LSR7 Board of Education Meeting - 10/24/19

001you all knew it was seven o'clock didn't you all right let's start off with the Pledge of Allegiance please all right welcome everyone the weather is it changing you all have sweaters on so I would like to start off with a little recognition of the passing of Betty Hertzog's she's an amazing pillar of this community working with the kids through PTA and her church for over 60 years so please keep the Hertzog family in your thoughts thank you very much could I have an adoption of the agenda please I have a second any comments all those in favor say aye aye all those opposed say nay I do want everyone to know Jackie is out of town so she is down there with Linda all right the superintendence report Thank You president Dona instead of

002me giving comments today I'm going to turn it over to our administrative team dr. Jennifer Kephart Kyle Corral and Kelly waychel to give an update on the board priorities and I can tell you now that it's really been a busy quarter how's that sound a little bit better so as we start talking today we're going to spend a little bit of time through some pictures and information sharing our focus on Universal Tier one instructional development and resources we're going to talk about the implementation in the beginning of our multi-tiered system of support we're going to talk about our continued focus and implementation of equity plan phase one and then talk about our assessment expansion so as we begin today and you know because you had the opportunity to spend some time with mr. Greg tang

003as well but we have had a math focus in the district and truly on that Tier one universal development of our staff and that started this summer with some very excited teachers K through eighth grade spending some time with Greg tang and that is continuing throughout the course of the year as well so we appreciate dr. Daniel and then dr. flax team came in as well and looked at our alignment of our curriculum and our resources with Greg tang and they are now doing tangy Tuesdays so you may see some of that on Twitter as well we are also working with dr. flack and his team on aligning some high school courses that you will see over the course of the next few months as well when we continue our focus on Tier one the

004implementation of collaborative classrooms in our elementary schools and you heard about that in the spring it is full-fledged implementation time right now our teachers are doing a wonderful job in utilizing the various resources really focusing on phonics and deepening the reading skills of our students also supporting dyslexia with the addition of sips and learning that throughout their trainings as well so again dr. flack and his team of supports for buildings and resources along with that implementation as we continue to move forward in our secondary realm we are focused on the real world Kauffman grant as well as secondary program expansion and what that looks like with our we are one of 15 districts with the Kauffman real world learning grant and we are focused on how to increase market value assets the goal is by

0052030 that every senior senior in a six County radius would have one of the market value assets and those assets are industry recognized credentials internship opportunities entrepreneurialship opportunities and college courses as well as some that we may see along the way so we have so a wonderful start in Lee's Summit and we are looking at ways to expand and what might that look like an expansion of programming and so more to come with dr. Andrews and his team in that work the link on our digital learning environment is to our twitter hashtag r7c 2l and this is an opportunity to be able to see the various digital learning opportunities that our students are having throughout the engagement in instruction and curriculum so with dr. Whaley and his team we are able to truly see what

006students in the classroom if you hop on that hashtag during the day or any time you're able to see what they're doing throughout classrooms with our new devices we have new devices as you know at our secondary level and getting ready to include those at our elementary level in January so we are adding exploration with those devices of instruction and as we talk about future ready environments we are starting to define what that looks like in the instructional realm as well throughout our MTS s implementation with dr. Mathis and dr. Hill we are focused on those tier one those tier one Universal instructional strands and leadership development but that is also deep conversations about students in regards to academics to behavior and social-emotional learning for all students we are continuing as has has been shared

007with you and the link that's on here is to the updates of our equity plan as you know we are continuing our focus with EE C and on our website we have all of the feedback that was provided through IEC training and that is continued we actually had two of those trainings day two for our leaders this week so we are continuing that work dr. Barger is meeting with some key leaders and having some focused conversations on what we can continue to move forward and what those supports look like for our buildings and for all students as well as we will be sharing additional data in November during our November work session and the disaggregation of that data during that time we are continuing to focus on social emotional learning and focusing on belonging through

008training in vist trauma-informed care and various building activities that support the languages around social-emotional learning as well as spaces we have common spaces in our buildings we have some family connections where grade levels are connecting with other grade levels and meeting monthly on how to support each other we have mindful moments throughout our district we are doing some amazing work in connecting students to their social emotional learning and growth and then as we can continue to expand how we utilize data to drive instruction we are expanding our nwea supports and doing that we are providing training for teachers and administrators on how to utilize the data to drive instruction in our classrooms to see where students are to see their strengths and their opportunities in which we can help them grow instructionally so great work

009in our first quarter as we continue to move forward in second quarter we are continuing focus in each of those areas but also expanding and providing more definition utilization and alignment with our instructional compass and our portrait of a graduate so for now I will send it over to mr. Grubb bored priority number two we're gonna talk a little bit tonight about the second part of this priority and engaging stakeholders and so the start with just an update on schedule we of course had a CAC meeting this week and had presentation of survey results and we'll be continuing that tonight through the month of November will be heavy interaction with CAC and prioritizing and preparing a recommendation that will go to the board the December board meeting just a quick update and a reminder we've

010been working with Hollis and Miller DLR group and Gould Evans on pre-k and elementary middle school and high school designs then je Dunn and McCown court and our two construction managers in those areas the projects were working on Early Childhood Center a preview Mayson expansion for capacity and future ready learning the other five Elementary's we've discussed a new middle school and renovations of the three existing and the Lisa mahai renovation we have got core design teams that have met twice on the Mason project it's been really exciting to talk with staff about the opportunities there we've had numerous meetings with Lisa Matt hi group and I've also met with our middle school administrators and dr. Andrews to start visioning what the new middle school could be so we've conducted a survey district-wide we surveyed all

011district administrators in their buildings they were surveyed about facility needs that dealt with curricular space that they needed with the adequacy of their current space and also various infrastructure items that may or not meet their needs district administration has held 24 individual meetings on-site with these administrators to discuss the results and that data is being reviewed currently and prioritized and will be brought to SLT and IOT sorry that was not a part of my this is the one from last quarter yeah this is this is the first yeah this goes okay let's do this bye-bye memory so we will share this with the board visually we held department meetings with each department group at least some in high school and it was three days three or four days of individual meetings where we surveyed them

012on the data and their departments the numbers we talked about program needs and then of course opportunities that they would like to see in new designs and so what we really took out of that was that the staff at least them in high school is really excited and ready for new opportunities to provide the kids and so our design team is taking a lot of information from the teaching groups that they're going to implement and implement into the design we then put together a group of students that dr. Harrison did we had about 25 students that got together and our design group assembled some exercises for them where they did some visioning for the school around tradition pride and excellence which we know are the core values for the school and so the kids came

013up with some some really fantastic and unbelievably mature thoughts about what the vision of lis some high school could be and so we created gosh I wish I could remember they we created some some Venn diagrams that showed the thoughts that they had and showed the core areas that they thought were the most important in the school the next thing that they did with the students was we asked them in in key areas to think up a magazine or a newspaper headline that they would like to see printed at the end of the Lisa my renovation project and these comments that the kids had and the headlines that they created were were around creating innovative spaces one of them was about creating a space where we can be comfortable and relaxed they even had some

014comments about teachers having spaces for their own personal wellness which we thought was just a really nice selfless comment for students and so the kids are excited for the project the teachers are excited and our other architects on the elementary school in the middle school designs will be working towards a similar level of engagement with those those user groups thank you that's all I can remember so we'll move to priority three talking about communications confidence trust in Newark explosions and engagement to Kyle's point we will be really seen information about the bond proposed project proposed proposed project that's a hard word to say back to back and we have some photos tomorrow of those students and their student leadership teams talking to us project Lisa I'm a high school writing down their tradition pride excellence

015bullet points so these pictures tomorrow they're really fantastic they're really fantastic shots of the kids really working hard to move through their work as you know we do have our cf MP website and our conference of communications plan that we're internally working on with our staff and administrators all of the downloadable resources are available for our public consumption as well so they can see the engagement feedback all of the phase two resources that they might want to see and in the middle school video has also been released on that website as well one of the things that we're being very intentional about is really seeing information about a proposed or anticipated bond through our social media and our communication platforms one of the things that you hopefully saw as our new redesign of our our

016schools magazine Katy Burgin is here in the audience our new assistant director she's in a fantastic job with the future writing and the stories that were telling through those the next edition is coming out in about two weeks for November and there will be a two-page kind of FAQ spread about the proposed projects and that and information for our community to digest one of the things kindda seagard is here from patriot insight tonight talk about some survey data one of the things that he might note but he doesn't again our our school's publication is holding strong as one of our most read publications seventy-seven percent of our telephone survey respondents say that they get through information about the school district from the our schools publications so again really great rationale as to why we have

017that publication and what kind of information we share in that publication thought exchange one of the tools have been using this year is thought exchange again as a intersection from last year but we have ruled out the ability for our principle team to you sought exchange in their schools so there's some examples of some of the exchanges that our principals have been running I think dr. pepper has one in here to just talk about with their staff or with their parents some of the things they might like to get some more feedback on so again just for examples of some of our principal thought exchanges that they have been running over the past couple of months as dr. Kephart alluded to as well our equity journey continues you have seen this slide before but this

018is the edition of the evaluation out of that she was referring to so we have released the results from the thot exchange we did last spring as well as the training feedback from our first five cohorts that have gone through the equity training so very positive feedback very valuable feedback that our public has really been engaging with in looking at to make sure that that work continues on pace with what the expectations are we have an app district app this is one of the things that we've launched this fall as well if you haven't downloaded it I encourage you to do so it's been launched for a couple months it's easy to go to the App Store or Google Play but on your phone has great resources for you at the touch of a finger

019and then this is our app download data we've had about 1300 downloads since we launched at the end of July beginning of August and again some of the features that Miss Bergen has been working on through the our school star first edition again second edition coming out here in a couple of weeks and again great feedback on the format and the features that we're meeting to tell through this platform this is where we talk about our data as it relates to news stories for our July through October quarter you can see the total amount of news stories positive neutral and negative and then really wanted to highlight our reach and engagement again we continue to really push the limit on our reach and engagement there are social media channels now just in the next slide

020we've done really great work and increasing that reach and engagement but one of our highest ever posts on the Facebook page for the district is our first day of school one voice video you see what almost a thousand likes and almost 50,000 views of that video so just wanted to highlight that's one of our most high our highest performing post we've had probably on our platform of Facebook and then again to reiterate this was a slide you saw last month as well or last quarter as well but over the course of a year we have seen over to our percent growth in our engagement and all of our platforms as well as a hundred eighty eight percent growth engagement per post for each of our platforms so just really focus on our content digital content

021how we share content what time of days we should share content what our audience wants to interact with and being very mindful of what our audiences want to see and they like it and then the last slide that's when to make sure that you guys noted was we did draft a comprehensive communications plan for July and I think after that maybe in there Friday update that just really encouraged us as a district to eventually get to the point where we're Peru be in the comprehensive communications plan on a yearly basis so as we to that point is kind of some snapshots about the research the beliefs of the department and where we go from here all right Ryan dr. Kephart I have a question for you in your presentation you mentioned as a part of

022the equity plan phase one and I'm gonna lump kind of a couple things in together here so you give us a quick update on that and we talked about the expansion of the nwea there are there other ways for our district to identify those kids who might be eligible and/or capable of participating in the gifted program besides the nwea test at this particular time and second second and you can answer these in whatever order you want and second along with the equity plan kind of phase one there's there's 12 or 13 timeline goals that we have going right now that our spring of 2019 to fall of 2019 is there a way that we can provide and a goal by goal update even in print format so that we know where we're at on expansion

023and identification of our of the student of the student curriculum focus and things like that is that something that we could do here so I'm a meeting or so so I'm going to send the I'm innocent both questions to dr. Barger however in talking about the plan so the linked plan in there does go through through each of the action steps and provides an update but we can do that and we'll look at a more public forum to be able to do that and that may be on our website on the equity plain website so and that's what I meant a public-facing update sorry I should have to be able to do that and then I'm going to send it to dr. Berger to be able to answer more of the gifted question thank you

024appreciate it so certainly we do use NWA as our initial screen when we look at what deci encourages or allows in terms of being a approved program in Missouri and certain districts opted into that others choose not to offer gifted services and we do when you look at the three criteria that we utilize there is a fourth criteria which is the ability to look for other but the three criteria that we utilize primarily is to have hit a 95th percentile or higher on a nationally normed assessment and so that is one of the criteria and the nationally normed assessment that we utilize is nwea and we choose that particular assessment over other possibilities for a few reasons one of the ways we know to have the most equitable access to gifted services is to do

025a universal screen as opposed to referral based identification because it helps to eliminate any potential bias in that referral process and so because we use a universal screen we choose to utilize the 95th percentile on a nationally normed test that being said in order to do that you have to give whatever test that is to every single child and the best way to use instructional time if we're going to give an assessment to every single child is to ensure that it can get the most bang for your buck meaning the yes we get a nationally normed assessment that will allow us to screen for that 95th percentile for a gifted but we also get incredibly powerful instructional data for all kids whether they're going to be anywhere near that 95th percentile or not so it's

026not ever a waste of the students time to engage in the assessment so that's why that particular assessment is there it's important to note though that it's not just that assessment after you do that academic screen of the 95th percentile students move to the olsat which is a creative reasoning thinking students then have to hit the 95th percentile of that assessment as well for their age and then at that point they moved to the whisk or the IQ and then that's paired with some other things in terms of creativity teacher classroom observation and so forth the other thing I would offer in terms of alternative means as I mentioned that there was that fourth criteria with I would enable for a gifted screening that is indeed the looser one right the one that is not

027quite as clear cut and it's sometimes harder to to defend why something as a yes or I know that is the criteria that we utilize for our advocacy process so when we have students who do not fulfill or do not get caught or or that move forward in our traditional screening process and that there are adults in the child's life be it adults at home or adults at school who continue to believe that they see truly gifted attributes but for some reason they feel like that screening process isn't meshing then that advocacy process exists which is a team that looks more at the whole child set of data and asked the question what does this child what other criterias do we see in the students dad or about this child that would differentiate them from

028other students who have the same data and did not qualify for the program did you feel like you got the question on equity answered in terms of the plan yeah okay yep all along yet though the whole thing was is is to try to get that out into a public facing way so that people know where the progress here we are hopefully it's the goal that as we meet with some of our building administrators we can reexamine those timelines and make sure that place is where we where we need to do some work fairly quickly that we can can get moving on that mm-hmm I think Jackie is a question thank you we'll have that for that I just follow up the Ryan's question regarding the equity plan and that public facing component to have

029people understand where the district is on the status it would seem like probably a pretty simple way of being able to express that would be kind of the old green light yellow light red light in terms of where we are on progress or goals so I think that would be real helpful to have a one-stop location for folks to be able to see and we're getting a lot of email traffic wanting to have updates and to understand where we are on the plan and not just the training element I think a natural place for that would be our page that is dedicated to the equity work on our web page also working through some other venues social media venues that may be the allow for some incremental celebration of work along the way as well

030thank you all right any other questions thank you all right we are moving into presentations and recognition yeah the the first it's going to be introduction of principal Jody melon right mal à la Muette sorry introduce video in to Highland Park Elementary students is that better oh okay so thank you very much for the opportunity to be here this evening for just a few minutes to showcase some things at Highland Park there are many many wonderful things going on in our building so it's hard to pick one thing to share so we wanted to pick something that we felt like was unique one of the things that our theme this year is HPE strong so as we have talked about that we have used this book as a catalyst called all are welcome here so

031I'm just gonna read two pages and then go into kind of what it means to us and to one of my friends over there pencils sharpened in their case bells are ringing let's make haste school's beginning there's dreams to chase all are welcome here no matter how you start your day or what you wear when you play or if you come from far away all are welcome here and then our favorite page we are part of a community our strength is our diversity a shelter from adversity all are welcome here it's got beautiful pictures so we've really focused on the the phrase our strength is our diversity at Highland Park we house the e ll program we have 17 languages among all of our students and staff because one of those is a staff member

032and so we really are celebrating the opportunity to learn from each other and to grow together and one of the things that we have done every day we say our mission statement at Highland Park which is live learn and grow as leaders and so we had our students say the mission statement in their language so we're going to share that with you and then we have one of those friends here to talk to you [Music] Nathan and awesome vanity sicko Annie iike me totally to venom well I'm Bonita no blanket emotion [Music] so there will be a quiz we engaged our parents in that activity mrs. Johnson who you'll hear from in a minute sent home letters so that parents could help with their kids and students and helping them practice that so when they

033came to school they were ready so we're super proud of our students and our ll program and Miss Johnson is going to introduce a student to you hello my name's Michelle Johnson I'm an English language learner teacher at Highland Park I have my friend here Maria Haines who is also an e ll teacher and this is Freddy's and Freddy's is from Honduras Freddy's came in August he had a little bit of a delay starting school but asked every single day and begged and begged and begged I need to go to school today and so there were some paperwork issues and and whatnot but he was not gonna let up I need to get to school and so what he's gonna do right now is he's going to share a story that he wrote basically just

034letting him know how he feels about school okay please another we he's a little bit nervous we practice and he did really well okay story my Feliz mi escuela porque we're gonna we're gonna read and he's gonna repeat he did very well earlier we Felice me primer [Music] [Applause] so real quickly I'll just tell you what he said and that he was just very happy on his first day of school and that his school is very beautiful and he's happy to learn English his school's beautiful called beautiful because he has lunch pe art and friends and a computer his school gives some beautiful things like math and he his father works so that they can have a house and study and they study 'z and teaches his father English at night [Applause] okay so I

035know we've gone over because of our sweet friend but one of the things when when Miss Johnson and I talked today and we went over with because he wrote when he was going to say so he did write that in school this week was that because of our ll program and because of the support we have from all of you we're not just changing his life we're changing his dad's life in his whole family's life and we're just really grateful for that for you to share thank you so much what what grade second grade thank you bueno wait in your fridge is my point on these awesome thank you so much [Applause] our next agenda item is to have principal Jeff's Cal Farrow and the system principles Melanie Hutchison and dr. Brett Jacobs are here

036to highlight Bernard Campbell Middle School's club an advisory program I'm just gonna go on record that that's a tough act to follow so well do we'll do our best but you're probably not gonna get the same thing out of from us so well we want what we wanted to talk about tonight in highlight is our advisory program we truly believe that a strong middle school has a pillar of a strong middle school is a the advisory program so with that in mind over the summer time we look to retool our advisory program with with the thought of looking at mentorship intervention and choice for the social emotional wellness part of things so and we had some goals in mind as we as we did that and took some action steps along the way you can

037see those I don't have dr. Jake I'm gonna have dr. Jacob speak to there's an example we had the set up for the teachers and the one of the pillars of this advisory program that we started with was a intervention so playing off the NWA ei expansion we decided to use that assessment because we were getting assessed in something eighth grade to use those assessments to determine here vention groups and currently we are providing an intervention through I ready which is from curriculum associates to over a hundred it's about a hundred and ten hundred fifteen kids in reading and ten hundred fifteen kids in math and our buildings so well over two hundred students are getting a another level of intervention that they weren't getting before and it's prescribed and they get 50 minutes a

038week during advisory so that was a key component up there by our advisory program and these kids were not getting intervention like this last year so that's that was a big deal for us and then of course we ever we kept our reteaching component in our advisory program the testing center this was something that are we really wanted to provide as a resource for our teachers we have a set it's basically Assessment Center kids can do retakes throughout the week during advisory if they weren't there on a given day for an assessment the teachers can have them sign up for a spot so we created this resource and that takes place as well social-emotional development this has just done through we have we're using second step which is was provided to us through Cerner we're

039using that as well and then I'm gonna have dr. J go to speak to case management this is the mentorship part of of our advisory program that we thought that we think highly of thank you so as we decided and move forward with what the key components to our advisory program we're gonna be we really kind of took the pillars from what we provide our highest need learners and then try to apply that across our building and so when we say case management in our building it's about forming relationships seeing the whole child when it comes down to their academic progress their social emotional needs and their their movements inside an outside class connecting to them helping them connect to something in our building our program has focused on a hundred percent participation in some

040activity or club without providing what the sessions going to describe as our club activities prior to this but now by embedding it into our advisory program we can ensure that students are connecting to something that they connect with and then finding that adult that research says is so important that each student connects to at least one adult and now we provided a couple different opportunities for adults to interact with them academically review their progress identify their social emotional needs and then look deeper into what their needs are outside of the building by making frequent contacts with their parents so our goal is for each advisory teacher to make a personal contact with kid with a student one-on-one every three weeks and with a parent every nine weeks and by doing that it brings that connection

041a little bit closer and then it also gives the other adults in the building a person a contact person to go to when someone appears to be struggling or to help celebrate their successes so it also gives an opportunity for team-building kids to connect other students not just in their advisory but also in their clubs they get a chance to connect with other students who have similar interests and make those connections and all that miss Hutchinson talked about our club program and what we offer that each week you still don't have cute kids you're stuck with me so but a little bit about this this inventory process actually started as giving this to students so it wasn't us coming up with ideas to shift them and put them into but it is what do they

042actually want to do so that came first was a teacher and student inventory and potential list of clubs to come up with that was key when we talked about getting kids connected and it's getting connected at their level it's not the level we want them to be interested in but what are they genuinely interested in so from within that this was a list of clubs that we were able to offer students so that means an adult or two adults in some cases because there were some very popular clubs basketball and what they wanted they got to pick a first second or third choice and if students were not able to get a first or second choice because of capacity dr. Jacobs called every student in said all right you didn't get this one or this

043one what would you be interested in and so it wasn't once again what did we feel like they wanted to might be interested in it was asking the student what is something that you would like to be a part of here so you will see it a vast variety of things everything from online blogging to we have some amazing ukulele players if you need to come around Friday morning sometime to a Chess Club which is huge stepping creative movement even a teacher Academy so there's a wide variety of things so within that those are just some of the pictures of our kids we've done this for a few weeks now you'll also see in our social media we do a Friday spotlight where we try to at least do some many highlights of two of

044our clubs the kids love to see themselves on this they're very excited so if you ever check out our Instagram or Facebook or Twitter you'll see them they find themselves so these are just some snap - it's over ukulele club what are we we're at 40 kids and between guitar and ukulele so we actually have miss holder Meyer who is our one of our music instructors and one of our social studies teacher who is very gifted guitar he is amazing and without that he gets more connected to students as well in a different capacity so it allows students and teachers to make it a much different unique connection you'll also see our photography and drawing and strategy games some of the kids that you've never seen take hold of leadership opportunities you give them a

045strategy game and they are on it so once again they have that opportunity to show some leadership we have some amazing photographers in our building we have a great group of yoga instructors we have one of our special education math teachers whose amazing at yoga so she leads a group of boys and girls in yoga and our Commons that was a unique experience to start off with first and once they got into it it's great to watch them and then this is just another group of our was stepping creative movement we're very lucky that what it's are actually our educational therapists and one of our reading teachers leads that group and then you'll see we have beyond that and the school day we have other opportunities so what has been nicest kids are having conversations

046about things they might not have known they would be good at or might not have known that they had a possibility of doing and that would be we have a colorguard team now which is and then also our drumline who has come out and their second year and they've played at different events they're amazing for middle school drama line cannot check them out and then also we've got Stu Reese who is over at one of the high schools there who teaches tennis has set up and does they be on the school day tennis club and they've done a phenomenal job so our goal was that not just outside of the school day but at some point in time that kids get connected with something that they're passionate about and so that was that whole piece

047of being connected in middle school to something so that was just a few of the snapshots of what our students are able to do on their Friday club time yeah in closing you know it's had a good it's had a great impact on the kids but I think it's had a even greater impact on the adults because they're doing something different you know and they're connecting with kids in different ways and I remember when we used to do clubs prior when I taught and I was in the classroom and it was those were moments you connected with kids you generally might not connect with and you had relationships that you know we're lasting and meaningful so we're just so we're happy about what we're doing right now so if you have any questions mr. Allen

048ice had a quick question is this all internal I mean staff and and and students only or do you incorporate partners in education or PTAs or I was curious I didn't know if those were two PTAs I know are always very strong in elementary but possibly middle school the microphone sorry so are PTSA is actually they've come in more this year and so we're actually looking at working with another group and then having a mentoring program going to Underwood next semester so that is our next kind of step is reaching out of our building but we're very excited because they've come in and offered to their time as well so that's been a great uptick and getting more adults into our building that's what partners Annette as well we're getting there too that we haven't

049quite where we've got some other groups that would like to come in so we're kind of we don't want to overstate haha but no it's about getting them in but then also making it unique and a authentic experience for kids in adults one more it has very good strong conversations around equity plan inclusion diversity that's weaving into some of this or has weaved into this I mean there's some good dialogue last year year and a half how does that come through I just look at his access and opportunity okay actually yeah I mean there's more our students have more access and opportunity of things they generally might not have had and one example of that is our our color guard they perform at least up north and they really start to connect and build that

050bridge so that's one of the first color guard teams in the area the only ones that I know of and then so they go out and compete also in competitions with Lee Summit north and so it's really trying to do into these connect them to our building but it's also trying to set them up for how they connect to their future school graduate and start to become part of their community drumlines the same way they go compete they go to Fright Night and football games and play with the van as well so we really try and branch out that way and busy Kim I just wanted to applaud you guys for bringing the club program back I know that's not easy to get all of that information from your staff members and your kids and

051not easy to schedule them I know what you went through and I did it first helped do that first handling with dr. Andrews and a bunch of others but they I don't think enough can be said about this is really part of the whole middle school model of keeping kids involved connected and I'm giving that sense of belonging where they can really discover some things about themselves and learn some of their strengths and so thank you very much for bringing that back guys we have to give them a hand [Applause] all right Dennis okay I get to talk about food one of my favorite Sunday during National School Lunch week we recognized our Nutrition Services staff who worked tirelessly to contribute to our students wellness in the Educational Development whether it's creating a salad bar

052option addressing summer food insecurity in our community or honouring student voice and fostering leadership through nutrition councils and clubs are amazing I really do mean amazing LSR 7 Nutrition serve staff work hard to make sure we take care of each child both inside and outside the cafeteria representing our nutrition services to part 9 Ford is Lori Vennela director of our nutrition services Lindsay Salazar assistant director of nutrition services lisa Treo assistant director in petition services and chris Maybin coordinator of nutrition services [Applause] okay 3.04 National School Bus Safety Week national school bus safety week gives us an opportunity to express our sincere appreciation for all of our transportation staff we honor our bus drivers bus aides shop technicians and transportation support staff for taking care of each of our students our transportation team has received

053100% clean inspection reports the past three years and the exemplary school bus maintenance award from the Missouri Highway Patrol for nearly three decades running LS are seven transportation makes our district proud and gives our community peace of mind and before I announce the people I don't think mr. Henry would mind if you know anybody who wants to drive a bus send them our way if that's was that okay you know hey let's go let's go we need some more people representing the Transportation Department tonight our Rudy Rhoads chair of the transportation cite team and team Lee's Summit representative and Bobby Nesselrode site team members plus other members of the department site team please stand and be recognized [Applause] they also had a great family picnic last week where Keith Henry was flipping burgers and cooking

054hot dogs and yeah I got to go over and spend some time with you guys and that was really a great event so good job I'm glad you guys got to have some downtime there and it's my pleasure to to talk about three point zero five which is lights on on lights on after school day we recognize our before and after school services staff these professionals take care of our students mornings evenings snow days and summers because every hour is better with learning we are grateful for our bath staff on Appreciation Day and every other day for all they do for our students and our schools Don Butler director of before and after school services will be representing all of our bass employees [Applause] great stuff we will move on to comments from the public

055and we do have seven people Kim will read all right tonight we appreciate your attendance and your willingness to speak to the board I wanted to take a moment to share a few guidelines please remember while this is a meeting held in the public it's 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 we 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 and no more than 20 minutes total pursuant to board

056policy be DDH your allotted 3 minutes will be counted down on the screen and 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 Konya 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 alright our first speaker is Sean Kirkwood let's move on down to Roderick sparks please my name is Roderick sparks good evening today the fight will continue for equity and every student in the LSR seven school district I know some of you are asking the question we got rid of dr. carpenter we got him

057to leave we got rid of the assistant superintendent of equity we got her to leave why won't they just stop well I have an answer for you we will not my children and the families that are here tonight we are demanding that the school board an educational staff that will be more diverse and look like our students we are also demanding of the resignation of president Don for not being a true representation of all students and the lack of sensitivity and her offensive words and self ignorant until the student until the current Scouten student will our school board extends the EEC contract to show the commitment and also the continued commitment of equity learning it's also imperative that their board conducts a diligent and fully transparent superintendent search they will include input and assessments by

058community members that reflect the many demographics that makes up this district also for every board member that does not fully support and execute the six points equity plan I'm asking you to resign today also I stop and also please stop wasting our tax dollars and buying out contracts of capable and qualified individuals with a big just because there are individuals that have a partisan agenda lastly until the leadership of the district is inclusive transparent trustworthy Karen and also have the best outlook for every student to succeed in life than we are demanding you to step aside and allow this district to go higher lastly I would also ignite to acknowledge a representative the late representative Elijah Cummings from his first speech on the House floor this is what he said in that's Beach I only

059have a minute 60 seconds in it first upon me I did not choose it but I know that I must use it give an account if I abuse it suffer if I lose it only a tiny little minute but eternity is always in it I have a question to actual in yours last minute what are you doing are you sure that all welcome are here in this district [Applause] I'm Michael McManus I'm a parent in the district at the we're going forward we're gonna have a bond issue or we're talking about a bond issue we have a headwind of the reassessment Fiasco in Jackson County that you're gonna have to overcome and then at the last Business Roundtable it was reported that they asked for the superintendent search to be slowed down or suspended and

060if not then they would withhold support that's true why why I thought the business roundtable was a discussion group not a voting group we'd like to see an explanation of why they did that what was the reason for that vote and what's going to happen thank you very much for your time thank you Michael Shaw good evening Michael Shaw I represent miles upon my son who's a student here been going here all his life sauly knows Ellis are so well I mean a lot of things that I was concerned about has been said I was concerned about the superintendent search to ensure that may the best things we can assure is that there is a transparent open search for leadership our district deserves the best chance for the best success in having an open and

061transparent search for the best candidate is in our best interest I was disappointed to hear about the Business Roundtable lack of a better word giving the board maybe an ultimatum or sort of an ultimatum suggesting that if we don't keep dr. Miller and they're not gonna support the bond issue I I was heartbroken to hear that concept or even that they would even suggest that or you met the board would even placate to something of that sort but I'm glad to see that there is a search that's going on so the idea that you placated to it probably was false information maybe but being transparent our children deserve the best that you have to give them as a parent I will support my child I want to support the district but just to be open

062there's not enough people that look like me to represent me in this organization that really needs to change so as you continue to talk about getting diversity unis diversity of thought and an understanding we're just not gonna be a sideshow to suggest or to show to appease you that's not fair to us we're human beings we have children we don't want to embarrass our children so you can feel good about yourself give us the best chance for success add diversity to this organization we're not going to talk about who you let go it's not relevant at this point they're gone but you need to bring back diversity of thought thank you thank you Michael Megan Goss my name is Megan Goss and I'm a teacher here in the district good evening board and thank you

063for the opportunity to speak to you this evening my name is Megan Goss and I'm a teacher at least somewhat west high school she ran out of college I came to LSR seven and because of my colleagues at West my administration my district leadership I as a teacher and made in I'm sorry made in r7 I come to you this evening as an employee of the r7 school district as a resident of the city and as a straight cisgendered ally to ask you board to make a change to our notice of non-discrimination in the board policies thank you to all of those in the leadership at SLC who were involved in the change of venue for this year's convocation activities it was a strong show of support for our LGBTQ plus staff and students as

064a next step I am here to advocate that you had sexual orientation and gender identity to the district's non-discrimination protected groups to promote inclusion and equity for our LGBTQ plus colleagues to model support for our LGBTQ plus students and as a necessary step the district's journey with equity protections for LGBTQ employees I'm sorry several timely events have inspired me to speak to you today the first being the Supreme Court's recent hearings on the employment practices of business is for lgbtq+ neighbors and friends second the recent inclusion of sexual orientation and gender identity and the non-discrimination practices of the Shawnee Mission School District joining among school districts such as Blue Valley Olathe and DeSoto finally with the new transition in leadership for our equity in the district I felt it was my obligation to remind you

065of your duty to uphold commitment to equity work in the district especially in light of your comments focused on supporting LGBTQ plus students and staff in our journey with equity protections for LGBTQ plus employees already exist in districts who are on the front lines of equity work and they recognize the importance of sexual orientation and gender identity and their non-discrimination practices adding these protections to our ell sr7 policies will speak volumes to our colleagues students and community with the district's renewed commitment to equity my hope is that the board will take this opportunity to unanimously support the inclusion of sexual orientation and gender in the non-discrimination policy to make our staff and students our seven proud Thank You Megan Mary Humphries oh there's chocolate up here mm my name is Mary Humphries I'm a teacher

066at least I'm at West High School I teach college credit English English 12 honors an IB theory of knowledge I also co-lead avid culturally relevant teaching at least some at West and I teach the ls our seven grad class hmm invisible to visible increasing lgbtq+ equity and inclusivity in the classroom in addition I also have two daughters who attend the Lisa Matt schools I represent them up here not least them at West High School I'm here tonight to speak in response to the recent resignation of our equity superintendent this resignation is sparked concerned that the current equity plan will now stall yet again placing the district even further behind on the agreed-upon equity plan currently so few people are receiving said equity training the teachers quite frankly are beginning to wonder if and when we'll

067ever get the training that we desperately need simply stated this equity plan is moving so incredibly slow it's important to note here however that the OSR seven school district has shown its ability to enact swift change just not with equity please take for example policies regarding baby during the 1819 school year the consequence for a student found carrying or storing any tobacco or vape product on school grounds for the first time would be assigned a four-hour detention fast-forward just one year the four hour detention has now been changed to a solid five days of in-school suspension again for the first offense the swiftness of this policy change indicates to me that speeding up the equity plan is in fact possible if you the Board of Education decide to make it a priority as a district

068we should be past the point of simply discussing equity issues it's time for us to see real changes it's time to make culturally relevant teaching a part of every teachers knee evaluation it's time it's time Park Hill School District has already done it it's time to provide job protections for lgbtq+ teachers and staff members like the Shawnee Mission School District has already done its time to strategically address the lack of diversity in advanced courses this is my third year teaching college credit English I only have one african-american student it's time to solidify a recruitment hiring plan that increases diversity among our teaching staff it's time to implement new curriculum that is inclusive relevant and engaging it's just time if we can make Swift policy changes to curb beeping surely it can be more Swift on

069our equity work we have waited far too long thank you thank you Mary [Applause] best sales hello my name is Beth Hales and I am Ally summit parent as well as Elise I'm a teacher I would like to take this opportunity tonight to ask you to please rethink the way we do hiring in this district looking around at my colleagues I'm very proud of who I work with however I'm saddened that we don't have more people of color and certified positions this is especially sad today when we have lost to people of color at central office in the last few months would it be possible for us to partner with Lincoln University or other HBCUs to recruit teachers from their education programs Lincoln University is an hour and a half away would it be possible

070to leave jobs open for more than a week so that we can make sure that everybody sees an opportunity to come join us in this district can we add questions to the interview process to ensure that our new hires are equity minded I am NOT an expert by any means however I find it very disheartening that we are seen as a premiere district in the area and yet we can't find a more diverse staff thank you best all right thank you all for your comments we'll move down to board reports and meetings attended it's the first meeting that I'll report about is one that we were unable to attend actually because we're at the Missouri State School Board Association that is government relations committee there is a committee meeting in the morning 7:30 bright and

071early john knox village so we all seven board members were at the missouri state school board annual conference for a four-day work session or sessions though one of the things that i was able to attend and very much enjoyed was the Missouri State Teacher of the Year 2020 recognition banquet in Jefferson City that was Monday evening designed to recognize regional semifinalist and finalists awardees at the state as the state teacher of the year this year's attendance was over 300 the governor attended and spoke to the audience for the first time ever there were eight of us in attendance the support of Blake mr. Blake little we summon high school educator and he was one of 17 semi-finalists and I do think it's important to note who was there certainly Chris little Blake's wife dr. dr.

072Carrie Harrison me summon high school principal dr. Miller dr. Kephart Julie Donna myself coincidentally I was actually able to also attend State Board of Education meeting on the next morning during the discussion surrounding the Missouri Improvement Program version 6.0 and then it's interesting Ryan because there was the next item of discussion was solidly for an hour regarding gifted programs testing differences in assessment disparities between urban suburban and resources so it's a very strong aspect of the gifted I'm sorry of the discussion around Missouri School Improvement Program 6.0 so timely Thanks all right as Mike said we were at MSBA so we didn't get to do government relations but I will report for LS EF for Lisa man Educational Foundation the race for the future was a great success we had over 1,000 330 participants in

073the 5k the kids - and as dream partners and we raised around $60,000 school parties participation winners were first place West View Elementary who received a one thousand dollar grant from the foundation they had over 100 participants second place Sunset Valley received a $500 grant from the foundation third place was Hazel Grove who received a three hundred dollar grant fourth place woodland Elementary who received a two hundred and fifty dollar grant do you notice the trend here they're all elementary schools we need to get our secondary kids to get out and run in the race - I know they'd have a lot of other activities but if you haven't signed up to support the Friends of the foundation program it's not too late yeah we would welcome and encourage your gift of support for our

074students and our teachers thank you I'm Brian Clough's you know MSBA for me and then we had Finance Committee Dennis and I did yesterday morning and I'll report on that here in just a second I they've all talked earlier about attending MSBA and that was some great work sessions at that time earlier in the last month I set for the first time ever on the Business Roundtable this past week the the bulk of that meeting was to review and look at the CFM P and the possible phases that could be added or not added but taking an account for the possible bond issue coming up that was on Wednesday backing up on on Monday I do it was Bundy the CAC met and again that very very good beating and talking about all the different

075facets of the possible bond in the different schools that might be included in that and in a really kind of a neat activity that we took the citizens on that committee took part in to kind of see the pros and cons of some of the different proposals so I don't really have anything else to the report I also was in attendance at the Missouri School Boards Association conference and then the CAC meeting earlier this week thank you like the others attended MSBA and had the opportunity to represent the district by making a presentation regarding effective government relations for school districts there was a lot of fun we had a lot of great folks and had some follow up afterwards also I was able to make a visit over to Hope House five to prevent domestic

076violence so that was a great opportunity for me to be able to stop by there and then finally just well I guess I haven't quite returned yet from the public relations Society of America is International Conference in San Diego I'm at a Midway stopping points on business and I was able to attend a really robust discussion of diversity and inclusion and some work that other organizations are doing so eager to be able to share those learnings with my colleagues and finally we have all been asked and I anyone in listening distance you can consider yourselves asked as well and I think if mr. McManus is still in the room he will appreciate I am encouraging others to become judges for the fleet Summit West debate tournament that will occur next weekend the first and it

077was the person second so I'm sure that if he's still there he can get you signed up thank you right with that we have Lisa Mackerras drug take-back is this Saturday from 10:00 to 2:00 Kim and I usually are on the same team but we're competing against each other this time so you can go see Kim at John Locke's village or you can go to see me at Lee summit police department did you say John Locke's village I'm gonna be at John that's knowledge okay and I'm really excited about this I know that Judy Kim and I and hopefully some of you the others can make it to our youth state of the youth kick-off it is that you're going good it's at Bridge space and it's November 4th at 11 o'clock and lunch is

078provided but I'm really excited to hear what the youth have to say about me summit so that's always a good thing we will start off with the Finance Committee report is that you right it is my turn this month the most exciting part of the meeting so so the Finance Committee met yesterday morning at 7:30 and so kind of the highlights are we'll do a transfer of three million thirty-two thousand one hundred ninety seven dollars in 86 cents that's needed from the general fund of the special Revenue Fund to cover expenses for the month our investments through September total eighty seven point three million dollars our expense percentages are within our expected budget parameters and the current fund balance for September is nineteen point six six percent we were updated on facilities the Finance Committee

079reviewed updates on the following projects the woodland sewer improvements middle school tract resurfacing which looks awesome Westview roof improvements Lee's Summit West retaining wall improvements paving improvements which Kyle tolls were the boringest pictures of the presentation and we were planning for future projects administration is recommending adding an additional service to benchmarks current professional service contract in the form of a rebid for the west view roofing project as well as a district-wide roofing repair package caliber represented the facility services program evaluation to the committee and just a few other highlights from the mid-america Regional Council's Head Start program dr. Stacy Mathis spoke to the contract for mark which is a renewal for early childhood for the 2019 20 school year we also reviewed the school bus mileage report Keith Henry spoke to the committee regarding the

08019:20 mileage report I believe it was somewhere in the neighborhood of 1.5 million miles we're driving that's pretty close I think and trans finder training class recommendation is being made to host a transponder class which will hopefully reduce the cost of the district as well as providing the service to surrounding districts which that actually will help us in scheduling and routing buses to hopefully make it more efficient and take some of the burden off of those people who are already doing that job right now I believe there's two right now to my fellow board members we have two actions tonight 6.02 to approve the transfer of three million thirty two thousand one hundred ninety seven dollars and eighty six cents from the general fund to the special revenue fund hey all those in favor say

081aye aye all those opposed to save me right that was Madame president 6.03 I moved to approve the treasurer's report and payment of the bills any discussion right all those in favor say aye aye all those opposed say nay alright item number 7 and I get a motion to approve Madam President I moved to approve the consent agenda items as presented in the discussion all those in favor say aye aye all those opposed say nay I have a motion to approve please remove that the board approved new contracts over $5,000 as presented in consent agenda items 9.0 to through 9.13 any discussion all right all those in favor say aye all those opposed say nay great thank you number ten items for decision so this is an item for a decision that I'll have mr.

082minutes and dr. del stone speak to so we had to update a couple of the salary schedules based on some things that have been happening throughout the year last April we had an audit on our federal Food Program and one of the things that was found during the audit was we were providing meals to our cafeteria supervisors so it was an action item or a finding to define it so I talked to several of the secondary principals because these are all in secondary level and talk to them about how important the positions are what the you know what would happen if we just took away what was the meals being paid for by the district they thought the positions they would have trouble filling the positions so we evaluated what it would cost to actually

083continue to employ these positions and so that we just we change the stipend to reflect what the salary needs to be in order to support the positions and then private swim lessons I believe is an ad because we've been doing it and it wasn't on the salary schedule anywhere and then the aquatics aerobic instructor I think went from eighteen to twenty one because we were struggling to find instructors for that so we just wanted to make sure an update everything so that way we were paying everybody correctly okay all right I'll make I'll make the motion I move to approve the revision of the hourly salary schedule and stipend salary schedule as presented any discussion I just had one quick question do we have any teachers that are within their buildings that are doing cafeteria

084supervision almost like as their second as a second plan instead of outside or other people or like in the elementary schools where there's other people coming in to do supervision are there high school or middle school teachers that are being required to do supervision I'm assuming that there's some quite a few Mr Murdoch I'm gonna ask dr. Andrews to come join us for this conversation he worked most directly with the secondary principals on this because it is a critical component in coverage for our secondary schools anybody that gets a stipend to be a luncheon supervisor is doing so during their duty free lunch so it's not part of their assigned over the years there have been a few isolated situations where a student I mean a staff member might do three lunch shifts where two

085of those would be an assigned duty for a teaching period really we have worked to eliminate those they are very rare I believe we may have one in the entire district right now where a staff member does a couple extra lunch shifts and sometimes that's just the nature of a master schedule that comes in and we aren't going to give them to plans we will assign them a duty and sometimes that would become an extra supervision in the cafeteria I think there's only one of those if I'm correct right now in the district okay thank you yeah I have a couple of questions and I sent these earlier in the week but I didn't get the information back in time for our meeting I would like to know on this item what has been spent

086out of the Nutrition Services budget and the operating budget to pay for this cost in the past can somebody answer that yes I have sorry to get him to you Judy we got him late today so 1718 it was twenty twenty eight thousand two hundred ninety nine dollars twenty eight twenty eight thousand two ninety nine and then 1819 was twenty seven thousand five seventy eight that's total that's the total so the increase in the stipend would be twenty nine thousand seven eighty four plus the benefits which would be about forty seven fifty so it's going to be about a six thousand dollar increase well I I guess I calculated that a little bit differently than you did but here's my concern the the addition of this stipend for the food is six hundred forty-four dollars

087and that's an amount compared to if we were paying what an adult lunches for a hundred and seventy one days which were the student days is about five hundred and seventy two dollars and by paying it as a salary we're also committing the district to paying a retirement and Medicare on that and I just in spending more money than we need to because I think in the past not every person who was assigned cafeteria supervision Duty actually used that benefit of buying lunch and so I am NOT supportive of paying more money than we would need to to address this particular item any other comments well um I I have talked to a few staff members who or heard heard from some staff members who have been very disappointed that their that their lunches are

088no longer covered as part of their duty because some of them actually give up their own lunch shifts to supervise lunch okay so they're actually and I've seen these guys in action before or ladies there they go around and they supervise and they have to eat while they walk because they literally have no lunch time of their own so I understand your concern about you know paying it as a salary but but in a way it's it's something I think that they've earned I in and it is very difficult to get cafeteria supervisors so you know I I don't see a big issue with that well just to clarify I'm not against paying for their lunch but I do not believe we ought to pay it as a salary I think you know in their

089account so they could use it just like any other teacher who pays for their meal they could you know we it would be pre funded in their lunch account and then it would up to the amount of three dollars and 35 cents for a hundred and seventy one student days so it's about five hundred seventy three dollars I'm very supportive of that what I'm not supporting of is paying at a salary and obligating the district and the employee to paying retirement and Medicare on that additional amount so really the employee comes out with less money than they would if we were paying the three dollars and 35 cents I've heard there's a number of student days that's my objection I understand that now and if we can figure out a good way to do that

090I think we should do it amend the motion I think it's a question for staff as well here on what is the best way to move forward with this if you add it to salary I get we're paying the extra if you don't add it what's what would even that process look like how do you even if we're adding it to their lunch account isn't that adding an essentially salary to them I mean and at that time it also be taxable right to the employee so I mean this is a win-win for the employee because now it also like she said it adds to their retirement so when they retire it's an opportunity for them to draw a little bit of a higher retirement now I ran this through our auditors to make sure you

091know when I first received this I was concerned on how we were gonna handle it so I ran it through the audit and this was the suggestion that he gave to us right and what I was just and I think I hope I made myself clear is if we put it in there kind of it still gets taxed right right I'm not in favor of amending my motion so if people want to defeat the motion that's fine but I'm in favor of the staff recommendation any other comments all right all those in favor say aye aye all those opposed say nay no thank you personnel report all right good evening again human resources presents the personnel report for the board's approval this evening Madam President I move that human reason we recommend proof recommendations that

092the first of the personnel transaction be approved as presented I tracked this you second all right question yeah I only had one quick question on the I noticed obviously that the high turnover that we're having because of the time of year at the Aquatic Center with all the instructors leaving right now when do we hire back what's the seasonal time frame of that that we do does anybody know I'm sorry I totally forgot to send that question I know it's fine if somebody just wants to shoot I was just curious it's not a huge ya know we can get details from quasi prior on that I'd hate to do it from the hit right now but we can get that in as you said sometimes it's the time of year I know it cycles through

093it so I was just curious when he goes back to do ya and then sometimes periodically through the year we'll do these in groups as folks have cycled off not been active especially when you're talking about hourly employees like we have at the Aquatic Center okay perfect thanks all right any other comments all right all those in favor of the personnel report say aye aye all those all those opposed say nay all right now we have a presentation thank you we're gonna have Kenda Sager come up he's from patron insight and he's really done some great sir community survey work really to give us some top-line survey data and really what the community's perception is if we have a proposed bond sure I've got this right yes there we are there we are I knew

094I was here you might want to get that timer ready again I'm just saying because I can talk for a while about research that we've done we have completed three portions of research we've completed the statistically reliable telephone survey that I'm going to talk about tonight we've completed interviews with 15 key opinion leaders in the community and four within the district and we've completed online surveys for the community for parents and for staff members and I'm going to talk again about just the online I'm sorry just the telephone survey tonight we finished up the report for the online survey in draft form just this afternoon and the online or the interviews will be worked on early next week but what we're talking about tonight is again the statistically reliable portions so kind of bear that

095in mind the others is other parts are information gathering but this is the one pay attention to so I'm glad I would have the opportunity to speak to you tonight on this okay I want to talk first about the methodology real quickly we had 400 completed interviews with male or female registered voters who are heads of household male or female it's just a matter of not wanting to talk to an old sounding teenager want to make sure we had the right person and we know this going in that these people fit those qualifications but because of the list that we purchase of the landlines and cell phones but if they don't know that or they don't affirm that then we say thank you very much have a good evening we really want to make sure

096that the 400 individuals who consent to the interviews are aware that they're a head of household and that they are voter we divided the number of completed interviews almost equally you can't do 400 400 interviews divided by 3 and get exactly equal but there were 133 interviews in two highschool drawing areas and 134 in the other one and the results from this survey as of right now so think about it that way bond is in April if it happens as of right now is plus or minus four point nine percent or five percent so as you look at the results for the entire survey group remember to add and subtract five percent because that gives you the range as of right now we start by grading the district's performance and this is an easy way

097for folks to kind of get into the survey process they know they don't really have to know anything special about the district they don't have the inside information they just have to have an opinion based on either something that they know or that's something that they've heard now don't know is an option that we do not provide to people but if they say I really don't know on the particular we mark it down we take that information and we convert it into a weighted five-point scale using the ABCD F simple grades everybody know knows what that means or has a general idea about what an a is what a B is and then we total up those points and we divide it by the number of people who had an opinion not those that said

098don't know to come up with a single number for each of the factors now you can't get an A when we do this because that would mean everyone would have to say a and I've been doing this since 1992 and everyone has never said hey all right this I always say there's one person out there who will say well they're doing a great job but they could always do better so bear that in mind what we look for is plus or minus the be a for now Matt what factors are solidly above a big and which ones are below a B now take that margin of error into account and a score as low as 3.8 Oh is still a big statistically speaking so here we're the top scorers on the five-point scale and I

099won't go through and read all the bullet points but you'll see it's really the core of what schools are all about it is student safety its education its buildings as teachers so that's always encouraging and not unexpected for a high performing district to have people say yeah the core components of this delivery of the school product if you will are very solidly thought of and an overall grade a four point 100 is very strong it sort of says as I say at the bottom 10 to 15 plus the overall score at a B or higher even with the five that didn't they still had an overall grade of 4.10 so they think very highly of the district and I know you want to know so here are the factors that scored below a B and

100they're all relationship factors and and considering what the district has been dealing with for a while these are not unexpected grades and when we are finished with the final report on this component we will break down by demographic group and by geography in other words where the person lives the scores to find out if there's any particular audience that is more critical or more positive than others or if it's just pretty much a consistently held opinion survey then ask about the move of sixth graders to middle school and this will be a little bit of a theme you'll see when we get into the projects that is that we have a slightly more agree than disagree with that decision and it was explained in the question not sold in the question and but explained in

101the question what the reasoning behind it 43% said I agree with the decision 40% said it disagree 16% said I don't care one way or the other and 1% had no opinion so then we went into the core projects that are being discussed and the methodology was such that we presented each project in an individual question no sales language just an explanation so for example the the new the fourth middle school was explained based on where it's going to be how many students is going to serve that kind of a thing and after each one the respondents were asked if including that project in a bond issue would make them more likely to vote in favor more likely to vote against or would make no difference in their voting decision if the election were held

102today okay so again we try to make sure we're not it's really a hypothetical at this point so let's say the election were held today what do you think you would be thinking about this particular project so here are they more likely to vote in favor of percentages for each of the projects obviously they want students to be safe and secure with 95% which is rare you rarely get anything over about 85% but you can see that all of the projects have very solid support the one that's a little bit close is building that fourth middle school 41% said more likely to vote in favor and I thought it important to put down the an asterisk with the more likely to vote against because it was so close in the other projects the number two

103answer was it wouldn't make any difference to me so so that's very compelling I think you don't really joke ingly say sometimes that these are results where I don't have to stand by the door when I deliver them because I don't have to make a fast exit these are really good results they really are level of support for a potential bond issue so we say okay you know I'm paraphrasing the question of course but okay now you've heard the ideas that are being considered if the election were held today how do you think you would vote now I always like to ask that without talking dollars and cents first because that talks that really speaks to me about the merit that people see in the project idea is overall they've heard them individually now overall

104share your thoughts about a potential bond issue and then because this is a no tax increase proposal then we hit them with that information and we say no that you know that if the election were today how would you vote but because it's still a hypothetical we talk in terms of strongly favored favor opposed or strongly oppose not yes or no lease because we want people to you know understand that they're giving input into the district's decision about this particular bond issue on the one before we talk about no tax increase we make available to the interviewers if the person says well that would depend on what it costs then they mark that down it depends on what's in the final proposal they mark that down or I don't know so here are the results

105as of today or as of you know this month let's say combined strongly favored and favored percentages you can see are good for the proposal and really good for the no tax increase proposal 58% is within the margin of error if it goes up but not if it goes down for a bond issue obviously so it's clear that the no tax increase component and explaining how that is possible over and over and over again as simply as you can it's going to be critical now you see that 96% that's the highest I've ever gotten in since 1992 but let's not celebrate right away okay this is a hypothetical bond issue right now that we're talking about and when it becomes a real bond issue they're always going to be people who are gonna pick it

106apart a little bit at a time so it's you are in a great place from a foundation standpoint and I don't mean the district's foundation but you're starting from a great place and it's just a matter of coming to a decision and then repetitively talking about that decision and the benefits it'll bring to students in the district that's what the data says to me finally we want to know how to reach people with information so we presented I believe it was 17 different potential sources of district news now this is not a district we've worked with some districts where really there was one Mabel's pie shop where people gather to talk about schools okay you had more you know more boilerplate kind of stuff but friends and neighbors with five exceptions since 1992 has been

107number one so that's that always says to me that community members talk about the school's a lot really good to see our schools at 77% that suggests that there is a level of trust and that the quality of the product is so good and I always say print journalism is not dead when I see a number like that because you're reaching people that don't have a reason to know about the schools probably with that number teachers that's very good and I would I would preach to you the board and administration it's clear how important your words are either in person or in the media because they are looked to as being a resource school building marquees if you can get the type a little smaller and put more information in there that probably would be

108a good idea and school principals in the districts so we look at 40% or higher as being key components to think about as you think about communicating the remainder I know the report cover won't be pink you you hired us to research not to do really nice PowerPoint it's okay strengths and areas needing improvement in the district that's an open-ended a question that we have gotten today data for now and so will code that looking for common words and phrases and ideas so we see what's at the top of that list both in areas of strength and areas needing improvement if someone says I can't support even in a no tax increase bond issue we ask them why I will tell you in the telephone survey only 13 people were asked that question because of

109the 96% their cross tabulations of key data as I mentioned online survey results yours truly worked on that this afternoon will tell you we had 900 parents participate we had 446 community members participate and that really speaks to the community that it may not sound like a big number to you but if they took the time to go on the website and find the link and click on the link that says they're interested in sharing their opinions and then 448 staff members so I know you have a lot more parents and a lot more staff members than that but from my perspective and my experience those are those are good numbers to expect and the results themselves mirror the telephone survey and in Kate in the case of the projects and the support at the

110end when we asked them how they would vote if the election were held today exact same questions they were higher so you have some people who are critical in the integrating questions but when it all comes down to it they like the ideas for that so I think thank you for not having determine on a timer but I welcome your questions now you didn't have any questions Mike a couple of things when there was favorable results for ELISA my high school or a Mason or Prairie View for those questions targeted to their specific geographic area all quiet all projects were asked to everybody okay so some people may or may not know Mason but there was a little bit of a description in there is that exactly why yes and I will tell you that's

111part of the cross tabulations so we will be able to see within the drawing areas where the differences may be and I'm sure there will be some difference sure this last I don't know the last question number 34 it says choices were rotated so friends and neighbors score at 92 saying where to get your information friends and neighbors 92 so did you ask every every one of these mine items and then I'd say yes or no so that's how they got 92 down to parent-teacher PTA and 10% so all of those everything on that list the rotation just allowed it to not be in the same order or redundant okay no order bias is allowed in our companies all right one last thing then final reports question number 33 why would you oppose or whatever

112either thirteen people when does that happen working on that now the urban endings are a massive amount of data and so we need to rather than give you a report that's this thick we're gonna boil it down so for example if someone says on the strengths my my usual example is on the strengths if someone says they have great teachers and if someone says I like their teachers that's two teachers so that you really get a sense of the you know what are the commonly held opinions and there will be some verbatim Zinn there that are outlier or one offs don't don't fit into the chart okay well you know school board members hear a lot from community members I had a few many actually talked about the calls that they received but that they

113were very professional positive efficient so you know kudos to you and thanks for for moving those through because folks I know anticipate a call thinking it's gonna last forever and it's but very positive feedback well that's great folks and I heard from I will I will refer that on to the people who do our calling and have since 92 because that's usually what we hear it's almost always what we're here and if this audience was born in 92 but that's good I know I know but I was born a lot earlier than that I'm just telling you jackie has a question thank you very much Ken I'm sorry I'm not there to see you in person me too with my question I'm eager to understand what breakdown you're gonna present to us on the geography

114and the demographic aspect of the survey you might guess I've been engaged with dozens of these over the years and I'm just kind of curious what additional information we're gonna see it's different from the top line which is age and gender I look at the Jockey I look at the cross tabulations as being kind of the icing on the cake as you're thinking about the bond issue but more as you're thinking about how to communicate about the bond issue it it will identify the audiences where additional communication or additional focus will be necessary so to answer your question we are going to provide information based on the high school drawing area for and this will be for the lower graded areas for each project to probably accept the 95% won because we don't need to

115cut that hair very finely and then the support level and as suggested by the CAC some of the top information sources too so you'll get that by by high school drawing area by age by length of time living in the district and by what I call student and gender and student status so that would be do you have a current student in the district do you have a student hour all your students graduated or have you never had a student in the district so we'll really be able to take a look at it from a kind of a 360-degree perspective on the key questions in the survey and oh and also the the sixth grade question too because that was so close okay let me let me be a little more specific you are you've

116been there probably all evening and you've heard the ongoing discussions regarding equity and the district could you explain to me the choice to include or exclude the racial and ethnic profile of the voter in in our yes we had conversations about that and in in my view that would create some opportunities for some unnecessary opportunities for headlines as you looked at the data I think you're going to be making a decision based on kind of the merits of the proposal and the all the voters that are going to be voting and we don't usually do racial ethnic and we also don't usually do income levels because that tends to stimulate calls to the districts saying why do you want to know this information and our focus really is on trying to parse it based on

117region by age to see if for example you know we have a pattern that we expect with age groups and we have a pattern we expect with student status groups so we want to see if the pattern holds true this time around for the district for example student status groups tend to be as you would expect current student households the most supportive past student households the second most supportive but they're pretty close usually to never student households and that's the suggestion that I've been there I paid that I don't want to pay any more and so we're looking for those patterns and to see what's different so that you can make effective decisions about how to communicate that but we have found that those other two categories just tend to stimulate challenges for the district

118and why do you want to know that so I know it's it's a it's a decision for every survey and the decision this time was just not to do that all right thank you huh thanks Jackie Dave travels any other comments for Kim um I've just one good question because of the way that the middle school question came out so close obviously in reading the actual question it was that the full question that they were asked number 22 on that because the the rationale for building a another middle school I felt like with that particular question the rationale for doing that may not have been the top line reason why we were even asking to move the sixth graders to middle school as a result of overpopulation of our elementary schools and I'm just wondering

119if the public understands that that's a secondary benefit of moving the sixth graders as opposed to the enrichment clubs activities opportunities social emotional well-being all that stuff that moving them is going to allow they didn't get that in the question and I'm wondering how big of an impact that might have had when they step in the voting booth they're going to be focused on this this was going to cost me anything and so we try to keep it you know all the stuff that you mentioned is an outstanding our outstanding benefits of doing this but if we put too much of that in the question than we're selling and this is the part where we're trying to find out you know schools get how much are my attention every day if I'm not a parent

120probably not much so on the surface if you're looking at the project itself and the introduction did talk about the thinking the introduction to the moving sixth graders question is talking about the thinking behind it and so I think that what I read that to be is oh boy here comes a cost of all the projects we talked about that felt like this tough cost yeah and so the idea was and you'll notice that those first two were not rotated because I wanted to make sure that they weren't misunderstood that that the fourth middle school and its own question and then and by the way the other three are going to get some work too and then we rotated the rest of them because that's that's seemingly in the public's mind the biggest dollar item

121is the fourth middle school so I think when they got to the question about how would you said you support what you've heard about we did okay at 58% not great but at okay when we look at the margin of error but then we said this is no tax increase and we did really okay so they were reacting to the project at the front end we don't put dollar figures on it because people don't know what things cost in terms of building a school and so you get people's differing opinions on that and then at the end we said here's the here's the situation now would you support it so yeah that's always a tough thing to kind of parse what we should say to make sure we have enough information out there and well

122we can't say because it's just too much selling mm-hmm yeah just Ryan this just um board member murdock this just gives us a good pulse for where the community is without doing any kind of education or advocacy so it's actually encouraging data considering you know fifteen seventeen years ago when we had this committee was a resounding no now we're on the up side of the positive so it's encouraging Jim yes I just wanted to say that um Ken you did a great job at CAC meeting as well as this evening and our CAC group it was the first time I've ever been to a CAC meeting and I was just came as an observer this week but I was really impressed with the discussion that they had and the questions that they had for you

123and in particularly I think they had a really good discussion on how to some ways to explain the no tax bond like you said so they were giving examples of good ways to explain to our public how that works and why we need to do that and so also in those suggestions I think the CIC is is taking gathering all this information and doing what they're supposed to do which is to make some recommendations to us too and that's after you provide also the rest of the information is that correct yes and that'll be next week again we're all done with the draft of the online we're into the one-on-one interviews and by the way you will get quotes from those interviews but they will not be attributed because we did problems confidentiality and telephone

124survey it's just the it's just the needles in the haystack that I love looking for left I know you really love this stuff don't you can yeah kind of sorry I'm ended more CAC meetings than you then and I recognized the older gentleman who was sitting up front who's been on the CAC forever and we did also talk about the middle school and I just did offer at that meeting that you know our middle school study team had a really good comprehensive report that really does list all of those great reasons why sixth graders need to be in the middle school and so I suggested that we do a condensed talking points live for that so that we can help explain those things so thank you very much okay thank you too many buttons here

125thank thank you so much kinship gave this information at our CAC meeting other night very very well I thought very well-received I was not the older man sitting at the front that he's seen a lot of one thing I thought was really kind of cool and and may need to as we progress through West did an excellent job because you know Missouri school finance is one really one easy puppy to deal with saying that sarcastically but west kind of took us through capital campaign 101 and what a no tax increase how it's very good and if you don't do some of these sometimes it's not so good you don't do it just because you don't need to do it but again I want to thank you for kind of lightness I wouldn't hurt sometime down

126the road for for us to be in life a little bit some more on that very so when we're out in the community talking about this that we could talk intelligently better any other questions for Kim all right thank you so very much presentation we had to written reports does anyone have any questions or comments on those facilities gave us a report this time and that was a great comprehensive report facilities department I think we need to publicize these information to show the public what they're getting for their tax dollars because that that was really an excellent report I think it would be really cool if we could actually put it on our do it attach it to our website and say hey look this is all about our district facilities and you know and

127see if so people could see what's going on I took a tour of the facilities department last fall and this report really though it really shows the scope of the services provided by our facilities workers from building custodians all the way to mr. Kyle gorilla out here and one thing I really love seeing in that report was you know if you like to read the picture books the picture reports are really cool too because you get to see they had some great pictures of all the photos of all the finished projects that have been completed in our schools this past year and so I would just like to say thank you facilities for your hard work we really do appreciate it we have some of the best-looking schools around thank you Judy I was just

128gonna say ditto to that thank you very much for everybody in your department please express our appreciation to them any other comments on the written reports alright any motion to adjourn all right thank you all for coming I appreciate your support