue doing her work but then also let's find other avenues and ways to get more input before it's too late thank you board member sparks board member marshall thank you president murdoch dr miller i just want to say thank you for the hard work that was put in starting back way in the spring and knowing that throughout the summer participation would decline just because of the nature of you know summertime right i think that moving forward you know war member sparks hit on it very um efficiently we have to get creative on how we engage our community members um and really more specifically those specific community members that are being impacted by whatever decision it is that's that's uh before us um

089we just have to get creative on doing that um and uh you know every email that's come through every any type of dialogue that i've received um you know i just took it for face value and you know looking at the data that has been provided to us over time for me the numbers just just didn't add up as far as you know minimizing the impact because because no matter what what happens children are going to be impacted families are going to be impacted and this isn't going to be the first it's not the first time and that's just the reward you know that we have for having such a flourishing community that people aspire and they desire to move into um so creating a cadence for boundary checks is absolutely imperative to prepare families

090uh leading up to this i think when you hit on earlier at the work session about the 19th elementary school coming that that puts it on the radar for those already in our community and the ones coming into our community because they can access that information and i think that's very imperative but for me the numbers just didn't add up um you know when we're talking about minimizing the impact and the more i dug into it you know the recommendation you know i started to notice transportation issues because we know in that southwest corner is growing road closures are happening some roads just aren't as safe as other roads and you're envisioning you know little ones on well not so little some of them are what six feet tall like you said uh you know

091on buses it's just um it just didn't it just didn't add up for me um and i think that you know no matter what it's it's not you know that uh says uh you know we don't or i don't support you know the recommendation and that our duty and our charge up here is to support the community and so by default that's the duty in charge of everyone from dr buck on down with putting students first so i do appreciate the hard work because i know you put in a lot of work outside of you know your your day-to-day stuff this is this is not some easy thing that that um you know you started with a plethora of colors right and now we're down to two so i the appreciation is there for the

092work that was that was uh putting into this board member alan uh thank you president murdoch thank you dr miller and um yeah the amount of hours in time um you've probably gone down this path a couple of times but i'm gonna ask it again slow learner sitting here i guess will you spend a moment talking about the rationale under this pink option of each aspect and i'll kind of start from the bottom up oh it doesn't matter top down maintain lower enrollment at uh smls to allow for future growth now is that future growth primarily at summit lakes middle school or is that future growth in all four of the middle schools primarily the southwest corner we you know the demographer projects growth there um and so what we try to do is boundary

093studies are emotional they're emotional for families they impact kids one of the things we tried to do is create a map that would project out eight nine ten years so we're not back at this again so that's one of the reasons behind the pink option that's pretty significant all right and yet the trails is primarily east southeast right yes as far as new middle school and we don't i mean demographer is projection that's not certain but certainly you're correct but we also know that there's there's known growth patterns and then there's unknown growth patterns which we may learn about this year with pri right and so that might be more that might impact that area all the more so again trying to forecast so that we don't continue to put our families through this needlessly

094and that was that's a major uh recommendation as part of pink yeah yeah prn maybe 10 years out we don't there's no i mean there's no you're correct so by 10 years out we may be moving some of this in the meantime another elementary school who knows that may end up going to the southwest but then ensuring balance and limited middle school high school splits again now or later or both so i want to spend a little bit of time on that because board member fritchey and and i unders i understand the point but i when we surveyed our community and i don't want this to be lost on the board question 5 focused on transition right should we focus more on elementary to middle or middle to high we had over 500 respondents and

095again it was a leaning it wasn't a hard and fast but we had over 160 responses that said yes you know middle school to high school where you have kids that can transition together that made sense whereas elementary to middle it was about 130. so i i get there's there's rationale for both sides completely understand that but i think there's concerns with splitting middle schools to three high schools when you consider the planning and preparation and the coordination it takes to move kids to high school it's the scheduling it's coordinating activities it's camps that's time intensive on a middle school and i think that needs to be part of the discussion we've had the benefit of having direct feeders for several years this is a pretty significant change and being mindful of that transition from

096middle to high school should also be considered i agree yet we've had three middle schools and two high schools in the past i mean this is not but uncharted middle school splitting to three high schools is something very different than three middle schools to two high schools that's different no she's saying one particular middle school will have kids in eighth grade who will go to three different high schools in the purple plan and the pink plan does not have three different high schools in one particular middle school it's so it's the balance of elementary versus later 160 versus 130 again that's it's difficult understood it's a leaning right leaning one way or the other so it's hard and fast but that's that's another pulse on the community that i just wanted to bring to your

097attention yeah then the last is to provide more balance of free and reduced lunch populations and when it's when i'm flipping between pink and purple in that in the numbers provided so let's say purple is it total impact to kids 465 and then fnr to the bottom right number or any of these i mean numbers of kids changing dramatic i mean do we know you know numbers of children not percentages as to what the difference is i mean slms right summit lakes goes from 7.7 to 9.2 i think that's a matter of 46 versus 35 students am i missing my numbers or not yes so 11 people to me is not a big factor maybe maybe i'm not of that 11 or what have you and maybe it is a big factor i'm not sure

098but seven points even the percentage 7.2 to 9.7.7 and 9.2 [Music] does not seem like a a large large number per se district 19. i guess my point is in that regard it seems like there's a really small difference there when you look at the range so you've got a 19 or a 9.2 to a 26 point i think what eight um and then you have a seven point seven twelve twenty eight point five so that's another factor kind of consider it from a range perspective okay um there's a couple of extra percentage points when you look at it like that meister and the other thing i would just caution you about so when we're talking about free and reduced lunch and this is one of the reasons why when we talked at the team

099it was it was important we don't have great free and reduced lunch data and we know the economy has changed drastically we had to go back to 1920 to actually pull the data and translate that forward because last year students were on waivers this year students are on waivers right now i believe it's sitting at 12 percent and we know that's that's not an accurate picture of what's happened to our families it's a really understanding uh free and reduced lunch and the grids um in the particular maps because when we go back and if we go back to parents filling out information we could see an inflation of those numbers so that's why we really had some deep conversations about that mike i'll add the first engagement series when we had i don't know how

100many plans we had up quite a few that was some of the parent feedback too is what these range of free reduced lunches from the lowest one to the highest one in middle schools is too much please address that so that was feedback after the first engagement that the committee then looked at yes all right i my my biggest stumbling block block and all of that and i thank you for taking the time over those four points it's still we're upsetting x number of elementary schools versus one and so i'm thinking granted we're effective in a number of students 465 and 501 the numbers are close to equal or they're close but it's one school versus however many others so that's my biggest reservation i keep going back to that saying hmm scratching my hand

101and wondering and not knowing that any of this is certain past 2023 2024 for that matter so i just it's if we want to minimize so to speak the least amount of like logistics it seems like one school makes more sense than what four five i think it's seven total so okay seven sorry the numbers are small numbers but okay thank you um i'm gonna offer a few comments here unless other people have uh other ideas um and stuff to offer um the first thing that i would offer here is um i do think that there needs to be a point made about balance and continue to highlight that balance is important and that while uh elementary school is splitting in this particular plan and i'm referencing the pink plan right now okay so um

102elementary school splitting uh goes up um from five to seven the majority and dr miller and i have talked about this um the majority of them are still balanced splits meaning you know you're gonna have a fifth grade class i guess and now since we're moving into the middle school model i almost had to catch myself there but those fifth grade classes are going to split relatively evenly with a notable exception of one school but they already are a split school so their community has i mean it would still be a normal school year essentially for them and i think that that balance is important because in the purple plan well yes we only impact richardson i think when you look at the middle schools it is not balanced at all in terms of splitting

103off and having these trails students and pleasantly students split into three while it's a short-term issue i think it also deserves a little bit of weight that you're opening a new building and then asking those kids who are now going to a completely new building as well to then split into thirds um here just after a couple of years so i think that that's something else that obviously alleviates itself over time as that school gets established um but just forming a new school community which east trails will be doing and then asking them to split into thirds um i think uh could be have issues i mentioned to board member fritchey and you know and i said i was going to bring it up here too because you know um i don't want to base

104a decision on the number of messages that we have received because i think that that's not necessarily indicative of what the community has been talking about especially when you talk about the engagement series and stuff that people have come to and also provided feedback but you know one of the things that board member fritchey and i talked about is the impact of kids going from elementary to middle school and the changes that that brings the emotional changes the changes in schedules and stuff like that and the thing that i offered because i do think it is a huge transition is the huge transition is going to be there regardless of what plan we're actually passing you know it doesn't matter um sorry for everybody it does matter i'm not saying that it's not important um

105but a lot of those things the social emotional issues and things like that are going to be prevalent and present for these kids and for the most part when you are moving with your neighborhood and the kids that are you have grown up with that is the support network that carries you through that transition and in this particular case those neighborhoods are intact um and so i do think that that's something that we need to consider and then the last thing that i would offer is you know one of the biggest things that i went through and i do think it's a very difficult decision um is going back to your guiding criteria that the committee used what was the guiding criteria for trying to come up with these particular plans um and in the

106end you know i mean we have the guiding criteria of trying to be balanced of trying to maintain enrollment um and you know ultimately looking at our free and reduced lunch populations all of those were part of our guiding criteria when we were doing this the transportation issues and and such um and so i do think that we need to respect that the 50 people on the committee spent i'll be perfectly honest spend far more time on it than than i have been able to right i mean we can receive the feedback we can have all the discussions we want but the committee is the one that was looking at the enrollment the maps and trying to make the best recommendation possible and so i do think that the pink option ultimately is going to

107be the best option for us and i'm going to support that tonight is there any other questions comments sorry board member campbell i think i think you highlighted it and i just wanted to confirm i thought it was about 50 folks that we had on the committee is that right that's 99 45 45 i just counted 45. great yeah and i do want to share and i know many board members have said this already i agree i cannot thank them enough to president murdoch's point they have spent way more you have spent way more hours evaluating these weighing the pros and cons weighing the impact and i just appreciate all that effort and all that work and thank you so much i appreciate those comments the the t the committee was very earnest in their

108work and dedicated um so and some of the committee members are here tonight so appreciate them being here any other comments or questions before we take a vote okay mrs mark can we have a roll call vote on this one please board member campbell emotion the motion before us is to adopt the pink plan okay so yes would be for the pink plan board member sparks board member hedrick no board member fridgey no board member allen no vice president marshall no president murdoch yes motion fails four to three so at this point we would need a new motion or i guess at this point the board could also vote to table this until next month i mean you did get that answer in the board packet as well so that would also be an option

109if people want to charge the committee or dr miller to evaluate some other things without passing purple tonight so i don't i'm not trying to sway you one way or another i'm saying those are our two options essentially either we put a motion on the table for purple or we table it for tonight i just want to add if we do table it that probably makes it pretty much difficult if not possible to have our staffing in place by the time the semester ends which is our goal so we people can make their decisions and we can go in the hiring process so anybody can can start with motion if they want i move that the board approved the purple option of pro for the proposed middle school boundaries for the 22-23 school year take

110the word proposed out of there the purple option for middle school boundaries second okay so we have a motion and a second to adopt the purple plan um and so we will take any discussion or comments board member sparks i was actually going to make another motion uh but that motion beat me so any questions or comments i'm only going to offer one comment that you know and this i hope isn't taken the wrong way you know in previous meetings we've talked about the need to honor the commitment that people made in terms of making recommendations committees and stuff like that and i've been guilty of it too so i want to recognize that and so we are going against the community members that just served on our committee along with a lot of our

111staff members who put forth this recommendation matt ask a question sure or consideration to roderick sparks is there an amendment you would want to add to the motion that is on the floor or is this a very different situation it's totally different okay but i will just second rhyme it up any other comments or questions okay so mrs smart will take a roll call vote on this motion please board member hedrick i board member alan aye board member campbell no vice president marshall aye board member fridgey aye board member sparks aye president murdoch no motion passes five to two thank you very much dr miller we are going to move on to item 8.04 that is the extension of the mask requirement within our schools and dr buck do you want to lead this one

112off here sure at the back in august board meeting august 5th special board meeting we said we would revisit this today i will say that we do have two mask mandates still in place until november 4th for summit point elementary and november 7th for jackson eastern jackson county so we do have it to those dates so before us now is do we extend beyond those dates if they don't extend obviously a fixed end we have to comply um our numbers in jackson county have declined quite a bit since uh mid-september early september they are still in the high range but they're getting close to coming out of the high the high range if you remember we had the green you know yellow and red we're we're getting almost out of the red um so we're

113getting closer um some stats for you uh to consider is that our quarantines per positive case have gone down considerably second semester last year so january through may we were averaging 9.4 quarantines per positive case we have more kids in our buildings this year we're down to two percent of our kids being online so 20 like last year and we're in five days a week yet our quarantine level has dropped to 3.3 as of tuesday per positive case so i'm almost dropped into third there's two reasons uh for that um even though the kid counts have gone up this semester compared to last semester if you look at the county data kid cases are making up a higher percent now in the county that's because you do not have to quarantine if one of two

114things are in place one you're quarantined yourself and you're not showing symptoms you don't have to quarantine if you're a close contact to a positive case and our middle school and high school kids have that option and and we have quite a few that have vaccinated our little ones don't have that option the second way you can avoid a quarantine if you're a close contact to a positive case is if you're both mass both kids are massed so right now that is helping keep our number down we're hopeful that our younger students will have the option the families will have the option to get vaccinated soon but they don't currently do not have that option so just want to throw some data points out there for you and and turn it over to you guys

115to decide what you want to do okay um so board members what we will do here first just like we did with the last one we'll take a motion you can see what the administrative recommendation is um to continue the the mask mandate until our november board meeting at which time we could reevaluate it and might have obviously not only data from the county but also then we might have some vaccine announcements and stuff like that too we don't know that obviously as of yet but certainly with the meeting scheduled for next week from the fda and the like we would probably have some more data to go on during the november board meeting but we do need a motion before we uh start any discussion please so i actually do not want to make

116the recommended emotion motion but i would like to make a motion for us to not revisit this until second semester and i can give some basis on why i'm making that motion you would need to can i ask to please clarify what you're i did yeah you would need to just make emotions so my motion is for us not to revisit um removing masks or the mass mandate until after until the conclusion of first semester so basically you're asking to continue the mask mandate until the end of the first semester is that that is correct thank you to clarify that's january what 15 plus or minus 20. it's our last day of december correct last day of school no it is not do you have that date right off the top of your head i

117certainly do not have a date off top look at the calendar january 14th thank you dr kenny you get the star so i do think we so can you reword the motion then because if if that's the way so it'd be january 14th i make a motion that we revisit the mass mandate on january once we return from our holiday after january the 14th second okay so we have a motion and a second to continue to revisit the mask mandate on january the in our january board meeting after the january 14th end of the first semester comments um i'm actually going to start on this one just just because i have my thoughts kind of together president murdoch yeah sure i understand you have your thoughts because i made the motion can i just speak

118to the motion sure absolutely thank you go for it so basically my thoughts is consistency um for our students i know that every time it's on on board docs we're getting emails we're hearing from the community it is creating anxiety and i just believe that the reason why our numbers are going down is because of the more students are able to stay in school and not be at home due to quarantining because of the mass swearing and i just believe that it's much easier um just to be able to just kind of make that call now we obviously know holidays we knew what happened last year and i just am afraid that we may have some of that same um things go on um during the holiday time so that's why i wanted to make

119that motion thank you appreciate that um so i would like to offer a couple of things um i'm one i mean it's probably no shock you know that um the reason that one of the administrative recommendations was there was talking it through with with leadership um on where to go with that particular um date two reasons number one is is that you know if the vaccines become available for kids um at that point we finally will have had some options for everybody within our school district which i think for the longest time we have been telling the community that that's one of the big guiding factors is that we haven't had vaccines available for our elementary students if there are vaccines available for elementary students and all indications would would certainly point to the fact

120that they will be available by halloween i mean that's that's where all the data is pointing here you would be talking about everybody having an opportunity essentially by the first of december mid-december at the absolute latest i would think for those who would choose to do that i mean it's really the supply is there so it's probably actually thanksgiving really but so for me i'm fine with continuing to revisit it at this point um you know i'm i'm going to be very supportive of anything to once everybody's had a chance to have vaccines to remove masks i want to be very upfront on that um and so um i think we owe it to the community we've been waiting telling all along that we wanted to wait until vaccines for the younger kids show up

121um to continue to to discuss that the topic um and i think we'll have the information we need come the november board meeting to actually set a firm date um i think waiting until the end of january is actually going to cause even more angst in the community than than revisiting it each month board member allen we are at complying by the jackson county health department right november 7. is that the date yeah for every building except for summit point is in eastern jackson county it's november 7th um for summit point there in the kansas city health department kansas city purview and there is uh they're too november 4th right now we do not know if the either one of those entities are going to ask for an extension or not with that then our

122vote was to go through the first quarter correct so our school is district is really october 22nd is that right well the first quarter is yeah tomorrow is the end of the first quarter so right now our mass mandate expires tomorrow but we still have to comply by the health department so even if we let it expire and don't extend it we have to comply with the help or with the county and the city which right now is november 7th and 4th respectively all right well i will since you've offered your opinion about revisiting this november 18th much like i talked about at the meeting when we had this august 5th special session i'm going to let the health department guide my opinion of where this should be so if it ends november 7th i

123would just soon end it november 7th and let our health professionals for jackson county set the mandate for our district and if they lift it november 7th i just assume we lift it in the school district because even beyond where we might visit november 18th it will become even a lot i believe a larger more contentious issue especially at the secondary level high schools predominantly maybe not the middle schools so what so whatever the whatever the motion may be i'll probably be voting no on any of them unless it is ended if the county ends it quite frankly okay uh board member hedrick i just have a question so um in terms of switching learning modes what does that look like for families at this point if we would decide you know to go with

124the november 7th date and we have families who are concerned about their kids coming to school without masks on what do do they have options at that point or or when do they have options or kind of along the way does that so moving from in person to online is easier than going from online to in person but it could create some staffing issues for us it depends on the volume but we will try to accommodate the best we can with people moving in person online which we're already are doing and we did last year as well so so we would allow them to change yes if they wanted to change from in person to online because of our mask decision yes correct okay thank you board member campbell i i appreciate everybody's input and

125i appreciate the focus for the safety of our students i think that's in the forefront of all of our minds and it feels like and i i don't want to speak for my fellow board members but it feels like everybody agrees to your point dr buck that continuing masking at this point is very important and mike to your point your point in alignment with the county um in kansas city as we know we have the one elementary school in that area so it feels like we have agreement um that continuing masking is important it's just that determination of when we might end it and there are again just like we've talked about for the last 18 months there are a lot of unknowns we think the vaccine will be coming and you know in the

126october halloween time frame i'm hopeful of that for our students um and and we know that having masks on has helped reduce the number of quarantine kids that that we have so we've been able to with masking keep our students in school keep our students learning and that's the the primary importance it's really just a discussion of it what date do we reconsider do we take this back up to to reconsider so i think that that's a good discussion to keep to keep reviewing board member sparks um so i um after hearing from my fellow board members um ryan i think your point is valid that vaccinating vaccination is supposed to be coming um i we don't know the surrounding information around um how many vaccination vaccinations they'll be able to complete how many will

127actually be able to scheduling and so i just think if you're talking a timeline from thanksgiving of of having majority of our students what would it cost to wait two more weeks of just giving stability and giving this just giving that information and then to mike's point um i mean i was elected to represent lsr7 not the county and even though we do yield to the professionalism and the expertise and the knowledge of those individuals they also gave some strong recommendations and it was to keep masks on and we didn't follow that as a district and so if we're going to say that then i think we have to we have to be consistent also in saying that we're going to follow the expertise and the knowledge of them and so my decision is based

128on the representation of our students not from a county standpoint thank you board member fritzy yes thanks um i think for the most part we have followed jackson county even though not every time as you point out but i would feel comfortable revisiting it at the november meeting as you suggested any other questions or comments um regarding this on this particular motion board member alan one question so thank you president murdoch so one question if the county does choose to extend um whenever their next meeting is i guess next week and they go from let's just say artificially you know november 7th to december 10th or 15th or whatever the date is do we even do we do we bring it up again on november 18th or we just abide by that county mandate they

129can only do up to 30 days extension so it'll be shy of december 7th gotcha so again we won't even have it on the table on the 18th or do we i got you mr hatley did you want to add something sorry was waving feverishly to get somebody's attention um there's this missouri statute whose impact is still not settled and i think some of the cities and counties are assuming they cannot have their orders in place more than 30 days it's still being litigated whether it applies to mass quarters a lot of places are being very conservative and not extending it longer now than 30 days just to avoid being sued under that law so i won't just point that out as a factor for you to consider i didn't want you to you know

130go to january and then get sued and say why weren't you jumping up and screaming and telling us because that's why i'm here got it thanks appreciate that okay so we have a motion uh on the floor is there any other questions or comments okay i'll just refresh board members this is a motion to extend the mask order until january the 14th and then revisit it at the january board meeting did i get that right mrs mert i was going to ask you to clarify that so thank you okay so yes would be to extend no would be to say no so all right well yeah this is a vote on to extend until january the the january the 14th okay yeah mrs smith can we have a roll call vote please and can you

131also let me know who made the second a megan maybe i thought so i just wanted to be sure all right board member campbell board member fridgey no board member hedrick no vice president marshall no member sparks aye board member alan no president murdoch no motion fails six to one so we need a new motion here from a board member i move that the board approve excuse me let me start over i move that the board continue the mask mandate until the november board meeting scheduled for november 18th second okay we have a motion and a second to continue um until november the 18th which would be our um board meeting and just for board members say just so you know if and dr buck and i talked about this if if you vote yes

132for this motion regardless of if the county expires we it'll continue in our district until november 18th so i do want to make sure that we're all on the same page there okay any questions or or comments regarding this particular motion okay there's a motion in a second miss ismart can we have a roll call vote on this please board member fridgey yes board member hedrick aye vice president marshall aye board member sparks hi board member alan no board member campbell hi president murdoch aye motion carries six to one appreciate you all on those last two topics so um we don't have any items of information presentations tonight so we're going to move on to our written reports so 10.01 0 2 and three so if anybody has any comments or um remarks that they

133would like to make regarding our bond budget our board priorities or our facility services now is the time board member fritchey i didn't even have to press my button on that one 10.2 the board priorities update um i just wanted to say that i i really do appreciate this monthly update information especially hearing from the few schools that we have in that information on how they're implementing our board priorities i think that's really important for us to get that perspective i mean we you know we have a committee that made up the board priorities i happen to be on that um well we all did the board priorities but i was on the comprehensive facility or comprehensive improvement plan csip anyway but i mean it's it's good to see how that those priorities that we

134make filter and that what the schools do with them and so i just really would like to say nice job to sunset valley and hawthorne hill our two featured schools this month and to mrs shelly sanders i just wanted to say kudo to you on the district inclusion calendar i really think that's great to see all of the diverse events at a glance and be able to click on them and find out more information about you know um months that i had no idea you know it was a certain month and and find out more about that month and and that just helps us promote understanding and so that's just one more little piece that that helps on 10.03 the facility services annual program evaluation i know that facilities aren't glamorous but facilities facility services

135is amazing i just have to say wow kyle guerrell that report was literally packed packed with information um i knew that you guys were good but that report shows that you actually have some really excellent goals and you work to carry those out to the best of your ability and i i just really appreciate that kyle thanks for your leadership and thank you for being so responsive when people share concerns with you uh your department has a huge job as you pointed out in the report how many i ca i don't even have it down here how many how many buildings how many square feet you clean how many all that it's just amazing but you all do it very well so please pass that on to everyone involved with facilities thank you thank you

136board member allen thank you um president murdoch kim of course steals with the thunder that very i'm sorry should i say board member fritchey but that was very good and i agree on all of those counts and specifically in the um facilities piece the strategic alignment the long-range plan the continued evaluation of where the puck is going to go as stretched as wayne gretzky said is outstanding because those costs are doing nothing but going up and the needs they're doing nothing but going up so thank you for keeping your eye on that and then in the um board of board priorities and i i think this is just the hawthorne hill piece but i think all schools do this um both had the po i love the poster right the last poster piece or or

137stock piece there that has the equity lens piece to it and the csip climb piece because i think that climb piece is huge to incorporate that and staying on the csip plan both short term and long term and balancing all of those throughout so good just really good work uh and not just hawthorne but across the district but certainly i love that poster anybody else with any comments or sorry i didn't mean to cut you off you're fine i'll stop thank you any other comments or questions here for the reports board member campbell i think just reiterating um board member fridgey and board member allen but really highlighting you know when we talked about the csip and we approved that we really wanted everyone that was engaged and involved and i think everyone in our

138community wants that to be a living and breathing you know plan that that's the guiding strategic view for our district and so it's exciting to see that tie to what's going on at the building level with that strategic plan so agree and and thank you everybody for that board member sparks thank you thank you board member campbell board member sparks i too just want to tell kyle and that entire department um that i truly appreciate what you do um i know as a when i was a kid growing up it was the janitor miss jackie for me that took to me um would encourage me would um and so a lot of times when we think of janitors we think all they do is sweep or all they do is pull trash or pull out

139tables no they're a big part of our buildings and so i appreciate what they do for our students and what they do for us holistically as a district thank you thank you for that any other comments okay we will go back upstairs to resume the closed session but this regular meeting is adjourned thank you all very much you