001[Music] all right call me to order tonight august 17 2021 start with a pledge of allegiance [Music] under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all 2.02 the approval of the agenda this evening i move the board approve the agenda as presented second senator if you'll call the rule scott yes andy yeah kim marie yes aj yes drew and moving into 2.03 honoring excellence good evening uh everybody mix things up a little bit this month i have another video from here and we're excited about last week as you know was our annual new teacher institute at liberty high school at the view i know many were there and it was our task forty thomas and i to find one story we knew of the 80 new teachers there would be 80 great stories our task
002was to identify one and we think we found a pretty special story this is a young lady that recently graduated from williamson college had a magnificent career liberty north so she is indeed coming home and then what we also quickly found out was that she had a grandmother who served in liberty public schools for nearly 40 years so what we're calling tonight's video spotlight is simply this all in the family the story of shay and loretta robin she's my student i came to liberty fourth grade from raytown and i've been going to liberty ever since i graduated from liberty north and then i pursued kept pursuing my education to william jewell and i graduated this past may 2021. my grandma is loretta hughes she has taught for 40 plus years um special education all the
003way up to sixth grade i came in 68 and i officially retired in 2007 so 39 years but it didn't seem like 39 years and that's beyond my my imagination of my granddaughter now having some of the experiences that i had with liberty public school district my girlfriend had a huge impact she has been right on my side since senior year of um high school and when she came home and said grandma i think it's going to be elementary and i said she say that again she had been right there helping me with lessons helping me come up with different strategies to use in the classroom she would let me make suggestions a little bit especially on kids that were having hard times she had not left teaching she's basically been able to learn keep
004living with it through me and she'd say grandma why didn't you tell me that soda and i said well honey i felt like you needed to discover yourself because every day the classroom is different she has given me this patience taught me to be open-minded to different strategies and sometimes kids just need something different i love to be a helper and sometimes i just need to step back and have the student tell me what they need or show me what they need to be free to learn to be able to be challenged and all the time feeling accepted and i think that is definitely one of shea's gifts and she has always enjoy being with children kids always love to be with ms shea i got the call from vogler i was getting ready in
005the morning to go to student teaching everybody first up the stairs with my grandma she said grandma grandpa you're not going to believe this and i said well tell us tell us she got with that we just had a great moment and we embrace each other in a hug she said i have a contract to teach in liberty schools i know i was crying and she was crying and she had tears on her eyes and she was so thankful and so yeah it was a really special moment i got to share with her i'm anxious what we're hearing all about in the future every once in a while she still takes my suggestions when i left living with i thought i was leaving liberty but senior year when i got my student teaching in liberty
006it just really let me know like this is the place i want to be and this is the place where i should be i believe that um she's in the right place always keep your hometown in mind and it might honestly be the place that you end up in the right place for you so um i think we should give those two around we actually saw shea at kelly brook as part of her welcome back staff meeting this afternoon and she told me she was off to a great start and just one of again the 80s that we couldn't focus on but what an incredible story and we look forward to sharing that with the community i think even later this evening so with that that concludes honoring excellence for this one thank you dallas
007thanks to the team for putting those together as well all right moving into public comment if you have some blue cards if you have a blue card you need to submit it you can hand it to sandra right up here at the front we'll make sure you get an opportunity to speak just a couple of notes as we begin public comment people addressing the board will be asked not to repeat what someone before has said persons addressing the board are asked to keep their remarks concise and to the point each speaker shall be limited to three minutes and you'll note the time remaining will be up on the screen in front of you personal persons may speak only once at the meeting concerns brought further during public comment may be addressed by the superintendent or
008appropriate staff members typically within a week and persons are asked to be respectful towards others within their remarks so with that said i'll just go in the order that i've received the cards starting with sarah parker hello everyone we are all here to discuss what we feel is right for our children i believe everyone should have a choice on the matter i do not feel that healthy individuals adults or children need to wear a mask or take a vaccine copa does a virus just like any other virus in 2009 the h1n1 virus or swine flu was also considered a pandemic and is still here today as a typical flu according to the cdc i do not recall wearing mass of the constant fear that we are currently currently experiencing today h1n1 is also had a
009vaccine but it did not make the virus disappear a vaccine mandate is not a one-size-fits-all solution what would happen if a vaccine gets low or runs out and is not available for those who want or need it healthy people or those with natural immunity from copay should not be forced to get a vaccine i believe people should be accountable for themselves and their family and no one else it would be absolutely absurd if i demanded someone take an injection from my benefit my choice of medication or vaccination will not help your treatment work better the vaccine makers are not held liable for address reactions or even death who will be accountable for any adverse reactions if it is approved and mandated the cdc has been very inconsistent and misleading with their guidance no mask one
010mask two masks the vaccinated can remove their mass but then become super spreaders we are only afraid because we have been told to be afraid this is manipulation at its finest children are wearing masks and constantly afraid of killing grandma they are not able to see their teachers faces to learn and have a normal day at school if you are sick stay home if you need assistance ask someone healthy children wearing a mask only delays their immune systems from working the parents of liberty schools have been more than patient covet is not a death sentence i have known children a pregnant mother of twins current cancer patient who all recovered my son had rsv at two months old during winter he is five i was rushed to the er at 16 with pneumonia because i
011saw breathing this is simply another virus our city and state officials cannot stop a virus it's just not possible the cdc website gives case numbers which does not mean they are positive cases just a case number you can also find positive cases as well as deaths but i am not able to find recovery rates from coven on their website it is also hard to determine true numbers since they have pneumonia influenza and covet bundled as pic the cdc also reports 423 pediatric deaths in the u.s from 1 4 20 20 to 8 7 of 2021. these numbers do not justify a vaccine mandate for children it's time to stop blaming and guilting others for someone contracting a virus we need to be responsible for ourselves before coped your doctor may have told you to let
012the virus run its course clay county missouri is not currently under a mass mandate maps are optional in skating rinks trampoline parks and other places where children played together i am asking that liberty public schools make masks and vaccines optional choice and accountability thank you miss barker thank you mr tom mcfaul [Music] me [Music] oh [Music] this one [Music] this is [Music] is i don't know [Music] they are [Music] oh [Music] [Applause] stephanie gordon i have an eight and a nine-year-old that are in liberty school district and um my daughter struggles with speech and so i have been calling you guys i know you all recognize my name um multiple times i talk to andy all the time about it when my daughter can't see someone's face and how they're trying to enunciate words she
013can't do better it's so problematic since kindergarten we've been working with her because she has adhd she doesn't speak clearly she can't enunciate words she comes home to me and this is when i realized that the mask it well aside from my own personal opinions that they don't work and they've been scientifically proven to not work for a virus and this is an animal bipartisan so it's not going anywhere it's not like the measles it can't con i mean you guys already know the facts to this but i kept my opinions out of it as long as i possibly could for my kids until my daughter comes home and says mama my friends don't understand me i'm like no they don't understand you're not learning to nancy andy wright has had my kids in counseling
014has had my kids in speech has had my kids at all of these resources that i didn't ask for he saw that they needed help and he put them in those resources that were available and i'm so thankful but then just to turn around and literally child abuse her because she you're holding her back mentally physically socially and academically and that is abuse if she can't see her teacher annunciating to her apparently her teacher that she got half of last year was a great teacher but my daughter came home crying every day that she was me and my daughter because she has a disability she has adhd she has some things going against her and she can't tell behind this if someone's smiling at her saying lily come on girlfriend you can do it or
015lily come on girlfriend you can do it the mouth the facial expressions all of that plays into her psyche i did not ever agree to co-parent with the school district or with the government here's not my baby daddy you're not going to tell me what will work for them health-wise it is absolutely abusive to her specifically my other child's on the spectrum of autism and so this up here has been a constant balance we've had to go into psychiatric both of them see it she gets medication from it he has to work through it because his behavior is already testing the waters and now he can't see the teacher's spatial actions like i told you to get over here that's a cue for him that's a social cue that's a okay i got a full
016face look at it i need to start behaving instead it says get over here greg get over here greg he's not going to listen to that this is so deeper on a spiritual level on a mental level on an emotional level and on a physical level and more importantly on an academic level we paid you guys to make good decisions academically and you are hindering the kids who have speech impediments you're hindering them required to wear filthy wet rags over their face all day give me a break even the dentists say that their oral health has declined over the past year it's an insurance thing and i get it if your insurance doesn't cover us you guys the schools because you're not masking the kids then you can't you're going to be viable in some
017aspect well the pet mats don't work so it doesn't matter anyway 100 should be optional those who are afraid homeschool be great master thank you ms gordon amen kyle o'brien i just want to say thank you to all of you guys i hope you all had an amazing summer i know we did um i stood here last year at this time uh talking to you guys about sports i don't know if you recognize me i particularly recognize you kim i remember you completely like you are right now looking at us all in the eye and truly believing in what we're saying taking it all in and then doing something with it my son was a swimmer last year as a junior and he got to compete in everything that they allowed i wasn't able to
018be there at on all on all uh all needs but that wasn't why i was speaking to you it was to let those kids play sports so this year along with your uh you're wanting to thrive again we have to figure out how to do that this year and again a way that encompasses all of our children i'll tell you one thing as far as when i came up here i had two thought processes in my head i could give it to you guys the way i really want to in my head because i am not for these or i could come here with love and compassion and have you guys look at me and understand that i know that there is more of a diverse population with these children than just what i want
019so as much as i want to tell you this is a black and white situation it's not and i am fully aware of that do i want the masks absolutely not but do i know that it's going to come full circle on me because it's going to probably happen i'm very well aware of that and so i want to know how we keep these kids in school to educate them i want to know how we can compromise because the health meetings that i attended we were able to change quite a bit of the verbiage and that to take away take away segregation and take away individuals who may think differently there will be others out there who want to put a mask on i have asthma i don't like to wear them guess what though
020i got to get a paycheck and so we have situational masking where i work at which means that when i'm at my desk i don't have to wear it when i'm up in the plant and i have to go around other people guess what i've got to wear it but i put food on the table i understand where you are in your position and all i'm asking is that we teach our kids the value of our health we teach our kids that they can be big kids and make good decisions and they can make those decisions with all of those kids around them i appreciate your time thanks mr bryant matt sammick hello uh i want to start by expressing appreciation for the decisions that the board has made to reclair masking at the start
021of school i want to encourage the school board to continue to follow the advice of medical experts and continue to apply coveted mitigation measures as necessary i'd also encourage the board to have the conviction to make these decisions because they are the right decisions to make not necessarily borrowing the authority of kansas city proper mass mandates i would hope that we would have reached a point by now where the end of code would be in sight but actions by some people of the community in the metro kansas city area would seem to indicate otherwise i would also encourage the board to proactively develop a plan you seem to have a pretty good system in place as it is uh for future discussions about this that eliminate these from the coming bullying bullying sessions empirical evidence
022from other board meetings in the area have indicated that these have become hot spots for a vocal minority of community members that bully and shut down opposition through intimidation and numbers i would argue that such behavior has no place in public form and i hope that the board would not tolerate such behavior i don't have a lot of direct experience with it but i also want to regard and appreciate what seems to be a very thoughtful approach on the part of the board to address diversity equity and inclusion within the district and hopefully within the curriculum i'm glad to see that the board does not seem to be falling for the strongman argument that has been set up around this conversation disavowing any effort in this department as a particular definition of critical race theory
023if the board isn't aware i just wanted to point out that a community group organized a pre-event meeting before the open forum that was discussed at the last board meeting featuring one of the speakers that was invited by the republican representative specifically addressing quote critical race theory and its use in the schools in missouri and to teach the group how to fight against it unquote uh even by the admission of the representative that was read at the last board meeting that open forum was a one-sided show put on by a focused community group and developed specifically for an audience of local school board administrators thank you for your work uh before i and i would also encourage you to find where appropriate solutions that address some of the community problems around masking that don't put
024the greater community at risk i have to believe that some issues that people have in the community with mitigation measures are real but we don't need to put the community at risk to address them and pure optional masking across the board is not a reasonable code mitigation strategy but thank you for your sound decisions to date i hope you continue in your efforts to make our community an ever more informed and compassionate place to live and i hope there's a great start to school thank you in the current center and kevin manning good evening my name is kevin manning the parent of two liberty students the justification behind mass mandates has become entitled to many semblance of reality and has instead devolved into a company but checking mentality that will have lasting negative impacts for
025students first school-aged children are with little to no risk of serious elements of death publicly available data from the cdc shows that this group makes up sixty percent of the u.s population only point zero zero one six percent of codered events national data also shows that among children the death rate for coveted asylum seasonal influenza two years ago anyone come before the school board advocating for universal masking because of the flu they would have been dismissed out of hand as a rational and now with the virus less than deadly the children in the flu for contemplate masking all school children for the second straight year that too is irrational the data shows inclusively that the vast majority of children are at all at risk for serious illness or death uncovered regardless of vaccination status there's
026been extensive fear-mongering about the delta variant and is straining our hospital system to its limits these sensations was claimed through nonsense and not worn out by local data according to the cdc the delta variant has been the primary strain missouri campus for the past two months over the last six weeks aggregated hospital data shows that the kansas city area the amount of available hospital beds dropped only one tenth of a percent there has been continues to be plenty of room in hospitals to hold significant medical issues the medical data is interesting to talk about that the question of mass management for the board tonight is not really a medical question but a philosophical question about risk tolerance and unintended consequences in this case the unintended consequences of wearing masks outweigh the health benefits of students
027since the clay county health foreign liberty school board are not considering mandatory remote learning they are clearly comfortable with an increased risk of coping transmission to students since i'm sure everyone here would agree that locking children in their homes for the next nine months would lower that risk why is the school board comfortable with risking more sick kids the answer is that you recognize the negative impacts of remote learning outlay coded risk similarly most parents here recognize the negative impact of mass outweigh them a new risk of exposes to their children mandatory masking and related filigree regulations make it harder for children to learn and enjoy the learning environment in general students learning to read cannot see their teacher's face which is essential in developing literacy skills they can't enjoy normal normal interaction with their
028peers i've also talked with many teachers who are careful not to spend more than 15 minutes a day near any one student to avoid being classified as a close contact if someone tests a positive code when we have teachers scared to spend more than 15 minutes a day with a child who may need extra help with the subject is that the learning environment the board wants to foster finally and probably most frustratingly there's no long-term problem in masking assaults clovis is not smallpox or pogo and will not be eradicated in the near future that it's overwhelming the likely code will become endemic similar to the flu in the common cold i can guarantee you that next summer we'll be hearing claims that we need mass mandates for our third year based on some new pretense
029if mass mandates are justified now based on the tiny risks of the student body they will be justified next year and the next and in perpetuity because hope is not going away for all these reasons i urge the board to reject mass mandates for the afternoon school year thank you thank you mr miller [Applause] the section 3 consent agenda before we get in there our adopted rules of parliamentary procedure robert's rules provide for a consent agenda listing several items for approval of the board by a single motion documentation concerning these items has been provided to all board members and the public in advance to ensure an extensive and thorough review items may be removed from the consent agenda at the request of any board member do i have a motion i move the board approve
030the agenda as presented second how about uh three point zero one to three point zero six listen second it's andrew when you're ready got yes andy yes kim marie yes aj yes drew yes angie yes nick yes moving into section 4 reports from the administration starting with innovation and learning yeah the first item 4.01 our innovation learning department will turn it over to dr moore and dr westfall dr west falls coming to the podium to share highlights from their report evening uh on behalf of innovation and letters from couples without being screened first um an update from our department of student services with the updated numbers on returning uh school registration verification we now have 92 of our families engaged with us on the verification and in addition to that those families who have completed
031the verification process we just wanted to thank all of our schools because it has been kind of a heavy lift at this last minute and they focused their efforts on getting that completed by family so we're almost to the end of that we're very fun second um i am happy to just share again with you that our elementary science curriculum takes off on monday yesterday with our new science inquiry model using enhanced and additional project lead the way modules to teach this coming year each school will follow a district inquiry model to dig into science education one week per month with a focus on integrated and hands-on approach that we hope brings a lot of excitement and engagement with our youngest learners our teachers will also be enhancing their learning of inquiry of the inquiry
032model through job embedded professional development alongside our innovation and learning coaches and our building leaders um and one fact that i learned today in a pltw research meeting that our very own cami met from lewis and clark elementary is a national finalist pltw teacher of the eu so that's very exciting um dr moore wanted me to share a quick update on back to school nights so at the elementary level the buildings will be offering the back to school night option for all kindergarten families and new they will call the school for an appointment and the teachers and then in grades one through five will create welcome back videos this year so that's our plan at the secondary level uh buildings are hosting orientation dates where families can come throughout the day to get schedules and
033tour their home buildings and then on monday we have web day for the sixth graders and then our high school freshmen have their link transition day next week and in addition those teachers will have created welcome back videos for families and then they'll post that to their campus pages and finally as you are aware we kicked off our staff returning to work this past week with the new teacher innovation institute where we welcomed over 78 new teachers to our staff their three days were packed with sessions for uh from educational law to trauma-informed care just to name a few we started the first day of the kickoff with dr tucker mr partlow so thank you for that and ended it with great building sessions where our building principals and mentors were able to work with
034those teachers um i do want to take a second to shout out to our innovation and learning coaches for always delivering a quality new teacher experience for a new staff and then following new teacher uh institute we opened this week welcoming all of our staff back for a six day pre-service schedule which includes two days of district professional learning time two days of building learning time and then two days of teacher work time included but certainly not limited to those sessions were welcome back building sessions where they brought their staff in and just welcomed everyone back we also had our belonging with dignity session which was held today and i'm sure dr seabourn will cover that in in her report but then also visits to the schools with dr tucker and company so um this
035coming monday we will have actually host a full teacher work day to make sure that all staff have time to prepare for the first student day on tuesday august 24th any questions of dr westfall or dr moore while we have them um could you explain what the inquiry model is just a little bit sure so really we're looking at investigation so instead of a teacher one size fits all delivering a single lesson to all students so that they have no background dollars it really allows the students to learn how to design a project-based learning experience where they get a seed of some kind of investigation or inquiry to grow and then they take that in different paths depending on what their interests are and what we're looking for so everybody doesn't have exactly the same
036thing but the outcomes are similar right so we do know where we're going with our experience but we want to make sure the kids have an opportunity to learn how to direct their own learning and that was once a month so we're just doing the modules once a month that's the foundation right so minimum expectation is the once a month and it's we're doing in what we're calling prime time so um integrating it during ela time so making sure that we're actually using a real world application to our learning integrating ela integrating math making sure our special education services are all part of a real world application learning so it's a different it's a different trial this is our first year to do as a pilot so to speak but we're very we're very excited
037and very we're all in the learning video you know what i mean like we're just gonna get in there and figure it out together and uh our teachers have been really they've been very welcoming to cautious right because we've not done it before but certainly welcome to there they have an open mindset which i appreciate and is that just the elementary level it just isn't okay and we bought modules pltw modules as kind of the seeds for them right so there are six of them six or seven of them per grade level now so we put one at each month just really big thank you other questions for innovation and learning okay thank you dr westfall next up then is 4.02 we'll ask dr dixon seahorn to come up and provide us with our equity
038reports good evening to the board of directors dr westfall has already so graciously set the stage for what i'm going to share very briefly with you this evening and that is that today was a pivotal moment for us here in lps and that we launched our partnership with the core collaborative by way of a virtual kickoff uh john crown apple co-author of belonging through culture dignity was our facilitator for the two virtual convenience and what was so unique about this professional learning opportunity for us today is that we had every department represented in terms of participating in those virtual convenience today so operations human resources of the business office the innovation and learning department so by way of every school building and so we we implemented this in the form of what we call virtual
039watch parties and so it was just really neat to see for example all of the nurses convened together on the fourth floor and literally not only just engaging the professional learning opportunity but then taking that an extra step to have a degree session afterwards so as you know you're familiar with john cranacle uh again co-author of the longing for culture of dignity um so as a facilitator he really just kind of set the foundation for us in terms of connecting the belongingness work to the work that we're already doing with our degrees in a strategic plan as well as our lts graduate profile we're very thankful that dr tucker um kind of uh you know was he set it off and that he uh addressed all of lps staff and helped them to understand that
040this work is all interconnected and ultimately we want to create a sense of belonging for every staff member student and family and i just want to give a brief definition of what we mean when we say belonging that is the extent to which people feel whether their staff member students and families personally appreciated validated accepted and treated fairly within an environment and in this case within the larger lps community so that has ensued as of today and uh it will continue by way of as i've mentioned in the report we'll have some touch points at the ford governance level as well as with cabinet dlt for this first semester and then we have some other sessions planned for second semester with our school leaders particularly at the secondary level so that is my report for
041this evening and i'll entertain your questions at this time i have already received an email from a staff member explaining um or just commenting that it was really quite a good piece of professional development and they were very glad that it is being done in the district so i thought i'd share that with you thank you so much even this afternoon as we we've been cabinet were at a couple school sites for the back to school meetings uh that are being held there were a number of staff members and school leaders that commented on how powerful and impactful the conversations were somehow uh mr crown apple managed to allow for virtual breakout sessions up to those of us that were the virtual space but then there were others as they were gathered together in person
042he allowed opportunities for uh deeper dialogue around the longinus so that made it very impactful very meaningful for each one i believe personally and i think will help set the tone for our work that we'll be doing moving forward so thank you for that feedback at what point will the teaching the teaching staff become involved will they have any direct interaction with with this core collaborative so as i mentioned we're going to start with district leadership it's very important to start at the top of the organization and then as we transition into second semester particularly the secondary level that is where our school leaders will be able to involve some of their teacher leadership members in this work and so we'll begin to expand from there but mainly this first year's about district leadership and
043school leadership and really the upper level of teacher leadership okay thank you to add to that some of that connection is already being made as schools have their equity goals in place as dr dixon seahorn has shared she's been working over the course of this last year and through the summer with each of our leaders and both on the academic side and then also the operations side for two to three areas that they've identified as their priorities so i think it dovetails in the end it all comes together to add to her report i sat through both sessions this morning and listened very intently on the first one was taking some notes and the second one i was able to multitask a little bit i admit that but what i found myself doing as they
044were walking through the presentation as mr crown apple was walking through the presentation it was an echo so to speak of the work that we did as a board as we did that book study over the course of last year even during the pandemic and so there were items whether it was a slide or a turn and talk prompt where you visit with a neighbor in which yeah we did that we did that we did that we covered that off and so it's just that affirmation and his ability to deliver and engage in a virtual environment that's difficult to do professional development is only as good as a facilitator in this instance i thought he did a great job particularly in a virtual environment which is difficult to pull off so i hope we'll get
045additional feedback as we survey our principals and our director traditionally when we think of professional learning we kind of relegate that to the teaching and learning space but we're also talking about from bus drivers who were able to participate today administrative assistants um team members within our various departments as well as our certified staff so it's it's bigger than just teachers um but definitely involves teachers because many of them are that that first point of contact with our students and families and creating that sense of belonging so it's it's wide and it's deeply and that that's a process that takes time right anything else for dr dixon seahorn thank you thank you next then is 4.03 which is our finance report and we will welcome mrs cindy sullivan to the podium as she's coming this
046time of year typically we look at tax rates and setting that information is just a reminder i hope i'm not stealing your thunder yeah okay just as a reminder given some reclassification and things that have gone on legislative at the state level we're going to be doing that and taking a look at that in the month of september so we'll turn it over to our finance report thank you good evening it's my pleasure to recognize a donation a monetary donation of 2500 donated by brody and amy pershon and these funds are to be used for use to purchase earbuds for students in need for the back to school event that is going to be held tomorrow at liberty north so we really appreciate their meeting the need that we have there and thank them for
047their very little um glad to recognize that as dr tucker stated next month we will have our tax rate hearing i have not received final numbers from the county yet still waiting on that this is a month later than you're used to we would have usually had that at this meeting since we became a charter county we now have moved that process back to session so we will have more for you on that in a month um i also wanted to point out in a finance section of my report tonight you were the asbr was posted for you the asdr starts the season of reporting for the prior year that are due to destiny the um annual secretary of the board report and it basically is the financial statement and you can slice the dice
048in many ways for the district for fy21 that was presented out there for you tonight i will note that that will change because there are several other reports that follow it that we do need to reallocate funds in different codes bottom line will not change just placement of dollars so at the point that we do reach the actual final of that report we will bring that to you again and i'll let you know when that happens but that will usually be around september or october before all the financial reporting is done to this state so i wanted to point that out to you um this is also the time of the year that we are for trying for team liberty meetings i know dr vogel i will probably report about that from colombia this summer
049but we start meeting with them at the end of the month and so we are working hard to get data and information so that they are able to make decisions that are the best interests of industry so we have been working hard on that afc finance committee has nothing to report to you tonight of interest to them they do meet with the auditor next month at their first meeting in september so that is always a good time for them to hear what the auditor is going to be looking at and if they have any views they're interested in having the auto level guest so we look forward to them doing that and that's all i wanted to point out for you tonight unless you have a question for me any questions for mrs sullivan okay
050thank you thank you for your report 4.05 then this evening as um actually 4.04 excuse me operations mr steve anderson thank you uh just a quick update an overview tonight uh first of all you'll notice all of the annual reports for the various operations departments have been uploaded um all the work of the directors and their teams to kind of assemble that information uh and they really wanted to extend thanks to the phone course here in the middle both of those looks like they will extend into their first reception of september rendering some delays refraining and so forth uh we of course have communicated it to those buildings so that they can plan around that so the master plan very quick update on that uh as we thought over the past couple months as we
051kind of hit that september time frame that's when some of the work will pick up some surveys will be sent out i will begin being having a community meeting probably late september and october uh bringing to the board in october as well and start to discuss finding criteria which you can remember really kind of warms up the basis of the plan right now that's on track to wrap up as things are playing right now end of december of this year uh so really the fall will be when it really makes up in earnest and the last return to learn um the right now uh with the clay county uh public health update that was wrapped up here just this week uh we have been working as a team diligently kind of pulling together our operations
052operation guidelines protocols all that information is being fined too we expect that to release either tomorrow or first thing thursday and that again will inform a lot more details for everything from how we have material run and how contract taxation will work for i would just like to say again reading that at least the first page because i didn't you know i didn't delve too far in but those first pages are um very interesting insofar as they give such a good indication of what that department does in in prose so i can read it i get it it makes sense to me so that when i go further that further information also makes more sense now that i have a better understanding all the way around and they're all their styles of writing are entertaining
053so um they just need to know that they're fun to read them thank you steve i know we're beginning to somehow put into place contingency plans for lack of a better term employment issues so i know we've got the minskys it's coming in to help alleviate some of the nutrition services issues i see we've got some on hold transportation potentially if we need it on on off off chance concerns continue i assume we're we're not feeling at the rate we want to is that a correct assessment i think that's that's fair i will say it's the topic we discussed amongst the team um and just how to make sure that we're prepared amendment another good uh example that is where active conversations with bringing in some hvac support of the next several weeks maybe month
054just because the demand is so high and so that's something that we'll have to go to the other side to help us um but there's a broader issue in working with hr challenger on a project to take a look at some of the breaks of pay for several operational positions uh my guess is that would be the next month or two hundreds of doctors can stick to that good well thank you to the team also for figuring out ways to address the issue not just let it sit so appreciate that any other questions for mr anderson thank you now on to 4.05 and our human resources report from dr vogelr thank you very much this is a very exciting time of the year a lot of work goes into raiding our classrooms and the work
055that building principals and assistant principals do to shore up the gaps in staffing and paid off as dr westfall mentioned we had a very uh wonderful launch to the new teacher innovation institute and i've included in the report just some of the the data around the new teachers specifically especially data pieces that we're very proud of 14 of our student teachers have stayed with us 11 of our graduates you meant the story of shay which shade by the way until today the only other person that refers to me as bogalar is my high school trap coach who graduated from liberty public schools have chosen to come back and launch their career with us and i think that speaks to what i've talked about for the last several years in terms of uh uh the teacher
056pipeline and investing in our own growing your own the initiatives that that we have in place to try and do that and then shea's story specifically speaks to one aspect that that we're really starting to tap in and that's taking our current teachers our former teachers and ambassadoring this profession to young people we do a really good job getting science technology engineering math ambassador to students careers in those fields we don't do as good of a job at fastening our profession and so when i had the opportunity to see the video and watch loretta just gleam with pride that her granddaughter chose her profession i see that there is just a tremendous desire for our generations of teachers to want to pass on that vision to the next generation and kids win when we do
057that so that's an important part of the update uh included also as part of the update uh uh with regards to the premium differential the status we watched that through september 1 when the deadline hits for that 99 a little more than 99 currently are receiving that differential and uh and that's the work of rebecca fisher who uh really puts a personal touch reaching out to those employees to make sure that everyone that wants to participate in our wellness plan gets the premium differential if they want it we are at about 70 76 right now which sounds low but this time last year it was 72 percent so as i talked to rebecca she says we're really right on pace and a lot of the finishing touches on that occurs in the last few weeks
058so she feels very confident that we'll get again that level of everyone that wants to participate engaged in the premium differential qualifying for that the final thing i want to draw to the the report is with regard to the network for educator effectiveness every year dr moore and her team they pour into that uh make updates and revisions to the manual every building does a deep dive into what their building look for is going to be for the year the district as a whole evaluates its look fors last year as you know uh 6.2 and 7.4 were the district-wide indicators those are just numbers to most people but 6.2 is that we want to see teachers communications with students be sensitive to cultural gender intellectual and physical differences that's what 6.2 is a district-wide indicator
059to look for and then indicator 7.4 is that we want our teachers to monitor the effects of instruction on individual and class learning those indicators are going to be district-wide across the entire system so we'll have rich data from all buildings as they do classroom observations on that and then each individual building through the partnership with the building leadership team and individual building data we'll select two indicators that will serve as their look fors over the course of the year and in the report there's a couple links that take you to those pieces of data if you want to see the individual building indicators that were selected for the 2122 school year the link there will reveal that by building it does reveal it by the the numbering 4.1 2.2 etc but in the manual
060every indicator is listed so if you're curious what 2.2 is you can go and cross-check that with the manual and see exactly what that building is prioritizing as they look for uh other things is that in the report there are a lot of questions on all of them cindy made mention of the team liberty meeting it's not including the report because we talked about it in july and nothing has changed those dates have been presented to the board and they will be finalized in our first meeting at the end of august any changes then we'll update that so the board is aware of how those dates have changed we do hit it hard and heavy as cindy mentioned because the insurance timeline is very tight we've got to have several meetings to decide on a
061recommendation to dr tucker from time for the september board meeting so that all of you have an opportunity to get a recommendation from him have a month to consider the the implications of that recommendation and then vote hopefully in october that will allow us to have an open world which typically starts at the end of october with that i'll answer any questions that you have regarding uh the report from administration for human resources dr vogler can you just explain what team liberty does and who comprises that team yeah i'd be glad to do that so um the big picture is that dr tucker and the board of education need to make very big weighty decisions that affect compensation benefits and quality of work life for all of our employees we don't want to make those
062decisions in a bubble and so we lean on a team of people to help us explore the data get a pulse on the implications of the recommendations as we're formulating them hear from as many voices as we can so that the recommendation that goes to dr tucker really helps him to have the confidence that it's a very deeply vetted process surrounding that data in the language or vernacular of how the state views it we're a meet and confer district and that means that we invite an opportunity to meet with employees and confirm that's different than a collective bargaining arrangement so the group is really presented with all the facts together we're one team we're one voice there isn't two sides of the table we all want the the greater good for the school system as
063a whole so team liberty is made up by invitation groups of teachers groups from uh support staff physicians paraprofessionals custodians maintenance workers bus drivers etc and as we wrestle through what kind of recommendation we would like to see dr tucker forge and present to you we invite all of these people to look at the data and provide us insight from that many of them will go back and talk to their uh employees their counterparts many of them will talk to people who are not in job roles like them but might be in that in the same school building with them and they'll have those conversations and they come and bring that collective insight into the conversation and then we have what's called a communication spreadsheet where we invite people to speak directly to team liberty
064to provide insight as well just so that we're taking into account all of those things that might truly influence or should influence the ripple effect that these weighty decisions can have so it's about as brief as i can get to uh that's good the purpose of liberty and how we come together to provide a recommendation to dr tucker and we appreciate their work other questions of dr voldewart thank you last item then this evening under administration reports is 4.06 as far as the superintendent's report as has been mentioned this evening by several of our cabinet members our back-to-school meetings are off and running as we have spread those out over the next several days keep in mind this is in lieu of our typical face-to-face convocation as much as we enjoy that event we made
065the decision last spring to hit the pause button not knowing exactly what the month of august would look like we were certainly glad that we did rather than having a large face-to-face gathering indoors so consequently we've shifted to having building level and department level meetings for our operations teams face-to-face where we're able to give them an update award our years of service awards to those various recipients but then also just be able to be available and accessible our entire cabinet travels with us to those meetings to be able to answer questions and just really connect with each of our campuses so it's great to see our staff and our teachers back as they are walking through professional development and building level retreats and gearing up for the start of the school year additionally we held
066with our district leadership team retreat a kind of a kick off earlier this month where we gathered at liberty high school and walked through a variety of topics in addition we had our new teacher innovation institute as has been shared where about 78 new teachers are joining the district whether they're veterans or brand new to the profession so we want to welcome all of them and wish them all well as we start the school year epic started on on august 10th with the rest of our schools starting up in a few days on august 24th additionally as it relates to our strategic plan work we are meeting and convening with scott fuller our consultant that's worked with us on strategic planning on august 26th and 27th to be able to celebrate the accomplishments that have
067been made in effectuating the strategic plan even during the pandemic but then also identify what are those areas that we want to consider bringing forward and incorporating into the strategic plan it has been our aim the last several years to bring a revised strategic plan to the board of education for your review and around october and november so that will be our timeline as far as wanting to update our strategic plan and bring that information to you it's also that time of year in which we start looking at our data assessment data so we've received some preliminary information that's not quite available to the public from the department of elementary and secondary education as it relates to map assessments as well as end of course exams that then will inform our liberty public schools scorecard
068given the pandemic we've had a little bit of a shift in assessments where they've hit the pause button but then now we brought them back and so we know that that data will really serve as a baseline for the experience of the pandemic and then how we build upon that in terms of making academic gains on behalf of all of our students another critical piece that's included in the report for this month's board meeting is return to loan survey information we push the survey out to our staff and families about a week or so ago and we closed that accumulation of results and feedback and it provided some of that data for you both in kind of a pictograph form but then also some talking points or bullets as far as highlights from that survey
069document we appreciate the help of the innovation learning department as well as mr anderson and the operations team and really trying to inform our decision making that information will be shared with the public as well and be it be available to everyone to look at the last thing that i wanted to share is really something that we've been involved in over the course of the summer in and around the topic of critical race theory and that being several inquiries that we have received from various organizations in and around keyword searches or the topic of critical race theory and the work going on in school districts not just in liberty public schools but across the entire state we've received inquiries from the department of elementary and secondary education our teams have responded to that we received
070inquiries from other organizations like the show me institute responded to those inquiries most recently we received a pretty extensive inquiry from missouri prosper as far as records of information request and the reason i mention that is that we're working with legal counsel along with other education associations the missouri school boards association and responding to this fairly extensive request and that it goes from board members the board table all the way to the classroom for those that are involved in creating lesson plans and so it involves virtually every single staff person in our system it also involves some keyword searches to the tune of about 80 key words in requesting electronic documentation video documentation hard copy documentation reason i mention that is nearly every district in the state of missouri as our understanding has received this
071request appreciate sandra in working to turn around the response and so our approach and being able to turn around that amount of information in a three-day period is not possible nonetheless we've responded and we've indicated our approach will be kind of a batching model it's the old adage of how do you eat an elephant you eat it one one piece at a time or one bite at a time so we're working through batching the request we've already responded and indicated what that first batch would look like how much it would cost and are just waiting to hear back in terms of continuing to process that request to give you an example in one particular batch and just working through board docs our board of education platform and how we hold our meetings and upload documentations
072that are documentation that is available to the public in walking through that it took it we believe it would take about 122 hours to be able to walk through each of those key searches in terms of terms pull each of those documents and file them at the rate of pay of which we would look at kind of our average administrative expense which is about 24.22 per hour looking at about 15 000 pages as far as documentation in total that would bring that cost about four thousand five hundred and fifteen dollars and eighty four cents that is just for one piece of the request and so we'll say we sent that information earlier today we'll wait to hear back from them and then process that next piece every district is in that same position of trying
073to figure out how to navigate that extensive request and so we'll work at it like we said one piece at a time in terms of in terms of our responsiveness to that request with that said would certainly open it up to any questions that you all may have of me this evening okay okay thank you no questions moving into section 5 new business 5.01 moving towards the approval of july 27 2021 board meeting minutes drive a motion i moved the board approved the july 27 2021 board meeting minutes andrew when you're ready scott yes andy yes kim marie epstein aj yes yes angie yes nick yes motion carries into 5.02 the cove leave resolution so you've heard extensively about our return to learn efforts as it relates to getting school back and running both you
074know face to face and virtual options but one of the pieces that is critically important is how we support our staff and our personnel and so i want to turn it over to dr vogelart to walk us through this this item this evening on our kovidly resolution thank you very much dr tucker so the this leave is is really um similar in some ways to the leave that we had through the ffcra and through the extension of that that you all approved in january through the end of april although it is limiting in terms of how that leave would be applied and the logic there is is obviously if if someone is ill and doesn't come to work the district provides a very i think a very strong message of support through paid time off
075to employees employees are given 10 to 12 days per year can accumulate up to 100 or 102 days can be drawn down on when they need as a form of income protection for employees what makes covent a little bit unique is that if somebody had strep throat or food poisoning they would use pto and be gone until they felt better and they would return to work with covid a copic positive result they would be out until they felt better and then for an extended period of time so that the the period of transmission of covid is passed before they could come back and that's a longer day would drain significantly drain pto usage for employees and so this resolution would create a form of pto that we call covet leave or cto that an employee
076could draw upon if they test positive for covid so if they are not feeling well they miss work they'll use pto just like they normally would and and if the the they get tested for covet it comes back as a positive test result and they can communicate that to the district and have the pto that they use put back in their bank and apply this code lead it's up to 10 days so that's the basis of the resolution it also ensures communication with the school system when there's a covet positive that communication helps us in terms of our mitigation and planning and so this this leave resolution would also allow for that so that's the idea behind it it's a leave that we would put in place for the entirety of the 21 22 school
077year with obviously provisions in there to modify it as this situation continues to develop new information becomes available and we need to course correct or or make modifications then there's flexibility in this document that allows that to happen as well we'll just present that to you this evening for your consideration is there a cap on the number of days yeah it would be up to 10 days okay thank you i hope the board adopt the kobe 19 leave resolution [Music] sandra when you're ready scott yes andy yes marie yes aj yes drew yes angie yes nick yes machine carries 5.03 to contracts and purchases we do have several items to present to you this evening mr anderson is going to walk us through the contracts and purchases on our board document thank you all of
078these are emergency actions under policy djf-1 first item is a contract with phoenix phoenix renovation restoration to handle some mold remediation at kelly brook elementary we also uh had a contract with barclay asphalt to help us with some repairs at liberty north and dns with some tripping hazard concerns we had two separate contractors field mechanical to handle some rooftop units at support services and those were two separate actions there and then last the p1 group to repair the hvac system at epic and again all of those were kind of stuck up on us emergency actions that you always received an update on friday for each of these as they occurred over the past couple weeks mr anderson the phoenix one adam i believe the friday update led me to believe that it was caused by
079maintenance work that was being done was that internal employees that were doing the work that it wasn't done properly i think it would you know i'd have to revisit we've had a couple of these situations and they're not uncommon unfortunately it was just part of the cleaning process over the summer in in the cooling systems and sometimes being deactivated and so we monitor for that i guess i i probably should also point out uh we are as a district we're very aggressive in this space we monitor very closely it's just something that we have to deal with pretty regularly but i would also stress that we have a long-standing working relationship with children's percy hospital and we bring out their folks to do air quality testing on the front end and then the back end
080whenever these situations arise so it may have been the result of our team doing their normal deep cleaning process uh over the summer but then we bring in outside folks on the remediation side yeah thanks i moved the board approved purchase to services from phoenix renovation restoration inc barclay asphalt hails mechanical and p1 group second standard scott yes andy yes marie yes aj yes drew yes angie yes nick yes motion carries into section six unfinished business looking at board policy revisions yeah just the one under one item under unfinished business and so you have several items that were uploaded the first of which is policies for adoption and that is policy jhcd and kla as you'll recall this evening is the second read as we were able to look at that information earlier this summer
081back in july the next set of information then are policies that are presented to you this evening for first read and there are several there and you'll see those as we come back for our meeting in september at our regular monthly meeting so please let us know if you have questions comments things that we can look into with the missouri school boards association and then the last set of items there are three administrative procedures for your awareness as you'll recall we make you aware of those and we just put them into our record our file those are items that you don't necessarily have to act upon and that is related to illness and injury response prevention as well as virtual courses so we present those couple of policies for your recommend or your approval consideration
082this evening i move the board about policies jhcd and kla on second read sandra scott yes andy yes kim marie yes aj yes drew yes angie yes nick yes martian and into section 7 the board of education we typically look at angie on 7.09 but i think anybody can speak on legislation advocacy i do have a couple of things msba advocacy positions that will be voted on at the november msba conference the advocacy positions are on the website if you are curious about them feel free there's quite a few however if there are any that you feel need to be have modifications those need to be submitted by the first of september so um you know you've got i think there's two weeks left in the month also just a heads up they're looking at
083some redistricting at the state level which could could or could not impact what is going on in the state and i think that was it also just to go back to the advocacy positions they those things steer what msba uses to advocate at both the federal and the state level and so and it deals directly with how education is perceived funded looked at reviewed all of those things so that's kind of the ones that they look through it with and um so you know just kind of take a little gander if you need some bedtime reading it's good for that too thank you angie uh 7.02 board member remarks slash updates i think it's always this time of year i'm thankful for our work that administration does and obviously the building level and the teachers
084support staff everybody getting everything ready i know everybody probably uh echoes that comment so kudos to the work and looking forward to kicking off the remainder of the district here next week moving into 7.03 upcoming meetings you'll all see the meetings coming up the one that uh you'll note is highlighted in a burnt sienna if you will in our january study session we initially as you all know we typically put that on the first tuesday of the month and that's january 4th which just happens to be a working day i believe um is it a working day or an off day non-work non-working day non is critical in that note so we're looking to move that um and as you think about it the proposal would be to go to january 6 with which would
085be a thursday a bit of a non-traditional day so if you could take a look if that works great if it doesn't let us know and we'll see if we can find another date that works for most of us but january 6th look at your calendars 7am works out awesome if not we'll find another day and with that we can move into section number eight i move the border second yeah sandra when you're ready scott yes andy yes kim marie yes aj yes drew yes angie yes hey yes motion carries thank you everyone [Music] you