LPS Board of Education Meeting from Dec. 21, 2021

001united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with justice for all all right into approval of the agenda i moved the board approved the agenda as presented second sandra when you are ready scott yes andy yes kim marie yes aj yes drew yes angie yes nick yes motion carries 2.03 honoring excellence dallas good evening uh this evening we have several that we'll hear from on our brief video that we'll share here in just a moment but first i thought i'd just run down who we will hear from this evening is first we'll hear from the recently named buchanan award winner and that is liberty north high school sophomore melvin laster this award is presented to the best large class offensive and defensive lineman or linebacker in

002the kansas city metro area melvin was announced at the winner on kshb41 during the six o'clock newscast on the evening of december 1st and then formally introduced at the annual simone awards last week we'll also hear from shoal creek elementary assistant principal jamie ackert jamie was recently named the outstanding assistant principal for the clay flat region for the missouri association of elementary principles mrs abbott has been on the lps team for many years and has also served in the roles of teacher and instructional coach and then finally we will hear from both tana campbell and lisa styles from the liberty education foundation they are coming off a tremendous semester they most recently saw them pull off a successful giving tuesday campaign in which they raised nearly 42 000 in that in that data activity all

003their efforts now contribute to keeping these funds here in lps to support programs that benefit our students and staff so at this time rob if we could hear from our recipients this month it was just crazy because um i was in the i was in the top four with a bunch of seniors and i was the only sophomore and it was just amazing to win that award and this honor you know i would like to thank my family coach jones coach lerman the whole liberty milf coaching staff and just my teammates most definitely it helped me a lot i was shocked i don't like any kind of recognition like that um i love doing my job and love being at shoal creek i couldn't imagine doing anything else and so it was very nice i

004was very blown away by it just very humbling i work with amazing people i've loved it since i first started in 2007 um from being a kindergarten teacher and then second grade and then working as an innovation and learning coach and then as an assistant principal i've just had the opportunity to have really great experiences and work with really amazing mentors along the way and colleagues it's just been great just from different schools and different positions i feel like i've had such a good opportunity to see the best of liberty and all the different schools and people that we have in our community thank you all so much for this award it really is a pleasure to work alongside the faculty and staff of the district to serve the students of liberty public schools this

005is an honor for us but it truly is a pleasure for us to be able to work in lps and to serve all the students we've introduced quite a few new programs this semester and it's been very fun and exciting and we couldn't do it without the support of the community thank you very much [Music] so let's give our recipients this month and i thought i would end um honoring excellence for 2021 on a little bit of a light no robin if you have that photo from from what i did this morning i visited lewis and clark which has now become a tradition this is the second annual dallas visits mrs ackerman and miss jellison's class i read them a book about snow days and then they predict when the first snow day in lps

006is going to be so the winner receives a slush from me personally delivered next year so the reason i bring this up is there was a young lady i think she's on the right side of the screen as i was leaving she asked if they were going to be on the news tonight and i said we're going to do better than the news we're going to present at the board meeting so anyway and she also another student actually asked if i could put in a good word to dr tucker to cancel school on january 7th because that's what she chose so with that that concludes honoring excellence for tonight and i hope everyone has a great upcoming holiday and we have some great stories to continue sharing the good in 2022. thanks thanks dallas great

007stuff all right moving into public comment just a reminder um thankful that everybody comes out to share comments thoughts ideas and appreciate you all observing the match requirement that we still have at this time in the district administration center one thing i'll say and it worked out well last time appreciate a good level of decorum uh during our meetings especially during public comments uh we all know we don't all agree on everything but certainly everybody is here to provide their comments and and respectfully uh receive them and so we want to make sure that that continues uh if there are outbursts that occur uh or there's an atmosphere of hostility in any way shape or form we can certainly seek to restrict or end public comment um and continue disruption of our meeting by anyone

008may result in dismissal from the meeting of that individual we'd also ask that you not make comments or inferences either positively or negatively about any specific individuals within the district certainly if you have concerns or affirmations that you would like to address about specific individuals we'll take those offline and ensure we properly and efficiently address them as we've discussed previously public comment really not a time for board members to converse or dialogue with speakers at the podium and know that while we're not specifically interacting directly within this meeting we are taking notes i know several of us are are following up um with the public speakers if they've requested a follow-up as well so as speakers approach the podium reminder uh people addressing the board be asked not to repeat what someone before has said

009a person's wishing to address any subject concerning liberty public schools and or education may do so at the podium if you are addressing the board keep your remarks concise to the point each speaker is limited to three minutes person or persons may speak only once at this meeting and concerns brought forward during public comment as i mentioned maybe addressed by the superintendent or other appropriate staff members are bored usually within a week so to begin diane syres please thank you for the opportunity to speak tonight i attended my first school board meeting last month afterwards i was curious about how the school board operates and what our expectations as lps patrons should be i search the informative lps school website to learn more i would like to refer to the following excerpts from the board

010documents policy bba public relations the board is responsible for providing adequate and direct means for keeping the district of uh patrons informed about the schools and for keeping itself and the school staff informed about the needs and wishes of the public policy kb public information program open communication with the district students parents guardians employees and the public is essential for the school district to operate effectively procedure kbap1 public information in addition to the information addressed in the district's communications plan the notices provided to district employees the district will provide information to the public and the media as required by law including the missouri sunshine law policy af accountability commitment to accomplishment the board accepts ultimate responsibility for all facets of the operations of the school district policy k.c community involvement in decision making the board

011is mindful that it is accountable to the patrons of the district and shall give substantial weight to the evidence to the advice it receives from individuals and community groups interested in the district schools it continues the board of education and or the superintendent shall as the need arises call public meetings for the purpose of discussing problems pertinent to the school programs in the district special efforts shall be exerted in such meetings to solicit attendance from a cross section of the patrons of the district with the stated good intentions of the school board to be accountable to the patrons of the school district may i encourage the board to host periodic organized town hall meetings for the patrons to engage in meaningful dialogue with the members of the board and administrators it would be helpful to

012have a venue where the board members could directly hear and respond to the needs and wishes of the public i would also like to encourage the parents grandparents taxpayers all the patrons of liberty public school district to engage and be informed of the direction in which the school board is leading the district may we ask ourselves is this school board seeking to prioritize the welfare of all of our children and striving to prepare them to be responsible citizens and the next guardians of our freedoms are they seeking to represent the needs and wishes of the public to the members of the board please give us the confidence in your leadership to be able to answer a resounding yes thank you for your time you miss cyrus jim bates good evening my name is jim bates

013i've been a resident of liberty for about 16 years i've got three children who have either attended or are attending liberty public schools what i'd like to talk to you about is the recent directive about the mass policy going into second semester i've always been one this is pandemic started was let's follow the science if the sign says let's wear a mask i'm going to put a mask on when the sign says let's take the mask off this thing's coming off unfortunately i don't think the reason directive was driven by science i think it was driven by the bullying of a couple of state-wide politicians who are looking to bully county health departments and school boards across the state to in order to improve their political standing among a selfish segment of our population i

014would ask you the members of the school board to please keep in mind the health and wellness of our students our staff our teachers and our administrators and stand up to this volume follow the science when the science says these can come off let's all take them off together we're all in this together thank you for your time thanks mr bates james price [Music] here that only after the attorney general of missouri put the school board in its place they may finally drop their blatantly illegal mass mandate as welcome news however this is as usual not the end like any organization infected with varietism this is only one of a whole host of problems occurring in the school district last year this district established what they call the office of equity headed by chief equity

015officer upon looking into district records i found contract for the chief equity officer specifies that they will be paid 142 670 dollars from july 1st of this year to june 30th of the next year resulting in a gross monthly income of nearly 12 000 whereas the median income in liberty from 2015 to 2019 was 76 577 dollars in addition to this the office of equity has also spent a combined 12 175 dollars in products and services in the core collaborative and union todd press companies both operating out of san diego california these companies were not only hired for professional development services the contract also outlines the purchase of 300 copies of a book by the name of belonging for a culture of dignity a book on how to successfully implement equity in schools equity being

016part of bluff's new agenda being pushed in schools alongside the poison of critical race theory the records request also produced equity action plans for schools in the district such as the one from high school liberty high the plan states that all staffs are required to engage in one dei professional development in addition to the whole staff professional learning or liberty north where under the potential challenges to implementation of it they've listed defensiveness putting parentheses white fragility and privilege white privilege is of course the false idea that white people receive some sort of societal privilege due to the color of their skin this is blatantly false and in many cases the opposite is true for example affirmative action in colleges where whites and asians are discriminated against contents of the records request also mentioned survey data

017from panorama a company owned and co-founded by the son-in-law of merrick garland the current attorney general who is referred to parents that speak at school board meetings with domestic terrorists and said he would send the fbi after them in conclusion the leftist rot in this school must be halted post haste and the existing robot removed in its entirety unless these actions are taken with haste this district will continue to send into life and insanity and will soon resemble the links to public school districts most infected by this problem such as lardon county and virginia thank you mr price karen rogers good evening i'm karen rodgers and i live in the district with my husband and two children who attend lps middle and elementary schools along with beth farr i am a co-founder of liberty parents

018for public schools a grassroots group of now more than 1 300 lps parents community members and stakeholders we're prepared to advocate for lps at the local and state level earlier this month our group organized a letter writing campaign to missouri attorney general eric schmidt we asked him to stop pressuring lps into dropping important coven 19 mitigation and safety procedures our locally elected school board member should be able to make health and safety decisions free of pressure from state officials who are using their power to force decisions that are inconsistent with recommended public health guidance i'm grateful for our supporters willingness to get involved many of them are here tonight wearing the blue buttons and we look forward to continuing that work because i believe our public schools need our support now more than ever earlier

019this month i also filed to be a candidate for a seat on the lps board of education i believe public schools are the heart of a healthy and vibrant community and that our schools are why so many families choose to live here if elected i will advocate for an lps that fosters learning thriving and belonging for lps students employees and the greater lps community as a parent community volunteer and education law attorney i've learned that school districts are complex enterprises and need positive ethical knowledgeable and collaborative leadership that's what i intend to provide if elected in my work with hundreds of school districts i've advised school boards on matters including student education rights employment matters safety and health transparency and effective governance i've met with parents and school officials in conflict who saw things very

020differently it is important to listen gather information ask questions and in the case of legal disputes ultimately apply the law to the situation and work to resolve it i'll bring that experience to the board i'll also bring my perspective as a parent of both elementary and secondary school students and as a volunteer in our schools and in our community i'm committed to working with other board members and district leadership on our strategic plan and vivid vision i'm ready to approach challenges in a collaborative and strategic way to seek out and listen to new perspectives and diverse perspectives and promote our successes in the community and state i hope to be able to join you in this important work next spring thank you miss rogers beth barr good evening my name is beth farr you might

021recognize me i have two children enrolled in lps and along with karen rogers and the co-founder of the liberty appearance for public schools organization after the disappointing news regarding maths becoming optional next semester i felt that i needed to come here tonight to share my concerns with you in hopes that you may reconsider the mass optional plan the sudden abandonment of all mitigation strategies next semester could have a severely negative impact on my family and so many others i have a young child who has asthma since thanksgiving he has had strep pneumonia and then another virus which flared his asthma severely enough that he had to miss four days of school last week all while masks are still in the classroom his doctor said since community transmission of covet is so high it wasn't safe

022for him to attend school as catching kobit could cause serious complications it scares me to think where his health would be today if we didn't have masks in the classroom in addition i am immuno-suppressed so if either my children brought cove at home it could be a dangerous situation for myself as well we have successfully managed to stay covered free this entire pandemic thanks to the mask wearing in and out of school i don't want that to change moving past the physical health of my family our mental health should also take a toll if covet isn't controlled in our school district with requiring masking a year ago we lost a family member to covid then just last week my daughter learned one of her good friends who was a classmate and our neighbor lost a

023parent to covid the entire class of 22 9 and 10 year olds suddenly had to consider the idea of losing a parent unexpectedly and learn how they can help a grieving friend imagine the heartbreak these students could feel next semester if one of their classmates becomes severely ill or dies from coven because another came to school sick and spread the virus in class because masks are optional when i told my daughter that others may not wear masks in class next semester she became very worried after knowing two people who have died from covid and that little brother and mom are both high risk the thought of being in class where no one else has masks is anxiety-inducing my daughter loves school and needs to be in person with covet at an all-time high in our

024community going mask optional after breaking after break is not a science-based decision or recommendation so why are we now not following science right now there is still time to reconsider and change course before next month i just ask you to remember the stories of parents speaking tonight and notice all of the silent math supporters in the audience the majority wants masks to be required next semester we should be following science focusing on safety for all in the classroom not caving to politicians who are focused on self-serving interests let's protect all students and their families from coven next semester and reinstate a mask requirement for the district thank you for your time i hope you all have a nice holiday season thank you just as a reminder you have agreed to wear a mask in this

025room so if you do have a need to remove that go ahead and step out if you don't mind and grab some air and then you can return with mask on up next kl suck up hello my name is kail sukup and i teach for liberty public schools and i like many others have bought a home in liberty specifically for the school district thank you for your resources for providing resources that have helped me create really quality learning experiences and life-changing experiences for my kids in the classroom i recognize that district leadership is in a tough position between constituents with divergent desires and needs and state officials bent on countering public health professionals and stifling the economy of local schools i plan to discuss some details from last friday's return to learn update the announcement

026stated in anticipation of the changes to the kcmo ordinance lps is making preparations to revise our protocols such that masks will be recommended the rationale behind this is short-sighted i remember back to fall of 2020 when lps worked tirelessly to provide the virtual school option we created social distancing with the alternate day schedule we created class schedules to keep kids in limited cohort groups this was done to protect the children this was done to keep our community healthier to save vulnerable loved ones and strangers from pain and death it was done to respect our health care workers and our hospitals i'm not suggesting that we need all these precautions now i'm merely reminding you why mitigation strategies matter they still matter regardless of what the city of kcmo does and regardless of community fatigue in

027friday's update the availability of vaccines was listed as a reason to drop the vas the mass requirement currently only 16 percent of clay county residents under the age of 18 are fully vaccinated 19 of that age group are partially vaccinated these are like abysmal numbers in my opinion we're no we're nowhere near having our student body effectively vaccinated vaccine availability does help those families that choose it but um these unvaccinated students are bringing a high level of virus into our building considering the surge we're in and the incoming omicron variant on top of the holiday socializing and travel i think january is an irresponsible time to lift our mass requirement the responsible action would be to take to require masses a few more months and consider a change after the surge the whole year has

028been guided by the objective of keeping students in the building five days a week the medical evidence is clear that masking reduces spread and reducing spread keeps kids in school so medically speaking there is no reason that justifies lifting the requirement at this time sometimes i step back and say am i reasonable and i think the science is on the side so thank you for your time james murphy my name is james murphy i have two children in the school program here both of them are currently attending virtually i'd like to thank everyone for making that opportunity available to my my children i'm an employee at a facility with over 2 000 employees that i all work in a single building and since we returned to work in june of last year base mass has

029been mandatory for everyone that enters my workplace social distancing and contact tracing have also been a part of the protocol in my workplace i can personally attest to the effectiveness of this protocol of masking social distancing and for some the choice to be vaccinated i have personally been exposed to three employees one of whom i was in close proximity to for an entire work day and did not become ill with coca-19 and neither did any of my colleagues all of the employees were complying with the face mask policy if these same employees had been allowed to come to work with no masks i believe the disease most likely would have been transmitted to me others in my work group and potentially my family other individuals within these employees as household did become ill with code

030the plan that has been implemented so far within lps has been similar to the one utilized in my workplace mass social distancing and contact racing i believe that this plan remains the best way to keep our students and educators healthy my son who suffers from asthma has been attending virtually for the previous three semesters recently he was able to get vaccinated and he was excited to be returning to an in-person learning experience this january his excitement has turned to worry and fear after learning of the proposal to eliminate the masking protocols which were part of our decision to allow him to return to school my son has informed us that he does not feel safe coming back to in-person learning if mass rules are removed i urge the school board to retain the existing covert

031protocols for the coming semester thank you for your time and hope everyone has a happy holiday thanks mr murphy jackie hyatt hey good evening my name is jackie hyatt and i am the parent of a freshman at liberty high school tonight i wanted to use my time to speak about the new teacher compensation schedule that dr vogeler presented at the november board meeting during the past two meetings we've all heard from dr westfall and dr voglar about the substitute shortages and ways we're trying to fill the holes phrases have been used like we're keeping our head above water everybody's pitching in and we're surviving i was a charge nurse of a critical care unit for 15 years when you use those type of phrases they are always a huge understatement surviving is what our teachers

032and staff have been doing for the past year and a half giving up massive amounts of time that should be used to grade plan and do mandatory training and giving up this time they've had to sacrifice their own personal time on nights and weekends i was surprised to hear that this is all being done with zero compensation to the teachers 14 out of the 16 districts that you surveyed all pay their teachers for this over time but we do not i understand their rules and protocols to change a policy especially if that policy is in regard to pay however when we had a lack of food emergency at the beginning of school you quickly looked for other options and acted to get whatever was needed this staffing shortage is an emergency as well and deserves

033more attention and urgency that it is currently getting recently a teacher was ill in god for a week not one of those days was did their class have a substitute teacher they were all pieced together by staff giving up their planning time unpaid seven days of unpaid labor one day my son came home from school and told me that he had no teacher at all in one of his classes everything was fine and eventually he said the kids just got up and started going to their next class these are just a few of the things that i know are happening and i know it's happening on a much greater scale as dr vogeler stated to pay our teachers for their extra time it would cost twenty thousand dollars more than using kelly's staffing substitutes if

034kelly's staffing had the substitutes they would already be here but they're not and that's the problem our teachers need to be compensated for the time they're losing i'm sure as some teachers reflect over this holiday break and are reaching their breaking points in the pandemic this will factor into their decision to stay in liberty or to look at one of the other 14 districts that pays overtime i ask that you pass the new compensation guidelines and that you make them retroactive to the beginning of the school year thank you thank you miss hyatt and megan hammond hi good evening first to the school board i do want to extend my gratitude for your vigilance and communication this last semester and all that you are doing for the well-being of our children as a background i

035have a son in second grade another one in coming kindergarten as of next year and a two-year-old daughter i am a pediatric palliative and hospice nurse so i do see quite a bit of the trauma that goes into what it is to lose a child that is not something i want anybody in this district to ever experience with that said are 0-5 cannot get vaccinated yet and last week was the highest rate that we have had as a nation of losing children to cuban 19 that can and does happen as a district we need to take that seriously what would that look like to lose a child in one of our classrooms is now the time with the omicron variant coming in from europe to take away the mitigation strategies that our kids our teachers

036our principals our districts all of you all have put so much time and effort in is now the time to abandon that to me the answer is no i understand we have started the vaccination process for these children but we are not near herd immunity yet and omicron is breaking through those vaccines from what we have found while vaccinated people do present right now with more like cold bites and friends the hospitals are already inundated north kansas city had 25 of their patients with a covered diagnosis as of last week ku went from 60 some odd patients to over 80 patients in a day this week with coved with omicron already taking over this is dangerous and it is not something that we want to release strategies on before coming into next semester knowing that

037next month is looking worse than this month we know that's true based on what we are seeing coming in from the earth we are heading into some very dark days so it's now the time to lift up that whole litigation that we have worked so hard for my eight-year-old son he's also in peak and loves it by the way um he wanted to speak today he wanted to tell you how disappointed he was to hear that we might take away his masks or that he might have to go back to virtual learning he loves school please do not give this anxiety to him next semester thank you thank you mr ziemann appreciate everybody speaking this evening that does end our public comment section either our consent agenda section three as a reminder our adopted rules

038of parliamentary procedure roberts rules provided for a consent agenda listing several items for approval of the board by a single motion documentation concerning all of 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 with that said do i have a motion to approve consent agenda i move the board approve consent agenda items 3.01 through 3.07 second sandra when you're ready scott yes andy yes kim marie yes aj yes drew yes angie yes nick yes motion carries moving into section 4 reports from the administration starting with innovation and learning uh first off we're going to welcome dr jeanette westfall up to the podium to provide a report on the

039innovation and learning departments good evening i'm happy to share with you tonight some exciting news from our credit recovery program as you'll remember at the beginning of the year this year we decided to use some of our esser funds to try a personalized learning approach to credit recovery considering the number of seniors that we had that needed some work on their credits after last year so the program led by cameron harris in partnership with liberty academy has seen great success in the first semester as they gained credit for their learning experiences versus the program called odysseyware at the end of the first semester we have a total of 67 credits recovered from both high schools these credits were primarily from seniors who had been credit deficient at the start of the year at liberty high

040school we had 19 credit deficient seniors who were placed in the program and as of today there were 11 who have been removed and are right back on track in addition at liberty north we had 22 who were placed in the program and we have 15 who are completely finished and back on track so that's a really high number this time of year considering and compared to the program that we used in the past so i just wanted to share that information with you super proud of all of our students who are working on this because they're doing this at the same time they're going through their regular classes i'm also a huge shout out for mr harris and mrs norris at liberty academy for their design and continued growth in the credit recovery program

041so that was exciting news to share i also wanted to bring up one highlight tonight from the report that we submitted from assessment evaluation and testing mr han shared with us the new data dashboard that was rolled out earlier this fall by deci the new dashboard is a part of the transition from jesse as they will no longer be creating the apr reports for districts and building levels but will instead use the dashboard sites for reviewing and reporting organizational data and their report cards which includes our recently released mac and eoc data so in alignment with the deci release of assessment data i did want to call your attention to our lps scorecard which is included in tonight's report and we shared that with you this month and just a couple of things to start

042a symbol in where we're looking first i wanted to make a connection for you on that front page the map scores are listed there and liberty continues to show a higher proficient and advanced percentage than the state in every single content area you'll be interested to see if you roll over or turn the page to page three where we have the assessment tools our internal district diagnostic called iready shows you at the top of page three with reading and math that is an alignment or a very good predictor of our performance on the map test so you'll see that the scores are very similar and uh we will spend a little bit more time during our january study session digging into these reports but if you look below the i ready diagnostic you can see

043from the 2019 school year until 2022 coming up that we have very steady progress even through the pandemic so it's really interesting to report that our state assessment data is aligning with our local assessment data and we are able to keep track of what our students are doing where we need to emphasize our learning last thing i wanted to share on this report is the blue hexagon boxes that lead the tan banners in the three areas of academic social emotional and real world learning you will see and there the information connected to or we are aligning to our new m6 data so those standards are listed on the first page but they give you a little tag to show you that alignment and so as this year we finished this year with our foundational collection

044for m6 you can see that we're tying our uh local report card and dashboard to that information so just wanted to show you that on behalf of julie and me we also wanted to share our appreciation for the schools it was a it has been a very uh challenging semester but our principals support staff operations and especially our teachers for their efforts navigating the semester they just continue to serve every day with high expectations and care for our kids um beyond that on behalf of all of us in innovation and learning we wish you a wonderful holiday any questions for dr westfall or dr moore i just i just want a clarifying question i think that i read this first of all but uh when you're looking at the um standards that will be required

045just remind me of success if um equity is part of that that's required by the state is that accurate it is that is how they're framing it just like we frame it so it's very similar i just want to clarify yes yep it's very exciting to see the work and really the uh the very last page if you look at it has that extra additional components from real world learning with our mbas you'll when you see m6 roll out you'll see a lot of very close similarities to liberty public schools wonder where that came from i noticed in the uh the scorecard itself 51 of high school students projected on track to have that mva right obviously our goal is 100 but that's a huge i think it's you know the idea is to continue

046to increase total 100 percent every year yeah no i think it's a great first step as we continue towards that so good stuff thank you thank you very much thank you dr westfall all right 4.02 into the equity report dr dixon seahorn will welcome you to the podium to provide our equity report this evening good evening to our board of directors it's good to see you on this evening i wanted to share with you really two main pieces for the purposes of our office of equity reports so the first is the regular board report that you see there and i've only reported on one aspect of our work with the equity center strategic plan as i thought it was noteworthy and that was just to capture the belonging work that we have managed in the

047midst of all the challenges and changes we're experiencing in our school district with the pandemic but we've managed to have some professional learning around belonging uh as facilitated by the core collaborative and so you see here where we've already had a kickoff that was getting like an all staff kickoff uh with one of the authors of the book john crown apple also there have been two sessions with you as the board of directors uh by way of virtual learning again facilitated by mr crown apple as well as dr floyd cobb the other author and we just recently had a district leadership team convening with both authors uh again it was virtual but it still was an opportunity for us to think about how we can continue to embed the work of belonging and just our

048everyday uh teaching leadership practices i also wanted to note that we will have to make some adjustments in second semester again due to the pandemic it was our original plan that there would be some uh in person that we would be able to benefit from at the secondary level by way of on-site coaching the authors are just not able to be with us in person so we're just going to completely pivot and push all that on-site coaching support that was originally scheduled to the 22-23 school year so just wanted to make note of that uh and then also we'll look at some other pieces that we may need to shift uh and we'll get that finalized as we come back from our winter vacation we'll give you an update uh once that new plan um

049for the second half of this year is the lid five but just wanted to make you aware and then uh secondly you will see for the first time ever an annual report and review for the office of equity this is following that new design that we now have for our perpetual calendar and reporting purposes and so we just wanted to just kind of bring a highlight if you will to some key things that have happened uh by way of the office of equity many of the pieces you've already seen before but just kind of wanted it to be a year review if you will for this office and the work that's been done across all departments and in all schools within our organization so having said that i'll have to take any questions if you

050have it for me please i just hear a statement um i appreciate how you lined out on that first page your terms and explanation of what those terms mean because i feel sometimes people don't have a full understanding um and and then we all take it from our own frame of reference so i appreciated that and the fact that i didn't i didn't realize this was your very first one yeah um nicely done short sleep to the point i like that thank you um but yes i gives a lot of good information um particularly on that first page and hopefully brings more clarity to the work about uh absolutely terms any other questions for dr dickson okay thank you so much thank you thank you uh moving into 4.03 the finance report we will turn

051it over to mrs cindy sullivan good evening in addition to the two reports provided through tonight one of which is also the annual review for the business services department hopefully you learned something maybe you didn't because you see our work product every month so maybe there's a little something in there you haven't seen before but i did want to talk briefly about the county payments as you know beginning in december we start receiving revenue for property taxes and this year we received about five percent of the budgeted revenue in december which was 3.6 million dollars this time last year we only received and that was 1.7 million so we are for excuse me it was an increase of 1.7 million dollars so we're running ahead that's good news i hope that goes well for january

052when the bulk of the revenue comes in um it's always interesting to see that pattern and how it plays out as what kind of revenue we get but that's very very promising news there also promising news for the first time in december we received our state payment that was at 100 of the state advocacy target typically it is still prorated a little bit so that's good news on the state revenue front as well they're expecting then that that will pay out at 100 for the rest of the year so we're getting more money quicker than we did before um at this time of the year so that's also something good to pass along to you also in january we'll start budget meetings and development of the fy 23 budget can you believe that so we

053will meet with all of the budget departments and start also team liberty work with compensation and salary schedule so that will be the bulk of our work for the next few months i also wanted to let you know that the audit and finance committee did review the financials for the month and they had nothing to pass on to other than they hope you have wonderful holidays and i do as well so with that i will answer any questions that you might have from our two reports oh ms just because you brought it up remind me the how much of our budget comes from revenue comes from state and how much from county roughly we have about 44 of our budget from the state and local is about then 94 from those two sources correct perfect

054thank you and i will just say i love your department overview thank you because i just i enjoy the bullets so that i just know what i need to know so because we do hear lots of stuff and lots of numbers in here oddly enough any other questions thank you thank you 4.04 operations report turn over to mr steve anderson thank you uh just a few items i wanted to highlight uh off the report that's uploaded first of all our capital planning process is well underway we've kind of gone through the final stages of identifying and prioritization of all the projects that came forward of course measuring that up against our budget uh and then likely here next month then into february we'll be sharing with you some of the details of that plan and

055again that's for uh summer primarily summer work of 22. um i also wanted to mention briefly our facility master planning we provided a pretty lengthy update of that last a couple weeks ago a study session and just as a reminder um we did purchase as you all know the former midcontinent library building uh a way back uh and that is definitely part of the conversations that we're having right now it's used for storage there's a lot of stuff in there right now but that is not the long-term plan for that building uh and likely will be prior part of the conversations that we have here into early next year and then last just as a quick uh thank you and update especially from the transportation kidzone departments the changes that were made last month made

056a very noticeable difference and we're already seeing some of that with the recruitment side of things in the retention side so again thank you very much for kind of strategically taking some action on salaries within those two departments with that i think you have to take any questions is there it seems like they're frequently resignations from kidzone is that due in part to just the nature of the beast um it i feel like it's more um as people's schedules change that directly impacts their ability to stay in kids up i think there's part part of that the other thing we've really brought in the reach and we we're bringing in a lot of our students which has been great and has helped us out considerably and where we're accommodating them if they just want to

057do a morning or three mornings a week anything is better than nothing so i think because you're seeing a lot more students that you're seeing a lot more turnover just because their schedules change uh and i'm sure there's some other factors in play as well i'm glad we're bringing in more students now yeah it's been great it's been great thank you are we here we're in our capacity on kidzone uh we have a waiting list okay uh that we keep working on um but um i i think we're feeling a little bit better here as we get ready for next semester any other questions for mr anderson all right dr vogeler for human resource reports sorry and now he's getting your thunder on facebook you can have it very good thank you for the opportunity

058to come here and represent the human resources department we uploaded a report i won't go through all of it but highlight a few items to draw your attention to and at the end if you have any questions we're glad to answer those as you know strategically we have our grow your own programs that are in place our teachers program focuses on scholarship and loan forgiveness opportunities for students of color i want you to know that we're hosting two application assistance workshops for the gyot candidates uh january the the basically the first full week back and then also toward the end of january to assist any families that are interested in applying for that on the grow you're on administrator side the leadership academy met again just last week on thursday i want to send out

059a special thank you to assistant principals who hosted a panel from liberty north high school dr mccoy from heritage middle school miss sealock from manor hill elementary mr williamson and from alexander donovan mr claussen all sat in and hosted a panel interview the topic was if i knew then what i know now kind of helping folks who are teachers now in the classroom wanting to make that jump into administration some things that they can do to prepare for that that jump professionally in their careers i got a lot of good feedback afterward from from them and their service certainly that night late into the night in my opinion to be of service to the next generation of leaders is much appreciated under wellness i want to draw your attention to the sun setting of new

060directions behavioral health health wellness and self-care is a big topic it's been a big topic for a while and we're transitioning from new directions to eap uh services through optum we're very excited about this uh the the tools that are available to our employees are significantly um i think significantly more robust than those available previously we'll be rolling out a communications and marketing campaign in january to our employees in the hopes of encouraging them to utilize the resources that are available to them one specific resource is an app called senvello it's a mobile app that really allows people to access tools resources confidentially privately but also on demand readily available on their on their phones and devices so i'm very excited about that rollout that will be happening in january thank you also for your

061support of the early notification incentive program you've supported that every year now for quite a while we have 20 employees who have taken advantage of that this is for employees who know they're going to be retiring at the end of this year to give us early notification so that we can launch our efforts to backfill those positions as early in the hiring season as possible that is a little higher than in years past last year we had 12 two years ago we had six at this time and it could be any combination of factors certainly folks during the pandemic that held on to job security but would have retired a couple of years ago now are feeling like they're in a position where they can go ahead and do that so you've got a couple

062of years on top of the usual year's worth of retirements that are all kind of coming together until the early notification window actually sunsets and we have a comparison of years then we'll start inferring from that data at that point it might just be that people are ready to pull that trigger earlier than usual and the numbers won't be significantly higher than in years past but we'll see and then the final thing i want to draw your attention to is we're now midway into our teacher evaluation program this is through the network for educator effectiveness that we have in partnership with the university of missouri we the district-wide look fors uh uh for that uh evaluation system is 6.2 which is the teacher's communication with students are sensitive to cultural gender intellectual and physical differences

063and 7.4 indicator 7.4 which is the teacher monitors the effect of instruction on the whole class of individual learning uh 6.2 the average score at this point in a year midway through is a 6.01 that's on a one to seven scale so it's a very strong score and for 7.4 the average is 5.82 which is also very strong our administrators are trained every year on integrator reliability and that just means that they go through statistically significant and valid training so that any administrator's view of what's happening in the classroom has inner radar reliability with any other administrator's view so any administrator that goes in there would likely judge what they're hearing what they're seeing in the same way and that gives us a lot of confidence in those ratings and so to have ratings that

064high for this time of year is very encouraging in terms of just the quality of work that's taking place in our classrooms across the system something you can certainly be proud of there are other things in the report i'll be glad to answer if you have any questions but other than that that's my report for tonight thank you any questions of dr vogelmore this evening um in regards to kelly services yes how are their how is our fill rate going yeah it's uh it's going i not well i i will say that that's a very relative term so we are averaging uh probably around fill rate uh on classroom teacher jobs we're used to 95 and so it's that juxtaposition that causes us to not be pleased with that in conversations with other kelly services

065employees and then also districts that do their own sub management in-house or go with other firms they're finding a significantly lower rate than we are so we have a much higher rate some districts are floating around 65 70 percent fill rates for classroom teaching jobs the reason why that that is it's hard to put a broad-based generalization on drawing a conclusion is what the cause is for that um but i would say a combination of that is the difficulty in recruiting and retaining subs uh whether it's in-house or through different firm or kelly services everyone is having the job market is very tight labor interest is low and as a result some fill rates are are low we are benefiting from that thank you it was brought up in the in the comments about your

066support for uh compensatory rates for really teachers and paraprofessionals who cover classes you voted yes on that thank you very much for doing that and i would just add that as soon as the idea was brought forth it was met with nothing but absolute acceptance and willingness to move forward you see the need that's there and so it is a corner that we want to turn and i will say that every corner we wanted to turn to address this issue up to this point you have been fully in support of so thank you for that and dr vogler isn't that also an issue that we're finding across the state it's not just the kansas city area it's across the state districts are finding it difficult to find subs yeah and i and i would say

067probably even across the at least the region i've attended state and uh in regional conferences and that's a common conversation among school districts are sub-field rates and the difficulty filling that difficulty in finding bus drivers uh is is a common conversation i'm having with colleagues across the state as well um and so yeah it's a it's a labor force issue for sure thanks for for trying to work more closely with kelly on figuring out how to fix that thank you uh switching gears slightly so eap program changing going to be a better program certainly what's the uh communication that's gone in as far as informing individuals that this shift is happening sure so we front loaded all the communication uh and tied it in connected it with the enrollment window so a lot of that

068i shared last month all that went into the marketing during that enrollment window the obviously the extent to which that communication sticks in an enrollment window when people are also enrolling in in their uh you know dental vision and medical insurance we just don't we don't know how strong that is and we're certainly not going to count on that so it was intentional from the beginning to develop a marketing campaign campaign specifically on the transfer in employee assistance programs from new directions to optim to roll that out in january when people come back and their attention is not really divided on medical plans or dental insurance or vision insurance with that so thank you yeah any other questions thank you thanks dr voglar uh 4.06 the superintendent's report a few items to add to the

069report submitted to you this evening i do want to echo what dr westfall and others have shared as far as our thanks to everyone for a successful first semester there's certainly been challenges but certainly a lot to celebrate at the same time as we work on behalf of all of our 13 000 students pre-k through grades 12. with that said a couple of highlights from my report i do want to thank dallas ackerman as well from the communications department in working to put together uh kind of a video segment or series that we're going to be rolling out over the course of the next several days introducing our graduate profile for those that are not familiar with that particular item so look forward to sharing that with you over the winter break we do continue

070to engage with a variety of community groups on the civic front in particular to be able to share our strategic plan our vivid vision the graduate profile the real world learning work in an effort to have 100 of our students obtain an mva so we we continue to share that good work and information across our community it was also shared earlier our rollout toward msip6 as we think about our accreditation and accountability system so the standards obviously have been identified this has been in the works for some time it's been interrupted by the pandemic but we will begin seeing that data then reported out our annual performance report beginning next fall and so our uncommon measures our lps score scorecard has readied us for some of that work we've been engaged at a variety of

071levels with the department of elementary and secondary education with committee work with the commissioner and others to be able to try to influence and inform that at the state level and we're fortunate to see some of that fruit carry forward within m76 an additional opportunity is a newly created work group entitled success ready students we'll be working on that as it relates to competency-based learning and innovative assessment practices so we're looking forward to that work beginning later this spring also want to recognize our innovation and learning department includes our teachers and principals administrators for their work and energy tied to our cognia accreditation visit that occurred earlier this month over a four day period and it culminated in an exit interview or exit report with our virtual accreditors that were on site virtually connecting with

072quite a few individuals over 200 people representing students parents staff community partners principals building staff school board members district office personnel and in that exit interview they shared four key highlights and i wanted to read those to you for your awareness those highlights included the district's commitment to continuous improvement is evident throughout their school communities and among all stakeholder groups the district possesses a strong culture of community belongingness student-centered approaches to learning and well-being of all stakeholders the third highlight innovation is supported and embedded among all school personnel in the organization and then lastly the district's commitment to the collection analysis and the use of data is embedded throughout the system so those are some of their observations and highlights that they reported in just a few weeks we'll get their complete report that we'll

073kind of walk through identify those areas of success certainly those areas of continuous improvement and focus we appreciate all the work and participation for those that were involved in that accreditation uh visit so that concludes my items unless there are questions that the board may have of me this evening i know there's more to come from cognia but it would appear that those four key notes that they gave all link back to the plans that we have in place so that's correct that's great news from the district for sure thanks to everybody any other questions comments okay into unfinished business section five we start with 5.01 board of policy revisions you have a couple items then for you under 5.01 the first of which is a policy to be adopted that is policy bbb school

074board elections in terms of some language around placement and order of filings this again is presented to you for your consideration and action this evening you also have a section of policies to be reviewed on first read that will then be brought to you later in january for your consideration that includes gcbda professional staff short-term leaves gdbda support staff leaves ikf in and around graduation requirements and then bddh public participation in board meetings that last one is one we've been working on as a board of education for the last several months and really just shoring up our language not necessarily making a huge shift from what we've been able to put in place over the last several years but really cleaning up some language continuing to allow access at our board meetings on a variety

075of subjects or agenda items so just wanted to share that with you this evening again those are for first read take the next 30 days and ask any questions you might have or anything that needs to be clarified and we'll certainly get that back to you and then lastly you do have one administrative administrative procedure that accompanies the policy for action this evening and that is bb ap and that is school board elections what is bbbap sandra is that something that we have to approve it is not it's just for your awareness that's right okay well i move the board adopt policy bbb second any discussion okay standard when you're ready scott yes andy yes ken marie yes aj yes drew yes angie yes nick yes when she carries all right into 5.02 secondary course

076proposals this is a carryover from last month as well in which we presented four courses that we were going to be bringing to you for consideration one of which is entitled global creations the second is global leadership global literature is the third and then lastly global mathematics dr moore anything to add to this particular item or questions just as a reminder that these are all for the edge micro school so that they can have more of a focus on appreciating literature arts and so forth on a global aspect and tailor the learning specific for those students would present those to you this evening for your consideration i move the board approve global creations global global leadership global literature and global mathematics course proposals second discussion i'm just disappointed it's not called chaos just last month

077uh sandra when you're ready scott yes andy yes camera reed yes aj yes drew yes angie yes nick yes motion carries in a 5.03 looking at the missouri capital asset advantage treasury resolution also known as mocat so introducing another acronym to you this evening these next two items are affiliated to the same item with mocat so i wanted to turn it over to cindy sullivan to walk us through these two items this evening thank you dr tucker as we presented last study session to you mocat is very similar to most sip which is the missouri security investment program which we have done business with for many many years when we receive all of that money from property tax in january it's a great way to invest our funds at the best rate you can get

078possible mocap will give us a third option to invest those funds we are not required to put any funds with them we have that option and as of december 1st mocap's rates were better than mosaic not quite as good as commerce but when it comes to time to invest if we would add this third option they quite possibly could be better and they are also very willing to deal on their fees at this time to get people interested in their services so it's an inviting opportunity to give us a way to keep the most of the money that we have there's no cost to the district at this point is just presenting you with a third option to invest it's just a little more competition for the other two that we already have on right

079and we have relationships with the people involved in mocap so we're comfortable and confident in what they're doing is it fair to say at this point in time we don't have necessarily the willingness to work with us on our fees from other options and you did say that uh there is insurance that it can be insured yes um mo mocap does give us the option to buy into federally insured um instruments just like mostep does so that the money would be protected and collateralized any other questions i move the board dean advisable and in the best interest of the liberty 53 school district to participate in the missouri capital asset advantage treasury program and adopt a resolution authorizing participation in the program second discussion sandra when you're ready scott yes angie yes kim marie yes

080aj yes drew yes angie yes nick yes and 5.04 somewhat related i would assume uh the moket agreement just to add to what cindy shared now we have three accompanying documents one is the intergovernmental cooperation agreement an instrument of adoption and then an information statement and that is presented as kind of a separate agreement what else would you add cindy nothing new it's just an additional piece of that vocab agreement that we need to adopt so the first one is we're resolved to do this this is in details on how we're going to do this correct i moved the board approved the missouri capital asset advantage treasury program intergovernmental cooperation agreement and the instrument of adoption second any discussion all right sandra when you're ready scott yes andy yes kim marie yes aj yes drew

081yes angie yes nick yes motion carries begins a new business starting with 6.0 run the return to learn so a couple things i just wanted to share with you in and around this item first and foremost appreciate the feedback whether it's a public comment or whether it's via emails that we've received from our community over the course of the last 20 months to be able to get us give us a sense of where our community sits on a variety of polarizing topics but then at the same time to be able to hear from our community whether it's students staff or parents at the same time it was this time last year in december you may recall that we were continuing to navigate clay county public health center as well as the city of kansas city

082health department and their guidance in which we brought forward a revision to our return to learn plan at that time and then we moved forward into the second semester that provided a couple things it provided some clarity on where health department guidelines were then it also provided that opportunity and window for students to be able to change their learning model in the event that they wanted to change a modality and so here we are again again working with kansas city health department city of kansas city but then also clay county public health center with a brief addendum based on what we think may happen uh in the coming weeks and so part of our messaging as well as our return to learn addendum and recommendation is certainly built around our long-standing effort over these 20

083months to follow board policy and just as a reminder for board members in our community that board policy is ebb and that is communicable diseases and part of that policy speaks to reporting and disease outbreak control measures will be implemented in accordance with state and local law department of health and senior services rules governing the control of communicable diseases and other diseases dangerous to public health and any applicable rules distributed by the appropriate county or city health department that really is the basis or an addendum recommendation this evening trying to anticipate what could happen at both the kansas city level there was a meeting recently last week on thursday at clay county public health center in which they did modify their school guidance slightly we can speak to that as well but that's really informed

084our journey over the course of the last several days i will say this there have been instances in which we have charted a path and planned a course and approved items tied to our return to learn plan and then new information follows that has caused us to take an about face or turn on a dime and have to adjust our intended plans and so we recognize that we know that as we move forward but just a few things to mention from the addendum it does continue to include key prevention measures and mitigation protocols as far as monitoring for symptoms reporting covet 19 positive cases it does speak to how to go about looking at high risk symptoms moderate risk symptoms does change the language in and around masks and face coverings to recommend it we

085have worked with the city of kansas city over the course of the last several months as their orders have you know approached sun setting and we've wondered whether or not those would be extended or not and then certainly those have been extended as we were getting ready for the second semester in an effort to try to get information out to our parents our staff and students we reached out again in talking with the city of kansas city as well as other districts it was informed we were informed that it was unlikely that that mass order would be extended beyond its current sunset date with that said working closely with the clay county public health center in and around contact tracing and quarantining one of the things that we have messaged with those we've had conversations

086with in our community is the challenge around contact tracing and quarantining and that we are one of the last entities that is actually doing that in terms of school systems working to try to do that we have some data that we can certainly share with you and the challenge that that's been both administratively but then the limited number of students that actually flip that might have been identified as a con close contact to an actual coveted positive individual so we can share that information with you as well some additional items that are captured within the addendum continuing our prevention measures and mitigation program protocols to the best extent possible as pointed out by the clay county public health center guideline revisions and that being social distancing hand washing sanitizing ventilation coveted vaccine information being shared

087with families and students that are interested in getting their children vaccinated but then also covet 19 testing availability as we think about the second semester another thing that we will look to update is our dashboard as we try to rethink how we push that information out regularly but then also uh providing opportunities for families to be able to select a different learning modality if that is what suits them a couple of additional notes that i wanted to make mention of in a few areas one being what's happening in our area and region as it relates to businesses and organizations but then also other school districts as i'm sure you see coming and going across the community fewer and fewer organizations or businesses are requiring masks as you enter their establishment as that continues it just

088makes it more difficult for school districts to be the sole enforcement of that we've certainly taken that on but i want to recognize our staff and our administrators that are stepping into the box and advocating that students wear their masks and trying to enforce them oftentimes that creates a point of contention whether it be with a student whether it be with a parent where others are throwing information back at them whether it be from the attorney general or others as to why they don't necessarily have to comply we are also watching school districts across the state whether it's in st louis whether it's in the columbia jefferson city area the boot hill or in southwest missouri and more and more districts are moving toward a mask recommended as compared to mask required status they also

089have found that contact tracing and quarantining to be problematic if the contact tracing and quarantine guidelines don't change and the district moves from required to recommended then that's a little bit of a self-fulfilling prophecy as to the degree of quarantines that will likely take place but that's something we've shared with our health departments as well as we navigate that when we look to data a couple of key points in and around data that we see in our district but then also data that we've collected when we look at in-district transmission just to mention about 1.45 of individuals who are required to self-quarantine due to being identified as close contacts become covid 19 positive we believe that is actually probably a little high as far as the percentage because it's incredibly difficult to gauge whether or

090not that individual actually contracted that while at school or through district exposure anecdotally we've submitted a couple of surveys over the course of this fall semester one in august another one later in fall as to people's comfort level with mask mandates or masks being recommended as compared to being required we have that information that's available as well we did find that through participation in the survey those that responded about 55 percent indicated that their students were fully vaccinated again this was earlier in november from a staffing standpoint those that responded 88 indicated that they were fully vaccinated and on this certified side about 90 percent of our staff indicated that they were certified that they were vaccinated i will make this notation that when that survey was administered earlier in november that proceeded the information

091we now have in and around the omicron variant but then of course that begs the question are there other variants that will certainly follow and that's something that we talk about regularly here in the district offices some day-to-day operations challenges that we face in and around policing mask wearing as we've talked about how we enforce that how we interact with parents what are options for students and we try to be amenable in terms of those conversations and ask that students go on to class but sometimes they don't comply and parents sometimes struggle with that as well but nonetheless we try to do that and work on that on a case-by-case basis contact tracing has really fallen mostly on the school districts and mainly being that our health departments are not staffed to be able to

092manage and do that and so we pulled together a team of our administrators our security staff and our nursing staff and what used to take you know three minutes and notifying a student and their family in and around hey your students been identified as a close contact they're going to have to quarantine that three-minute conversation oftentimes will take anywhere from 20 to 30 minutes because oftentimes we're getting pushback as to why they're not going to comply or why that doesn't make sense from their perspective the other piece that i would want to share is just from a quarantining standpoint one of the data points that we have noticed is that a small percentage of close contacts end up becoming positive and to give you some information earlier throughout the course of this fall semester to

093date we've sent nearly fifteen hundred individuals to self-quarantine and of those 15 individuals 21 of those have flipped to covet positive so that's just some information in and around the data side of things that we're observing so then looking ahead a couple things that we're talking through and monitoring and watching is continued access to vaccines and immunization rates and levels whether it's the data that we have or the data that's reported at the county level we've talked with the county how their data really you know ages 11 and under is missing and so as we start to get more information in and around that hopefully they'll be able to build dashboards around that we're also looking at a variety of treatments that are being in place in hospitals but then also other drugs and their

094availability and what that might look like during the spring semester trying to keep apprised of everything that's happening there by what we read but then also talking with chief medical officers and health directors on a weekly basis the last thing that i would say is to clarify some concerns that surfaced in the month of november and december in terms of authority and who has authority to make decisions there's been a lot of information in the media in and around these areas and i will say this whether it's the city of kansas city as an elected body lake county public health center is also an elected body and has had elected board members since the 1950s under chapter 205 of missouri statutes or the board of education as we think through the second semester there's one

095thing we can guarantee you is that all of this will evolve there will likely be changes and other conversations that we will have in and around this topic but in an effort to abide by our board policy and keeping us moving in that direct direction that has served us well and so that's what's informed our messaging last week the return to learn addendum that you see this evening but then our recommendation as you see it presented to you within board docs so i've got a few things with respect to the survey that you alluded to that the last one i think encompassed a period of time at the end of november and early december and i think clearly the results of that survey are already stale given how things have evolved over the past month

096with respect to our attorney general eric schmidt he's a smart guy he went to de smet a private high school in st louis he went the same college i did got better grades than i did he's intentionally misstating what the court in cole county said we absolutely have the right as an elected body to mandate mass and there are other school boards still around the state that are mandating mass and i personally will not be able to vote for this return to learn plan as long as it says mass recommended my proposal would be that we review this again in january we're back in less than 30 days that actually encompasses eight school days by extending the math required to january 18th if you want to proceed with the other portions of the return to

097learn plan but keep the mass mandated effect i could vote yes on that tonight but otherwise i won't january 18th is not that far away and like i said there's eight school days that that will impact and we can see what the numbers are like after we come back from christmas break and from people being with extended family and traveling over the winter break that gives us two additional weeks of data to decide whether or not we should continue with masking beyond that and it can be reviewed every 30 days or with less than 30 days at our work sessions and at our business meetings i'd just like to add to that um i mean i recognize the difficulties i mean i mean first and foremost to read you know just jump on and say

098thank you to our staff and the folks that have been dealing with quarantining and enforcement of masks and all the things that um that they've had to do for the last several months and then throw a new addition to that on unwarranted challenges to that and some of the issues that we've had to deal with the you know i agreeing with andy i mean the attorney general has misstated that case the board of education has the legal authority to to make decisions for uh for the community that's local control um our ebb policy which is the communicable disease policy the first line of it says liberty 53 school district board recognizes its responsibility to protect the health of students and employees from the risks posed by communicable diseases and i think we've all taken that

099responsibility seriously my concern is is one moving away i think there's one way to maybe middle of the road that which would be to include or amend the language in there that says the board of education may opt for more stringent code 19 mitigation strategy strategies as it deems appropriate in light of conditions in the district and with due consideration to local public health guidance the language as we as it is now gives us that flexibility to follow so if kansas city reinstitutes that mass mandate we can say we're going to continue that or if clay county were but we've got we've got the ability as a board to do that regardless of them as an elected body and so that would give us the ability at a later date evaluate through break look at

100those numbers bring that to a vote at a later date if that's not something that kansas city decides to pass we've got a i believe a january 6 study session if that was a time frame for which you know school's getting ready to start again but my thought would be is amend the plan to add that language to it gives us the option to address it as we get closer to the start of second semester i too concur um i i just can't accept this mass optional we have uh had success because we stuck the course and i think it's very important we already have heard reports uh that our students have gotten behind in the virtual experience of confidence has pushed more students out into virtual i concur i can't support this so and

101i understand what drew's saying that kind of if we added some language that gives us the flexibility but i i don't want to be reactive i want to be proactive on this and if i'm wrong and we didn't need to mask then people had to wear a mask for an extra eight school days but if i'm right and we should have been masking that's eight school days of people running around unmasked after they've been around family and friends and traveling over winter break and that's going to lead to classrooms being shut down and kids going virtual more staff being out more sub-fill rates decreasing i don't see the harm in an additional eight school days of enforcing a mask and then we look at it again on january 18th at our regular january meeting the

102one thing i'd say about that and and dr tucker you can help me out here part of that messaging is to give folks the ability to re-opt for virtual by january 5th and so part of it is is game planning that is that fair i think so um you know we've we've tried to honor that since the get-go 20 months ago and so i'm looking at dr westfall and dr moore that it works to try to accommodate parents quests the sooner that can happen the better but i mean i think that can happen for those families that know what their intent is whether it's from virtual back to face to face or if they're contemplating you know the reverse i think the difficulty may be once you get deeper into the month of january or

103certainly into the second semester that becomes a little bit more problematic in particular for high school level students where their courses are tied to credits it's not insurmountable but it is a challenge nonetheless anything to add dr westfall or dr moore i think we're just prepared to handle whatever direction it has but it does cause us to consider for example that we have to post and be prepared to hire virtual teachers for example there's not our decision there is some hr shuffling that happens with that and it will happen one or the other semester is a great time to make that happen because we did promise our families the option to change this semester and so that would be my only concern about waiting until january 18th to implement a return to learn plan i

104mean if we gave ourselves the ability and the flex flexibility to see what data comes up until january 6th i think that would give us some ability to reassess at that point the wording that you're talking about adding is that the wording that we see under executive content here that's exactly what you would like to add to it is is there an obvious place to put that in there so if we make a motion it's part of that motion it would be by motion but it'd be at the end of that first paragraph so that first paragraph page one has a discussion about how we have followed local health guidance and we're going to continue to and whichever way that may go we have the flexibility to do it but i'd like there to be

105the flexibility for the board to make a decision on their own if need be which we already have right i mean we've been following guidance from kcmo which is the guidance we've been i mean effectuating among others i agree with that i don't want to take this question i just want to make sure we have the right motion and we know what kind of we're considering here um is it okay if i make a motion and then we can continue the discussion or you immediately well i don't want to cut anybody out though i mean i i mean if we're yeah i don't want to cut any discussion off but i'm i mean we can make the motions to that discussion i move the board adopt the return to learn plan addendum with the following

106amendment that would go out uh i thought it'd be the become the last sentence of the first paragraph that would be the board of education may opt for more stringent covet 19 mitigation strategies as it deems appropriate in light of the condition of in the district and with due consideration to local health guidance second discussion it still has the mask optional so you know where i stand so what exactly does that change in what we had previously i'm just i don't think it changes anything but it just makes it really clear that the board of education is saying that um it's our responsibility and we make sure we may make a choice to do something different than i think that's correct you guys both agree with that you didn't really didn't it's just it's reaffirming

107the authority we have to make that decision in the first place we have that anyway right it mormons it basically just says what we already have but but i'm saying it because we're saying that we're going to follow county health guidance kcmo health guidance and we have a position where we're not getting the decision we want from either of those entities i don't think we've had any county health guidance in months recommendations but we haven't had a mandate so i mean i don't know if we've had recommendations from our health department it's been the same one since the start of september the school guidelines haven't really been revised since early fall other than that meeting that occurred last week which just shored up some language and around contact tracing and quarantine which means basically then

108you guys are on your own figure it out so this got to your point what i'm trying to say is we've got the ability to make that decision regardless of whether kcmo does and if they don't make that decision that's something we can make that decision and just reaffirming that so we have that flexibility within our plan but isn't that something to andy's point that we've always had that's what i think cameron was saying right we're just making it here by stating it okay i think that's been called the question in the media and across the state you're not not too distant past but i think that just reaffirms that from that standpoint two things going back to andy's comments we do have i believe it's the 23rd in which we should learn more around

109the november 22nd coal county order and the judge's decision there and so there were 30 days following that november 22nd decision that there was a window to appeal that then ends later this week so we will likely know more one way or the other how that stands the second thing as it relates to um connecting on this subject regularly even preparing for this evening's conversation we anticipate going into the second semester that for our board of education via your study session or your regular monthly meeting this is a topic as we monitor it as we watch our dashboard as we report out from covid cases from adults to students to vaccine rates if we can monitor that and get that data as best as able if that's readily accessible that'll be our ongoing process moving

110forward just to be able to keep a prize but then also inform the board and inform the community as far as how things are tracking within our community with respect to the appeal i mean it's still not binding on us we weren't a party to it and it also doesn't say what he says it says we can regardless of whether it's appealed or not we're an elected body we can do this so i'm not worried about a date to file an appeal what i'm worried about is coming back from break after everybody's been going all over the country and visiting with family and friends and then coming back into the schools without mass on because mass recommended means just don't even bother yeah and then we come back on the 18th because we've had you

111know all these spikes in cases and then we're again reacting and then you want to talk about having to hire virtual teachers you'd have to do it then anyway because we're shutting down schools and classrooms so why not get out in front of it and see what it looks like for the two weeks following winter break eight school days is all we're talking about is it i'm kind of thinking out loud here but this is kind of a question for you is it you mentioned data being stale because in 48 hours we learn a lot of stuff 73 of the new cases in the country are now omicron variant as of yesterday when this survey was done it was like oh that's something over in another continent no big deal right i agree my point

112is if we decide in 48 hours or 72 hours we want to meet again next week we can do that we don't have to wait till our next study session we can meet anytime we want as long as we post the meeting for sunshine long then we can be so i guess my point is it's not going to be whatever we decide now we can't change anything until january we've got a community that's out here that needs to have some idea where we're going well the motion's on the table so we're still in discussion no discussion right now right so whether whether it passes or not my point is we can still meet sure sure friday we want next tuesday or i think the challenge for me is who becomes the authority on what we

113should be doing from an advisement during the pandemic and you know we can argue whether or not health departments are folding because of political pressures or whatever but we've looked at them because they know should know what they're doing and be experts in managing through this and and we can have reasons to rationale totally get that but if we're going to say they're not the ones that we should listen to either then who are we listening to and making decisions based on and that's i mean i'm not a pandemic expert that's that's where my challenge comes to my own head i think when i listen to him they just haven't caught up that's the problem i'm i'm i'm seriously asking this because i don't know is there a single health department in the metro that's

114actually said yeah this is a good idea to not wear madison schools down i think the latest that took it up was jackson county going back to their question around mandates a week or so ago that's that's part of my personal frustration in trying to look to experts whether it's health departments i know our chief medical officers around the region are highly thought of they engage with health departments as well we engage with them right dr adiga here at liberty hospital is probably one of the experts in that space so being able to lean on them for that clear guidance and their counsel their recommendation as compared to having to create kind of an ad hoc group off to the side to make some of those decisions and i think you've seen probably in the

115media as far as news stories in and around the variant and and around questions around school guidance we pay attention to that as well i don't know of any health departments to your question indeed as to anyone that's chimed in about schools moving more to optional or recommended we have done some checking with districts across the region more and more of them are moving toward that both on the mississippi side in the kansas side and for whatever reason right varying reasons as to why they're doing that so we try to collaborate with them as well uh any further discussion the only other thing that i have is to name nick to your point i'm not a pandemic expert either and you shouldn't have to be in that solution but without any other guidance locally it's

116where we are if we look at cdc guidance they would say wearing masks and unfortunately our teachers and administrators are put in the position of having to try to enforce it and be frankly bullied by kids and parents and we're just in a no-win situation i don't know if that helped anybody there's no good answer go back to the health department piece clay county has since september said recommended great right yeah and we've been it's a little bit it's been a little more touch and go from month to month with the city of kansas city one other thing that i would want to mention here and this ties back to board policy but it also carries all the way back to march when we shut down as we were kind of navigating that new kind

117of shelter in place approach for the state of missouri one of the first questions that we talked with legal counsel about was given that we we covered two county or two health departments clay county and then the city of kansas city what guidance could you give us and they're navigating multiple health departments and the council that we received then which has served us well was to follow the most restrictive guidance so even though many of our schools sat outside of the city limits of kansas city because that mandate was in place still is in place we adhered to that guidance and applied it across the entire system even though fewer of our schools resided there and so then that that's been a challenge for some parents to accept but we've tried to explain that to

118them and that we have a lot of interplay between our students that travel between building siblings that are at different buildings or staff that migrate between buildings or programs that are offered where students attend for a portion of the day and then come back to their home school but all along we have tried to follow that most restrictive guidance it just so happens as we look to the first part of january and that current mandate that's in place with kansas city from all indications and again a few days ago that would imply they were going to sunset that order there's always a chance of it being extended as we've tried to kind of poke in to see what their plans are every 30 days that's been the last probably three or four months of having

119to navigate that steve i know you've worked closely with all of this was there anything you wanted to interject as well in and around kind of the recommendation this evening you know the only thing i would add and it's not really brought up here is you know from the very beginning as we started this week we were just kind of learning as we go early on we decided we really needed to be true to policy and be consistent in our practice and and really pull a thread for everything that we've done that's been the one thing that's going to help steady and that's the challenge with where we're at now i think is you know trying to stay the course with the true policy and probably with the guidance developments and then you can see

120how they private across the system and what is our um what is our trend in incidence has been in the last week the last few weeks it's been uh it went up pretty significantly as we've seen that they came down just a little bit and the initial ports for this week are about up a little bit up so it's one of the things we've committed to beyond policy is taking care of our children and i think we have to consider that and sometimes policies are just not fine-tuned enough well that's just it i think people can argue both sides of that where we've got a lot of friends in here saying as a parent i want my kids without masks i don't want mass this that's my choice as a parent to make that decision

121if we yeah if we live on an island yes that's correct did you live on an island yeah yeah by yourself i guess if you i don't know if you live on an island i guess if you are a parent who doesn't want your child asked you could have them go virtual at semester and sit at home massless that's an option it is an option okay i'm planning to call the question any further discussion all right so the motion on the floor adopt the current return to learn plan with the amendment it was noted being the board of education may offer more stringent code 19 mitigation strategies as it deems appropriate in light of condition in the district and with due consideration of local public health guidance that's a reminder uh sandra when you are

122ready scott yes andy no marie no aj no drew yes angie yes nick yes or three motion carries moving to 6.02 legislative priorities i want to share with you the draft document that we have with some minor changes tied to our legislative priorities that is shared with you we saw this earlier and it contains two pieces one is the key priorities the second piece is legislative considerations so then as we look to the month of january we know that we have the start of the legislative session we also have the state of the state address by our governor in which we'll learn more in which he typically rolls out his budget and then that gets turned over to the legislature for their process and deliberation what we will end up seeing is you'll see this

123document again for final approval consideration and then we will attach a letter to that that will then be forwarded to our area legislators both our house of representatives members as well as our senators in terms of walking through this legislative session we know there are over a hundred bills that have already been pre-filed that have some degree of connection to education public education so that's something that we will certainly keep apprised of as the session unfolds but we'll just share that with you this evening there's no action attributed to that but nonetheless we will bring it back to you in the month of january for your consideration so if you have any insights additions changes questions please let me know prior to the january meeting into 6.03 looking at the copyright license agreement so we

124shared some information with you in and around a draft manuscript on a text focused on learner agency from time to time our district is highlighted in various publications we've been included in a recent text that we studied as a book a book study with the board of education and that's the book entitled better together where we've highlighted programs like epic we've highlighted programs in the past like northland caps there have been other publications apple through some of our distinguished schools has highlighted other other campuses across our district we had an opportunity to talk with dr westfall and ashley duvall on a work that they've been co-authoring with caravandus who's provided professional development for us than us in the past as they've been working on that separate from their district work it includes a lot of

125highlights of liberty public schools include some testimonials from leaders from instructional coaches from teachers in and around the work that we're doing specifically around the area of learner agency and so that got us to thinking albeit we have board policy that allows for authoring of work in terms of showcasing the work going on in our district we wanted to ensure that that was shored up and so we've put together a license a copyright licensing agreement in working with the publishing company their legal counsel to be able to bring this item to you this evening for your consideration so you have the document that's entitled there i do appreciate ashley duvall and dr westfall being available to answer any questions that you have just as we were working through this process we were made aware of

126a second staff person that is also co-authoring a book happens to be on the topic of learner agency slightly different but it's a hot topic right now across the country so we want to be supportive of those staff and the work that they're doing so you have this for your consideration this evening you may have said but who directed this so tom capps worked with us and then they worked with the attorney from the publishing company and then i believe dr westfall and ashley dewall had an attorney that had an opportunity to look at that as well caps gave us his blessing yes and a bigger focus for our district would be how do we ensure there is a system and process in place to honor teachers for their work that co-authoring approach preserving kind

127of their protection but then also the district's protection and the sharing of information so that's presented to you this evening for your consideration i moved the board approved the copyright agreement between the liberty 53 school district and dr jeanette westfall and ms ashley duvall sidekick any discussion sandra when you're ready scott yes andy yes kim marie yes aj yes drew yes angie yes nick yes ocean carries uh into section seven with the board of education starting with legislation and advocacy um as you may be aware the new legislative sessions begins on the 5th of january tons of bills have been filed but there are over a hundred of them that have been in direct relation to um the situation of education anything from curriculum to school safety to the parent bill of rights to the

128board of ed um msba is hosting a free webinar it's listed on their website um on the 21st of january and um the advocacy staff at msba feels that education is going to be a hot topic and will probably dominate the session and so they're asking for people to become involved because as elected officials that we are we do carry weight with the legislators perhaps depends on the legislator however their advocacy training gives you information on how to best deal with an approach and talk with them regarding what we know well in education so that's pretty much it i think 120 of the 900 pre-builds filed were education related if i remember correctly and so i mean it's going to be a trend that we've seen play out in some other states in the last

129few months but there's some stuff in there that's not good always thank you angie for being our dedicated individual in that role appreciate that looking at 7.02 upcoming meetings uh first off uh looking at board candidate filing closing here towards the end of the year december 28th 5 p.m if anyone has interest please come and file uh and then we'll start uh the year off january 6th uh which is a thursday this time uh 7 am for our first study session so make sure that's on the calendar uh then moving in finally to 7.03 board remarks i would just like to share that i'm really excited about these the global creativeness global literature global leadership and global mathematics i think it's exciting but new curriculum ideas are being reduced and this is what it's really

130about our children being educated and becoming world citizens continues to show the power of the edge program right in other micro schools absolutely those yes and i'd just like to acknowledge the um the work done in the cognier review you know that it's it's always more it's always extra but it was it's a particularly important process for the feds to go through and we're glad to hear the quickly emerged from thank you uh if no other uh comments uh i suppose i would just say thanks to everybody in the district for all the work over the semester i know it's been challenging they're challenging the last couple years for sure um but take time off relax rest please recharge find some time to do what you need to do for yourself for self-care and enjoy

131the holiday with friends and family so i hope everybody gets to do that and with that said uh take a motion to adjourn i made the board adjourned second sandra when you're ready scott yes andy yes kim marie yes aj strew yes angie yes nick yeshua [Music]