LSR7 Board of Education Meeting - 02/25/21

001um good excellent jeremy we good okay we're going to call the regular meeting to order here for february 25th um if i could get everybody to stand for the pledge of pledge allegiance to the divide of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all okay we want to welcome everybody to our regular uh meeting here um for february those of you who are in the room thank you for attending and those of you who are watching online or who might watch in the days to come thank you for staying involved with our school district we appreciate it 1.04 is the adoption of our agenda if we could get a motion on our agenda please i moved to approve the

002agenda as presented second okay we have a motion and a double second for the adoption of the agenda so are there any questions or comments on the agenda tonight okay seeing none all those in favor of adopting the agenda please raise your hand and say aye aye aye any opposed motion carries unanimously um a couple of quick notes for a lot of people who are watching out there we did have a few technical issues with the work session uh just know it was a youtube issue but about 90 95 of the presentation um was recorded and you it will be available sometime tomorrow so the majority of the meeting did get recorded if you try to view it even right now though it might be um in bits and pieces and not easy to to

003view so just for the general public out there if you missed the work session on the data it will the majority of the meeting will show up tomorrow for you the second thing before we get to the superintendent's report is just to finally give some good news on the coveted front for our staff many of you probably received the email or some of you may have seen the governor's press conference today indicating that phase 1b tier 3 will now start on march 15th that is incredibly good news yes um a much needed win for our staff here um and so uh just so everyone is aware um we do have multiple plans in place with multiple medical organizations to get our staff the vaccines the moment there is supply so we actually have partnerships now

004with multiple hospitals and our county health departments so essentially it will be whoever gets the supply first is who we'll be able to use to get our staff vaccinated as quickly as possible so we're excited with that and we're very very thankful to those organizations who are partnering with us to make sure that we can get those vaccines to staff essentially the moment that they are available let's all keep our fingers crossed that that actually is march 15th right i mean let's hope that the supply is there so we were excited to to see that actually happen we're going to move on to uh 2.01 which is our superintendent's report and i will turn it over to dr buck good evening everyone thank you for coming welcome uh spring is just less than four weeks

005away so it's exciting to see the snow melt i like snow don't get me wrong but it's it's fun to have it get warmer and there's just an energy in the last third of the year which believe it or not as of monday we're in the last third of the school year um first off we have a birthday person in the house so happy birthday dr andrews all right something that's not on the report uh we just got information on this couple days ago the governor parson will be here in lee's summit on tuesday next week march 2nd at 10 15 a.m over at mic sta to uh talk and dedicate uh a grant that's coming to a virtual reality program that's uh run by ucm in our facility over there so we're pretty excited

006to have the governor it's unfortunately not open to public because of kovid but uh just know the governor's gonna be here soon several things to highlight today we have eight high school students receive honors from the national center center of women and information technology so congratulations to bethany katie zoe elena eleanor kyra and annabella and nina so congratulations to them we also have one of our students over at lee's summit north blake who is one of just 230 air force cadets worldwide to be picked to receive an air force junior rotc flight academy scholarship so congratulations to blake congratulations to um anika valmesi from north who is the state champion diver so congratulations to her and all three swim teams who did well this last weekend at state we also have this is hot off

007the press today we have a perfect act score over at north so bella washburn is a junior at north and got a perfect act score so congratulations to bella before i go out of students just let you know sectional wrestling is this weekend and district basketball starts i think on saturday so we also have those coming up on the highly qualified staff i talked about christy mann and mason elementary and their award last week or last month so i'll go ahead and move to this came out just i think yesterday teacher lauren kennedy who's a first-year science teacher over at north north's getting a lot of kudos today received the missouri outstanding beginning teachers award from the missouri association of colleges for teacher education so congratulations miss kennedy facility wise lee summit high school it's

008uh you can see some work starting to begin over there just want to point that out and then this next month we're going to have some work going on in the courtyard so and then not too long after that you'll start seeing the work connecting the spine between buildings a and b so that's pretty awesome and then hot off the press maybe an hour and a half ago two hours ago we got notified that the kauffman foundation awarded a 25 000 grant to metal lane elementary um to help out with student achievement gap due to covid so thank you to kaufman grant and thank you to all the folks who worked on that thank you to dr cockrell and thank you to dr shelton who worked with uh kauffman to get that grant and then

009on parent community involvement i just want to thank everyone staff members parents community members and students who have been participating in the csip the comprehensive school improvement plan throughout this year as we form a new plan and so that's going to be coming very soon we're very excited about that but that's a lot of work and then governance wise you heard a little bit about the vaccines i also want to give kudos to truman medical center is one of our three hospitals we're making plans with because they contacted us just yesterday and said hey we have a few spots for tier two uh folks if you have any tier two folks and so we have 132 individuals going to get their vaccine tomorrow afternoon thanks to truman that we do have obviously that means we

010got to cover some folks so please be patient to us with us parents and students as we try to make sure our staff get vaccinated and so hopefully our buses run at the same time and everything else but we might have a little bump tomorrow as we try to get vaccinations to our staff last i would like to point out that this week is public schools week and last week was school board recognition week and i want to thank everyone in the room and thank everyone up here at the dios for everything you do for our district and our community i can't appreciate you enough thank you thank you dr buck we appreciate that report we are going to move on to item 3.01 for board members this was kind of one of the late

011edition items um an arts education resolution and we do have a presentation surrounding this resolution i believe mr ben martin is here to do the presentation so we will turn it over to you okay take up my walking billboard there okay a good evening tonight i'm here on behalf of the arts community of we summit as we request the board to adopt the arts r education resolution we're all aware of the outstanding arts programs that lee summit has and you can see the the numbers the huge numbers of students who are involved in the arts in lee's summit thousands and thousands of our students actually take arts courses and even more importantly the success that they have i think is indicative of the quality of the programs that we have success in competitions scholarships career

012opportunities and then we also do a wonderful job i think of creating diverse and inclusive community experiences for our students in other words the programs enjoy a wide range of community success why is that i think this statement on this particular slide says it very clearly arts education is widely recognized as a vital part of a student's education now how do we know that how do we know that that is indeed true well there's a growing body of research that says that the arts and in education have all kinds of wonderful impacts and a program out at cal state san santa barcos distilled the arguments for arts education to three general areas and then also 15 specific arguments they then collected the research that supported each of these arguments they call it the arts equals

013opportunity program now i'm not going to have time to delve into all of these different arguments and such but i'm going to run them by you so that you can see them and also give you a chance to take a look at a couple of studies with each one of those different arguments you'll have the powerpoint that you can then go back and actually make use of those uh studies and see those arguments in more depth so let's start up the area first is arts education supports excellence in education supports deep critical thinking better attendance the ability to pursue and succeed in especially post-secondary education argument is the development of the young brain the arts have an impact on that they're engaged and motivated and students just simply test higher and again there are studies

014for each of these uh that you'll be able to take a look at later a second major area of argumentation is that arts education lets students live life to the fullest they experience empathy kindness they are able to voice their own stories hope and resiliency comes out of study of the arts and a fourth and final one in that particular area arts lead to civic engagement and especially lifelong arts participation a third area is arts education prepares students for the workplace so we get in demand employees with high career goals coming out of the arts tomorrow's leaders are likely to have had arts background creative and innovative individuals they are able to cooperate and collaborate because of their arts experiences and arts encourage risk taking and flexibility now those are all national studies and of

015course it came out of california project there now if you want some missouri stuff too just to make sure that we're well represented here are two studies that were conducted by missouri alliance for arts education which i was executive director for a while and they show pretty much the same kind of things better attendance fewer discipline problems and definitely better test scores in all kinds of different subjects one thing that we don't talk too much about and i wish we would more is how arts education is a great way to prepare students for work this is from merrick the missouri economic research and information center it identifies seventy thousand seventy thousand missouri jobs in the creative industries quite often we're talking about workforce preparation we talk about all kinds of other areas but we don't

016talk about the arts that's a lot of jobs that need to be filled and of course there's a lot of people who have to be trained in order to fill those jobs and that's one of the things that arts education can do okay so if arts education is so great why am i even here worrying about this with you well there are three problems that are facing us i think as a school district and really across the nation in terms of the education establishment the first is we're facing budget shortfalls unfortunately past experience tells us that when budget shortfalls happen quite often it's programs like the arts are the ones that are the chopping block either for reduction or actual cutting from school budgets and school programs a second focus that we are concerned about

017is a focus on remediation we have a learning loss that is going to have to be made up somehow now that learning loss also happens at the arts as well but one of the things that sometimes happens is that we double up and so somebody who has missed or is behind in math will get two courses that they have to take in math and that means of course that some place a course is going to be lost and quite often unfortunately once again that is quite often an arts course that is lost the final one this kind of a unique one the need for personal protective equipment it's unique to the arts classroom and in many ways it is more expensive and more cost prohibitive sometimes to equip a choir class or a band class

018with that personal protective equipment and so we're worried that people will say okay if it's cost so much more we just need to get rid of the program that's that's a difficulty so what should we do about it well we encourage the lisa but r7 school district to take these steps continue to fund the programs that make sure arts classes are offered across all areas and that they're appropriately scheduled so they are accessible to students that arts educators continue to be employed and teach you the discipline for which they were trained resources that are critical to arts program successes should always be available and then finally professional development for arts educators should also be appropriate and accessible for those people a great first step along the way is what i'm really here to talk about

019tonight and that is the arts are education resolution you have that in front of you i'm not going to read the whole thing here but this resolution says that we as a school district we as a school board will do everything in our power to maintain arts education within the least of its schools and find any way that we possibly can to expand and make it even more effective and better so thank you for the opportunity to talk to you to make my feelings known to make the community's feelings known and i'll be happy to answer any questions or respond to any concerns that you might have thank you for the presentation uh mr martin does anybody have any questions or comments related to the resolution uh board member fritzi yes i just wanted to

020weigh in on this um i think anybody who knows me knows that i'm a big fan of the arts um i would just say from my personal experience of being in schools for 30 years and and having a daughter who's a music teacher that oftentimes the highlight of a student's day comes when they get to go to an art class whether that's art music theater whatever that arts medium is oftentimes students really connect to those courses and they really enjoy those courses and oftentimes the arts the arts and even the correct extracurriculars that come with those courses like theater productions concerts etc art art gallery shows etc are the reason why many students connect to school and stay in school that's my personal opinion based on my personal experience so i am 100 in support

021of this thank you thank you and yep you're preaching to the choir that's for sure and no funding today uh board member marshall yes thank you um i actually i am i couldn't agree more with arts's education and you summed it up very well when you said that arts equals opportunities um especially now in the past um year now wow where it seems like everyone has been so physically disconnected arts you know give us the opportunity to be around students and others that we wouldn't normally be around and it gives us a chance to get to know each other in ways that we wouldn't so i think arts is an awesome outlet for students to express themselves and to explore different parts of their imagination their mind and just really just expose them to what's

022possible so i think it's important that we continue to support arctis education and continue to make sure our students have access to the different arts programs that interest them and just cultivate them as people so that they can really take advantage of how great arts can be for a human thank you thank you i encourage you to take a look at some of those studies that are on those slides because they speak to exactly what you're what you're saying thank you for that board member marshall board member alan mr martin i have told you this a number of times over the years that i've known you thank you for keeping this a priority um not just here in lee's summit but across the state and thank you for your engagement at the state level if

023not the regional level and really um continuing to feed this community in the area of the arts both through summit theater group and your passion for all of this and i'm glad you've brought this to the forefront to us thank you you're welcome and i i did not pay him to say those things [Laughter] any other uh comments or questions surrounding this particular item thank you very much for the presentation we appreciate it thank you um we will act upon this item tonight um so um if anybody would like to make a motion on that i'd be happy to i'd be happy to do that i moved that the board approved the arts education resolution as presented second okay we have a motion and a second around item 3.01 um to approve the resolution of

024the arts education just my quick comment under the discussion here you know every year it seems even when i was teaching most of the budgets seem to be getting cut in anything outside of core classes so i think anything that we can do to make sure that we keep these as strong as possible i think is a benefit to our district so i think this is really really good tonight other questions or discussions around this item mr smart could we have a roll call vote please you probably just want to do the hand raise again because we're in an open session and i can't see dr hedrick are we gonna do roll call votes on on the rest of the stuff like we had been oh we did we talked about that we talked about

025that yes okay so um all those in favor of this particular resolution please raise your hand and say hi hi any opposed motion carries unanimously thank you for correcting me though i appreciate it um okay we are going to move on to item 4.01 which are our public comments and i will ask board member fritchey to go over the public comment rules please we appreciate your attendance and your willingness to speak to the board i wanted to make take a moment to share a few guidelines please remember that while this is a meeting held in the public this is not a public meeting the board does not respond to public comments during the meeting we want to hear what you have to say and your comments will be noted by the board and if appropriate

026we will direct the subject to the administrators who are responsible for that particular subject matter as the parliamentarian i'm going to exercise my authority to keep comments within a reasonable time limit therefore we will be limiting all comments to no more than three minutes tonight no more than 20 minutes total pursuant of board policy bddh your allotted three minutes will be counted down on the screen only those who have signed up on the comments from the public forum prior to the meeting will be allowed to address the board we ask that you refrain from using the names of any students or staff in your remarks and remain respectful lastly when your name is called go to the podium and clearly state your name and the organization you represent if any thank you board member fritchey

027just a note to the general public we have two speakers tonight one who has submitted a video that we will be doing towards the end of the public comments and another who couldn't be with us but did give us a statement to read and i will be reading that prior to the video so and we will make sure and identify who those people are when we get to those particular comments um so for our public comments we have casey jackson then aaron gregory i don't think is casey here i don't think casey is here okay so aaron you are first i knew that would happen my name is erin gregory and i'm a parent of a student in the lsr7 school district as a parent i'm here tonight begging for a more diverse equitable and

028inclusive school district that provides my kiddo and all students a multicultural education white students benefit from diversity and an equitable multicultural education extensive research supports this goal one of our equity plan is to ensure district district-wide practices reflect the needs of our diverse school community support the integrated focus and analysis of equity into organizational policies procedures and leaderships but at this time lsr7 has no real policy or procedures tied to the equity plan how can our equity plan not include evaluation reporting out and then concrete planning to look at how our own operations programs processes etc systemic racism aside from policy and procedures goal one also notes leadership here's what that looks like i think in 2021 we will continue to adhere to our equity policy that was adopted in 2018 all administrative and board

029policies must and will be examined to be more responsive to the children we serve our student handbook is in the final stages of being revised and oppressive language is being removed that's part of a very beautiful if you haven't read it facebook post on january 7th from dr mark bedell kcps superintendent what a way to lead from the top down with courage and empathy with no question where he or his district stand on equity meanwhile in lee's summit our equity and diverse teachers don't feel supported with the work they're doing in their classrooms some teachers after january 6 after the inauguration were directed not to discuss it not to discuss the history that was made on inauguration day with our vice president harris we have parents complaining about something they call black supremacy in our

030district parents who are sharing emails from teachers that are nonetheless bound by confidentiality rules complaining about assignments that are rooted in curriculum recently some facebook posts have expressed outrage over inclusion of personal pronouns in email this is a practice as i understand it that's pretty common across lsr7 and across major companies today as a practice of inclusion some of those comments on facebook have expressed outrage over having personal pronouns and they cite that this is curriculum one of these comments says push back we have to push back that comment is from one bill brown who is a member of lsr seven's business roundtable whose mission is to foster a productive relationship oh gosh that went fast thank you for your time thank you our next speaker is marla stout and then rachel courtney will will

031follow um is it okay if i use my own child's name okay i just wanted to clarify since i never want to break any rules all right thank you on february 1st our daughter sid who recently came out as non-binary went to rehearsal for the middle school musical at no time during the audition process were grades ever mentioned as a reason to keep sid from performing in the role she was assigned sid was called out in front of peers and cut from the musical with academics stated as the reason the way this entire situation was handled was improper unacceptable and disrespectful to our child under normal circumstances we might have given pause to participation however nothing about this year and our child is typical this child is a straight a principal's honor roll student who

032simply shut down one look at sid's nwea scores in traditional quality of work show a very different student than the one presented this past semester a semester that the district has since admitted knowing secondary students struggled academically this past year was supposed to be remembered by a trip to new york city parts and musicals and camps sid was looking forward to eighth grade and being part of an adaptive art class helping special needs students all of these things were canceled because of covid this is a creative sensitive human who is in the midst of normal teen teenage discovery while also suffering from depression and ongoing anxiety issues we thought and has since had agreement from a therapist that engagement in school activities is the best way to improve our child's demeanor and renew her interest

033in academics consider just some of the following symptoms of depression and anxiety specific to teens and preteens and how they would impact the educational experience social withdrawal academic decline self-criticism inability to concentrate or make decisions fear of rejection self-harm including suicidal thoughts substance abuse and cutting from the undergraduate research journal for the human sciences a paper titled the effects of extracurricular activities on the academic performance of junior high students highlights that participation in extra extracurricular activities is associated with an approved grade point average higher educational aspirations increased attendance and reduced absenteeism researchers have particularly studied the relationship between extracurricular activities and academic performance in adolescence one study found that acid adolescents who participated in extracurricular activities reported higher grades and more positive attitudes towards school i wish i could say my child is alone but

034sid is one of many and she's lucky what happens to the student that does not have the kind of kind of supports it is afforded current lsr-7 policies potentially segregate intelligent talented students who either by policy or lack of inclusion cannot engage in extracurriculars no to no student chooses to fail or be left out these things are the result of circumstances that are generally beyond their control this district needs to consider updated policies and allow each student to be seen and help them achieve their goals we already have staff members that do advocate for these students and help keep them engaged with their schools and peers administration must follow their lead that can finish administration must follow their lead especially during an atypical school year or they only serve to further isolate and reinforce the

035feeling of inadequate inadequacy in our students i respectfully request that this board and our administration consider every aspect of a student's life not just academics as a portal to inclusion in our school community thank you for your consideration thank you for the comment um next speaker is rachel courtney good evening i'm rachel courtney my husband and i have four kids in lsr7 so we like many other families who are thrilled with the passing of the equity plan and tonight i'd like to quickly in my three minutes comment on three of those goals as a parent educator i want to express my appreciation for the work already happening toward goal three to supply teachers and students with a more diverse curriculum truly fulfilling this goal though should include a full audit done by a trained staff

036of all of our curriculum and testing programs to ensure we're educating with a well-vetted diverse anti-racist pedagogy because we know representation matters believe in the role model effect and understand that cultural exposure breeds empathy and respect the sixth goal in our equity plan is to retain and recruit a more diverse workforce i have high hopes that the newly formed recruitment and retention task force will be able to make a large me able to make large gains in this area and request that the measurable outcomes be made accessible to the community personally i believe that this goal begins and ends with a retention piece all teachers all employees desire to be supported valued and heard in order to keep and grow the four plus percent of teachers of color that we have we need to ask

037them every one of them how this plan is working from their point of view in order to properly address any issues besides the vital role these current teachers are playing for our students and staff they'll also be who potential the ipoc hires look to we need staff that can genuinely say yes come to lee's summit and in order to get there they need to be heard and supported by their admin by their families and by their fellow teachers speaking of our amazing admin and teachers the second goal of our equity plan includes professional development equitable and cultural practices last month suburban balance hosted a forum with eight kansas city districts including our own so thank you lee summit for attending that many teachers and parents very much appreciated the opportunity to listen in as kansas

038city came together to discuss what their districts are working on in terms of equity discussing that forum or during that forum john hopkins article was discussed it urged that every teacher be educated and trained in implicit bias taught to be culturally competent and shown how not to exacerbate existing achievement and opportunity gaps if we ever stand a chance at dismantling institutional racism in this district every staff member every staff member needs that training but not only the training they need to each be held accountable and monitored to ensure proper implementation how are we measuring that lastly i want to appeal to other parents like me there's only so much that the board admin and teachers can do about this problem please take an active part to speak to your children early on and regularly don't

039assume that they know better about what they need to be doing to help end appropriated cultural oppression in our schools and city thank you for the comment our final in-person speaker is tiara surface hi my name is tyra surface i am a teacher in the district and a parent of a student and a future student in the district i just appreciate you guys letting me speak tonight okay so this year equity has been the district's number one goal to better prioritize the number one goal i'd like to make a few suggestions of how equity can become a sustained movement that creates positive change and better learning and working environments for every person in the district unlike other priority goals in the district's past the role of equity coordinator falls on one person who shares the

040job of leading two other fully staffed departments by the by reading the assistant superintendent of equity and student services job description you can see the challenges of a real focus on equity this work cannot fall on the shoulders of one person who must must also wear two other hats mit sloan management review says avoid just hiring a loan chief officer this pens the entire host of an organization on one individual when in fact helping the organization adapt to the shifting future of work is everybody's responsibility to do this work with fidelity we must have an equity department or team similar to it sped ell and health services since policies guide the administration are are viewed annually and clarify the district's expectations and equity policy needs to be created the policy would speak to the commitment

041to embed equitable practices in every decision and support teachers utilizing inclusive methods and lessons in their classrooms a board policy would also define lsr7s dedication to training and equitable practices as non-negotiable for the entire lsr7 community in addition every open positions job description should include a commitment to equity we are working counter to the goal if we continue to hire staff faculty and administrators who are unwilling to create a safe space for all students every decision made in the district should be viewed through an equity lens having a diverse panel sitting at a table when decisions are made does not make our policies procedures and structures more equitable and that thinking cheapens the work we can no longer provide a space for those who oppose equity better policies and pursue procedures are better for everyone

042to make the necessary changes we must have trained leaders embedded in the decision-making processes along with a diverse panel of dei supporters to create measurable progress we need to apply the 20-60-20 rule of change to equity to the equity plan simply stated the work should move at a rate of of those currently supporting equity education research tells us that if we change our behavior especially in an unexpected unexpected way our thoughts and feelings about the behavior will also change if we continue to prioritize comfort over progression inclusion will remain elusive we know that change can happen quickly if we make it a priority accountability and reassessment are part of any successful plan each board meeting should require an update an update defining progress toward the goal the evaluation of progress needs to include a tool

043to measure feelings of inclusion by our bypass and other marginalized populations lsr7s commitments include sustaining positive relationships among staff students families and community members and continuing a safe and caring environment we cannot fulfill these commitments without an unyielding dedication to equity thank you thank you for your comment and tyra i apologize for mispronouncing your name i knew i knew better and so i apologize um our next speaker is actually somebody who submitted um a statement but couldn't be here tonight um so just so everybody knows i am reading on behalf of beth corey um so these are the words of beth cory um she has a second grader at hazel grove who is in the online academy this year and also has a two-year-old enrolled in parents as teachers beth graduated from greenwood elementary pleasantly

044high junior high school and lee's summit high school and here is her message to the boarding community i am speaking tonight for improved leadership and enacting the equity plan and more encouraging enthusiastic support for other equity activities that are being led by teachers i am also urging the superintendent and board to make strong statements and look to our peer districts for examples of strong statements and best practices why am i speaking tonight i'm standing up here as a white parent with white children i've heard that perhaps the district hasn't heard enough from us we who are equity justice and change focused may not be the loudest folks yet we are also not bullies we don't use hate speech nor do we call out teachers by name on social media but i assure you there are

045plenty of us and we are learning to be louder i speak also as a lee summit r7 alum who has moved back here after 15 years outside the state i share what i see with fellow alums who are not in the community are they shocked no they know lee summit but are they disappointed that the school district can't be a role model for a better educational experience yes they are disappointed some consider moving back but are hesitant and consider other districts nearby what are my fears based on my experiences in lsr7 do i imagine we are so far from the utah school that initially allowed parents to opt out of black history month activities will we start restricting personal pronouns on signatures of district employees will we keep teachers from expanding on non-white perspectives or

046questioning the curricular expression of institutional racism will our discrimination policies ever include the most basic restrictions of on hate speech on and off campus will we ever have a board champion equity leader who coalition coalesces equity planning as a movement rather than an afterthought and will my children's teachers ever feel empowered and supported to understand their own biases the recent equity update in the lsr7 magazine is a soothing piece of pr but stops short of showing any progress has been made i hear more from teachers who are doing this work many of who have had to jump through hurdles then i hear strong supportive statements from our leadership i'm urging the board to fill the assistant superintendent of equity position and then trust them as an expert i urge the board to listen more to

047your morals than your manners and to rebuke parents who use degrading speech against the district and teachers please don't be shy make strong statements dr buck members of the board we do not live in a vacuum of what is going on in our world nor can we live in a vacuum of the experiences of our students and teachers like we have heard and will hear tonight thank you very much for your time again that was from beth cory our final speaker tonight um submitted a video and this the speaker is um alethia rollins hello i am alithea rollins a parent of two lsr-7 students i am also here as a representative of suburban balance's lease summit equity task force we believe strongly in the approved equity plan and want to support inform and hold you

048accountable to it there are two important issues i would like to address this evening hiring diverse teachers and hate speech my senior has had two black teachers as she matriculated from third to twelfth grade in lsr7 given that she has had a total of 62 teachers that is three percent of all the teachers she's had my eighth grader who has been here since kindergarten has had zero out of 46 teachers none of them have been black he will enter high school never having had a black teacher and at this point the likelihood of him never having had a black teacher when he graduates is pretty likely recently my senior wrote a scholarship essay that described the difficulties she has experienced as a black student in a predominantly white school district in heartbreaking detail she identified

049the struggles in elementary middle and high school a primary note of concern was the lack of diversity among her teachers please note i used the term teacher and not staff to make the point that while support staff is just as important to a school as teachers it is vitally important that our kids have diverse teachers consistent with goal six of the equity plan i'm here to ask you to prioritize efforts to proportionately recruit retain and promote teachers who reflect our student population and i urge you to consider that a diverse faculty is not just for my kids all students benefit from seeing building relationships with and being taught by diverse faculty in addition i would be remiss if not to continually remind you of the important work needed with regard to policy and procedures around

050hate speech i encourage you to put in place a clear appropriate and detailed discipline policy regarding hate speech i have reviewed the harassment discipline policy and found it inadequate it is difficult to find it provides broad way in application and it is subjective and left up to the administrator to determine if a student should simply have a conversation with the principal or be expelled or something in between those two there is much context to be unpacked in making this type of decision further data consistently supports the disproportionate numbers of students of color get harsher discipline than their white peers a clear and concise policy will help reduce bias in discipline decisions and application if we are to provide an equitable educational experience for all students then the lsr-7 school district needs to take a strong

051stand against hate speech consistent with goal 1 the first step is to create a clear and concise discipline policy thank you okay that will conclude our public comments um for this evening okay um we will move on to item 5.01 which is our board reports or meetings attended and so we do typically try to move around the room here so we will start with board member doane tonight great thank you all right lisa mccares um our executive director has resigned she's moving on to a different non-profit position so we will be looking for a new wonderful replacement rachel segovia was very did a very good job with us in the last five years but she um needed a new challenge i guess so well she will be very missed uh the mayor's character breakfast we're

052going to postpone until january 22nd of 2022 and we will celebrate our recipients on social media and then we will also celebrate them again next january teamly summit we had i'm just going to say the best meeting we've ever had since i've been on the board i'm just going to go ahead and say that write out loud and um we will be voting on one of our decision or discussions later in this meeting and let's see i visited miller park cedar creek and pleasantly and i look forward to about six other ones but i'm it was just so fun to see the kids laughing and the principals were all very positive i know it's been a tough year we all know that but um i really appreciated the principles and how they were working for

053the kids so that is my report thank you thank you board member doane uh we will move to board member hedrick thank you um i just have a couple to report um we did have a board policy team meeting and um discussed a number of uh policies and follow-up to work that has been occurring most of the year um we will be giving the board the full board of education a presentation uh from that team i believe that our our main work session the other uh committee meeting i attended this week was the finance committee mem meeting and board member campbell will give that report in a little bit a little bit further down on our agenda and then i also attended a real world learning zoom question and answer session uh which was very

054helpful in understanding that program understanding what market value assets are understanding how those can benefit each student and not just students who are planning to go to college so um i would encourage um other board members to take a look at their website that's been developed to have information about real world learning it's lsr7 lsr7.org backslash rwl and i believe also that group is planning to make a presentation to the board um at a future work session and that's all i have to report for this evening thank you dr hedrick uh board member marshall thank you board president uh board member alan and i were just talking that our meetings are like a whole month before so by time by time we get to the board meeting a lot of the things has happened so

055we're kind of outdated like our next meeting is tomorrow and we won't report till friday but anyway um a month ago at our meeting we talked about uh city council talked about their current financial situation and what's to be expected within the next year and they also talked about uh the diversity and inclusion committee that was created and approved uh in their most recent resolution with that so um and just like our stuff the city council stuff is on their website very easy to find we had presentations from the state legislature of course talking about various bills that impact public education so just as a tidbit for anyone who likes to get information quickly i i went to the missouri school board association's website and within like three clicks you can access all the legislation

056that directly impacts public education the school board association's websites uh digs deep into how it impacts it actually gives you various talking points for when you contact your representatives or representatives and after or as action is taken on specific legislation it actually tells you who voted and which way they voted so in addition to contacting our representatives we can also contact the other ones as well to express our opinions so um three clicks you can go to you can just google missouri school board association on their land their homepage their landing page there is a megaphone orange megaphone that says advocate for public education and when you click on that it will open up all the different legislative all the bills that i just mentioned that impact public education that's all i have thank you

057board member marshall uh board member alan all right i was yeah was participating in the government relations committee meeting with ms marshall dr buck was in attendance at that as well i was in jefferson city advocating for public schools dropped letters to eight of our local representatives three or four of our local senators attended a couple of the education committee meetings typically tuesday morning is the house education committee meeting tuesday at noon is the senate education committee meeting typically an hour to an hour and a half so there are a lot of bills out there being considered and discussed and i think action on our part in communication on our part would be uh well well invested time um i have i've participated in some school visits and as other members have and we'll see

058quite a few other visits in march um i think megan marshall and i are going to lisa mcnorth and bernard campbell soon we were supposed to go last week when it was 25 below zero or something um i was at summit point elementary in trail ridge this week and then also had a tremendous visit uh in a gem of a of a building in a program in miller park with ms doane and i will concur and agree with ms doane we've had three teamly summit meetings january 27th february 4th and the 18th and then we have another team lee summit meeting coming up in march on march 4th so it has been a very active committee and doing some very very good work and hats off to judy judy claire stein as well as she's

059been a gem as ever thank you board member allen board member campbell thank you board president murdoch i wanted to join dr buck in saying thank you to all of my fellow board members for your service and acknowledge both your service as well as our passport members i think i'm celebrating that is really important and i appreciate all of you the knowledge and the skills that each of you bring to our discussions and the heart that you bring to these discussions and to our meetings i value you i value your service to our students staff and community and i value you in helping me become a better board member so thank you i also went and visited a school i went to great beginnings and it is just that it is a great beginning for

060our kids i will share on a personal level you my youngest um got the opportunity to attend great beginnings although it was at the older building so that was a few days ago but i will tell you going through and touring the building the facility that we have for our early learners was an amazing opportunity my thanks to carrie bain incredible leader and jeannie cook assistant principal also incredible leader in taking me through the tour of the building and in sharing with me so well not only introducing me to teachers and students but also sharing every aspect of what goes on in that building on a daily basis the library that they have not only is full of books but now has a librarian and they shared that not only has that librarian done so

061much for the students that attend but has also provided so much learning and opportunity for the teachers that work there as well so that's an awesome place as well they shared a lot about the head start program not just the amazing work that we partner with the mark organization on who helps us with that grant assistance and funding but also to all the services that that provides the learning for the students as well as the additional services that can be accommodated for the families as well to assist them also seeing all the teachers hard at work with all the children that they was amazing looking at the physical therapy room it mirrored a room that i've seen down at children's mercy and just to be able to have that in district really is amazing i

062think and and really beneficial also we talked about the parents as teacher program and that even in a virtual world we've been able to continue that parents as teachers opportunities for all of our families in lee's summit and they talked about you know the teachers get down on the floor and while there's still a com computer there as you get down on the rug and you start playing that that computer screen melts away and what an awesome opportunity for our families to be fully engaged with that learning and become learners themselves in sharing that information with their their kids too so i'm really excited not only to be able to tour that facility but to be able to know that our voters in our district supported that bond that will now allow us to open

063that second location and that we will not have to wait list kids to be a part of this great opportunity so i just wanted to share that it was it was just great and thank you carrie and um jeannie for that opportunity as well i did not get to sit down on the webinar webinar on the real world learning but i'm going to and thank you board member um hedrick thank you hedrick i couldn't see her um hedrick for bringing that up because i also wanted to say thank you um for the updates to the website because i think they're awesome i did get a chance to review those and just great information because i can't tell you since i've been on the board how many people ask me well at the schools what do

064they really do to help kids get a job you know and that website tells you what the school district is doing to help kids get a job so i think that's fantastic and i also attended the policy committee with board member hedrick and i wanted to say a thank you to dr carlson who leads that committee and also to the other members of the committee sometimes policy work and policy conversations can be a little dry but i it is yes but these folks are fully engaged and we have had some great conversations looking at equity in our policies and discussing that and really getting into that work and i've really just been honored to be a part of that committee as well i also participated in an insurance committee meeting i was really excited to

065see they have built out a risk matrix to evaluate the options as we're getting ready for that rfp process to really put things in sections that help us know the benefits as well as the risk to the district that that can create and i just wanted to say thank you to sarah mcmillan and to dr miller for building out that risk matrix and also thank you for the work that you do to make insurance understandable for non-hr non-insurance people because that's important as we're getting ready to get into this rfp process to understand what that means and what that looks like so thank you to that i also appreciate that you have an insurance committee and that committee is made up of representation from every building in our district and i think as we get

066into these discussions around the rfp that committee is going to be very important in ensuring that we all move along through change together and so i'm very excited to continue to be a part of the insurance committee and thank you for the hard work that that takes the last item is the finance committee and that was a great meeting and i'll share more about that here in a minute thank you very much board member campbell um board member fritchie thank you president murdoch all right first of all i want to talk about the comprehensive school improvement plan that strategic planning team met on february the 1st and during this meeting we focused on generating goals and action steps to help inform our peak priorities that they've already that have already been finalized and at that

067point dr kephart and our administrators as we speak almost are creating a draft based on the input from that entire team and so we will see that draft on march the 1st at our next meeting and that will is supposed to be our final meeting right so um that has been a very intensive team this year since we only uh reevaluate or re-write our c-sip ever every what five years so um anyway we're looking forward to that march the first and then they will home that and it'll come to the board and you guys will get to see what the team came up with all right the next i'd like to talk about lee's summit educational foundation the foundation invites you to the annual taste of lee summit and by the way it's just 16

068days away it's on saturday march the 13th from 6 45 to 8 pm virtual style keep in mind that the tickets are only forty dollars this year um that's a big savings from the normal price of tickets and so you can purchase your tickets and then watch in the comfort of your home maybe order from one of our great restaurants who are offering discounts this year so be sure and go on lisa to www.lsedfoundation.com or go to the facebook page and click on that link the theme this year is a magical night of giving and it will include crowd favorites like the silent and the live auction plinko and the dine around package which has some great gift cards from all the restaurants that we have that are either participating and even some who are

069not participating this year in the event we've we've been able to use i've gone around i was on the restaurant committee so i've gone around to several restaurants and used those puppy dog eyes and going please give gift cards so anyway we've got some good ones um we have a comedian this year his name's todd lemansk and he will astound our guests with magic tricks and the guests will learn how community generosity creates classroom magic so looking forward to that night please join us i also wanted to make a quick note about school visits last week on friday had the opportunity to visit two of our elementary schools and that was hawthorne hill and meadow lane and then this last tuesday along with board member doane i visited cedar creek and pleasantly elementary schools it

070was good to get out into our schools it just felt so good to get out there to talk with our teachers to see how they're feeling to see um you know how things are going with them to see you know how they've tried to reconfigure their classrooms and how the kids seem to be so happy to be back to school and even the teachers seem to be so happy to be back to school and so much we don't thank the principals for taking the time to just to show us around and give us that insight you just it really helps to get out into our schools and really understand why we do what we do up here at the dayas every month finally teacher education academy at summit technology academy i spoke there with the

071students on monday of this week about the function of school board responsibilities what to expect at our school board meeting yay exciting you know i wanted to say to him you're never going to get that hour and a half to two hours back but no no no it's there are some exciting things that happen many of the students will be watching or are watching our meeting tonight this evening and i and hi students at the teacher academy and summit tech we're glad you're with us tonight and i've talked to president murdoch and asked him if it would be okay if we could take turns tonight all across the diocese and introduce ourselves to all of our students who are in teacher academy who are watching so let's start with board member marshall down there well

072how much do they want to know well you you might just you might just said it was two-hour meeting so well how about you how about your name and your you know and and and what you do for the warden and maybe how long you've been on the board something like that all right well hello i'm megan marshall i am one of the newly elected board members so i haven't even passed the curve to a year yet just past what six months part of my responsibility in addition to regular board business which i'm sure board member fritzy explained very well to you um is to sit on the government relations committee which is what i just gave an update on and that is a committee where we sit on with various elected officials from the

073state all the way down to the local level and we discuss a lot of legislation and things going on in our different areas of responsibilities and learn how they all cross pollinate with each other and build relationships with the hopes of supporting one another all right mike allen i've been in lee's seminary since 92 wife and i have two students here and was elected in what was it uh april 9 april of 19 so it'll be two years and so one more year of service and then um that would be my first term so there we go i'm kathy campbell i'm newer to the board like board member marshall um so we i was elected in june um i've lived in lee's summit gosh of 20 over 20 years both of my sons grew up

074through the lee summit schools and i really wanted to work on the board because servant leadership is important to me and because our children in the lee summit area and their education and the public school system is also very important to me so that really drove me to run for the board and i am enjoying being a part of the board and helping move this district through covert and helping move this district around real world learning and all of the great things that we've been talking about in these meetings thank you my name is ryan murdock i'm the current board of education president it's my job to try to keep these meetings short which i am not succeeding at um in addition to you're welcome in addition to the various committees that i do serve

075on it is my job to help put together the agenda with dr buck to hold the leadership meetings and to try to navigate the different issues of the district so that the seven of us can come to a consensus as many times as possible so i will continue to try to do that for as long as possible uh we'll go to dr buck and then we'll go to dr hedrick first off thank you for choosing education and being interested in it i can tell you education was a life saver for me as a kid and i couldn't have been happier than the mid-90s to become a science teacher a coach a sponsor and it is an awesome job kids are awesome they need you and i'm happy you're choosing this profession so reach out if

076you need help and we're excited about the future with you in it dr hedrick yes thank you this is judy hedrick um i have been in lee's summit about 31 years both my kids graduated from lee summit high school i would say that it's a great opportunity for me to show the passion that i have for public education i believe that it makes all the can make all the difference for each student and to work with my fellow board members and administration on behalf of our students and families in our community thank you dr hedrick all right welcome students i'm julie doan i have lived in lee's summit for almost 56 years and um have been on the board since 2015. i went through lee's summit schools and so did my two daughters and i

077just want you to encourage you to go and get your teaching certificate and then come back to us so we're a great district to work for and keep going with your teaching thank you i just wanted to finish up by um i already introduced myself to the students but just for those of you out there in tv land um this is i'm kim ferci i'm the vice president of the board this year and this is my fourth year on the school board and it's just been a real pleasure and i so enjoyed speaking with the teacher academy students on monday and i appreciate their their instructor kathy nash she was giving them some great instruction and all of the classroom experiences that our classroom teachers are giving them as they go out into our school

078district so thank you everyone who's involved with that and supporting that that's all for me thank you board member fritzy i will be very brief here um i was not able to attend the insurance committee due to some internet issues but i did get a chance to look at the risk matrix and so i do think that that was really good and a good suggestion as well so thank you for putting that together i did participate in the cac steering committee meeting on february 8 the citizens advisory committee steering meeting on february the 8th and then we had a full meeting last night where we did talked about some legislative advocacy um issues and then we also um addressed just a couple of other things i don't want to get too far into it here

079because then we're going to take too much time but it was a good meeting last night we did spend a lot of time on the different bills and then how to advocate was kind of the the big issues that we were hitting last night we did our board leadership meeting with dr buck uh vice president fritzke and myself earlier in the month and on january 28th i think there was either four or five of us on the board that were a part of the cooperating school districts of greater kansas city meeting where we not only had a business meeting early on but then we had a regular full meeting and that also was kind of dedicated to more of a legislative advocacy position um in terms of what would be good for public education and

080what could be bad for public education so uh thank you to the board members who were able to join um on that call um that was a few hours that we did there as well and then i look forward to visiting um schools next next week uh the first one i believe up is march 1st i'll be at lee's summit high school so that'll be the first one that i will be at um starting next week so i'm looking forward to those visits as well okay we are going to move on here to item six which is our um finance reports and so it sounds like we're going to turn it over to board member campbell great thank you board president murdoch i attended the finance committee meeting as i mentioned and we discussed um

081a list of contracts that are 15 000 or less i'm not going to go through those individually but everyone has that um document available to review we also discussed um some of the larger items att and allegiant technologies telephone services so that's for a new phone circuit and the additional functionality that provides is that it does provide failover to us so if there's a phone problem at one school it will fail over and then that phone problem will be resolved brazen technologies the virtual career fair platform that will assist us in our hr department with dr del sum around the diversity recruitment so this is a very important one to move forward with this year as well sun belt staffing ratification so we've had some challenges in this covid pandemic in recruiting lpns for our

082district and so there are 4.5 positions this staffing group will assist us with filling those positions so also important as we you know are bringing students back and need to have those positions filled the alpha point ratification we again had a challenge in filling the position for the orientation and mobility specialist for our district and so alpha point is going to assist that filling that for us as a contract service until we can fill that position hopefully for next school year the atx learning ratification same situation we needed to hire an occupational therapist we found a candidate and we're able to hire that candidate but they're not available until the fall of 2021 so this will provide the contract services until that can be filled and then we shifted to the facilities and kyle guerrell

083was kind enough to go into a lot of detail for me around some of the bond items on here one item ahead of the bond items was just a control service contract which was around um some of the let me grab my um the hvac control systems is part of a three-year service agreement so that will continue that work and then we started to talk about some of the bond projects so there was a change order for the athletics project and for lee's summit high school so there are some items that are coming in that we needed to do that needed that we'll need to approve the change order for um and kyle broke all those out so that we have all that information there is the contingency and there's adequate funds in the contingency

084for these change orders so i would recommend that we move forward with that approval also we talked about the guaranteed maximum price amendment for the lee summit high school project and this was really exciting because we had gotten the initial guaranteed maximum price number one and that was for a portion that we approved previously this is the second piece and this fully funds then the remainder of the project and it's coming in quite a bit under budget about six hundred thousand dollars under budget which will allow us then as a future piece not tonight but as a future piece kyle and dr miller will be presenting for us to look at a bid for the physical education space and the current weight room so we'll have some additional but because we're so far under budget

085there should be no problem with including that and it was included in the original list of projects there was just concern about being conservative in the bidding process so move forward with that tonight as well and then we have the next item was the architectural full contract for the middle school renovations so we've talked a lot about the new middle school these are the renovations for the existing middle schools and i was really excited to see some details on that so for um of course there's the accommodation for the sixth grade that will be moving to the middle schools that's a large piece of this but also at pleasantly middle school that will get a new facelift so where we've all seen the wavy entrance for years that will go away and it'll get a

086facelift on the front which will also then increase the security of the entrances and allow the administration office to be there at the forefront the campbell middle school will receive renovations to the cafeteria the music area the administrative office around the security as well and there's some changes to the basement and then at summit lakes they will also receive the renovation to the administration area and that entry lobby again additional security for our students and for our administration and and staff there at the schools so this will come out of the architect architect and engineering line item and again my thanks to dr miller and kyle guerrell because they've done such a great job on the bond report the finance listings it's easy to see where these change orders and where these things hit the

087overall budget and to know exactly what idle line items are impacted and and how we can move forward with that so any questions on those so far okay then we also have the pro mechanical that we looked at for meadow lane and westview for their walk-in freezers they're very dated and so this contract will allow those to be replaced and upgraded and that actually will come out of nutrition services budget and it's within the budget amounts um so i think that is everything that i have for the update okay so i will now um move to approve we do need to do a transfer of funds from the general fund to the special revenue fund to pay the bills so i move to approve the transfer of 1 million 525 468 and 90 cents from

088the general fund to the special revenue fund we have a motion in a second for item 6.02 to transfer funds from the general fund to the special revenue fund is there any discussion on this item okay all those in favor of this item please raise your hand and say aye hi hi any opposed motion carries unanimously board member campbell i move to approve the treasurer's report and the payment of the bills second we have a we have a motion and a lot of seconds um so there we go so i think board member marshall was firs first in so we'll give her credit for it uh so we have a motion and a second for item 6.03 is there any discussion on this item okay all those in favor please raise your hand and say

089hi hi any opposed motion carries unanimously thank you board member campbell appreciate it um we are going to move on to um item 7.01 which is our or item 7 our consent agenda items for tonight so i will entertain a motion on those items before any discussion i move to approve the consent agenda items as presented second we have a motion and a second for our consent agenda item 7.01 through 7.15 are there any is there any discussion related to any of these items or any comments questions okay i don't see any questions or comments around any of the items on item 7. so all those in favor please raise your hand and say hi hi hi all those opposed motion carries unanimously we're moving on to item eight so this is 8.01 these will

090be each of our individual items for decision tonight 8.01 is the change order that board member campbell um just spoke about in terms of the lee summit athletics um so i would take a motion on this before any discussion please i move that the board approved change order number one for the lee summit r-7 district athletics facilities project at a total cost of two hundred and ten thousand nine hundred and seventeen dollars and ten cents as detailed in the attachment i think i think that number you you missed the number [Music] 201 so i have 210. dr miller do you know which number is correct then because we have two different numbers okay change order documents yes it says 2019. okay because the motion said 210 okay so i amend that to 200 and thousand

091nine hundred and seventeen dollars and ten cents is that right yes okay second okay we have a motion and a second for item eight point zero one for the change order um for lee summit athletics board member campbell i'll just um i'd like to make a note and i think it might have been noted up above on item 2.02 but this is for the athletics project but it also impacts the lee summit high school renovations project so i just wanted to note that for everyone appreciate that any other questions or comments related to 8.01 okay all those in favor please raise your hand and say aye aye aye all those opposed motion carries unanimously we're going to move to item 8.02 this is the architecture service contract for our middle school renovations also mentioned in

092the finance committee report to dlr group so i would take a motion on this item i moved that the board approved the contract with dlr group for the middle school renovation project according to fees detailed in the attachment second we have a motion and a second to approve item 8.02 to award the contract to dlr group any questions or comments related to item 8.02 okay hearing none all those in favor of item 8.02 please raise your hand and say hi hi hi all those opposed motion carries unanimously item 8.03 this is our lee summit high school building renovation guaranteed maximum price amendment number two just like board member campbell said we've done one part of this this is the second part so i'll entertain a motion on 8.03 i move that the board approves a

093gmp amendment to the je done construction for the lee summit high school edition renovation project as detailed in the attachment second okay we have a motion and a second for item 8.03 are there any questions or comments related to this item i have one on this one and it just details around the construction items and the way that they are going about the renovation i know that we've had a couple of different people mention just about the construction fencing parking issues and stuff like that as they get even further into construction will we lose any more of the territory as that renovation happens are we kind of at the maximum of where they've roped off if that makes sense what i'm what i'm asking there i know there's only so much we can do i'm

094just curious so there is some parking on the east side of a building where mobile classrooms will sit that will be taken here in the next month those those parking spaces have been factored into the count and evaluated by school administration for the number of parking permits that need to be issued and some visitor and staff parking so we believe that the total count on site will still accommodate their needs through the renovation project and see that knocked out the second question on permit so perfect any other questions or comments related to 8.03 okay all those in favor of 8.03 please raise your hand and say hi hi hi all those opposed motion carries unanimously item 8.04 this is a resolution um to um essentially thank and reward our staff um for i mean there's

095no other way to say to your like any other um and so i'm going to first turn it over to dr buck to kind of address how this all came to be and team lee summit and stuff like that and then we'll get into any discussion well first off i came originally from you ryan so early november uh or maybe at end october somewhere around there um ryan had this idea of hey how can we thank uh our staff both certified and support staff and and he had this idea he we brought to november board meeting um and then the board asked hey can we get uh input listen to team lee summit and see how they would like to be thanked uh and so team league summit loved the question uh they were worried

096can we afford it uh but then they were very grateful to the entire board of education for considering this they couldn't think of anything better than this they thought it was very appropriate and thus uh they charged uh administration to put together a resolution which we visited with joe hatley and joe help form this resolution for your consideration tonight so it's one additional day just added to this year but once you have it it follows normal board policy so a pdo and pto thank you dr buck i appreciate that um before any questions or comments related to this we would take a motion on this item please i'll do that i move to approve the resolution for extra pdo pto for eligible employees as presented okay we have a motion and a second for item

0978.04 for the additional pdo and pto for our employees is there any discussion or questions around this item board member campbell earlier thank you but but also important that we look at the cost of of this and so it may seem like one day but there is significant cost to the district and i appreciate my fellow board members view of the thank you and the thought that went into this so i'm excited to support this any other comments or questions surrounding 8.04 board member doane probably mike allen's going to say the same thing but team lee summit was really excited to tackle this idea and we just really wanted to say thank you to all the teachers and and staff we forget about the staff sometimes but it was just a really great conversation and

098we all work together to to i guess move this forward thank you board member doane board member alan thank you ms doan and thank you president murdoch in that same spirit i want to mention and i brought the roster membership roster of team lee summit members that include that includes also representation from maintenance transportation in the bus driver and a bus driver who's representing transportation certainly folks from stansberry leadership center elementary schools secondary and high schools and then some administration and then julie and i uh are on that as representatives from the board and i mentioned that because it is a very strong cross-representation of all aspects of the district um who have put in a ton of time and effort and overtime and the like and the input from each of those representatives was

099equal um not just padding teachers on the back who need the accolades because they have been doing quite a bit of heavy lifting but administrators as well and um you know from the person and maintenance and bus all the way to the top end but also nutritional services all of those folks so it was a very collaborative collective decision and the numbers were wrestled with quite a bit um so none of this is being taken lightly but it is um yeah in my in my opinion uh well earned well-deserved and um you know i'm glad we're supportive of the work thank you thank you for that comment board member alan uh board member fritzy yes i just wanted to say i spent most of the day yesterday reading through the team lee summit survey that

100linda was so kind to resend to me but in reading through all of those comments from our employees it is is it's very it's very clear we knew we know that it's it's been a tough tough year for all of our employees every every single employee group um i know i've read you know nutrition services staff folks our facilities folks our transportation folks and of course our our certified staff members but in reading through all of those comments you could see the the difficulties and and the things that they have had to surmount this year to make this year a success or at least to try to make this year a success uh for for our students and so for that big team effort i'm i am totally in favor of of giving each of

101these employees a pdl pto day because i wish we could even do more but this is this is the best expression that i think we can we can show them at this time so thank you any other comments or questions my only comment would be you know we this came to fruition in november um and at the time that was probably when we were in the absolute worst spot right um as a district and so in a time when i think opinions vary widely all across our community on a lot of different things in many cases our staff has taken a pretty big brunt of that and that doesn't mean by the way just our teachers clearly our teachers do too but people sitting out here as well have taken the brunt of those very

102very uh differing opinions as we've gone through this school year so on behalf of the seven of us thank you this was a small a small thing that we hopefully could do for everybody so we just wanted to say thank you as a board and we will continue to do our best to try to support you any other comments questions okay um all those in favor of item 8.04 please raise your hand and say aye aye aye all those opposed motion carries unanimously again thank you to all the board members and everybody out there 8.05 this is um as some of you know dr hedrick is not able to join us in person she is attending to a personal matter and so just as a we are required to excuse her absence from the physical

103attendance so we need to get a motion for item 8.05 i move to excuse board member hedrick from physical attendance at tonight's meeting and allow her to participate via speaker phone second motion in a second is there any discussion on this item and i believe board member hedrick will be abstaining from this vote is that correct mrs smart yes i will be abstaining uh board member doane i just wanted to say that um board member hedrick is a valuable part of our team up here and we miss her but she always is engaged via phone or zoom so i appreciate her very much any other comments okay all those in favor of this motion please raise your hand and say aye aye any opposed motion carries unanimously with one abstention and we will move on

104to item 9.01 we have two presentations tonight um so the first is going to be from lee moore who's going to give us an update on the mason elementary project good evening mr president board members dr buck here to talk to you a little bit about what we've been doing at mason elementary last few months i think it's been a couple months since we've seen you so we'll get right started here on uh oh i guess i control the slide here okay uh so this is kind of starting out with our overall phasing pan plan and this will help kind of explain where all we're working at right now so currently we're working in the green area to your right so that's the addition and i'm going to break that out in three phases here

105in a minute and then we're also working in the blue area which is the first phase of our renovation so in the northernmost part of that green edition is the storm shelter we've just wrapped up cmu walls in that area we're going to start steel and slab on grade in that particular area next week move down just below uh that top square is the media center there the the green and we actually just pour the slab on grade in that area today uh steel is going to be complete this week and uh looking to start metal stud framing for the exterior skin uh in the following weeks and then that lower kind of brighter green box there which is the four classrooms and administration area actually that's the location we just poured the slab on

106grade today and the steel is complete exterior framing and skin will start there next week as well and then the blue area is our renovation space so we have completed the demolition mechanical electrical plumbing rough-in is ongoing in that area as well as getting ready to start wall framing and and then in march we'll be working on painting and sealing so we're looking to have that part of the project the blue area be complete in june and then uh over the next couple months in the green area about by the next time we see you uh we'll have most of the skin roof complete and we'll be starting on finishes in the addition part uh and this is just uh some of the stuff i just covered so i'll jump into some pictures so uh

107crazy to think that a little over a week ago that was the condition of our site out there and uh thanks to mother nature nature and the missouri roller coaster weather we've we've thought out at this point so this is the area of the administration and the four classrooms on the south end again these pictures are almost two weeks old because this was actually prior to the winter blast so a lot's happened since then but this is the area where we poured the slab on grade today you can see the structural steel there and we'll start we'll start framing that in next week the next picture this is the kind of the middle area this is the media center as you can see on this day we actually had just wrapped up the slab on

108grade but there's actually steel in this area like i mentioned in the previous update you can see behind there some masonry walls you can see the green tarp that wall is completely done and that kind of finishes our storm shelter so that's the south part of the storm shelter area and this is looking west this is our north construction drive north of the addition you can see the temporary masonry enclosure and scaffolding so that those uh that measure was actually allowed us to work over the winter on the masonry and then keep the project going you can see our drive there the buildings to your right are actually temporary classrooms out there and then this is just one picture of the interior you can see the the black dots in the back and the masonry

109that's actually where marker boards have been taken off but we've completed the openings for the flexible learning uh spaces so we've opened up those classrooms and that's kind of what you see is that scaffolding and shoring there for the structure and again uh we're working on all the mechanical plumbing and electrical and uh and metal framing there at this point so uh with that um you know we talked a little bit about future construction activity so digging out of the snow we've accomplished that we talked about the framing uh renovation work and then the red area in the plan that's the work going on this summer so late may by the time we have our next uh update we'll be right on the edge of getting ready to start that project that phase once uh

110school's out for the spring so with that that's all i've got to offer unless anyone has any questions and appreciate the opportunity to see you guys tonight thank you for the update does anybody have any questions or comments regarding the mason update just a quick one board member fritzi just just a really quick one did you guys work all of last week so there were some days that it was just too cold to work but we were able to work a portion of the through the winter storm there so okay so it didn't slow down your timeline no no and we've got weather days built into the schedule too so that's obviously helped us with uh working through the winter thanks very much board member marshall yes thank you um actually coincidentally mason elementary was

111the school i visited this afternoon and you're absolutely right the pictures um don't do justice to what's going on there now it's it's i mean we were there for the groundbreaking ceremony that was the last time i was there um coincidentally i forgot how uh far out it is so that was uh a good drive just going coming from the bottom of lisa i'm going all the way up but yes there's a lot happening on the new construction site as well as how the um the i guess the seasoned building is dealing with maneuvering around and it's um i mean you wouldn't know construction is going on outside once you're in the building and i think that that's that's um really important to mention especially in learning environments um so it's it's um it looks

112great um and i can't wait to see the the last pillar get put on so yeah thank you board member marshall any other comments questions okay thank you very much we appreciate it item 9.02 we're going to have a presentation about our career and technical education program and that evaluation and shannon booth is here um and so we will turn it over to you shannon for this presentation thank you good evening board members it just so happens that february is career and technical education month so i'm really excited to be here to talk about our amazing career and technical education programs that we have throughout the district the pictures that you see here on this slide showcase some of our different school store spirit wear items and throughout all of the craziness that this year

113has brought we have still had marketing internships and those internships run the school stores and the funds that we get from the sell of the spirit wear and the different items that they have at the school store help fund our marketing program and our career and student technical organization of deca so these pictures showcase um some supervised business experience students from lee's summit west modeling their spirit wear as we were trying to promote those virtually earlier this year um as well as our middle picture there our lee summit students promoting their spirit wear and our awesome teacher wiley brown the marketing teacher at least summit north it's the last picture there and those items you can purchase online and at the school stores at each of the buildings our program really does offer comprehensive cutting-edge

114rigorous relevant courses we study what is in high demand every single year and make sure that our pathways follow what trends are telling us and if we see that something is not we immediately start working to figure out how to come up with a program that's in demand relevant and will get our students a high wage high skill and high demand career when they leave us today i hope tonight that i can answer that question that was posed earlier what is lsr7 doing to help our students with the world of work when they leave us and everything in this presentation is going to address just that the pathways that we have available for all of our students are agriculture business marketing and information technology skilled technical sciences engineering family consumer sciences occupational family consumer sciences

115and health sciences and within each of those pathways we have several different clear career clusters where students can really dive deep in each one of those areas also our cte programs offer students the opportunity to earn several market value assets which we are learning through the diploma plus initiative what those are and i'll talk in detail about those as we move through today our programs are all aligned currently with our destination 2021 c-sub plan as well as board priorities one and two um finance wise i do have to make a note as i was preparing for this presentation this evening and going over my slides i noticed a mistake in the board doc slides that we see here um so i do want to address that when i'm talking about finances lsr-7 cte funds cover

116all of those pathways i talked about over all three of our high schools as well as summit technology academy so these funding sources that you see help fund all of those different programs at every one of those buildings as well as some professional development and resources at all three of our middle schools also so we actually have total funds of eight hundred and eighteen thousand eight hundred and twenty two dollars and eleven cents for this school year our perkins five federal funding is a hundred and seventy four thousand four hundred and eighty four the cte vocational technical enhancement grant for fiscal year twenty one was three hundred and thirty two thousand four hundred eighty 489 and where the mistake was made is with the cte basin performance funding which is a state grant we actually

117were given 175 389. i had looked at dusty's e-peg system to pull the numbers and accidentally pulled one of the payment requests that i made instead of the full amount so i do want to make note of that and then our 50 career educational grants we wrote a total of four thousand eight four thousand eighty five and eleven cents worth and our district cte project lead the way budget is a hundred and thirty two thousand three hundred and 375 and that budget also helps our project lead the way launch programs in all 18 elementary schools the stakeholders that we work with on a regular basis to review all the data and federal accountability measures that we have include a cte leadership team that consists of myself dr flack tony bowman meek who is our career

118curriculum specialist sherry norton is our business marketing information technology department chair kathy nash is our family consumer sciences department chair jeff buckner is our engineering and industrial tech department chair and frank volk is our science curriculum specialist and he helps us oversee the health science programming throughout our district this team is very vital it we work together so well we meet every single month and review everything that has happened we look at all of our funding sources we look at all the requests that have come in from teachers and evaluate where it is that we need to put some of these funds and what would make the greatest impact for the most students and the most teachers and looking at those high demand fields and if we're doing right for our students so this team

119meets every single month to discuss all of those issues to make these decisions across our district along with that we have career pathway advisory teams and the teams that are listed here are the ones that have been meeting this year these are industry specific this came from the cte leadership team identifying priorities that we have throughout the district based on the voice of our students and our teachers and that is why we chose the certain areas on the career pathway advisory teams we have a lot of different federal accountability measures that we utilize whenever we are looking at our programs throughout the district and one of those is the comprehensive local needs assessment or clna that is part of the perkins 5 accountability so for us to receive those perkins funds we have to complete

120a cnla every other year but our district is actually doing one every year to make sure that we're evaluating those programs so the one that is complete from last year was a 2019 one we're working on finalizing the 2020 and then we'll work on next year's and we'll actually have to submit in 21. and that's the performance of the federal accountability indicators what we have to look at is participation enrollment that means how many students have taken a cte course above a credit so any student that has had more than one credit um but less than two because then we have our concentrator status so those are students that actually took sequential programs so two courses within a pathway in order to be considered a concentrator the other core indicators that we look at is

121post program retention and placement and that is where that grad follow-up survey comes in so we see how our students are doing a year after they leave us earned recognized post secondary credentials which we call industry recognized credentials or ircs we look at how we're doing there and if there's any more that we need to start offering our students based on our business partners in our career advisory teams and what they're saying is relevant and then non-traditional program concentration this is how many girls do we have in engineering or how many male students are taking the nursing courses so that non-traditional student in some of those programs we also look at our labor market needs and make sure that we're aligned as i mentioned before we look at scope size and quality of the programs

122that are offered we do that by conducting what's called a common criteria quality indicator each year we get each pathways worth of teachers at every building and we go through what is called the ccqi to see if the scope and the quality of what we're teaching is really what we need it to be and then we progress towards implementing programs and programs of study recruitment retention and training of facility and staff and then also progress towards improving equity and access so what we found from our previous clna process is that we need to work towards the following goals goal one was to create more opportunities for students to explore career pathways and experience those work-based learning opportunities we were doing that by establishing additional career and technical student organizations when we completed the clna we

123found that we were missing a couple program areas as far as career and student organizations go we didn't have one for skilled science skilled technical sciences and we also didn't have one at each of the high schools for health sciences so we implemented new ctsos at each one of those buildings to make sure that we are doing what we need to do for all of those students we also have a goal of increasing our industry recognized credential attainment increasing our internships increasing enrollment in all of our cte courses and awarding cte certificates which i'll talk in detail about in a future slide gold two is revamping our career pathway advisory teams and we did that this year by doing industry specific teams and really looking at the priorities and the data on what those teams

124needed to be and goal three of improving quality equity and access to cte programs we're going to do that by providing more opportunities to all cte educators to go for quality professional development in their area using the new database program we have called transio to really track the student engagement data and be able to identify gaps in real time that would give us time to provide interventions where needed maintain industry standard equipment we are in the process right now of buying new stove tops and ovens in each one of our culinary classrooms because we need new equipment to stay up to date with industry standards and then allocate funds to improve access to special populations and evaluate current career curriculum and focused learning to identify the needs for any change and growth we may want

125to implement so one of the goal results was that measurement of how kids are doing once they leave us so in november after they graduate is when we start the survey we ask our graduates to take the follow-up survey and let us know what they're doing positive placement according to the perkins federal accountability is if a student has went to a two or four year college or university a technical school went into the military went straight into the workforce um i believe that's all of them so that's considered positive placement that other category that you'll see in these graphs means we either did not get a hold of them and we do not know what they're doing or we did get a hold of them and they're not in any of those other categories so

126what the graduate follow-up data from 2017 to 2020 is showing us is a decreasing in the amount of students attending two and four-year schools post-high school graduation as well as an increase in students going straight into the workforce the national student clearing house research center also sees that trend they found that from 2012 to now student enrollment in u.s colleges is down 11 percent this is why it's vital for us to continue on with the work that we're doing with the diploma plus program and all of our strong cte programs you'll notice that in 2017 we had four-year college 60.6 of our kids were going there right after they graduated um 2018 we had 56.9 and also notice two-year college we have decreased a little bit but we've remained pretty consistent with the numbers of

127kids that are going to two-year schools workforce has gone up since 2017 so we were at 13.5 2018 14.8 in 2019 our four-year college was down to 53.3 percent our workforce dropped that year too and the other category went up which is not the trend we want to see and so we that was also the year we really dove into the clna process and started bringing the right stakeholders to the table and really diving in and looking at our programs and what we need to improve on and what we're doing well and providing some intervention so we're looking at this data and we're really making some actions to improve those things because we do not want our students to fall into that other category in 2020 we were all the way down to 44.8 attending

128a four-year college i'm sure the pandemic had something to do with the increase in the workforce numbers because we increased drastically to 20.2 percent of workforce but we were able to make some strides on the other category by going down four percent so that is definitely a positive number we provide students several work based learning experiences throughout the district some of those are listed here but most of these are internships so through the kauffman real world learning grant and the diploma plus initiative these are all considered market value assets that our students will receive if they complete any of the programs that are listed here also the industry-recognized credentials would also be considered a market value asset coming out of career and technical education we really looked at the list of the industry-recognized credentials that

129we were giving we took the information given from kaufman and we analyzed that because they really went out and vetted our region and business and industry asking what are true industry-recognized credentials and we took that list and compared it to the list that dussey has and then we also brought that list to our career pathway advisory team members and our business partners asking them what do you recommend we test our students for and what we found is several that we used to test really are not valid we don't want to do something just because we want to do something because it means something to the kids and that they will get something out of it so we went and we looked at that list and we have decided that now we are going to test

130the following capstone courses for valid industry recognized credentials that our business partners are saying will help them have a leg up against their peers whenever they go out into the workforce and those are our marketing business finance and fintech teacher education academy allied health professional nursing machine tool tech business admin and ib business computer applications 2 culinary arts 2 networking cyber security and advanced interior design and in addition to those programs all of our engineering programs also have an end of course exam that's tied to project lead the way and that will give students the opportunity if they score a certain score on those eocs or if they got a certain grade in the test that they can go to different colleges and turn that in and they will get credit for free in some

131cases or for a much reduced rate in other cases i had mentioned that we had career pathway advisory meetings and we were restructured this fall to be industry specific the picture that you see here is a subgroup from the construction trades career pathway advisory team that met and this group of partners really talked about the pathway and skilled technical sciences that we have and what we are currently doing and how we can up our game a little bit when it comes to construction trades they have been amazing they want to offer internships apprenticeships client connected projects job shadows they really are knocking down my door to do these opportunities with kids so the business partner engagement this year on the with the kauffman grant and the diploma plus has been amazing and it is so

132awesome and we are really starting to roll and get some of these experiences set up for kids uh one of the accountability measures for perkins is um we have several core indicators and what they show us is how many of our participants and concentrators how they're doing academically how they placed post-graduation how they're doing academically and then we also have some accountability measures on non-traditional students so the ones where we met all federal accountability measures i have here in these charts how we did compared to the state but for the number of concentrators again that is a student who's taken two sequential credits in a pathway the first one is that four-year graduation rate we had 730 concentrators in 2020 728 of them graduated so that is a 99.73 you'll see in the very or

133the state adjusted performance level that's the benchmark that we're trying to hit so we were quite a ways above that and above state numbers core indicator number two is how are our concentrator how are cte concentrators doing academically in some of their core classes so the reading language arts eoc that is i believe english 2 and we had 719 concentrators take that exam and the level of performance was 73.71 and we were quite a ways above the state and federal or state benchmark as well another area of academic performance is in math and that's the algebra eoc and we had 349 concentrators take that 219 scored and i say 530 they scored in the top two levels which means advanced or proficient so for the ela that was 530 for math it was 219 scoring

134in the top two levels and for science which is the biology eoc are concentrators there were 688 that took that test and 584 of them scored in the top two levels of advanced or proficient um this one we were way above the state benchmark of 39 percent at 84.88 percent um that is awesome and then the post-placement rate and that is who was placed positively in the graduate follow-up survey so the things i was talking about like four-year school two-year school so on um we had 516 graduates of our concentrators and 488 of them were positively placed these graphs on the next two slides show what can be found in the deci mcds portal whenever we report all this data in june core data it can be found out on the deci portal and this

135one shows that we in the orange are above the state in our graduation rate of cte concentrators and this one shows the positive placement so how we are doing compared to the state and positively placing our cte concentrators once they graduate or all of our students once they graduate not just concentrators and then another thing that we said we needed to do in the goals was add the ctsos for every single pathway so this year we were able to add hosa which is future health professionals that goes along with the health science pathway as well as the technical student organization tsa which goes along with the engineering and skilled tech pathway at all three of our high schools we already have future business leaders of america which goes with our business and i t pathway

136and marketing our deca program which goes with our marketing pathway as well as fccla which is with family consumer sciences and at sta we have one for every pathway there as well and that is skillsusa for the engineering and skilled tech pathway hosa for health sciences and educators rising for our teacher education academy now strengths and celebrations as the need for career and technical education continues to rise there is much to celebrate in all of our programs across the district whenever we were pulling market value asset and cte data for the kauffman real world learning grant we found that each of the three high schools really has a specialty in those areas so every high school showed a strength in one of the work based learning opportunity areas over another lee summit high school had

137the highest percentage of internships lee's summit north had the highest percentage of graduates earning nine or more college credit hours lee's summit west had the highest percentage of graduates earning industry recognized credentials and the data showed us that sta actually had 92 percent of their graduates in earn work based learning opportunities or market value assets and they are well on their way this year to having 100 of their students earning those market value assets even through the pandemic our ctso kiddos have gotten to perform and compete in their varying virtual competitions last year our hosa chapter this was before we had hosa at every building so the hosa chapter at sta which included students from every single building received top five honors in certificate of merit which means they raised over 500 dollars for national

138pediatric cancer foundation pharmacy science and medical assisting this year they have 31 members at sta and they are going to compete virtually this year with 19 students participating and that is just at sta we also are starting to participate at all three of the high schools as well and we have had kids compete in those brand new programs this year our future business leaders of america group just got done competing at the district competition we had kids place in the top three in all of these 28 events we have implemented the system transio which i have referred to earlier that's really going to help us track our diploma plus market value assets as well as all of the cte data the thing that i love so much about transio is we get that data in

139real time so it talks with our talks with powerschool and naviance every single day and pulls real-time information from those systems to where we can identify where we need to have interventions when necessary business partner engagement has been amazing as i mentioned i have people knocking down my doors for opportunities for kids which is great the cte certificate this is the first year that students will be able to graduate with a cte certificate so in 2016 this was passed and this will be the first graduating class kids that earn this certificate have met all the requirements of a high school diploma they have qualified as a cte concentrator but even more than that because they actually have to have three sequential credits in a pathway not just two they maintain a minimum grade point average

140of 3.0 out of four on the cte area of concentration that they are studying they have to have passed a technical skills assessment or an industry recognized credential they have to complete a minimum of 50 hours of work based learning experiences maintain at least a 95 percent attendance record for all of grades 9 through 12 and demonstrate attainment of soft skills and they can do that by actively participating in any of our ctsos throughout the district or scoring at a proficient level on a district developed or adopted soft skills assessment or they can have three or more letters of recommendations from three business or industry employers that show us that they have mastered those soft skills working towards the certificate and then they also have to have a score at or above the state standard

141on any department approved college and career readiness tests like the act the s.a.t work keys and the asvab so a student that is actually earning the certificate has really done a lot of work and worked really hard to earn the cte certificate so it will be exciting when we pull that data and see how many of our 2021 graduates have earned that cte certificate we are also working really hard to get the word out on the certificate with our business partners so they know what it means i have to mention our amazing cte teachers teaching a hands-on project-based learning class virtually is not easy but they have done an amazing job and just the the engagement that our kids are still having in our ctsos that shows that our teachers are really doing an amazing

142job we're really excited about the aerospace academy coming at summit tech we just got our approval from the state that it will be a cte certified course so now we will have access to all of the cte funding for that course and we're looking forward with our partner are looking forward to our business partnerships and our post-secondary partnerships in that program as well we are excited that work has begun within our teacher education academy to evolve into a possible grow your own program we were able to take the data from the clna and identify the subgroups that we were lacking so we found that we really haven't done enough work to reach our special populations and get those kids in our cte classes and so what we did this year is we utilize perkins funding

143to hire a special education district liaison that will work as a career navigator for the district so that is one step that we are making to touch on where we need to improve with special populations so we are excited to have him and get started with all of the great internship works that our special populations groups are already doing as mentioned areas for improvement would be special populations and identifying which groups of students are not engaged in our career and technical education or who are not gaining access we are really hoping to utilize the transio program to identify those students and make changes so that those students have all of the opportunities that every student should have in our district i am confident that with the transio system i really think we will be able

144to start pulling data in may so we are working with the career navigators to really put all of that information into transio and kind of put some back information in of students that have already obtained market value assets and so we'll be able to pull some of those reports and then let's see the cte leadership team would like to expand the marketing of our cte programs we found that we do an amazing job getting the word out of what summit technology academy is doing but we have amazing cte programs at every single one of our buildings and we are working really hard to make sure that we get that message out as well um the things we will work on for upcoming evaluations is just providing that access and opportunity for all students supporting increased

145academic and social emotional growth groups for all students as well as aligning with board priorities one and two and the instructional mtss framework action steps we really have to follow the federal guidelines so many of those goals will remain the same as we work towards increasing enrollment and decreasing equity gaps and then the cte leadership team will analyze the 2020 graduate follow-up as well as that common criteria quality indicator that our teachers fill out and other data related to college and career readiness to develop our 21-22 plan and what i really want to mention is like i have before with the diploma plus initiative cte is truly embedded in every single element of that program career and technical education provides important pathways to success for all students and offers each student opportunities to personalize their

146education based on career interests and unique learning needs so thank you and i'd be willing to answer any questions thank you very much um we do have a couple so uh board member doane all right you almost touched on it in the very end but in great presentation shannon um so you will know at the end of the school year how many kids qualified for the cte you don't yes i i will not know that like the actual numbers until after they've finished their high school diploma and i'm able to pull all that data from their end of course exams any finals their grades that's when seniors leave early i have a lot of work to do to pull that information but we are identifying kids that are we think are on track and making

147sure that if they're missing that irc or if they're missing the letter of recommendation that we go talk to them and make sure that they know if they want the cte certificate so because this is this is your first year this is the kids that start okay and so then you'll be able to i've identified the subgroups yes like grace and yes and okay i think that is all i wanted thank you board member alan yeah hey thank you president murdoch and and thank you very much ms booth just uh two three things i was trying to pull together the number of students that are engaged in this is it roughly four thousand is that a high number alone is that oh that's that's pretty close okay just on some of the charts that you

148had so there that that's roughly 20 of our student population is that right i mean that's a that's a good number to me for the first year it's a great number but that is our participation number so that is the number so actually we have a little bit more than that okay because we have students that are taking uh half a credit and what we want to do is make sure that if they took a half a credit why did they stop coming to us let's identify why and then get even more as concentrators okay and then um two other things well three i guess you said the partnership with businesses is very good and positive in the engagement area um that'll build just over time are we actively pursuing that larger number of partnership

149i guess and then my next question sort of lays into that and believe it or not i have one more after that um are we utilizing some of the relationships built over the years i mean 20 plus years with partner ned lee summit educational foundation i mean those run now what two decades plus multiple generations is that layered into this somehow some way absolutely tina chase from the lee summit educational foundation or numbs i'm sorry tina chase from the lse that's my next question so you jumped ahead of me but i'm talking about inside the district right so partner in ed and then and the foundation i realized the foundation is a little bit different because there's always been that chinese wall however those bloodlines run deep and when we talk about partnerships and collaboration

150we talked about great beginnings in essence the foundation was huge in that effort along with some community partners so i'm curious if we cultivate some of that or don't i don't know laura maxwell and i have worked together throughout this entire year as the diploma plus initiative has started to come to life we with that transieo program we are trying to implement a program where all of our business partners kind of have a one-stop shop but what we need to do and a lot of this is being proposed through the non-allocated process and once we figure out what direction we are moving forward in that process we can identify businesses once they're in that system whether they are a mentor or a building partner or they want to do these experiences that we need for

151diploma plus initiatives so laura and i have been working together on that we are still waiting to see what the direction is going to be for how we're going to take those different initiatives but still make it a one-stop shop for our business partners so they have one thing to do to connect to us and then we provide them with the right person to move forward because we absolutely want the partnerships that we've had for so long to do what they're still doing and mentoring and being with our our kids but we also want to grow and expand to our new business partners for these experiences and can you add how many businesses there are in your advisories in our advisories well in the construction trade we had over 32 in health sciences we've had

152about 10 computer science we have about eight i'm trying to think what else we had on the list it's it's well over a hundred that's great correct when you put them all together yes yes and they've they've actually changed some of our programs so for example the health you should talk about the health field you know one thing they talked about is the 3d modeling so now all of a sudden we got partnerships between different cte pathways where kids in one pathway are teaching 3d modeling to kids in the health pathway and then expand on your last cut or a comment there you talk about the yeah i'm using acronyms right but uh the um lse edc it's mentioned quickly at the beginning of the the report but i know it's pretty vertical i mean

153it's a pretty deep relationship isn't it yes so tina chase and i have been going around and presenting to chamber events to rotary events to luncheons trying to get any local and regional business partners to be aware of career and technical education in the diploma plus initiative as we roll forward and just today because of some of that outreach that we've been doing i was contacted yesterday and today by four new business partners wanting to establish those experiences and we're not done yet we have several engagements on the calendar for the rest of the spring where we're going to go together and really start pushing these things out another thing we're working on for april because our construction trades really told us we need to identify to our students the different careers that are available

154in the construction trades and so tina and i are working with local business partners to provide a virtual career panel that we have figured out how we can have our construction trades courses at every single building watching this virtual career panel at the same time so that all of those kids get access to this panel so we are working on that and we should be ready to roll that out in april board member campbell thank you and great presentation and i really appreciated all the information that you provided around the questions as well because being new to a lot of this information i did have a lot of questions you know questions like how does this tie to real world learning questions about for all of our students you know we know we have students

155that are interested in college we know we have students that are not interested in college and how do we offer opportunities for all of them so can we talk a little bit about the tie to real world learning and how this is offered to all of our students absolutely so that is part of the reason why our partnerships look a little bit different than they have previously and that is because we are really trying to partner with business and industry to provide the different market value assets so every single one of our kids have an opportunity with these real world learning experiences so those being our college credit nine or more hours of college credit we are doing very well in that category um where we need to continue to grow and expand is in

156the area of client connected projects entrepreneurial experiences and in our internships we hope that we can start offering a youth apprenticeship we hope that we might have one-off internships and not just the experiences that are listed under career and technical education so if a company calls us and says you know i only have one position and we're gonna say okay well what do you need for that one position what does it look like what student are you looking for and then we through that transieo system can actually post it like a job board for kids and we can make that visible so then the students can actually search for different internship opportunities even though they may not not be offered through a program or a course so that we can touch on all students with

157the special education district liaison that we've hired he is now looking at our community-based instruction and some of the work programs that we have with our special education students and we are starting to put that information into tranzio and pilot some internships there as well so that's another category what opens doors for so many students the industry recognized credentials if a student ever comes and says i think i want to take this test we would look into it and see what we can do so in all areas of market value assets we're not only trying to put them in career and technical education but we're also trying to put them in some of our core classes it's just whatever the experience is that's coming our way from our business partners finding the best fit for

158the most students or for the right student is what we're trying to accomplish here and it's going to open up so many doors for so many kids to have that additional skill when they leave us that's great thank you and can you remind me the definition of market value asset it's really a a skill set that they have in addition to their diploma when they're leaving us so the ones that we are doing are work experiences and that would include your client connected projects and your internships or apprenticeships industry recognized credentials so those tests that give them a leg up entrepreneurial experiences that is where a student comes up with a problem or a solution to a problem and they kind of pitch it shark tank style but they also have to come up with

159a business plan and think through the entire process and then client connected projects which that is where we work with clients like for example i had a construction company reach out today and originally they were just talking about job shadows and opportunities for our kids to visit which is awesome and we want to do those things but when i started talking would there be any opportunity for a client connected project here what we found is she was so excited because she thought it all had to be about construction but there's so many other jobs within that construction field and she said we actually have a problem with our communication we are finding that our workers out on the field don't check their company email and they don't have industry or they don't have company phones

160so we can't text them how do we get the message across and i said that would be a great client connected project for our students so we are trying now bringing that to our new career navigators at each building and saying where do we think this fits and beginning to connect those courses to those client connected projects and then lastly college credit right now we are asking all of the colleges that offer dual credit to us to send us a spreadsheet of kids that have earned college credit each semester so we just got that information for the fall and we'll put that into our system and then we'll get another one at the end of the year for the second semester put that in the system and really start tracking our dual credit great great

161thank you and i think just my last question is how are students well okay it's a twofold question how are students hearing about this and how are parents hearing about this because i find sometimes there's that disconnect of students hear about it at school sometimes there's no conversation with parents and back and forth so how are we sharing all this information out with our parents and our students well we are still in a planning year now and what we've really tried to do this year is set the foundation make sure we have all the tracking measures in place make sure we are starting to bring business partners to the table that these experiences are here and now our team is really working on how do we get that message out so we've designed a professional

162development that is housed in our schoology system for our teachers and all of the staff and they will all have taken that by may so 100 of our secondary staff or maybe just high schools i think we're going to look at middle schools too but our high school staff will have taken that and have been trained on what this is we have hired career navigators at each one of the buildings and i'm actually bringing another one on through our perkins funding at sra as well i talked to mr campbell today about that um and so we're working through them to really get out in front of the the community too and the buildings and spread the word we continue to do the amazing things in all of our career and technical student organizations and our

163cte pathways and programs that we do and now we're adding diploma plus to everything that we're saying to all of those groups as well but our goal from now until really the end of this school year is to come up with that plan and what that's going to look like and a lot of those things are also part of the non-allocated process and once we know what that might look like we will definitely be moving forward and making strides in that area great thank you any other questions or comments okay thank you very much we appreciate it we are going to move on to item 10 which is just which are our written reports we had three for this particular meeting so if there are any comments that people would like to make in regards

164to the reports we will do that now um it was a close call on who hit the button first but his board member fritchey you know you can count on me huh i'm going to keep this quick because our meeting's running long 10.01 um our special education report thank you dr mathis that was a very comprehensive report wow it's been a challenging year to say the least and i think your staff has really risen to that challenge in many many ways and you pointed uh some of those out as in your successes in the report i won't go into that now for time's sake but thank you but one of the one things that i do want to mention was that you said that we continue to maintain a high graduation graduation rate for our

165students with ieps as compared to the state and i think that's very um commendable for our staff that work so hard to help our students it's also notable that you've identified areas for your department's improvement and that you've developed questions for your future evaluations so that's all important pieces as you go forward and so just many thanks to each one of the members of the special education department who work diligently to assist our students day in and day out with their services and i say that as the grateful daughter of a special education teacher thank you very much thank you board member fritzy board member doane all right um 10.03 i just wanted to say it seemed like it changed a lot this year so i was i i just wanted to put this thought

166into your head because you know how we go through the priorities and we and we mark out we can see what's marked and what's changed and it would have been helpful i think for me and i i read it late kind of like right now so i'm tired but um just the changes just if we could have highlighted the different changes that it was made so i don't know and then um who actually does every coach and sponsor get this i look at dr andrews and i think probably because that okay does every coach and sponsor get that each year or how does that all work yes okay one i think that each athletic director in each school has a coaches meeting with their coaches at the beginning of every year and they they go

167through some of that okay thank you any other questions or comments related to our written reports okay um we are going to move on to item 11.01 we need a motion from a board member as some of you get to leave some of us will stay so um if we could get that motion on 11.01 please i moved to conduct a closed session including any record or vote immediately following the regular session on thursday february 25th 2021 at 301 northeast tudor road lee's summit missouri 64086 for consideration of the following matters in section 610.021 revised statues of missouri legal issues one real estate two personal issues three and thirteen and student issues six and fourteen second motion and a second to go into closed session is there any discussion on this motion okay um all

168those in favor we do need to do a roll call vote on this one board member marshall hi board member allen board member campbell vice president fridgey hi board member doane president murdoch aye dr hedrick i'm abstaining thank you okay motion carries unanimously with one abstention and we are in closed session thank you everyone for tonight have a good evening you