001[Music] states of foreign and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all start with 2.02 the approval of tonight's agenda i move the board approve the agenda is presented second sandra when you are ready scott yes andy yes him marie yes aj yes drew yes angie yes nick yes michelle harris and into 2.03 honoring excellence tonight well tonight is one of those bittersweet evenings i think as as we've dedicated honoring excellence to a special lady that has announced that she will be retiring at the end of this month after an amazing 40-year run of service in liberty public schools mrs sandra cochran currently serves as both administrative assistant to the superintendent and board of education secretary mr bartlow and dr tucker have some special presentations
002they will do in here here in just a moment but we first wanted to share a special video that we recorded last week and before we played that i just wanted to share in my 12 plus years working at the district administration center miss cochran has been very responsive to any request quick to get back on emails when i reached out to her two weeks ago to do this interview she was not very responsive it took a lot of art twisting to uh to get this video shot but a great opportunity to reminisce on her time here in liberty public schools and again following the video i'll turn things back over to dr tucker and mr barbalo to conclude honoring excellence so sandra thank you for your service to liberty public schools someone asked me
003today if i'm counting down the day and i said i feel like the days are counting down on me it's just so hard to believe that it's just a few more days and then i in my career that's really difficult for me to digest so i started with the district in 1982 with don howerton don howerton was a counselor at liberty junior high school which is now heritage middle school and he was a homeschool coordinator and so because he worked with special education students he had one classroom with special education he was afforded a pair in the district and that's where i started with liberty public schools so i never even thought i would spend 40 years in a position i moved from the junior high school to central office and i think when i
004can really see the changes is when i started in human resources so i started in 1990 and that's when liberty middle school opened so the population of our district at that time was maybe six thousand it was the student population was pretty small but then it that's when it was exploding you know that's when they opened the first middle school to have been such a part of so many people who entered the district for those nine years and then to have seen most of those retire and for me to be left but what great relationships and i think what i have been privileged to is to get to know the people that are the face of the district but so many only know them as the face of the district knowing board members as individuals
005and knowing their personalities and getting to know them our superintendent getting to know him you know a lot of times when you think about the district you think about the schools and the buildings it's the people who make the district my job is not my identity so i can walk away from my job but walking away from the people i love and work with so closely that's going to be the hard part i would hope that my legacy would be that she cared that it wasn't just a job and that the people i met and encountered throughout my job here believed that they were important to me when i listened to parents on the phone who are frustrated that i listened i think we miss in our in society right now people who listen so
006i would hope that people would say that was someone who cared about people it's not our intent to make you cry tonight by any means i mean i think i speak for everybody up here you're going to achieve all those things and more as you leave um you know our lives are stories life is about stories about people and stories sandra um there's a lot of great ones with you a part of them in helping to make people more human and i mean i know i personally coming onto the board a couple of years ago your kindness your generosity your time the effort that you put forth to your point not getting to know necessarily us as board members but us as people and you recognize and understand that there's so much more behind individuals
007than just what you see and i'm so thankful that you've put in the time here with the district in multiple ways and certainly in the way of continuing to be a board secretary for you know many years lately and helping us navigate those waters i don't think everybody understands what that means and the challenges that come with that in making sure that we're all doing the right thing and your legacy here is is unmatched for sure and i'm i'm grateful i'm sure everybody else here is grateful as well and i'm very thankful for the service that you have have given thank you and we have a black which doesn't do enough justice but in honor of your retirement retired with distinction and appreciation after 40 years of dedicated service to all students and i would
008say staff and faculty who have been a part of liberty public schools throughout these many years from us at the board of education thank you so there's part two and for those that are liberty public schools employees every year at convocation we typically honor our employees for five years of service 10 years of service 20 30 and beyond we wanted to ensure that you receive this because this one is a special one that states liberty public schools gratefully recognizes sandra cockrum for 40 years of service on behalf of the board of education 2022. you also have some guests here this evening too and i want to make sure you have an opportunity to acknowledge and recognize them because it's certainly while you're in the seat you're in the role family is involved as well and
009supporting you and supporting the work so we want to turn over you to provide an opportunity for you to introduce them as well thank you so i do have my daughters their families and my husband here thank you all for being here sandra has to put you on the spot you said a lot in the video but anything you want to say if i start talking i'll start crying but i do it truly it's been my honor to be associated with liberty public schools to wear that badge and wear it proudly because liberty public schools is a great district and it is full of phenomenal people and i just hope that um people get to have that same experience because it's been a great one for me thank you very much thank you tough to
010follow all that up but i just wanted to also recognize um individuals who have filed to sit in the seat and work with you know the future person who may be a part in sandra's role but those who have filed for board of director position in the april 5th 2022 election are karen rodgers matthew sammick daniel currents kyle bryant jim bates and john road i know i've seen a few of you here if you guys want to stand if you're here feel free to be recognized and again thank you all for stepping forward to be a part in service all right i'm going to move into public comment next and just as a reminder thanks for all who have joined here today reminding everyone that we still have a mass requirement in the district buildings
011including this building here the district administration center appreciate you continuing those on as you agreed to do so to come in we certainly have a long history of welcoming our constituents to come and share concerns and opinions with us through public comment and while we have diverse opinions within our community we recognize that there is a certain level of decorum that we'd like to have during our meetings especially during public comments so while we don't agree with everything that someone says potentially we they are here to discuss their specific needs seeking to have their voice heard if we do have outbursts that occur to create an atmosphere of hostility we can certainly restrict their end public comment in order to continue with the business meeting at hand so please don't make comments or inferences either
012positively or negatively about any specific individuals within the district if you do have concerns or certainly affirmations you want to make about specific individuals you take those offline make sure we can properly address them through those measures we are not as a board using public comment as a time to converse or dialogue while we enter don't interact directly during this meeting know that we are taking notes and we certainly follow up with those who are looking to have a follow-up either directly after the meeting or during the week so as speakers approach the podium just a reminder people addressing the board asked to not repeat what somebody before has said are you wishing to address any subject concerning liberty public schools and or education you can do so at the podium that if you're addressing
013the board please keep your remarks concise and to the point each speaker is limited to three minutes person or persons may speak only once at the meeting concerns brought forward during public comments certainly may be addressed by the superintendent or appropriate staff members usually within a week and we'll start tonight with brooklyn norris hi my name is brooklyn norris and i am a junior at liberty north high school i was called to the office at liberty north high school in the middle of my seventh period on december 13 2021 and taken into the assistant principal's office the door was closed and one of the assistant principals proceeded to explain to me that it was against the school policy to be at school without a mask he compared it to the dress code policy and talked
014about the fact that i wasn't wearing a mask like i had come to school without a shirt on he told me that i would have to wear a mask at school like i would have to wear a normal piece of clothing the tone the assistant principal used while saying all of this told me that his purpose was in calling me to the office was to really kill me for daring to violate a school policy and intimidate me into submission but why was i called out for not following school policy when at least half if not the entire population of girls at liberty north violate the dress code a school policy every day by wearing booty shorts and shirts that are both strapless and shoulder midriffs is it because i chose not to follow the crowd
015is the mask policy more important than the dress code policy because i was told they are equal when i was called into the assistant principal's office i was harassed in several different ways and was discriminated against for the policy and in addition to this harassment and blatant discrimination my rights that are guaranteed me in the supreme law of the land the u.s constitution are being violated because the school district is forcing to need to wear a mask at school my right to life and liberty which is what this country is founded on is being taken away why is this happening you say you have the children's best interest at heart but i don't believe it the forced masks are taking away my right to breathe and therefore my right to life the horse masks are
016taking away my right to choose for myself and therefore my right to liberty and everyone i have talked to about this has been repeating the same thing over and over they're saying that it's the school policy but they're just using it as a talking point and saying it and saying the same thing repeatedly in several different ways they're not listening to me and the points i'm making i know this because it keeps saying i don't have an answer for that and circling back to the point they made before and this is after i proved that they couldn't make me wear a mask based on it being a school policy because they don't enforce the policies that are of equal importance and if they do have an answer for me they don't actually address the point
017i made the entire staff at liberty north high is not listening to anything that i'm saying and just trying to shut me up so they can move on with their lives i'm not being heard thank you thank you mr next scott stifton thank you my name is scott sifton and i grew up in gladstone i'm a north kansas city high grad but we actually walked for graduation here at william jewell i represented south st louis county in the missouri senate for eight years and before that for nine years i sat where you sit on the board of education for the afton district served two terms as board president and as those who have served now serving on a school board can be difficult and even the best of times and the last two years have
018certainly been more challenging than just about anything we've ever faced in public education we never dealt with anything even remotely like this pandemic in my time on the school board uh and i cannot begin to imagine everything that you all teachers staff and parents in the district have had to deal with uh during this terrible pandemic you on the board have had to make tough calls in the name of doing what you believe is best for kids and at the end of the day that's what should guide every board in its deliberations is what's best for kids you've done that and now you've been sued for it missouri attorney general eric schmidt is simply wrong on the policy and on the law mass policy should be and as a matter of law is a matter
019of local control in missouri but this is more about more than just masks this is about the rising tide of extremist intervention in our local schools the kind that pulls tony morrison's very first novel off of the school library shelf right before the beginning of black his history month that happened here in missouri just a couple weeks ago the kind that pushes for for don't say gay legislation the kind of pushes to erase painful parts of our history last january 6th we saw an attempt to take over our national capital today those same forces led by steve bannon are working to gain control of our school buildings and so for those who support local control i would just encourage you to study up do your research and make sure your voice is heard on april
0205th thank you mr simpson up next matt samuel uh ah good evening i have a short statement i would just like to say that i acknowledge that the lps board has a wide array of issues that they are addressing that impact our students and i understand the need to update the district's return to learn plan under these evolving circumstances public safety and keeping our schools open are primary concerns right now and i encourage the lps community to do what they can to care for each other and work to keep our kids and our staff healthy our schools operational and our students learning i also encourage the board to endorse the recommendation made by the review committee regarding library materials our community of parents and educators had made has made a recommendation and i am inclined
021to support them and would encourage the board to do the same thing adam van meter yeah fast okay kathy waller i know we were asked to not repeat things but i did want to say that i want to thank the members of the board for serving in this capacity and i understand it's often a very difficult position to hold however it is also one that each of you wanted you represent all of the district's residents not simply those most vocal who are in your ears and in your faces 24 7. those who often completely ignore scientific facts in favor of their own very loud personal opinions often they seem to outnumber the rest of us but they do not i realize this is not a question and answer period and i understand why the board
022is instructed not to respond to patrons concerns in this format due to certain legalities regarding things like the agenda and sunshine laws therefore i will be submitting my question to you via email as instructed by the superintendent's office and i'd like to go on record in saying i hope you will respectfully give me the courtesy of a reply my question is simple please direct me to the exact proven scientific medical studies you have used to continue the mask mandates in our schools it is my understanding having exhaustingly researched this there is not one study proving that these masks are beneficial to our little children or our older children while there are hundreds if not thousands of facts proving just the opposite i am not interested in your opinions about this i would simply like to
023see the valid research that you have based your decisions on i also do not need an explanation about the overlapping jurisdictions in our district we are all quite aware of this and sometimes it's used to pass the buck the real issue is not that we have buildings in kansas city and therefore all liberty schools must do what quentin lucas and his council want regardless of what he does in his personal life by ignoring his own mandates but rather why are our kansas city schools not being forced to follow what liberty wants furthermore how can we defend this mandate over our children which the state of missouri has and i will correct the gentleman before me declared illegal how can we justify putting our citizens and our district funds at risk by openly defying the attorney
024general of missouri and while i know i cannot receive an answer from you at this time there is certainly no rule prohibiting me from asking this question to those behind me how many of you are aware that the state of missouri has already actually begun formal legal proceedings against our current school board due to its failure to halt the mass mandate which is illegal this is not a rumor it is not a threat it is not simply my opinion it is not what i think should or will be done formal proceedings have already begun against lps 53. this is a fact that i discussed with the attorney general's office today and which you may confirm by going to the attorney general's website on january 20th attorney general eric smith filed suit against another 36 school
025districts to help the mask mandates including liberty i will quote him um appreciate it well i have about 15 more seconds can i please no finish thank you well someone just said they would give me their time uh hi my name is lucia norris and i just want to finish the end of what she had to say because it was very important to me um she says quote as we have made clear from the beginning the power to make health decisions for their children should be in the hands of parents not bureaucrats masking children all day in school is effective and these endless pandemic restrictions lead to lasting negative psychological impacts on children and teens this is a fight worth fighting and i'm not going to back down end quote okay so i'm i am
026also here as a mother i'm here with two children in your school district my other five children i pulled out because they're elementary and i can't handle them wearing a mask all day long i'm here to express to you my great concerns regarding the compulsory use of face masks in your school schools it has come to my attention that there are widely known hazards health risks and dangers associated with the use of face masks which can result in both physical and psychological harm to the user it is reasonable to expect that you have considered such issues carefully and familiarize yourself with available evidence prior to making a decision decision to compel pupils in your care to wear masks however in case you may not have done so to date i wish to draw these issues
027to your attention and i call upon you to take immediate and remedial action please be advised i am also of the view that compelling my children to wear a face mask is it is in direct violation of their rights to bodily integrity and personal autonomy and best constitutes an abuse for the avoidance of any doubt i object to my child being subjected to such abuse and call for an end of mass mandates mass do have mass do have specific uses but masks are not for healthy children in everyday life and anyone who tells you that they are that they are an absolute necessity almost two years into this pandemic anyone that says that children need to wear them all the time in everyday public setting settings is either grossly informed or lying there's scientific and
028medical data i have here for you to view abundant evidence demonstrating the health risks associated with face masks in light of the available scientific and medical data it is evident that face masks constitute a hazard and pose a risk and danger to the health and well-being of your pupils including my child there's a duty of care i would respectfully draw your attention to the legal duties under law owed to my child willst on your premises and in your care duties also arise in the context of the school and pupil relationship and i have an assumption of responsibility based on knowledge of potential dangers and risks or hazards in the school environment such as those highlighted above i would respectfully point out that the consequences of ignoring this scientific and medical data and continuing to implement
029a compulsory mass policy would constitute a negligence of your duty of care and has the potential to cause harm or injury to my child i would therefore call upon you to take notice of this seriously and afford it the attention that it deserves thank you all right moving into consent agenda as a reminder our adopted rules of parliamentary procedure robert's rules provide for a consent agenda which lists several items for approval of the board by a single motion documentation concerning these items has been provided to all board members and the public in advance to assure an extensive and thorough review items may be removed from the consent agenda at the request of any board member i move the board approve consent agenda items 3.01 to 3.07 second sandra when you're ready scott yes andy yes
030kim marie yes aj yes drew yes angie yes nick yes mission carries into 4.01 reports administration innovation and learning uh first off we will welcome dr westfall to the podium to provide an update from the innovation learning departments good evening thank you for the opportunity for to share our information tonight we just wanted to share bring a couple things forward from our report but share about our panorama social emotional learning survey that actually started this past monday and will be available until february 25th for students teachers and for the first time both our classified and our certified staff students in grades three through twelve will participate in the survey which would take about 20 to 25 minutes to finish online and will be probably most likely completed in class as in years past our district
031goal is to have 95 participation in the survey rate for both our teachers and our staff i mean our students second i just wanted to share that we are going to include this time a session um for our operations and systems staff on how to look at the data since this is a new group that we're adding to the survey and so they'll meet on march 10th and look uh at the survey questions interpret the data and then be able to talk through the platform and all the systems information that they're given i also wanted to share this friday february 18th crossing our fingers that it is our district professional development day we will include the morning for the buildings to work on visible learning plans and in the afternoon the teachers will have time
032for collaboration much like they do on wednesdays for plc's and then additional work time we also have um special plans this friday for our first ever professional development day for paraprofessionals so we do want to thank uh team liberty for building that into our calendar for them this year so they uh received an email this week uh just to look at the professional developments aligned to their job specific roles and last but not least we are very excited to announce on behalf of liberty north high school that the greater kansas city school counselor association has named mrs jill brock the secondary counselor of the year and dr precious curt as the supervisor of the year so that's a great way to end this announcement and if you have any questions any questions of dr westfall
033or dr moore thank you next up then item 4.02 is our equity report we'll welcome our chief equity officer to the podium dr andre dixon seahorn good evening board of directors so good to be here with you on this evening to just share a few updates on behalf of the office of equity i do have several items listed in the report i'm not going to go through all of them but i do have something that's kind of like a tag team with what uh dr russ shared and that is around our professional learning uh for our certified and classified staff members support staff here in lps and that is around belonging to a culture of dignity so we do now have our finalized make-up dates from that original virtual launch that we did back in
034august and this is a way to make sure that we include all of our team members across the organization so on that same friday that dr westfall mentioned uh friday february the 18th we will have an opportunity for paraprofessionals uh and other particularly on the certified side of the organization on friday morning to participate in a makeup session with mr john crownapple author of belonging to a culture of dignity we also will have a final follow-up session with him for particularly our classified staff members and that date is february the 22nd i did have an opportunity today to meet with the operations team uh those various directors of departments to share with them that information so that they can convene as many of their team members who did not get to participate in the school
035year as part of our pv work for our organizations another thing that i wanted to just kind of bring your attention to when i'm going to mention someone who's just been mentioned just a moment ago and that is dr precious kirk and her team the diversity festival planning team as you know this was the second year where we just made a pivot due to the pandemic where the diversity festival was held in a virtual format last year as you recall it was a week-long event in a virtual space this year just being mindful of everyone's time and those constraints that were all under they condensed it uh miraculously to a one-day convenience what i did note as i've shared in the report is that even though the event was held on that monday january the
03631st as a one-day event you'll notice that people steal throughout the week decided to access the link perhaps as part of just classroom conversations or just personal interest and personal growth opportunities so we did have a total of as you can see on that uh for that week 643 views but i even uh inquired as of today with josh erhart who's also on the team we had 748 views even as you look at the total end of days so i think that that's pretty significant for that to be held as a one-day event so i do want to salute those team members i've already mentioned dr precious kirk josh erhard emily schmidt christopher and jill rock who we just mentioned so amazing team and wanted to give them kudos for their hard behind-the-scenes work in
037this endeavor so those are the highlights that i wanted to share with you if there any questions i'll entertain them at this time dr dixon seahorn um you have a piece in here about your belonging lunch and learn lessons sessions how are the uh students being chosen who will participate in that i'm glad you asked that question so what we're going to do is look at our panorama data and let the data be our guide so we want a nice mix of students that have expressed high levels of sense of belonging more moderate levels and lower levels of sense of belonging and to be able to have kind of a mixed bag in terms of students that are convened together and be able to really hear from the mouth of babes i call it that
038kind of data where they are sharing with us what their experiences are so we can better understand what it means to belong through the lens of a student and then we'll be able to use that information to circle back with leadership and think about what are those strategies we need to be putting into place next year onward to make our schools settings where students feel included and feel like they belong regardless of who they are where they come from how they show up in school so will those be at building levels or at a district level where they'll meet together we are going to go to buildings uh when we did our follow-up to panorama data from the dei survey last year we actually went to designated schools so we're trying to do at the
039middle school level the two schools that we didn't go to for this for this school year we'll still go back to both high schools as well as liberty academy we decided as a team to focus on secondary schools because that is where our data shows us that we have across the system at the secondary level lower levels based on student responses to the survey of a sense of belonging so we want to really address it head on and figure out what is it and what's that it factor there and figure out what we need to do better as adults to help students have a stronger sense of belonging thank you other questions thank you thank you so much thank you next then is our finance report item 4.03 and we'll turn it over to miss
040cindy sullivant good evening in addition to the report that i provided for you in boardrocks i wanted to share a couple of other things as you know budget season has begun where we are working in two worlds right now um i've had the pleasure to meet with about half of the budget managers so far and it's been great to get out and go see their world and talk with them about what's going well and what they're needing for next year and get that going and i will meet with the other half of them in the next week and a half so good things happening there i wanted to let you know that the collection of tax revenue is currently at 96 percent this time last year we were at 99 so i did call the
041county collector today just wondering if overall they're thinking that collections are slow and they did verify that they were of the same opinion that collections were a little slower this year than the past um they did also indicate that they will be sending out delinquent notices in the next couple of weeks so hopefully we'll see an uptick in that percentage of collection and as you know last year we collected a hundred percent of our revenue so it's a little concerning that we're a little slow and i'm sure that's fallout from the pandemic so i will keep an eye on that and keep in touch with the county as far as what to expect there we are also monitoring house bill 33014 which is a supplemental appropriations bill which i've spoken to about before which includes
042the sr3 fund and that bill needs to be passed by march 24th in order for missouri to get after three funds it's starting to move albeit slowly but we're still hopeful that that will be pushed through on time so that we can get our allocation of sr-3 funds the afc audit finance committee did meet last night and we had the pleasure of having mr anderson present to them they had requested an update on the facility's master plan so he graciously came and spoke with them and they're very appreciative of that so thank you steve and had their meeting and did not have anything to present to you tonight or questions for you tonight so they will meet again in may they will review the financial data online next month and finally next month we do
043start our budget presentations and i will have a brief presentation for with information about preliminary revenues and where we think we're going for the next year so then we'll follow that up in april with expenditures and a preliminary budget in may with final approval in june and that's what i have for you tonight other than if you have questions for me so heaven forbid sr3 doesn't get past what what implication is that for us well we have because we had to have our plan in place and approved by the state in august we've already started to work that plan because it involves support of students with learning lots and covet needs so we will continue to work that plan and find it within our budget to make due any other questions thank you 4.04 in
044our operations report mr anderson thank you just a couple items to share tonight first of all the capital plan process i've been trying to keep you all updated on that over time we won't have a fine-tuned plan to present probably until next month but because we have a pretty good idea on some of the major projects that are going through the bidding process i just wanted to highlight those really quick uh at alexander donovan we're looking at library renovations and uh playground renovations with some ada accessibility improvements manor hill and lewis and clark will see some improvements to the nurses office and ada improvements as well liberty north high school the tlc program is expanding there and so we're going to make some accommodations for that uh hvac improvements and enhancements at this building and
045support services uh william schumacher has cable fiber work through the tech department and then we're also doing several fleet upgrades both the yellow fleet and the white fleet that's just to kind of let you know that again we'll have more information on that probably next month that kind of puts the whole totality of the plan together for you and then second just to hit on master the facility master plan process that ms sullivan referenced um so we'll be sending you all um kind of an update and overview of what's coming next uh in the next few meetings we'll have our architect here as well to kind of keep presenting to you kind of updates as we go and they want to highlight that we've identified a date in march march 8th where we're going to
046have an am npm session for community engagement that will invite the community in to kind of see the first take at some of the projects that have been identified as part of that process in addition to that there will be a community survey that goes out uh shortly before spring break uh and that's as we've done in the past we'll engage the community overall just in terms of their uh position opinions on the district as a whole but also some of the projects that are being considered and then right now anticipating that on march 22nd architect would be in front of you all to present kind of that full plan as it's taking form at that point and with that it'd be happy to take any questions oh mr interesting like you know i like
047the uh the food supply chain question yes how we doing everything looking okay we're doing quite well i think our nutrition services department and this new one have really got on top of that we've procured enough um supplies and had sufficient uh temporary storage lined up so we feel like we're in good shape certainly to finish out the year and then anything uh operations wise with snow removal salting everything seems to have gone well anything that the team needs well they're you know again they're always well prepared i think in part the guys get a little uh ramped up for when when it's here and they're up and running at 1 30 in the morning for those events and so i know they're keeping a close eye on tomorrow night and will be out in
048force if need be great thank you any other questions all right thank you uh next item then is 4.05 our human resources report and we will turn that one over to dr vogellar thank you for the opportunity to share what's been happening in the human resources department with the district so strategically speaking three things i want to highlight the employee wellness program as you know strategically the the shift in our employee assistance program ties in with our self-care and work-life balance initiatives that we have our wellness coordinator has been holding voluntary meetings for staff both face-to-face and virtually to educate them about the benefits of the new eap plan since we shifted from one that we used for several years there's a lot of education that needs to take place these benefits are for all
049employees not just members of our health insurance but all employees and their dependents and the benefits include counseling sessions free counseling sessions unlimited texting with counselor through talkspace on-demand self-help app called sanvello and the work life balance initiatives made available through optum so we're excited about that rollout and the feedback that we'll receive from employees as they take advantage of those services regarding our grow your own program both teachers and administrators we're in the process of evaluating applications for the grow your own teacher program good news is that the department of elementary and secondary education did afford a grant specifically for grow your own and we were notified the deadline was the end of january we were notified that our grant was accepted and that will provide ten thousand dollars available to expand the grow
050your own teachers program and we're going to expand it by moving it into a hard to fill area so any student that is interested in moving into education as a career they're choosing a content area and a hard to fill area they would be eligible to apply for that and then that will also be afforded to our staff so many paraprofessionals want to become special education teachers that's a hard to fill area and so that grant opportunity would be available for them as well so we're going to start marketing that out to current students and to our support staff that want to turn that corner professionally and and move into the classroom in those hard to fill areas so more to come on that but we're excited about that and then a special thanks to
051uh our leaders who have participated in the grow your own administrators program leadership academy met in january we're going to meet again in just a couple of days in the january session our chief equity officer dr dickson seahorn met on the topic and helped our participants explore the differences that can be made by an educational leader who creates a school culture where everyone belongs it's a good topic a timely topic and spurred on a lot of good conversation among our participants in a couple of days we'll be meeting again the topic there is on changing perspectives kind of moving the emerging leader from a singular view to a systems view and so thank you to dr moore dr westfall and then richview principal dr shannon who will be our guest speakers to talk on that
052transformational process so as far as department updates i just want to highlight a couple of things specifically 31 uh applications uh i'm sorry postings for positions on the certificated side we have 710 applications that have come in since beginning of the year 454 of those are for those certificated openings those 31 certificated openings so we're well into the launch of our hiring season our typical hiring season as a district uh there's other things in the report i'll be glad to talk on any of those if you have questions for me but that is the report for human resources questions of dr vogel are this evening is the grant a year long term it's a it's a three-year grant the department of elementary secondary education is funding that for three years now it's ten thousand total
053over that three years okay and then is it re can you reapply uh we don't know yet so right now it's a fixed three year term on that excellent that's a nice chunk of change yeah there's also a retention grant that's actually significantly more almost a half a million dollars for the district and we're applying that to lead team work people who want to be teacher leaders but stay in the classroom it's a retention grant that desi is offering as well so have we applied for that we have and we've also been approved for that so that will did i miss that well that that is in the beginning working we haven't started the marketing for that this is an existing program and so that's why this is that's amazing so we're going to build
054a program and more to come on this uh for a teacher ambassador program that's classroom teachers who want to ambassador the profession to students that would become future educators and then there's also a lead lab initiative that will be launched that will focus on teachers who want to become teacher leaders in their classroom and in their profession so a lot to do with instructional coaching type leadership within their content areas for other teachers mentor teachers etc but that money is to incentivize uh retention of staff in the classroom thank you that's exciting so that's a sneak peek on that thank you i like seeing peace um dr vogeler the 31 certificated openings that we have right now and i'm sorry to put you on the spot approximately how does that compare to years in the
055past at this time in the hiring season so right now i would say it's on par with we did have greater participation in our e-nip program so it does look like a lot more resignations than typical but this is about on pace now typically at the end of the hiring season we tend to have around 80 to 90 certificated uh positions that are filled that's a combination of turnover as well as newly created positions uh will i expect will likely be a little higher than that but right now 31 is pretty much on par okay thank you are your questions for dr vogeler we can let him off the hot seat thank you thank you and into 4.06 the superintendent last but not least a couple items i wanted to draw your attention to uh
056that i shared one was the opportunity we had a while back just a week or so ago to share some of the work of the district around our vivid vision our graduate profile strategic plan and real world learning opportunities at the elementary middle and high school level with the northland education and business alliance or the acronym amoeba they've been an instrumental group across the north land in bringing business and education together as far as opportunities for students for young people including the inception of northland caps several years ago but then also just continuing to advance those partnerships second item i wanted to share was something that i've i've communicated with you previously and that is the formation of a success ready student work group through the department of elementary and secondary education really focused in
057on two parts and that is exploring competency-based learning as well as innovative assessment practices to then inform the next iteration of the missouri school improvement program as you've followed along over the years we've done some of this work in a variety of settings through the show me task force as well as the missouri assessment program and that consortium but now it's kind of found its way into the department level and so the intent is at the conclusion of this work this spring i believe that that will culminate and present a presentation of a framework to the state board of education and the commissioner about possibilities of exploring competency-based learning and innovative assessment practices across the state of missouri a couple of other caveats around that work group is we are invited to present some of
058the work that we're doing in our district in the early part of march so we'll look forward to putting a team together to do that as well as a couple of participants we have a student representative as well as an instructional coach that is part of that work group so we'll report out periodically the process and progress of that particular work group at the state level also want to shout out and and and provide a tremendous amount of thanks to all of our departments our teachers our staff administrators everyone in between over the course of the last month and a half really as you've watched other districts that have navigated staffing challenges case rates as well as attendance rates some resulting its closures for a temporary period it was truly an all hands on deck
059over the course of the last several weeks trying to remain open and have our classrooms filled with substitute teachers and support and appreciate several of our administrators going over and substituting in classrooms as well as a lot of our community parents stepping up in an effort to substitute as well so hopefully we're beyond that piece as far as that particular challenge the last thing i just wanted to echo was what mr anderson shared as far as the opportunity to engage further with our community around our facility facilities management planning process with some meetings coming up in march and participation with our community as far as the board is concerned subsequent study sessions and board meetings will be used to continue to refine and prioritize the work in and around our facilities needs and improvements as
060we consider a future bond issue with that said would certainly open it up for any questions the board may have of me this evening anything in particular in the success ready students work group that you all are going to be specifically focusing on two pieces really that one is a competency-based framework knowing that every district is in different places that it looks different at the elementary in the middle level the high school level how does it fold into some of the real world learning opportunities that are afforded several districts are working on that not just in our region but across the state the innovative assessment practices really has everything to do with removing from a traditional end-of-year assessment which is what we've been used to as you know from the third grade through eighth grade
061level it's traditionally been the end of course or end-of-year math assessments by the time you get into high school you end up pivoting to end-of-course exams those metrics are valuable but they're probably not as valuable as a system that assesses the growth of a student from august to may with periodic updates to teachers as well as to families in real time so that they can see where their students are at more importantly how they're growing and progressing over the course of the year the advantage of that type of a system as compared to an end-of-year system like we currently have is really the teacher's ability to see in real time where that student's at across different content areas but then also tailor and adjust their instruction to be able to meet the individual student where
062they are at that's that ability to differentiate and apply what you need what you need what you need and tailor that experience or personalize that experience so we hope to be able to make some strides there this has been an ongoing conversation for at least the last 12 years that i've been part of and so if you if you've been around that long you can connect the dots to the progression of the work sometimes it advances sometimes it slows down nonetheless we are where we're at with this work group so that part's pretty exciting any questions for dr tucker all right moving into unfinished business 5.01 library material reconsideration we do have uh two items under unfinished business this first item i want to thank dr westfall who's here this evening and andrea or andrea
063sumi our director of library media services for them presenting at our study session and walking us through a couple of key items if you'll recall at the study session that time was used really to focus in on a couple of key pieces the first category was that library media process and a couple of processes as it relates to the front end of how we go about selecting materials at the elementary the middle and the high school level and the process in which we navigate material selection the second piece to that part was really the the board policy and process for reconsideration of which we know any member of the community can request that a book be reviewed and we pull together a committee that committee deliberates brings their findings to the board of education that
064parent can certainly appeal the committee's decision which is what brings us to this particular item this evening but i want to thank them for walking us through that process as we've talked with other school districts and you've seen similar headlines from a variety of districts in missouri and across the nation there are some districts that are at a point of reflecting and saying well we don't have a process we need to explore and put something in place others that may have a similar process to us or some that have one that's entirely different and so we feel fortunate that we not only have the policies we have the process in place as well the second piece that was highlighted by dr westfall was really a similar selection process but that's really related to curriculum materials
065and resources and she was able to walk through a couple of key pieces the structure that we utilize of that being teacher selection committees in addition uh tying those resources back to learning expectations as well as missouri learning standards and the importance of that piece and the third element that she spoke to was really the ability for parents to have alternative options in and around an objection that they may have and their ability to be able to request and ask for alternative reading materials throughout this conversation one of the things that we want to ensure we communicate out to our parents and families is the ability for parents to be able to put some structure or safeguards parameters in place or filters for lack of a better word as it relates to their ability to
066identify texts or titles in the library department that they would rather not their child to have access to that process has been in place but we feel like it's a value to be able to ensure that we're communicating it posting that publicly on our library resources and our library web pages and i know our team has been working on that particular piece the second part that we wanted to share with you and provide you opportunity to be able to deliberate about is the request for appeal that was submitted to the board of education i appreciate your due diligence and taking a look at the text in question but then also navigating this over the course of the last couple months and that brings us to this evening's conversation so we'll turn it back over to
067you mr bartlett yeah so again as dr tucker noted you all have had the text time to review it you've given commentary certainly a readout of how the process unfolded and how it all came together so we'll open it up for discussion conversation on the appeal i'll get to go first again i guess so um as i read through this i was fully expecting to come back with a kind of that are you out of your mind type statement around are we going to allow this in the library what i found was to be was really a heart-wrenching account of this young man's life and what he went through and his description of it etc so i i want to approach this from two different things one is around the process itself and i don't
068know how much we want to get into that because i think and if everybody kind of nods along with this and i'll just move on but dr tucker mentioned that we pulled together a committee of people i don't know who those people are it wasn't a board appointed committee i don't know for all i know it was 15 people that all personally knew the author i mean i i don't think it was but but there's no there's no assurances that the committee was of diverse spot of any kind and i'm told and somebody can correct me if i'm wrong i'm told that there really wasn't any discussion or much discussion in this committee and only one question was asked in the entire time before they took the vote to to say 15 to nothing they
069approve of this being in the library so i i would expect an amendment if nothing else that the committees that are put together for this kind of things at least work through it and we at least hear about kind of what they wrestled with and what they thought so that's that's the piece i have a problem with on the on the process side on the book side i don't to me there's i read an article a little review of this book and the guy said that it's it's porn is about whether or not erotic they're intending to be a erotic i don't know that this guy was doing that but i also believe this is not and i think we all agree with this this is not suitable for some age kids there are they're
070not this book is not k through 12 eight through five libraries is that correct it's not not in that it's only in high school right it's not in the middle school libraries it's in the high school library my concern is that if this book if the text of this book was made into a screenplay word for word it'd be an r-rated movie and a strong r-rated movie now i'm about to say so so i'm concerned that i'm not saying i don't think this should be banned it's it's available at the public library i think that's where it belongs people have said i can find worse on the internet well i'm not responsible for for managing access to the internet with again people in their own lives but when we've got 14 year old 14 15
07116 year old kids in a building with 17 and 18 year old kids i'm concerned that we're just due to just expediency and and ease of decision we're just saying well everybody in that building gets access to whatever and i think we should think through a little bit more about exactly who should have access to this i am not for banning this um i am simply for maybe treating it more like an r-rated movie and not keep the onus on parents to have to write a letter to say i don't want my kids to have access to this we should be the protector of that we should be in front of that for parents in our community if a parent of a 14 year old wants to have access to the adult library you are
072ready to move you whatever then so be it but it seems to me that our society is kind of established 18 years old as an adult for a lot of things that you can't get into a high-rated movie of course you can if you go to local theater and sneak in or whatever i don't want to band i think there is value here but i don't think there's value here to exposing it to freshmen and sophomore at a minimum the one the one piece all address i i understand your points scott on on the the committee process but that's the committee process spelled out in the in the board policy right so that's while the board didn't pick the members of those committees we did approve i'm not saying this board but the board of
073education at some point in time approved this policy to set forth that process for how we will have materials challenged and so you know my my thing is is i have comfort in the fact that we have a selection process with our librarians and our staff a lot of other districts don't have and so we've got a vetting process on the front end and then we have a process on this end to go through and look and have a committee appointed and it spells out that the committee is is going to be placed together with lay citizens professional educators and chaired by the assistant superintendent for instruction so there are parameters on who's going to be on that committee and so that's that's one piece i wanted to address that this is part of board
074policy this is a policy that the board approved and that policy to my knowledge has been followed to this point okay i the committee that's saying that there's parameters around the committee because it says in there that it's members of the community that's a pretty broad and i agree with you i think we're following our policy i'm not suggesting we're not following following the policy my question is we talked about uh i appreciate the people who spoke earlier and a couple of mentioned local control on whether it's masks or books or training of staff or whatever it is we can't do everything on our own and we do count on other groups that we contract out to to be experts in the field and there's an organization that vets these books for us before they
075even come here correct there are several on the selection process that we reference and we refer to i'm simply a library every once in a while is there one that slips past the goalie and it's okay for us at the local level to actually make a local decision without saying well they said it was okay so it must be okay we all read it i i don't my question for the group is if it was a script what would the movie be rated and how's that different but if i could ask you this how many books are currently in our library that are considered hard for the course that when they have been turned into movies are rated or are are rated um you could probably pull any you can ask any kid about stephen
076king and how many of them have read a stephen king novel and how many of the stephen king novels are rated r so to say that i i too read the book as you did it is there are uncomfortable parts in there i will i will not disagree with that at all however just because something is uncomfortable doesn't mean it's not important to someone to know from the outset of the book from the very first pages the author explains that this is a memoir this is what he went as an african-american lgbtq and anthem letters that are appropriate there so from the outset you should be aware that these are the pieces of information that are going to be relayed in within the storytelling of that and throughout he goes back and forth and he
077talks about his questions of whether i should put this in writing whether i should talk about this whether i should be doing this to people whether they're alive and several of them you know have passed during the writing of this book but it was important for him to put that out there and the main purpose i felt for him putting that out there was so that other young black males who happen to identify as lgbt and at the letters because i do not i don't know what they all are would know that there was somebody like them which was another point of his storytelling was i want somebody to know it was important to me when i finally found people who were like me and he continually talks about that and and to withhold that
078from students you know i have two daughters would i have withheld this from them no and i will tell you why when when my youngest child was in fifth grade she picked up a book and i looked at that book and i said there's no way you're reading this and i talked to a friend of mine who was also a reading instructor and she explained to me she goes angie let her read it if she finds it's too difficult or the subject matter or something she doesn't understand she'll she'll put it down which she did but we also had some conversations about that and that's the other piece of that that i feel is so important do i want my children even though they're now grown but when they when they lived with me i
079wanted them to be able to ask me those questions i wanted them to run into uncomfortable situations i wanted to be there to guide them and and to me that's my job as a parent and and i take that very seriously i don't just sit on this board and just go yes or no out of whim i seriously consider if this were my child what would i want it to be and that's where i put my thought processes as well as i have responsibilities as a parent if my child is going to check this out of the library and they have questions i'm hoping that i have taught them to come to me with those questions or come to me and say i don't like this book or i don't know what to do with
080this book or mom i don't i don't think this is a good book for me okay then then we can have those conversations that is my family that is my right to say to my child no you're not reading this but that is not my right to say to anyone else's children no you're not reading this and and i think we have to consider that as well it is a difficult decision i don't disagree with that but i think you have to do what is best for your children and consider as we do on the board when we look at these what is in the best interest of the population as a whole you think it's important to be made available to 14 year olds i think it's important that it be at the secondary
081high school level and i think if a 14 year old is to check that out then i as a parent i would want to know there are some 14 year olds who i totally believe can handle that storyline there are some 14 year olds from the crowd please nsu also said i understand from the people in the gallery you can get it at the public library it doesn't mean that that i don't think that a 14 year old can handle it i that's the individual 14 year old you guys he's going to go around and i'm going to last worrying about doing it my question is what about 13 year old are there any 13 year olds out there that could handle this of course but are we going to provide you know level we're
082not but what's magic about this two a few years ago we had junior high we had eighth grade and freshman in junior high and sophomore through the senior of the high school i can't prove this but i'll bet you we wouldn't have had this in the library at the junior high but we would have had it at the high school so then the magic line the sophomore and now the magical and his freshmen i'm simply saying why wouldn't we i don't want to i don't want to sit here and fight with you but some of the things you're saying is just you can get it you can get this stuff anywhere nobody wants it banned it's all important kids need access to all kinds of information but as a school district we don't it's my
083understanding 50 shades of grey is not is one of the books that is not allowed to come into school libraries is that correct there's a reason for that i don't know i'd have to go and look i i think there's a reason for that and i think we all agree with that so what's different about adult heterosexual sex and this that's a minor with adults in this book that i think we all agree would be a pretty high-rated movie or pretty strongly rated movie if it was a movie what makes it different that it's a book is it that we're worried we're gonna be called a name if we go out here with some kind of governance around this or is it just easier to say uh just put it in high school i i
084don't consider this an easy decision by any stretch of the imagination and i am and i think i can speak to one of god's questions on the front end as far as that selection process working with our library media services and librarians as far as selecting content at the elementary middle the high school level you know rewind earlier in the fall when a list of 27 or so books were presented that people had concerns around as we were exploring those we had about 12 of those that were identified the others we did not have because in that selection criteria process for whatever reason those texts were elected to not be included in the library or we weren't looking at those titles right so over the years we've used that criteria as a judgment in referencing
085other library media resources other providers that speak to reading level or the appropriateness of content to be able to place books on shelves and so that's why that selection piece was covered at the study session and that that presentation's on board docs and it speaks to our selection criteria process but then also following that board policy and that we feel as an administration and walking through that and dr westfall can chime in that that policy was followed pretty closely now the question for the board moving forward is do we revisit the policy at some point look at other considerations or better ways of doing things i know that as an administration we've also kind of kept the prize of other districts and what their practices are in the event that we can see a better
086way forward in some of those processes perhaps we fold those into the policy considerations in the future i don't know dr westfall if there's anything you'd like to add do you think that the consideration for what you do with any test for one i would love for you to know that we really do follow a fairly rigorous process for what we include based on recommendations from the various organizations that we look to if they're not recommended or they're not in that age level that they are established by the publisher we do not i mean that's one of the ways that we take things out the other thing is um that we really work very diligently to try to make sure that the audience that we're providing is the proper audience so we take really good
087care of that in this case where it's that cross of the line that's right on the edge you really do ask the opinion of our constituency and that's the committee and while we may agree or disagree with the decision of the committee and um we did we did open the conversation so it wasn't available people were able to make commentary but they did but they did not but we and that's why i think there's two sides to this nobody's saying you didn't follow the process and that's a really important from a public schools the way you manage any issue is to make sure you're following board processes and i'm not saying that somebody didn't follow a process i am saying that process needs to be changed and approved and just because the process was followed
088doesn't mean we throw our hands up and say well we just let it in i don't i don't understand the pushback other than it's just for expediency i don't understand the pushback on thinking through what other gated criteria we could use here if because what i'm hearing is once this organization whoever they are says this book's good for high schools we're just going to put it in it's not a singular group so there are several associations that our librarians work through right to be able to determine that placement and certainly preserving opinions on that particular title or other titles right the other piece to that i would say from a parent perspective and this is something we worked on to again post but then communicate in the future is that ability for parents to assist
089in navigating that putting those parameters in place i know there are some other public uh parent resources the most notable one that comes to mind for me is common sense media where a parent can enter a title of a movie or a book and be able to get their own it brings up a summary it brings up the age-appropriateness of a particular work that is another option to be able to communicate out to families the difficulty there is it may not contain every title and so it's a little hit and miss as it relates to that that as a resource for families there may be other resources that we're just not aware of but that's something we could explore along with any revisions we feel need to be made of the policy i did want
090to add to scott one last thing is we can't you can add restrictions that is one of the part one of the current practices and it is actually in our policy but that's a process that we can follow so we are completely open to that and that is part of what we present to the committee so those are always options and we do accept those from from the committee right so the policy allows for all that but my point again is the committee got together didn't say a word one person asked one question and that was approved so all those things are available in the process but none have more utilized so we we did follow a whip around process where everyone was afforded the opportunity to share comments with the full group you want
091to speak to that dr westfall that's exactly what we did we gave everybody the opportunity to speak and everyone did speak in in the each committee so they all did bring and they brought script they brought comments they brought information from their own reading or perspectives and everyone did in every committee that we've had did share and no one escaped okay i'm i'm aware this is going to go 6-1 i get it it's going to be in the library that's just where we're headed but my concern is that if we had a finance situation ahead in front of us and the audit and finance we have an auto finance committee in the district if that district recommended something i think we're a little more in touch with that committee than we are with others because
092we appoint that committee these people come in they apply we go through their background what kind of audit finance history do they have um we have an instructor from jewel i think maybe still sits on there i don't she's gone now but we've got some really strong people on that on finance committee because we see him now all i'm being told is we pulled some people together and they also put in the library which is fine again all the process but that's a pretty that's kind of a sad process and it feels very disconnected from us as board members saying there's a random 15 people out there that we're all going oh okay let's just do this i don't want this band nobody wants this band this is i'm just arguing the appropriateness for certain
093ages and i do not think it's appropriate for kids that are 14 15 years old and we have the ability to manage that if we choose to do it well i think that's i mean under the policy the buck stops with us right so we've all had the ability to read it and we're having dialogue about it right so regardless of a committee recommendation i think we're all able to think through it read it recognize the worth of it or the uncomfortable moments of it you know i i don't think this is a comparison to fifty shades of grey i think of it as a comparison to ellie diesel's night right which is another memoir which would be rated r if it was a movie which has a number of uncomfortable situations from the holocaust
094and one survivors take from that and so you know what where does that stop and so that's my that's my two cents on that but the fact is as i i think we're all mostly on the same page in terms of where we're at with the content i understand the concerns about the process but that's why we get to read it and have this dialogue we're having right now yeah not to ignore your comments on the policy scout i mean we've obviously had numerous policies we've revisited over the last year or two and i think this is another one that we'll put in there to say hey is this the right process we want to have going forward and how do we maybe modify that for better i'll make one more comment and then i'll
095i'll shut up but i'm 58. there are other people in here maybe around 54 and way younger i'm aware nick don't remind me how much younger you are than me the point is when you're 58 years old 50 years old 40 years old 10 years different isn't that big of a deal we're all adults we're all kind of working the same same process same community when you're in school there is a big difference between 18 year olds and a 14 year old think about when you're a freshman in high school and maybe you practicing football against the seniors or basketball or whatever there's a major difference in physical attributes and mental capabilities and cognition i i worry that we're not taking that into consideration we're just saying because they're in that building it's okay i
096just i have concerns with that and i think if we would do some kind of dating criteria at 17 plus or at juniors and seniors only then now you have a vehicle that you can use going forward as other ones of these come up and you're not stuck with the all or none approach i'm looking for a little bit of compromise on as opposed to saying everybody gets it but i've made my case and we'll live with the i just think it's hard to have a bright brightline rule like that because there are kids that can't handle it but you but you already have that right on my mind right you already have that bright line rule i've already got one you already have that brightline rule you're not allowing eighth graders to get it
097but you are allowing freshmen to get it just by building if your comparison is like you know a size and you're talking about you know mental or emotional capacity it's like you've got freshman sophomores that can handle being on the football field with juniors and seniors right i think you've got freshmen and sophomores that intellectually can handle reading materials that juniors on seniors can so have them opt-in to why don't you have the parents which they already can do i'll doubt because the onus then is on them it's around protection of the kids who aren't there yet but how do we pick everything do we say well if this was a screenplay it would be r rated well then that would be the bible it would be r if it was word for word a
098screenplay and i don't think anybody thinks that the bible should be banned from certain ages anybody who's actually read the bible would know that there are parts in there that would be all-rated if it was on a screen old testament's rough but i just don't think you could i don't think that that is the correct criterion so i understand where you're coming from um and i'm i'm not sure that it doesn't feel like anybody understands no i understand where you're coming from and i'm not sure that i disagree however i'm gonna i have a completely different perspective um and that uh is that i think kids have a first amendment right to choose books in this whole library um and uh you think they should well they should be in but we have but but
099the guidance that has been given to us is that there's appropriateness that comes with the book and that's what we're choosing to use um those outside recommendations i get that once it comes into our building and into our library i think kids have a right to choose it and i would say that there are some kids who if a kid is seeking this book out there's probably a reason it probably speaks to them some mid-continent would love to have them come in that's okay anything they want if they can get there maybe they can't get there and i think for the criteria piece there's there's that criteria on the front and you write in that selection process as we've talked about that levels it both from a reading perspective and subject matter i think what
100scott if i'm hearing you correctly is is there another layer to that that goes beyond that high school middle level elementary level that then could be added as as to your point 1415 versus 16 um certainly assume that that's in place if that if that structure is in place then you're not just talking about a singular selection at this point now you're vetting all material from that lens which could certainly be done right now the criteria is relegated to that elementary that middle and that high school level we can certainly explore and see if there's something else out there that differentiates it further i'm not aware of anything because so much of that work is done on the front end in that selection process in looking at some of those associations that place material at
101the appropriate reading level on the appropriate content level as far as like a ratings system right if there's something else that we can land on we can certainly bring that up for discussion or inclusion in the policy as it relates to possible future restrictions well i'm you know i'm wrong i would think this would if we would at least consider it it would give you options down the road i'm not going to be here down the road one more meeting andy and i will sign off but i just think it's worth at least considering and discussing more and look i'm no prude i i i've raised six kids and none of them were delicate flowers uh but and we are we're all coming this from our own experiences as parents and as seasoned board members
102in many cases here so i'll respect the will of the board but i'm just saying it's okay for all those ages in the high school it doesn't make sense to me do we have any uh way of gauging how how how often this book has been checked out do you have any determination on that we do you can look at the catalog or the inventory and see how frequently it is checked out but we don't know that at this point i don't have that data yes so if we knew how many had checked it out also would tell us about who to decide who picks this book and how often it's been been been reviewed and so i think that would be an indicator that that this is like you said the book is challenging
103it was challenging for me to read but it's somebody's story and it's somebody seeking out belonging and there are others that can relate to that i agree with that i truly agree with that and i didn't think i would going into this process it really didn't but that doesn't mean it's automatically okay for everybody in my in my opinion but and they know where they didn't know where the parent comes in to be a part of that process yes but when i said that about mask a couple weeks ago you said only if they're online parents get the choice here but they don't get the choice there i don't want to bring mass into this but it's funny other comments questions conversations yeah i think the parent seriously answer agent i think the parents do
104get a choice in this the question is which side of it is an opt-in or opt-out i'd rather see parents up their kids into this as opposed to not realizing it's even there but i think i think that the counter to that would be there will likely always be titles that someone is wanting to restrict from their child right whether it's text that we are aware of or texts that come forward in the future so then it's it's if you apply the opt-in one direction it benefits or it sets this up if you apply the opt out it sets this piece up the opt out provision in terms of any titles within our inventory whether it's a shelved book a hard copy or a digital copy ends up really leaving it in the hands of
105the parent irrespective of well this made you know the top 10 most controversial books list as compared to this title over here that may not even be on that particular list but i have an opposition to or i have a concern about with my child but you can argue that both ways i do not agree with that but one is what i'm saying is one is more broad reaching as compared to the other in terms of that opt-in or opt-out provision i think that's why that piece has been in place as far as parents being able to restrict to an extent all along and then our thinking is an administration and that we need to ensure to communicate that to families at all levels not just high school at all levels that you can you
106can put some filters in and around that as a family if that's something you would like to do so that that piece is there if you change something moving forward from a policy standpoint that's certainly up for discussion as we review the policy so i just doing it your way though just forces the parents to have to know every little title and everyone to opt out of and as opposed to giving them some more guidance around there's kind of a section over here that we reserve for juniors and seniors if you want to opportunity to it you can but as an organization we're going to do our best to make sure that the appropriate materials go to the appropriate kids scott well i understand what you're saying i also think part of that responsibility falls
107to the parents teachers do an amazing amount of checking on kids keeping an eye on kids making sure they're doing what they should be doing and you don't want to put this on staff do i want to put this on staff no i don't want to put it on staff but i do want the point to be made that the teachers are doing a lot of work parents are part of that teaching team i i could not have as a teacher done everything i needed to do with the students in my classroom without the help of parents and and that's that was something i always wanted for my parents and hope to get from my parents and as a parent on the flip side of that i also felt that that was my job it
108it and just like the other side of that all day long i i agree i understand and but my but my thought process is there are things as a parent that i think i should do and there are things as a teacher i thought i needed to do and then there are things as a board member that i feel are necessary for us to consider but as a board member i'm flying a little bit farther up in the air and i'm not as in the weeds as i was as a parent and a teacher nor should i be because that is not where i see myself as a board me member i do not need to be in classrooms i do not need to be there for all the nitty-gritty but what i do need
109to trust is that the people that we do put there are the ones who are looking out for our staff for our students for our families for our community and and i feel like we did that in choosing the people that were cho in putting it to the committee to look at that book and bring us a decision first that's fine i think i got it the next committee is going to be a completely different 15 people right yes so it's going to be apples and oranges every time the book comes in trying to avoid that but well one of the adjustments would be the addition of students we've talked about that and included some student voice in that as well to garner their their participation their perspective as well so i think i think
110we would all agree it's it's invaluable to hear from students on a variety of topics right so how best can we do that as well and get that diversity of perspective yeah i will say on video for anybody that's watching my no vote does not mean i want to burn this book because that's what the other side all are going to talk about and that's not what we just talked about here additional question conversation you want a motion i will take a motion if you so choose i move that the board affirm the decision of the question library materials committee to retain without restriction all boys are blue in the liberty public schools library commit collection at liberty high school and liberty north high school second sandra when you were ready scott no andy yes
111kim marie yes aj yes drew yes angie yes nick yes motion carries the 5.02 return to learn plan uh the next item as far as the return to learn plan discussion 5.02 i think we have some charts that we wanted to share with you this evening appreciate everyone's engagement not only on the last item but then certainly on this particular topic over the course of going on two years it's hard to believe that in march that will mark a two-year anniversary for lack of a better word of the pandemic and decisions that were made back then in terms of the state of missouri these charts are pretty reflective of what we've experienced over the course of those two years with really an emphasis and we as we get into the second set uh an emphasis
112on the month of january and february so if we can blow those up a little bit in the back i don't know if you can yeah i mean i can do the top that's perfect we can walk through them one at a time okay the very top one doesn't go all the way back to march of 2020 but it does go back to the beginning of the school uh the the 2020-2021 school year and you can see our data points um these are covid cases covent positive cases per week from september of 2020 all the way to present if you look at that peak toward the very right side of that particular chart looks a little bit like a roller coaster ride where you enter into the latter part of really november all the way
113through and i believe this is updated through february 11th is that correct mr anderson and so walking through that particular section from november to present once you ended up at really kind of the midpoint in january and then you started seeing a reduction in numbers these are both student and adult cases and then you've seen this drastic drop here over the course of the last couple weeks if you go back to the month of december when we were communicating with you what we were anticipating from the health department as far as clay county having the recommended only language kansas city continuing to have the mass mandate in place and the knowledge then that the mandate from kansas city would sunset we were preparing for a role into the second semester provided some talking points with
114where we are at the one thing that was different then then is the case today is the reduction in case counts we've we've made a tremendous improvement from december to present and so that's where we are this evening as we kind of walk through these other charts if you'll scroll up to the next one the next one is indicative of case counts per week as far as that seven day incidence rate and what we have been tracking this is straight from clay county and the data that they are reporting one caveat that i would note a distinction between the previous chart and this one the previous chart is our data that we believe we're pretty confident in that we're able to really review that on a daily basis there are a couple of key metrics
115that we look at daily that is positive cases among students and adults our attendance rate as well as our staffing levels as compared to some of the data that comes out from clay county that's listed on their dashboard which typically has a lag of about a week or two and so the first chart shows that dramatic decline whereas other charts that you may see whether it's this evening or the clay county dashboard may have a weak lag or may not show that dramatic decline so the second chart is the clay county cases per week we're seeing that reduction as well the third one is this is the liberty public schools total coded 19 cases per week again carried all the way through to present that is for the 2021 2022 school year only and you
116can see that dramatic drop reflected in that as well the next three charts then bring us to some of our real-time metrics that we are able to monitor and this is something that we feel moving forward we will be able to continue to assess not just in and around coving cases but other possible contagious diseases you know we typically monitor the flu we monitor measles outbreaks we've done that a couple years in the past but anything else similarly these are some of those metrics that we feel are invaluable to us one is the positive cases you can see the dramatic dramatic decline over the course of the last several weeks reflecting where we were almost to the tune of that higher number close to 250 on any given day almost to single digits as to
117where we are presently that's that's moving in the right direction the second piece as we talked about earlier in some of our earlier conversations was the teacher sub-fill rate and staffing levels this particular metric you actually want the the measure to move up in the chart because you want it to be closest to 100 as you possibly can be you can see by some of the low points in and around the middle of january there were some days where we had difficulty filling subs in classrooms to the tune of about 60 fill rates fortunately the board put a provision in there earlier in the month of december to allow our teachers to be able to cover for one another and to be remunerated so even on those days where you had a sub fill rate
118of closer to 60 percent 100 of our classes were covered it's just that we didn't have to outsource and have enough substitutes through kelly services to cover that load instead we prioritized what classes were covered classified teacher positions as compared to support staff positions and then we covered the remaining courses or classes or sections with our available lps employees or teachers that third category below is another one that we follow in terms of a metric in this particular indicator you want that number to be in the single digits on any given day in liberty public schools we typically hover in and around 94 to 96 percent attendance rate it varies ever so slightly once you get to the secondary level it's typically a little bit lower than the elementary level you can see at its
119peak again going back to the middle of january latter part of january we had some days where we were pushing uh 88 attendance rate and then we could certainly disaggregate that by building we're back to our typical days where we're floating anywhere from four to five to six percent low in terms of an overall 94 or so attendance rate as a school district and then we can certainly disaggregate that further in taking a look at our individual buildings couple this information with what we've heard in the sense that the city of kansas city is moving toward allowing their current mass mandate to sunset and the fact that the cake the clay county public health services guidance for schools currently reflects masks recommended not required we're recommending to the board of education that we allow for
120the mask mandate to sunset to then align with both the health department guidance from clay county as well as the city of kansas city with our intent moving forward to continue to monitor and report out updates to the board of education as we continue to move forward reflected in the board packet this evening is an amended return to learn plan we've done this several times the primary change is moving away from the term required to recommended to align with our continued health department guideline guidelines among both health departments and there were some minor items that we felt needed to be cleaned up as well i'm going to speak to those mr anderson real quickly sure the other items were really mainly uh reflected the dates that were in there about if you wanted to pivot
121to a different learning model that's still obviously an option for folks but there were specific dates included in the other plan and then we also had the previous planet chart that included a lot of guidance and around symptoms and testing and returning back to school or work we decided since that fluctuates that we just will simply refer to what the current standing public health guidance is and remove it from the plan since it does fluctuate from time to time this absence rate this is all absences for all reasons specifically that is correct that is that is all that's a great point that that could be anything that could be a parent that calls in bereavement because of a family funeral it might be covert related but it's not singularly covert related and so as has
122been the case in previous years prior to this pandemic when we would monitor things like the flu that's probably the next biggest example that we can think of where there's a high percentage of attendance or absences we would watch that similarly anytime you're getting close to that 88 and below category either by building or as a district that's cause for alarm not just among students but then also that staffing level we saw earlier is there a i think we're all i think if we would drop this masked mandate there's no more there's no seven people on the planet that'll be happier than the seven people sitting up here because nobody wants it nobody likes them whether doesn't matter what side of the argument you're on nobody likes these things my question around this motion though
123it is why do we need to wait for the mayor of kansas city to say he's dropping his mandate before we just we just saw the numbers it's let's just drop it so then going back to the policy conversation we've had and this is this is the charge of the administration to effectuate board policy and we've shared this so it's no secret or surprise in the effort to follow health department guidelines that's as simple as i can make it i can also say that has served us relatively well even over the course of this last month and a half it could be attributed to a lot of different things i don't know that we'll ever truly know but at the same time as we have watched other districts struggle we feel both from providing educational
124opportunities fully seated five days a week virtual hybrid everything in between as well as the effort to try to maintain our classes and schools open i would say that adhering to that board policy has been the path forward for us as an administration that has helped us maintain some of those pieces and certainly difference of opinions we get that we've learned a lot over the course of four days it's one day it's about 18. it is it's the end of the day on the 17th that thursday to take effect that 18. it's gonna be happy friday when our when our students return on that following tuesday after the president's day weekend that's when that would take effect from a student standpoint from the adults that are here on friday working that's when it would take
125take effect on friday and clay county is on board with this already lake county guidance already is aligned for recommended only that school guidance is already in place so yeah that's correct i mean because i one of the things i've been vocal about is we're following play county guidance both health departments is what we've been here too yeah any public transit still remains massive at the federal and that is a great point within the federal provision that that federal requirement for school transportation still remains in place we've heard speculatively over the course of the last several days that there's some conversation at the federal level as to when that might sunset that's really all we know we're hearing bits and pieces but we don't have any definitive date for that going away at the federal
126level i don't know if you have anything else to add mr anderson i would chalk that up to rumor until we hear something more concrete from the federal level and i would assume at that time we would follow whatever the federal changes and update that's correct that's correct there may be another iteration of that once that plays out as far as amending our plan as well any additional questions comments conversation in the anticipation of the kansas city missouri mass requirement ordinance expiring february 17 2022. i move the board adopt the return to learn plan third addendum effective february 18 2022. second andy yes kim marie yes aj yes drew yes angie yes nick yes ocean carries into new business 6.01 board policy revisions you have three items that are presented to you this evening these
127are shared for first read solely this month and their board policy dcv entitled political campaigns kkb related to audio and visual recordings jhde entitled behavioral risk assessments those three are presented to you this evening for first read if you have questions suggestions comments please let us know over the course of the next couple of weeks otherwise these will be brought forward for your consideration at the regular monthly meeting in this coming month of march two of them being the results of state falls right correct uh in the 6.02 contracts purchases bids we do have several items we wanted to make you aware of so we'll turn that over to mr anderson to walk us through 6.02 this evening thank you there are two items uh the first is with respect to a contract with a
128vendor excellence k-12 i refer to my report that is part of the master planning process that we're bringing in a firm to do survey work uh to the community uh so this would be a group that we would recommend to all um and just as a point of reference we have a long-standing relationship with patron insight they're no longer taking business and so this is actually somebody who's worked with that drone for a long time so it's very consistent with the work that we've done in the past which i think we've been fairly pleased with we did interview two in our selection was to represent excellence k-12 and it would be for a one-year return with the option to renew for two one additional one-year terms and seeking approval tonight so we can move forward
129with uh as part of the planning schedule was it i just have to ask this is an employee of the company that is no longer doing it they spun off their own company so there were two primary partners uh one who passed away okay and then this is the individual who obviously did not pass away friendship he started his own firm gotcha okay uh any questions on uh excellence k12 or the lexington plumbing emergency purchase i moved the board to approve the contract with excellence k-12 and the services of lexington plumbing second standard guy yes andy yes kimberly yes aj yes drew yes angie yes nick yes motion carries we get to 6.03 the technology device selection i'm going to also turn this one over to mr anderson to walk through with us this evening
130thank you we provided a friday update a few weeks ago on this one um just really wanted to send kudos to our tech department they pursued a grant opportunity we were successful maintaining that grant and now took 2.1 million dollars um as part of the emergency connected by fund um and uh it was a qualifying of that coffee system didn't receive the school report what we did in part of the application process thought we could use those funds to replenish our devices two years ahead of schedule there's been a pretty significant upgrade in the device so it allowed us to do that effectively as it washes out at no cost once we sell our used devices it'll be really a great opportunity to have that 2.1 million dollars to leverage and get ahead of our
131uh our lease expiration date and to update devices throughout the entire district that would just be the mac pro or the macro guild books so is that kind of taking questions so it's the 5.9 million is the total amount 2.1 is the grand is that 2.1 i'm just i'm looking at the schedule is that a part of payment number one is that what all that grant is going towards is that right consultant okay and the remainder we feel like we're going to make back when we sell the current devices okay and any concern around supply chains as well as far as now we expect to have them here within the next month or so we're not going to sell the devices before we have the new devices anywhere making sure why are we doing this
132on first read again i think the primary reason was was again almost every meal we've had with apple they kind of have here's the offer here's the deal if you wanted to cook here and secure it now we've done this before with them we tried to do the friday update as a way to give you a little bit more lead time typically we don't like to brush these things uh this does allow us to kind of lock that in and move it forward and what we got that jan 14 update is that right on friday summer night yeah that's right i moved the board adopt the resolution authorizing approving the execution and delivery of a master lease purchase agreement with apple inc and approving the execution and delivery of schedule number three to the master
133lease purchase agreement second sandra when you're ready scott yes andy yes kim marie yes aj yes drew yes angie yes nick yes motion carries into 6.04 the revised compensation schedule uh this next one dr vogellar turn it over to you yes so this is on uh for first read action next month but uh this uh involves the restructuring of uh positions or staffing set for fiscal year 23 so july 1 start we want to be able to post this position this is a coordinator of digital communications a support position for our director of communications and it's just responsive to the changing demands of a district our size and a community of our size in terms of the work of the communications department so it's on there for first consideration um it's placement is the byproduct
134of uh you know of an evaluation of classification evaluation which includes internal and external equity analysis on the position and then landing places where we feel is a good market range on the professional technical salary schedule for such a position we'd like to post this at the end of february with hopefully an opportunity to fill this in either the march or april board meetings in july so the only change on the schedule is truly adding that particular position right that's correctly the column l of the professional technical schedule this is the 20 80 hour schedule so the 12-month position additional questions again presented for first three yeah yeah perfect 6.05 this is the reluctant item but with sandra cochran's pending retirement at the end of this month we want to bring forward a consideration for
135the board as far as appointment of board secretary as we've shared and as you are familiar you know denise aldridge in working with the district for a number of years in support of several of our operations department most notably overseeing working with the department of operations with chief operations officer steve anderson as well as with the finance department with our chief finance officer cindy sullivan we've done cross training over the course of the last several years leaning on denise from time to time to assist in covering off study sessions as well as regular monthly board meetings she knows board docs front and backward in that she's very responsible for a lot of the consensus in the items that you see as well as the contracts and bids and purchases that appear on a regular basis
136from time to time with our board of education so we would put forward denise aldridge for consideration for the appointment of board of education secretary i moved the board approved denise aldrich as board of education secretary effective march 1st 2022. sandra you want to have us vote on your replacement let me put it that way and he says he teared up yet there's give her time scott yes andy yes marie yes aj yes drew yes angie yes nick yes into board of education sections starting with legislation and advocacy angie anything uh the forum is coming up on march the 7th it is at capitol plaza in jefferson city i hope somebody can go i will be in phoenix arizona um so not available um and there are if you're watching any of the msba emails
137that come across there are quite a few pieces of legislation pertaining to education that are working their way through a variety of committees and some much quicker than others and so if you are so inclined to contact your elected officials regarding that please feel free to do so thank you uh 7.02 upcoming meetings you will see the next study session right nearly the first of march followed by march's board meeting in march 22nd moving into board remarks well i would just like to say thank you to the warren hills troublemakers and liberty high schools orchestra who did both did amazing jobs at the music educators association me and kimri and i went and it was a six hour drive topped off with tacos but i will tell you it was so worth it to listen
138to the music that came from those two groups they were amazing um and then secondly and i'll let you say whatever else you want to say congratulations to brian hartman who is now the mmea president-elect i think i got all the letters in there teacher liberty north and ann is a teacher at liberty north right and i wasn't able to be there but i know so we've got mr brian hartman who's the president i know kale sukup was an award recipient i believe her husband was as well so liberty was well represented and kudos to all those folks and just a quick thank you we've only and i have one one meeting left they were kicked out but um and i don't know that we'll have any more really awesome discussions if we have tonight
139but i just i do want to thank the board for being willing to have these open discussions to discuss in front of the public to make sure people understand where we're at on certain issues and even when we don't agree i still love you being treated differently no thank you sandra i didn't have the platform to speak earlier but um i'm you know i've been on the board the least amount of time but i can certainly say uh you've been so welcoming and it's been a pleasure to get to know you and um it's one of those things that we're very excited for denise to join us in that role but you'll be missed and i just want to thank you for all you've done for the district thank you sandra i too was going
140to chime in on the quality of service and support that you've given me throughout my terms on the board and you're just an excellent uh person in terms of being supportive and you're always there and available the second thing i'd like to say is related to the um to us getting through this going through this code period i think it's been a result of hard work by leadership and making decisions being able to keep our schools open and our students in class has been done as a result of creativity meeting challenges and i think we know it was not easy but truly i do think that our administrators and leadership should be thanked for the effort and how they've been engaged and making a difference here i just have one more comment for sandra and
141you know i can't say very much because i will cry enjoy your retirement it is well earned thank you i feel like i'm losing a partner what's that i know like we're losing a partner i know he's so professional well and then while you may be retiring from this job i'm excited to see what you choose to continue to do because i don't think your heart and your service to whatever you choose is done it just happens to be done here and best of wishes and so i suppose with that one final board doc entry for you as we look to it wow do i have a motion i moved the board to karen second sandra when you are ready scott connor yes ma'am andy rothman yes henry graham yes aj bird yes yes angie
142reed yes you think bartlett yes returned [Music] you