LPS Board of Education Meeting from July 27, 2021

001[Music] so [Music] of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all all right moving into project item 2.02 the approval of the agenda i moved the board approved the agenda as presented second call the role please scott yes andy yes aj yes drew yes angie yes nick yes thank you denise i'm going to 2.03 into the public comment i do have some blue cards uh with me here just a reminder as we move into public comment people addressing the board are asked to not repeat what someone before has said people addressing the border asked to keep their remarks concise and to the point each speaker will be limited to three minutes person or persons may speak only once at

002the meeting and concerns brought forward during public comment may be addressed by the superintendent or appropriate staff members usually within a week we will not be addressing concerns before during public comment but certainly working with our administration to appropriately respond to questions as they arise so i will simply call names in the order that i have them and if you'll approach the podium and and begin your comments so starting with tandem queen um my name is tammy mcqueen i have two students in the school district i have a junior and a freshman both at liberty north both my students were virtual last year and uh we did keep them out because i do have a high risk child and we are i'm here tonight to ask on their behalf that either vaccinations be required or

003that must be required even if that means that my kids who are fully vaccinated have to wear masks so um i know a lot of people are going to say that it doesn't affect children i can personally tell you that it does i have a friend who lost her daughter the age of 17 to covet january 30th she was a junior at florida state high school so in his home and it does happen so i just i hope that everyone will take that into consideration when they're trying to make their decision on mass and i know there'll be a lot of people on the other side that are going to talk very loudly about how it shouldn't be done and it you know is against people's rights i understand that if you're trying to protect

004somebody else that's that's the side i'm coming from um if there's a one in three million chance for something to happen i'm that person my daughter had cancer at the age of two one in three million chance of that happening it happened if there's something i could have done to have prevented that i would have absolutely without a doubt i'd pay for all kinds of chemotherapy and she had radiation at the age of two and a half did i know what was in that no i did not was it a risk to try to save her life yes it was did it damage her permanently yes it did that is why she is high risk she has heart failure from what we did to her at the age of two but she's still here and

005i just pray that other students will do what is necessary to help protect her so that she can go back to school she stayed out last year because there was not a vaccination her brother stayed out for her last year because there was not a vaccination and now there is so i just really really hope that people will take that into account when they're making their decisions for this school year thank you thank you next up i have cindy curtis thank you everyone for letting me address the board today i really do appreciate it i am speaking in regards to my granddaughter um i am also speaking in regards to everyone else's children i certainly would not tell someone they had to get a vaccine that's their personal choice i made a choice my husband

006made it great it's their choice the children are the ones that are wrong vulnerable my granddaughter has kidney disease she has hearing impairment she has asthma and a restricted airway it does not bother her to wear a mask with asthma and restricted airway i have asthma and i can tell you it does more good than harm it keeps the elements out that you normally breathe in and it just seems like it's easier to breathe with a masculine my granddaughter however has to be very careful a disease like this would literally kill her i personally taught school to her every single day last year as a grandparent i stopped my life and went to her house and from nine o'clock in the morning until 3 30 in the afternoon i taught her school and some may

007say well that's not that hard to do you don't shouldn't have to she has a hearing impairment she cannot hear she's almost 100 percent deaf and more she cannot hear all of the sounds and if you don't hear a sound you don't necessarily know what the word is so i had to listen to the teacher and then teach her what was being said so i sat with her every single day she wants to go back to school she needs to go back to school social interaction is very very important she does not go into any stores whatsoever they don't go out to eat they do drive through as grandparents my husband and i do the same because we want to see our grandchildren um i did some research today um and this was as of

008today this was new one house the hospital in springfield had lost 72 patients so far in july all of which had not been vaccinated earlier this month the cdc noted that people that had been vaccinated do not need to wear masks that was great but then a week later the american academy of pediatrics and there was a spokesperson from the infectious disease department at children's mercy said that every child older than two should be wearing a mask in school regardless of their vaccine status vaccinated people that have been infected with the dopamine virus can have as much virus as those that are unvaccinated for the cdc i'm just curtis that is time thank you thank you so much i really appreciate it next up angela mason good evening my name is angela mason i have

009two children in the school district one in elementary and one in middle school i want to open with some great advice that somebody once gave me when you go into a meeting and you know that two sides disagree it's best if you leave your emotions at the door and you just stick with the facts so i just want to go through some facts as of july 17th the clay county health department says we have a 25.81 positivity rate when school started last year we were at 12.86 positivity we have 148 new coveted cases per 100 000 people per play county and the cdc we are in a high transmission in our community as of yesterday children's mercy hospital in kansas city is full and they are seeing more coveted cases and children not able to

010get vaccinated as of july 22nd the american academy of pediatricians said over we have over 38 000 cases of covet in children that represents 16.8 percent of all reported cases and 1.3 to 3.6 percent of reported hospitalizations are in children children do get coveted and they do get really sick sometimes they also said in missouri only 20 percent of kids ages 12-17 are fully vaccinated some epidemiological data i found said that the delta variant is 200 more transmissible and has a 1 000 higher viral load than any variant we've seen so far of covid and as of july 15 over the previous 14-day period there was a 94.6 increase in pediatric positive cases today the cec recommended universal masking for all teachers staff students and visitors at schools regardless of vaccination status one of the

011reasons they recommend this is a significant portion of our students are not yet eligible to be vaccinated masks have been proven effective to prevent our unvaccinated students and slow down transmission schools cannot efficiently monitor and enforce mass policies for unvaccinated children over 12 so universal masking is one of the best safest and most effective strategies we have so in closing i would hate to see any child be hospitalized or die to code when something as simple as wearing a mask could save their life we all know at the end of the day no matter what you do there's going to be unhappy people all i ask is you follow the advice that i was once given let's check our emotions at the door stick to the facts or the advice of our health care professionals

012when you when you go through your decision making process or how you're going to keep our kids safe this year thank you thank you miss mason next megan curtis hello um i'm aiden curtis and i have two kids my daughter will be in fourth grade and my son is actually starting at the early childhood center this year and i'm just speaking um on their behalf that mask should be mandatory or face shields but i believe that mass should be mandatory in my opinion it doesn't hurt anybody who wear masks but it can hurt lots of people to not wear masks my daughter does have the kidney disease and the hearing loss and the restricted airway and asthma and she has no problem wearing it my four-year-old has no problem wearing it for her as well

013and for it to be properly worked the way they're supposed to is that everybody wears them i think that it is proven also with as well as people did not for kiddos did not get sick last year by them wearing them not only i think was the covid you guys did a good job at making everyone wear them to where there wasn't they covered but also like flu and strep throat and poles were much lower in the school district and all of these virtual kiddos deserve to be back in the school have interactions with their peers my daughter has missed it tremendously and we just can't do virtual again i had to go part-time and have lost money by helping to also take care of her and to brother and we just they deserve to

014be in the school with their peers and other teachers the i think that if maybe people have any issues with the masking maybe they can in turn do the virtual this year instead of our kiddos having to miss out on another year and a half or more um you guys did a great job last year at keeping the kiddos safe and making the best decisions for the safety and health and not just like others have said you know for personal decisions but i think we need to do what's best to keep all the kids safe and again wearing masks is the best way to do that mask for no one but wearing but not wearing them because for a lot of people um and my kiddos for one um like the asthma you know a

015lot of people say you can't wear them because of the asthma and all that and she can't breathe her airway is small anyways it's restricted and she has asthma and she does fine wearing them when she has to and i think that it if you make a mask a mandate then kids like my daughter can now be back in the school district with her peers thank you thank you ms curtis my apologies if i mispronounced the name shanna hawaii thank you i'm shayna boyd i am a son at nasa who will be going into the second grade i'm here to ask you tonight to require masks at the start of the school year i know that you are all watching the data just as we are and so i want to take a minute to

016talk about my personal story and that is that my second going into second grade kid is also currently in the kid's own camp and he has been masking since well before we masks were required last year it's like wearing underwear for him he just puts them on he doesn't lie he wears them all day with no issue and so on the first day of kidzone camp he went with his masks and he wore them and he came home and he was fine and on the morning the next morning day two we were headed in and he mentioned to me about the other kids not wearing them and i asked him about it not one other kid was wearing a mask in his particular class and i know they were bubbles which was great and so

017i said you know we talked a little bit about it and i asked him to just still wear his mask for the second day and he did and we talked about it the next morning so day three and he said you know mom i didn't wear my mask most of yesterday because the other kids don't and i don't want to eat her and he said i didn't get clothed so i'm okay and i just said buddy deep breath mom that's not exactly how it works and i'm just going to ask when i drop you off today that you go ahead and ask and we'll talk about it some more what i'm addressing here is not that he was now and others weren't i really wish everybody there would have been but that some people say

018well if you want a math you can but you shouldn't have to and here's the issue when you're 6 or 7 or maybe 11 or 15 if other people aren't doing it to you you don't feel included you don't feel a part of you feel different and so he felt different and i feel like all of the kids may have the same experience for the ones like mine who may choose to mask or by their parents asked to make math they may feel different not feel included and not choose to math risking their health safety because it's not mandatory and because other kids aren't doing the same thing so just by saying you can choose to math but nobody has to that doesn't necessarily solve the issue because the kids then don't want to and

019that's not a solution that helps keep our kids safe and keeping our kids safe is part of our thriving plan thank you thank you miss hoyt next john tolman thank you for the opportunity my name is john coleman i have three daughters in the school district has two of them at liberty north and one inherited middle school one of them has asthma and one of them has type 1 diabetes i am also a nurse i've been a nurse for about 14 years and i am almost completed my training to be a nurse practitioner i have experience in infection control i'd like to talk a little bit about those our rights masks i don't know if anybody remembers this there was this whole debate back when photos were starting about whether or not masks work and

020the woman who just spoke is correct that masks her son wearing a mask all by himself is ineffective because i take my mask off and i'm unvaccinated i'm spreading my saliva out of the air it doesn't matter if people around me are wearing a mask because my spit particles travel into their eyes and they inhale them around the side of their mask and it gets on their clothes and then when they take their mask off those particles go into their face and with the delta bond varying if everyone is not wearing a mask infection will happen that is inevitable masks a lot like vaccinations only work if everyone is doing it i know that the others the people who are against masking are about rights i would argue that children's rights to not be infected

021are probably more important than children's rights to go to school not wearing a mask there are there's precedence for acquiring vaccinations just today the kansas city veterans hospital is now requiring all of their employees to be vaccinated or to not come to work we have we do have rights we have rights to life liberty and the pursuit of happiness and the first one of those is life your right to be happy not wearing a mask is not more important than people's right to life and to not be infected if this next ashley bro hi all right so i'm here i have two kiddos one's 14 and one's nine they've been in the liberty school since they were in kindergarten um i'm also a health care provider in the community so i come basically for both

022reasons um first of all thank you guys all for the hard job you've had this last year it hasn't just been a simple care holding line i think that it's been heartwarming all year long to talk to patients and families and reassure them of how great the job liberty was really doing and that they were really exemplary and not every area has been as fortunate as we have here um as a parent and a professional this made my job a lot easier that your job has been so well done the hot question this year is the same with last year from a lot of families is it safe for my kid to return to school um right now i can't specifically tailor that information because we don't really know what infection measures are going to

023be in place um currently in our family you know i have one unboxing a child she's a nine-year-old she is currently a potent law hauler she got coded when she was eight and developed a heart condition after that last year at the age of 34 i also had coveted had a heart attack and had to have a skin placed we're both healthy young people we did all the right things however we were not vaccinated at the time and we didn't have full control of virus we can only do everything and still know you don't have full control i would definitely hate for us to look back at the end of the year and have any regrets that we didn't do the right thing at least i can look back and know that i did everything

024and that still happened and not have to think well i wish i would have done this or i wish my child would have been in this situation so that she wouldn't spill me so my disabled and suffering and not living a normal child's life as a general statement i can strongly suggest that all children you know really need to be in school we all know it's vital none of us are going to argue that a child shouldn't be in school and we should be all virtual learning currently our community infectionary is best described as high with a pretty low full vaccination rate that is why i think it's paramount we have infection measures and control the cdc's laid out a vital key prevention strategy and if this isn't in place for staff and school and

025families beyond we're not going to be safe my family has not been safe all of us are not going to be safe this is a room full of adults speaking about children i can give you multiple examples about adults and children i've been very affected by this that are not just statistical numbers not only has the cdc recommended universal indoor masking so the aap so as children and mercy so has anyone that specializes in pediatrics our county health department that does show that with our aiding criteria full mitigation measures should be in place this fall i hope that all that data is being used as it was last year i'm a little bit concerned about the misinterpretation of the masking policy that happened during summer school however i know the pressures that you're under are

026the same pressures that i'm under and i think you guys are still doing the best job that you can i would however be very disappointed and shocked if we didn't have full mitigation measures in place based upon what's going on in our community if we were 95 vaccinated with a one percent transmission rate there'd be no reason for any of us to be wearing mass but that's not the case right now and that is time thank you again apologies for mispronunciation brody purse pursuant thank you my name is brodie pershine four children uh in the school district and i appreciate all the stories that have been shared today i have empathy for each and every one of those folks those are terrible things to deal with and to me this isn't about freedom it's simply

027about choice right now i may be wrong but i don't see a single n95 mask here and our good friend the nurse i appreciate what he said about mass but mass cannot seal it's impossible when you have facial hair like that so although the mass may work the right type of mass needs to be worn it needs to be worn correctly i've seen the kids wear the masks they don't work in sweden 39 percent of folks have been vaccinated more folks in missouri percentage-wise have been vaccinated in sweden they had no mass policy for the past two weeks in sweden there have been zero coveted deaths okay the vaccine at best is a therapeutic in israel second highest vaccine rates in all the world the prime minister two weeks ago said the vaccine has been

028a failure they had more cases this july than last july and they've had stricter lockdowns and mass see this is this works like the flu there's seasonality to it it will always be with us we're never going to get rid of cobit the flu strain we have today originated in 1918 the spanish flu it's still with us 103 years later we haven't eradicated we never will and cozy's going to turn into that unfortunately as well i appreciate the sentiments before about data i want to share it with that as well do you mind if i ask a question is that appropriate or is that not allowed you can ask we're not going to answer i'm just curious if anyone knows and as hard as this number is to say if anyone knows how many children

029between last year and this year have died with covet too many i appreciate that i'm looking at a cdc document as of july 21st i had 337. can anyone tell me how many kids died with pneumonia during that same time frame less than half of that no that's not correct it's 819 according to the cdc i miss asking for consistency if we didn't do this with pneumonia why would we do it now earlier the american association of pediatric study which recommended wearing masks for children over the age of two was cited in that document there was zero medical citations not a single study backing that up there was one document cited i'd encourage all of you to look at that and figure out where that document came from did my time earned early i thought

030i had more time no three minutes it goes quick thank you appreciate it matt sammick uh hi my name is matt sam uh i have one child in the in the school district here first of all i would just like to commend the board for the work that they've done up until this point um in terms of being one of the few school districts that we're still working with a mass mandate at the end of the last school year and a district that has and continues to offer uh virtual education options for uh for students even into this coming school year even if it isn't as robust as it was in the in the previous year and a half um i'm just coming here to speak in support of masking at very least in the

031coming school year uh across the school for all students and and educators and staff per the recommendation made by the american association of pediatrics and the cdc in relative hotspots which we are definitely in right now i had personal concerns about vaccine breakthroughs i have my wife is a vulnerable popular population for um if she were to get coven even though we are vaccinated in our house and um this is this situation is also presenting the extra complications for the hospitals of overflow because they're so crammed up with all the kobu cases that they're dealing with right now that stuff that usually wouldn't be serious is becoming serious so it's a waterfall effect to things that would usually be manageable that because they've got they have all these other issues popping up right now that

032that's complicating the facts um i could read uh articles or sort of statements about the overflowing hospitals that are happening in southern missouri right now uh people who are being intubated regretting the fact that they didn't get a vaccination in time um but that's that's internal besides the point are tangentially relevant but uh my bottom line being that i'm speaking in public support of universal masking in the schools for when the year starts off thank you coleman i'd like to reverse a topic that is relevant to the last meeting but much of what i'm going to say i think is also pertinent to the comments that we've heard uh today i would like to speak today about trust i remember vividly the first day i put my daughter on an lps bus and watched me

033take her away on her first bus ride to school at that moment i knew i was placing my trust in all of you the board the administration faculty and staff at lps to partner with me in the education of my children over the years i have had reason to have the placement of that trust affirmed time and again specific teachers or staff went out of their way to make sure that my children receive a high quality education in a safe environment an organization with a track record of great outcomes in education lps is established especially in recent years could never have achieved that high level of trustworthiness by making poor and ill-informed decisions when it comes to educational content educational environment and teacher training i'm confident that in the past there have been many moments

034when the focus of society at large whether that focus beyond segregation economic downturn national disaster terrorism drugs or a pandemic has forced lps to work fast and hard to figure out how to best engage our children in the process of learning in the midst of a changing society you have done so by constantly seeking expertise and wisdom in equal measure in our current times i do not see rash quickly ill hold out actions rather i see evidence of this same balanced approach clearly in the hiring of dr dickson's seahorse we have a person with expertise in the educational adoption of diversity and inclusion and this is enhanced with wisdom and statements such as that of dr tucker at the last meeting where he said firmly that lps was not engaged in any educational practice that

035sought to shame any student it is because i see a tried and tested approach to the careful evaluation of educational systems that challenge us to think deeply about who we are as people and equally who we aspire to be and because the weight of evidence in my children's lives and the lives of countless others i mean in liberty suggests this approach works and has worked for many years that i trust you the school board to and more importantly the faculty staff of lps to only teach what is helpful and educationally stand in a safe environment will i necessarily agree with everything that is talk probably not but will my children be better off for having wrestled with difficult and thought-provoking issues and having brought them home so that we could talk about them as a

036family over dinner yes they absolutely will so i'm convinced 14 years ago when i watched my daughter disappear around the bend heading to her first day of school i placed my trust wisely i trust you now to be a good informed compassionate fact-based and yet challenging decisions that will deepen my child's education in a safe environment thank you and karen botts i'm going to be short and sweet because i don't really want to be here i don't think most of us really want to be here discussing math because nobody really likes them but it is unnecessary evil so i have four children who have gone to liberty public schools one is an adult now um and i have three others one is going to liberty north and the other is going to south valley because

037he's special needs and he is actually part of the disabled class and so he's actually the reason why i'm here i really strongly feel like maths are what keep school accessible for all children and not having those math will take away the right to accessible education for them and so if you really want to talk about choice the people who want to choose to not have a child wear a mask to protect the other children to make it accessible for all they can choose to do virtual school now because my son's having to stay home our faith thank you right that concludes public comment moving in through consent agenda section 3.01 through 3.07 just as a reminder our adopted rules of parliamentary procedure robert's rules provide for a consent agenda listing several items for approval

038of 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 with regards to consent agenda items 3.01 through 3.07 i move the board approved consent agenda items 3.01 through 3.07 second denise scott yes andy yes aj yes drew yes angie yes nick yes and moving into reports from the administration starting with innovation and learning yeah thank you as dr moore is coming to the podium i want to just express my gratitude to our cabinet um over the course of this last year and even to date their willingness to sit down with anyone on any topic and

039have conversations and they have done that time and time again as has our board of education members so um certainly welcome those conversations on a variety of topics and we'll turn it over to dr moore to share a little bit as to what's going on with innovation and learning thank you dr tucker in addition to the linkedin board report we shared with you i wanted to give you a few other updates liberty virtual school planning is currently underway and as of right now we have elementary that will we will be providing synchronous learning royal schools we're working on a combination and high schools will be asynchronous coursework through liberty virtual and launch returning student registration submissions are continuing to increase we ask all families this year to submit addresses so that we can ensure correct

040communication with homes currently we have about 60 percent of our lps families who have submitted the information needed work for the one hour early release wednesdays continues to be refined plans for all teachers and support staff are being made again our focus for these days is to ensure student success this may be through looking at student evidence talking about classroom instruction that is most effective and how to continually be innovative in the classroom to support students academically emotionally and socially and then finally um character trait luncheon through high v will return for next year we appreciate the for support i do have a sign up that coving jones asked me to share this board so hopefully everyone can pick a date to attend i will give you some artwork so you can share with everyone

041after the meeting and with that i will take your questions so with 60 being registered are we behind where we'd like to be yeah so the ideal would be to have everyone have it completed by august serves but we have experienced a few pickups with the powerschool server and just getting that done and then also just making sure people have the proper paperwork it's a show or evidence to show you know where they live and so that's taken a little bit longer but buildings are continuing to send out information and asking parents and then we're looking to for buildings to in families and support that will provide some opportunities in the next couple of weeks for them to come in and get that support perfect to get this completed okay good and those percentages continue

042to increase day after day correct so we were going getting about seven percent a week and then we started to send some emails out over the last two weeks and we're getting seven to eight percent a day so it is increasing so this morning we were just over 60 okay good other questions of dr moore okay the only other thing thank you dr moore i would add would be in respect to kindergarten enrollment that is something we're watching not just locally but also nationally as some families held their their student back last year um kindergarten is a little bit more predictable unpredictable to gauge as you think about in a lot of ways but as you think about the start of school in august because those students aren't necessarily with us whereas in other grades

043we can cohort them and move them over and have a pretty good sense of that number the pandemic has thrown that off entirely so we appreciate innovation and learning department and many others at the building level working as we start the school year in august so we'll have those numbers as we always do in september as we land our official account report that information to the department of elementary and secondary education and also share that with you all in our community as far as our updated figures and enrollment for the 21-22 school year so just wanted to add that thank you next then under 4.02 our equity report dr dixon seahorn good evening so glad to be here with you today to just uh share some additional uh context for the report that you received

044on behalf of the office of equity i wanted to uh just kind of take you down memory lane for just a brief moment and that is um to just uh help you uh remember that the equity action plan um that's being reported here in terms of collective outcomes for the work that's been done this year this work really started with equity talks that were held with every school leader every director and in the case of human resources and operations at the department level and so those conversations started last june and july and then evolved into by way of one question that i asked of every school leader director department that was what might be that one thing that we could uh tackle together in terms of an area of equity within your school or your

045department that you want to focus on and so what you see represented here in this report would be seven areas of focus uh with regards to uh our fe planning and implementation this year so the largest category being around professional learning and so that was about 34 34.7 you see the collective outcomes here and so when i reported on collective outcomes i basically just took all of those schools or departments which you see to the far left of the report and just kind of captured the highlights of their work this year so that does not mean that every single one of these schools and departments did all of these things or reported these as outcomes of their work but these are again like the high level outcomes that were achieved for this year so professional

046learning being the largest category and i think that is pretty amazing that these schools of these departments said this is what we want to focus on for this year uh the second largest category being around sense of belonging and school culture and again you see the outcomes listed there uh the third two highest categories around social emotional learning and equitable access to educational programs each of those representing about 13 and then the last three categories each represented about 7 and that was around curricular audits or content review discipline data analysis and then diverse representation for those two entities that wanted to focus on that so i am very happy to say that this work was accomplished in the sense of we're not there yet but this is what we can report on as having some

047evidence of the work that we're doing around equity and this is to me pretty amazing because we're talking about work that has been done even in the midst of a global pandemic and no one has allowed that to be an excuse in any way shape or form but said you know what mindful of the pandemic and then let's let's appear the work we need to do with the other things that we don't need to be done across the district and the other thing that i think is pretty amazing about what's represented here is that this is work that has been um enacted upon and and work that has been evidenced by these outcomes here across the entire organization which is something that to my knowledge has never been done before here in liberty public schools

048so i want to say kudos to every single school leader director and department that said count me in this is important work it's the right work to do and let's roll up our sleeves and get it done so that is my report for this evening i'll be happy to take some questions that you may have questions of dr dixon seahorn so just so i understood correctly we went out to each of the buildings and the departments and we said hey what's most important to you when we talk about equity and getting your specific area building department up to speed and this is what they came back with and we tailored some efforts for them absolutely and then this also includes just me checking in you know over the course of the year and us having

049just equity update conversations and so really what you see here is a reflection of the end of the year conversations that we had so we started with equity talks we ended with end-of-year reflection sessions and so this is the outcome of those in-depth discussions and it doesn't stop here right we continue to work but i thought that it would be important to report on what we've been doing for this first year in the midst of the pandemic and again i think it's pretty amazing and both on the academic side as it relates to school leaders principals but then also on the operations side with our directors and human resources and so where do you go from here i think where we go from here is um as we were having to end a few reflection

050sessions uh we talked about is this something that you see us continuing into like more of a phase two uh almost all absolutely yes i see where i'm gonna make some tweaks to my empty action plan uh also we've been talking about areas where we might conduct some audits just to get a little bit deeper within our respective departments and schools and continue to do the work so the work continues from here so when you say audit can you explain that just a little bit so an audit is i want us to think back to the uh book study that we participated in via belonging to a culture of dignity and the authors address the street light event where oftentimes we look in the obvious place right where the street light is shining the i

051goes beyond that space and that's exactly the conversation we had what might be an area just one area because rome was not built in the day but what might be one area that we haven't even considered that we might need to look into okay so that's what an audit would entail and it can be as simple or as complex as we make it and my goal is to make them as simple as possible so probably we'll develop a template of some kind that has not yet been done but that is what an audit would entail just looking deeper into data data can be anecdotal data can be qualitative it can be quantitative it's just looking beyond what's obvious to the eye and exploring that to see where some of that needs maybe our disparities may

052be in existence so that's crt has mentioned a couple times in this report and i i want to talk a little bit about the community town hall but i also know we have a separate agenda item for that specific thing would you rather be hold those questions for andrea when we get to that section or do it now it's since it's specifically mentioned as one of her bullet points i'm just curious what she took away from it and again maybe that's easier to do later i just didn't want to lose my could i address it just very briefly you see a reference to culturally responsive instructional design and student learning experiences that that does not mean crt well it says july 13 critical race theory understanding the debate webinar hosted by a seat at the

053table education week so the next one says let's talk about community issues crt and the eei right those are the webinars that i attended but that's not reflected in the actual outcomes for the actual i'm just curious what you've thought about oh you you've heard around you thought about the webinar yeah what do you think i would say was informative that's that's my my take on it was informative it was just uh especially the one that spoke to understanding the national debate i think for those of us that participated i opened it up to any school leader who wanted to uh listen in the session it was it was a good listening session to just learn what is it what does it mean um and i think that that would be the stand up for

054me in terms of reporting on what i learned i just learned okay this is what it really is which is what and that's what i want to get into what do you think where do you think we are at liberty on crt and dei the differences i believe they're different they they are they are so very but i also believe there's a lot of greater and i'm curious just what you took from that again i'm happy to wait to the rest of the other debate and it sounds like that webinar was getting a lay of the land in terms of the conversation that happened that it's happening nationally absolutely i think we'll certainly give a recap of the listening session that was held in july locally right there's also the conversation happening in jefferson city

055with the special legislative session the other thing that i would say is keep in mind a lot of people are chiming in on this both locally but then also within organizations that we're part of missouri school boards association issued a press release they also followed up with a press release after that legislative session back on july 19th in addition governor parsons issued a statement in addition commissioner van dieben provided testimony at that legislative hearing right i would argue my position people may agree or disagree they're uniquely different and in fact many were not even aware of the term critical race theory but just for this last year and so the work that dr dixon seahorn shared as it relates to those seven themes and our principals and the directors as i stated last month it's

056absolutely diversity equity and inclusion work but we've been doing that work all along and that work is about all students whereas some might just attribute that work to you know our black and brown students it's truly about all students and that's been our approach in terms of trying to define what it means to be learner centered that's the distinction i think where oftentimes people get caught up is the terminology and the clarity around definitions of terms whether it's equality or whether it's equity and so we've worked there's still a lot of room to to improve but we've worked to identify and define some of those key terms over these last couple years and we've we've made that public facing to be clear about the work that we're intending to do and that we've already begun

057how we inform and educate people we obviously need to continue to do that but we want to be able to share the work we're doing and draw that distinction as it relates to some of the the conversation happening uh nationally that may not be an accurate reflection of what we're doing in liberty public schools so i know we'll have a continued conversation about that later on the agenda that work okay other questions for dr dixon seahorn before we allow her to be seated okay thank you dr dickinson thank you thank you up next are finance reports uh ms sullivan she has had two uh busy evenings last night was the audit and finance committee so i appreciate her and her team and the readiness for that event and the work that our committee does um

058in getting information for our board but we'll turn it over to miss cindy thank you dr tucker i have in addition to my report um one donation to present tonight an anonymous donation of acrylic displays wired diesels and magazine holders valued at one thousand seventy one dollars donated to the library department we would like to thank them for investing in our district in that manner i also wanted to share with you tonight that as we're going through the facility master planning process we also want to begin working on a corresponding financial plan a basis vehicle to finance anything that comes as a result of that facility master plan mr anderson and i did meet with joe kinder of steeple who was our district underwriter from municipal securities about a week and a half ago told

059him what we were thinking in the process that we were beginning and asked him to take a look at where we stand with our debt and our capacity and bring back to the table some scenarios that we could then have a discussion with you and work together with the facility master planning process to as that progresses to make sure that we're in a good place to finance anything that does come from that process so we will provide you with more updates as that process continues but wanted you to be aware that we had started that conversation as well as dr doctor indicated the audit maintenance committee did meet last night we welcomed two fresh members onto the committee very happy that they were able to attend and get started we did review the financial statements

060they were also very interested in the facilities master planning process so we will be inviting mr anderson to a future meeting to share the process and some of the things that we're thinking as a district so that they can be a part of that process at their request they also will be meeting with the auditor on september 30th that is our external audit they do that every year in a closed session with me not present so that they can discuss anything that they wish with the external auditor that they would like them to look at during the process so that's going very well very happy with that committee and always happy to report that they did not find anything that they wanted to share with you tonight that's all i wanted to add to my

061report but i would be happy to answer any questions that you might have it looks like june revenues are in we're closing out the year officially yes we are and we were a little bit over right and a little bit under on revenues or on expenses sorry all due to code relief funds and decreasing expenditures holding back not knowing what the statement holds would be as it turned out that was positive for us but we still like to save knotty spending as much as we can got it and then miss olin there's been some questions within the public with regards to kind of federal funding and programming and requirements surrounding that and i know based on the budget last month that we approved we're sitting at what 5 ish of our budget being federally funded

062about 8.8 million within that there's just a couple of buckets that i want to review just to make sure we understand the requirements of those so we've got two big buckets that are really coming out of coveted relief funds whether that's the american rescue plan or the other one the crrca is that right those two and we're getting somewhere around 38 percent so call it three and a half million ish and what's kind of those requirements as we use those funds what's the purpose of those so desi has lined out the requirements that we use those for they have a plan in place there are anywhere from 12 to 15 things that we can use the money for we just have to have a plan submitted to them we have to have a return to

063learn plan placed on our district website which we already do and then they have to be geared toward learning loss helping students recover from learning laws and there are some engagement requirements of ensuring that parents students and staff administration are engaged in those those conversations okay and we've got another big bucket 22.6 roughly 2 million a little bit more for idea right the uh to give free appropriate public education with regards to those requirements what are some of those key pieces that we have to put forth to use those funds so again dusty tells us what we can and cannot spend those on but a student we have to spend those on students who have a known disability which results from testing and writing up an individual education plan and then those monies are used

064to support that student in any way that they need to ensure that they have an appropriate education okay perfect and then two other big buckets focus in on really food for lack of a better term school lunch school breakfast accounting for call it 20 again roughly around two million and a little bit more than that funds for that how does that come into play as far as getting those federal funds services funding is on a reimbursement basis so after the fact after we have spent on food commodities we submit a report to the school nutrition services through desi and then they reimburse us based on the lunch prices that we charge this year there will not be any charges though they just reimburse us for the food cost okay okay so accurate to say that

065within the federal funds we're not being reimbursed based on using specific curriculum within our district to get those funds okay in that regard okay perfect thank you appreciate it other questions for ms sullivan while we have her okay thank you moving into the operations report 4.04 mr anderson thank you just a couple items to add on to the two reports that are uploaded on board docs uh first uh facility master planning uh we've uh presented uh a little bit on this over the past couple of months and and the sultan just referenced it um we are in of step five steps of the process we are now in step two um and really this is the data collection phase and we're engaging folks at the building level we're surveying folks at the building level uh

066and really kind of beginning the process of evaluating space um we'll soon pivot in september to developing planning criteria and for those who were around lasso around in 18 that's just establishing kind of the framework for which to build a plan upon what are the important priorities of the district and then from there as we go into october we will kind of get into the um establishment and looking at projects and privatization of the criteria and so forth there'll be surveys interwoven in there there will be opportunities to engage uh the public but this is just the very beginning at that point where this becomes much more evident than obvious to the community so i just wanted to share that with all of you as part of that work we also will be updating the

067demographer report we did that last year uh and with all the uncertainties from last year we agreed to bring them on for the contract that we had with them to go ahead and do an update to that plan the second item i wanted to highlight is just the return to learn plan and planning process that we're in the midst of uh as i speak here tonight um one of the first there's much work going on behind the scenes we have our internal planning committee that meets regularly obviously all senior staff is highly engaged on ready enough for the start and fall and uh one of those the next steps to come out of this process we'll have a staff in student or family survey that goes out potentially as early as tomorrow if not the

068following day and that's an opportunity to engage our families and staff in terms of how they're generally feeling about kind of where we are and where we're heading uh so that will go out and will be a window of time before we'll get those results back in and then begin to evaluate i think one important point i think there was some misunderstanding the last go round uh this is a survey it's not really a poll it's not a vote i think it's just for context and really for an opportunity for our community to provide some input in and around kind of the work we've done and then the work that lies ahead um in addition the actual plan itself i'm just going to run through a few things just to kind of get on your

069radar uh first of all the beginning of august is just around the corner we anticipate to share that we will be sharing kind of the updated return to learn plan for the fall that first week of august so it's just from the corner uh one of the reasons that it's not yet out is we're working and having conversations with local public health officials kind of watching and monitoring their work uh they're also having conversations and working with other officials as they coordinate a response hopefully regionally in terms of guidance in and around mitigation efforts in the holding of school control so there's a lot of pieces to that but i think we're everything's lined up as it needs to be but we'll be pulling together the plan here over the next couple weeks but much

070of the uh the framework has already been established one of the the very few upsides if we've been here so we've kind of worked the plan and developed the plan uh from last year i think that set us up for a high level of success um the overarching goal for the plan uh this year i think maybe just a little bit different from from previous years it's really to provide five-day per week in-person learning for all of our students who prefer this learning model while also continuing the liberty virtual school program so we're really going to do our best uh to honor distancing and put a plan in place that allows those who want five day in person learning that they can have that option um we will also of course be preparing various scenarios

071uh that would allow us to pivot to virtual learning either for individuals uh depending upon contracts to receive efforts or potentially full class a full building or obviously the potential of the district as a whole so a lot of that just building in scenarios of what that looks like how we can get it and the folks in activity services can make that move seamlessly mitigation practices we've heard a lot about that tonight that's obviously a really core part of this work and so we're continuing to out evaluate options on how best to kind of put that in place and then lastly i just did want to highlight is the contact tracing i think for for most of the folks here understand that was really probably one of the more stressful and involved uh um added

072work elements from this past year for our staff and our teams across the district and it was it was extremely cumbersome as we had to go in and begin that tracing process the identification and tracking uh and following the guidance that's provided so we are kind of refreshing the work that we did last year and correcting for some things and simplifying the things that we can have a very good conversation with clay county public health about maybe how they can be a little bit more actively involved in that work which will of course lessen the burden on our team uh so i've been encouraged by that but i also realize that that is that is one of the big variables in this entire process one last point and that is i think i mentioned this

073last month uh we are pretty sure we're gonna now no longer do the testing clinic over here executed high school part of that is because tests are readily available in free of charge uh across across the metro we are looking at an option where we have take-home tests that we will have in the buildings to provide to staff or students that may be experiencing symptoms maybe help them along but let them get home and then do the self-testing and report out from there so just want to let you know that that was in the works but very likely and to clarify that's a saliva test not a swap this is a swab test this is uh unfortunately it still requires the mailing out and it's a little bit more involved but yes other questions of

074mr anderson no i know we're in the midst of uh big hiring for transportation nutrition services how's that going how are we feeling about candidates um it's going um i think it is a little troubling and you know as we bring folks on we lose folks and so um you know we're active in conversations and around that what we can do to help kind of drive that food um but we'll have a plan right and i think we uh but we will need to exert a little more energies in that space cause i'm i'm sensing this is the problem we're gonna have for a little while and uh we have to transport our students thank you other questions for mr anderson just a quick question heritage field is it going to be done on time

075i keep looking at it um uh no not whether it was delayed material um that it looked like we were all set and then we had uh by the way memo so we pushed back on that i think right now in the stands they are they're um we're estimating that that work will be done by uh the by the end of the first week school but we do believe that we're working on that to see if we can kind of uh influence that work a little bit to speed that up so if you're writing about first day of school of course there'll be challenges if they're in front of instruction occurring when school starts because they've laid down all that stuff in that space in the parking lot so that's another motivator that i think

076will help us yeah without that parking lot there's no parking at that school just curious thank you okay thanks mr anderson moving into our human resources reports dr vogeler thank you the human resources report has been uploaded i'm going to highlight new items out of that and take any questions that you have with regard to the departmental updates we've had 62 separations among our associated staff so primarily teachers counselors librarians we've filled 61 of those positions so we're closing that gap uh as you can imagine and for those who've been on the board for quite a while this is a moving target that somehow things happen life happens we have spousal transfers and things like that that do extend those openings we also have a close watch on changes in student numbers so sections begin

077to grow particularly at the elementary level we may add teachers to those ranks to manage student student numbers there as well so you'll probably likely continue to see through the summer that number somewhere under 100 but even though it's a moving target our teams are working very very well and very effective in getting those those positions filled and those gaps closed the other thing i wanted to draw out is with regard to the wellness premium differential and you see that in the report about 66 and a half percent of our employees are choosing to participate which qualifies them for a waiver of 600 that would normally be applied to their premiums for those that don't participate in that that number seems low and and if you look specifically at the completed hra hra's health risk

078assessment compared to those who've achieved 2000 points those are the two components to belong the percent completed of the hra is much smaller that's due in large part to the fact that we didn't do on-site screenings we typically do that every year but with cobit we did not do that the health risk assessment was always completed in tandem with those on-site screenings so participation levels are high and the screening is there and the health risk assessment is a part of that so you see that number quite a bit higher typically or at least closer to the average points achieved by employee but when you look overall 66.5 is actually up from where we were this time last year and so we're convinced that uh that the rate of participation in the premium differential program will

079continue to be where it is uh this year it was a little over 99 participation rates so we anticipate that the work of rebecca fisher and others who will call and reach out to employees and help them get across the finish line as those want to participate will get those numbers up to that level as well the final thing i wanted to draw is with regards to team liberty and board of education has historically been a very strong partner with the work of team liberty and the input that we gather with regard to insurance benefits compensation quality of work life issues so the dates are included these are alternative dates as of right now we'll be meeting on september 8th and it's usually in that meeting that we finalize the dates for the year any

080of these dates that change of course we will update all of you as well you'll notice in the dates they're very front loaded and very quickly team liberty takes on the information from our insurance utilization the impact that's going to have our insurance renewal and all of that is because we need to get a recommendation to dr tucker regarding the renewal so that he has time to formulate a recommendation to present to you in the september board meeting uh so that you can take action in october being which allows us to stay on pace with our open enrollment window so those dates are pretty tightly promoted in september so on behalf of everybody that sits on team liberty cindy sullivan her work in partnership with me we thank you for your strong support of team

081liberty it's a system that works the people who uh pour themselves into that work appreciate uh the fact that the board of education puts a lot of stock in their work and their labor and their time investment so thank you with that i'll answer any questions that you have on the hr report so we have our third cohort going into the grow your own correct we do yeah amazing yeah so our junior class now our first cohort is very close to returning to us so and have all of them stayed within that program or if any left the program we had one um we did change majors and so there's a repayment basically it becomes a loan instead of a loan forgiveness program becomes a loan and so there's a payback process and our team

082is working with the college university where those payments are made to recover that so nice that's a nice percentage just a comment or thankfulness for the team and and you as well for getting those certificated positions filled i mean that's a huge to be down to just one open because kudos that's great other questions of dr voglar okay thank you and moving into 4.06 superintendents report just a few highlights to share in respect to my submission this evening just appreciate dallas ackerman and lynn martin for the help that they provide in publishing our lps educator there's a lot of work that goes into that in terms of preparing content and we are ready for our back to school edition that will hit mailboxes here shortly really highlighting a couple things as you will recall over

083the course of the last three years we've been in the process of revisiting revising our strategic plan that then culminated in three pieces the vivid vision our graduate profile as well as our strategic plan a little bit of an interruption as it relates to the pandemic and so we feel a desire to kind of re-submit or push out those items to our community as we emerge from the pandemic and we are able to really focus on the work within our strategic plan again our vivid vision is our narrative as it relates to the future that we aspire toward the graduate profile is informed by community input and around five key areas in those skills and dispositions that we believe our graduates need upon completion from high school culminating in real world learning experiences and then

084lastly our strategic plan steers our work one of the things that's notable is our move toward having a more agile flexible plan as we've done the last couple of years in bringing revisions to you and so we look forward to doing that later this fall celebrating the work that's been done even throughout the pandemic but then also at the same time identifying what are those needs moving forward that reflect the supports and the needs of our students and how we want to intervene and so we look forward to sharing more of that information with you later this fall in addition the start of the school year is just around the corner with epic elementary beginning on august 10th and then the remaining schools and liberty beginning on august 24th prior to that when we return

085in july at our board meeting it typically starts picking up several of our administrators are attend our department of elementary and secondary education annual conference we'll be doing that next week followed by important events like our new teacher innovation institute where we will be welcoming close to i believe 86 or so new teachers to our system if you'll remember last year we had a lot of late hires that didn't get an opportunity to participate in our new teacher innovation institute there those that are returning to us for this school year will also be welcome to participate in that we also will be having our convocation slightly different we'll be pushing it out virtually as we did last year with some on-site visits to each of our campuses and departments not just giving them an update

086but then also honoring our certificated and support staff for their years of service we also have a variety of professional development offerings during those few days leading up to the start of school and then as dr moore shared earlier our principals and leadership teams at building levels are in the process of mapping out the year as it relates to work within their professional learning communities and how we leverage our early release time on from week to week the other thing i wanted to share is that i attended the legislative advocacy conference in washington dc two weeks ago and as was relayed in part of the q a with mrs sullivan the areas that we were working with our missouri delegation in washington dc on included the american rescue plan and its implications it's not too

087often that you're able to travel to washington d.c and thank legislators for additional funding so this was a little bit different but part of our messaging was also about thinking forward two three four years ahead when those revenues ceased to exist and so potentially we increase revenue streams for a period of time but then not wanting to revert back to pre-pandemic levels of funding and so that's a caution and so districts are navigating how they utilize those dollars with the help of their states and department of education topics covered beyond the american rescue plan included school infrastructure needs across the state of missouri not just within liberty public schools reauthorization tied to child nutrition services and funding they're working at finalizing budget appropriations in that budget process that impacts fiscal year 22 fully funding the

088individuals with disabilities education act and that's a concern and that we will have kind of these stimulus funds kind of seek in or kind of seep into supporting school districts and students with special needs but then we know that those will eventually go away so not wanting to revert backward as i shared and then lastly the emergency connectivity fund as it relates to access to bandwidth and broadband across districts across missouri and our country so we had great conversations with either our senators or representatives or their office staff so always appreciate the opportunity to visit and talk with our legislators last thing that i would share just to reiterate what mr anderson spoke to in terms of our return to learn plan additional collaboration between those health departments that he mentioned with cooperating school districts

089of greater kansas city our school districts on the missouri side on the kansas side in and around how they're approaching and how they are planning and so we're in constant contact with them as well as contact with a variety of medical officials so we look forward to sharing more information as those return to learn plans are finalized so with that said would certainly entertain any questions you all have of me is idea ever been fully funded no okay just checking it i think the highest percentage that i heard the other day that it's been uh funded as about 18 of their commitment okay and so as we think about the arp revenue streams being pushed forward that percentage will likely go up it typically hovers around 13 in terms of its actual commitment in federal

090funding so how can we leverage the influx of revenue to support kids but then also kind of leverage it to continue to increase those dollars time will tell so i just wanted to make sure i didn't miss something you did not okay that will conclude section 4 reports in the administration moving into section 5 unfinished business one item under here diversity equity and inclusion rfp yeah thank you as is our process and presenting recommendations or proposals before the board we we work through a two-read process where we introduce it on an initial read and provide opportunity to provide feedback questions clarification over the course of one meeting to the next and then we circle back around at that second meeting usually a month later to be able to answer questions provide additional information for you

091so we've been in the process of working through this rfp since april as you are all aware solicited responses or proposals from a variety of groups we had 10 service providers fulfill that deadline in april at that point we were on a trajectory to really wrap that up through two reads no later than june and to where we've pushed that a little bit further just in an effort to do our due diligence so i appreciate dr westfall dr dixon seahorn in providing the recap of the presentation at our meeting in june as to where we stand with our recommendation for the core collaborative as you will recall that is reflective of the book study that we did over the course of this last year belonging through a culture of dignity so we have some level

092of familiarity with their content in terms of having conducted that book study with that said we're ready for this evening to bring forward for your consideration upon second read entering into a contract with core collaborative to be able to facilitate our professional development as it relates to diversity equity and inclusion as dr dickson seahorn shared area earlier this allows us to be able to continue to build capacity among our leaders whether it's at the the building level the departmental level the cabinet level and even for our board of education as we participate in these conversations that are critically important in service to all students so certainly submit that to you this evening for your consideration any conversation questions okay i entertain a motion i'll move the bear to approve the recommendation of the rfp committee

093and enter into an agreement with the core collaborative for professional development services second any discussion denise call the role please scott no andy yes aj yes drew yes angie yes nick yes motion carries right denise thank you uh moving into new business 6.01 two policies for uh revision so these policies are presented to you this evening for first read we'll have an opportunity uh next month to be able to bring those back for your consideration certainly would welcome any questions or clarification between now and then policy jhcd tied to administration of medications to students and then kla concerns and complaints regarding federal programs so we'll have more to come on this particular topic as we approach our august regular monthly meeting okay any questions these are just standard updates from those msba is that that

094surprisingly they're they're limited as compared to other policy updates we've had in previous months so just the two instead of 20. we've had few in the past uh 6.02 moving into an item that was pulled from consent agenda yeah as we've done uh periodically as it relates to board member reimbursement several of us attended the missouri school boards association and igniting great ideas conference back in i believe it was june we had several presentations the items removed include a reimbursement check 706 961 to mr nick bartlow for 48 so would present that to you this evening for your consideration i moved the board approved check number 961 to nick bartlow for 48 dollars for reimbursement of expenses at the msba conference second denise scott yes andy yes aj yes drew yes angie yes nick abstain

095uh final part of new business 6.03 under contracts and purchases we do have several of these items that we wanted to share with you this evening so we're going to turn over to mr anderson to provide a little bit of a background on each thank you yeah there are a few items on here that were over the course of the month were authorized under our emergency purchases and actions policy djf one uh the first being in contract with blackboard and that was really to allow for some expedited work uh related to some updated versions of powerschool and apparently getting ready for the start of school and really weren't a position to hold off until this meeting so we did expedite that contract there also was a couple um repairs associated uh actually with this building

096at the dac both related to hvac one with hail mechanical and the other with p1 group um we also had to extended contract to train uh with respect to some air conditioning work at liberty north and then we've had some work also at alexander donovan where we had to bring in a couple contractors to help us with some work as we're ready for the start of school this fall and be happy to take any questions so i mean that's a big number on alexander donovan right it certainly is yes and i hate to put you on a spot what's what is air quality remediation well it's it's part of the work and cleaning up and ready for some carpet replacement we always do some standardized asbestos kind of that's just part of what we do

097and sometimes we encounter uh more of that and sometimes we encounter mold sometimes associated with that because it was just kind of the cleaning up process but all that was only exposed as part of the work that we were doing directly from the start of school yep okay so you just found it but well like i said we kind of know it's not unusual for for our buildings that this pops up but again it's all encapsulated especially especially it did just pop up it didn't know about it a month ago correct um probably yeah it's public time for we first learned yeah but again if it's gone undisturbed then it's not an issue it's at the process of doing work that if it's disturbed then you have to go in and remove it and go

098through that process which does again become pretty expensive and then full carpet replacement and ceiling tile and there was some mold that we discovered too as part of this process that was that was definitely part of this work um and and so it's just a matter of kind of taking care of everything that's there it was a pretty expensive project for us okay any other questions do i have a motion i mean what approved the emergency purchases listed in the agreement with blackboard second and denise call the roll please scott uh yes andy yes aj yes crew yes angie yes nick yes into section seven board of education uh starting first with uh legislation advocacy 7.01 i have nothing new yet we have a meeting uh webinar to look at what is coming down the

099pike and what we are going to be looking at education wise um i don't have anything new right now and you are officially in your new position i am officially in whatever that position is called that i can't come up with some kind of organizing thing there you go they will likely begin those legislative session conversations though at the msba conference this fall yes that then precludes the the spring of 2022 session yeah that's typically when they introduce ideas and the conferences come november this year a little later they are already looking at what's what's heading okay i'm probably somewhat filtering into a little bit of the conversation on 7.02 i'm thinking of the july 19th state hearing regards to a handful of things primarily around crt i believe and then 7.02 here just a

100conversation we wanted to bring forward with regards to the listening session that representative ritchie held primarily in conjunction with represent representative brown and horbert on crt and dei curriculum listening session i guess this was almost three weeks ago now ish um first i want to thank dr dixon seahorn and dr westfall for attending and representing liberty public schools and that in in that conversation being a part of that uh dr westfall being up on the stage and and willing to answer questions as they came up so certainly appreciate that um i do think as the conversation happened um and it went it was truly set up as a listening session um to encourage dialogue i know that uh a handful of individuals were brought in for their expertise to help facilitate with a couple of

101different organizations and as i attended on as a part of it both as just a citizen as well as understanding the the conversation from a board perspective around crt and dei i will say it began to be quite one-sided and a lot of conversation with regards to anti-crt and trying to link that to a handful of other items much like d e and i which i know we at least me personally separate the two between crt and de ni as two separate things but a lot of conversation uh both sides uh as they talked about it it really was a northland um conversation so i know there were representatives from park hill north kansas city liberty kearney excelsior smithville i will say a lot of the constituents who spoke from an lps standpoint we have

102heard from both in public comment as well as having conversations privately i think it was probably about 75 25 25 focused on wanting to continue work proactively with dei the other side focused on speaking out against crt and that effort and then i think at the end of the three hours after the listening session each of the panelists were allowed to kind of speak about it uh whether that be from the districts themselves or the legislators or the individual experts who were brought in for the conversation um so yeah i just wanted to bring that forward i know um there was some conversation had with regards to it and wanted to make sure that it was was there any any questions comments etc with regards to that listening session i guess it's my turn now

103um as maybe all of you know by now i don't know i know i know jeremy knows when i ask for this to be put on the agenda and i appreciate it being placed on the agenda um my concern bleeds into 7.04 a little bit here so i'm trying not to skip agenda items here but my biggest concern was that we all received an email from nick outlining in his own words what his opinions were on this evening and what we might expect coming down the road for the district in my humble opinion i believe that should be done in a public meeting i do not believe we should be sending each other emails to the entire board obviously sunshine law allows me to talk to aj if i want to or even aj and

104andy but as soon as i talk to aj andy andrew i've got to worry about sunshine law and sunshine now is there for a reason and i we we talked about it all week long last week and i was told by the district's attorneys and msba that that absolutely was not a violation that sometime i will tell you i'm not convinced that's right i do believe that our attorneys are there to protect our district and our board members and the msba is there to protect board members i believe we've got a sunshine issue there and i'm kind of like i was very i was very upset last week nick and i talked through it and i talked to tom about it and then today we all got another note from nick breaking apart representative richie's

105response left out a couple of sentences which are no big deal the reason i know this is because representative richie sent me the response last week and then we got it six days later another note from nick to the entire board except to say um don't care what your practices have always been i'll talking some of these is all i want and i have a problem with that i have a problem for i was president of the board a thousand years ago okay from 2012 to 2014. i don't think i ever did that david evans was president for the next three years i don't think he ever did that and it was andy for two there's tim marie for one i don't think anybody ever did that if we have something to discuss we're a

106public body we're a public organization we should be doing it here in front of cameras in front of people that want to attend in front of people that want to watch the video in my opinion we should not be sending emails to each other or texts we've had in the last couple months this is all kind of coming to a head for me and that the last four months next since you took over i'm getting emails to the entire board from the president we're getting texts sent to all board members about the 1619 project we're getting and i'm going what is happening here we have this has not been the way we've conducted business for the 12 years i've been on here you want to keep doing it that way that's fine i don't make

107the rules for the bulls but i think it's a problem i think this is an issue i think the fact that nick's nick's initial letter to all of us which could easily be made public i don't i wouldn't withhold sending it to anybody basically said and i'm paraphrasing so correct me if this is wrong man republicans wouldn't let all the democrats respond and we all should know about that maybe we're going to have an audit from the state coming up in a few months we should be aware of that these are things that should not we should not be taught these are not closed item issues closed session issues these things should be out in public for everybody to hear and comment on you want to comment on a public comment fine you want to

108tell me i'm in whatever i've been calling a lot of names in 12 years okay so but that's what our job is a public job we have to be public facing and not doing this and i wasn't you know sometimes i get talked off the ledge on this kind of stuff and then today i get another one from nick basically saying i'm going to do this anytime i want to i think it's a problem i think it was misrepresenting what happened to be a republican legislature that volunteered to go into a pretty hostile environment and listen to a bunch of people um as if he's supposed to invite x number of democrats for the other side to argue with him i i just don't understand it i don't it's never been done before i'm not

109used to it and i think it's wrong in the board communication section i'm going to propose that if this is not a sunshine violation then should we as a body make some rules for ourselves so that i'm not sending the board what i think on something because what does happen if somebody responds i've asked this question of the board secretary and she's on vacation did anybody respond to those messages because now you're really getting into sunshine problems when you're creating a discussion so just don't do it you just don't you just if you got something to say you say it in public you say it right for the tvs we haven't we've done work sessions that are televised but they're still open to the public anybody can come the newspaper come see us and that's

110when those things should be done so my proposal for 7.04 is to look at our own board policy around how this is done but i just wanted to give a little context and i want the board to know what happened last week where i stand on this um and what i think we should be doing going forward so so two items in response to your comments um did i leave something out that representative richie responded to me with yes feel free to call me with his mobile number i don't think that was appropriate to send everybody we can sit down for coffee and talk that's what i left out and if you think there's more that's left out then you may have received a different note secondarily you're equating republicans with anti-crt and democrats with

111pro-dei which i think is an oversimplification of the conversation as what you've just said you said let republicans speak and democrats weren't allowed to speak well in my note i never said anything about republicans and democrats you said richie only republicans how come representative richie responded like he did by saying the only reason democrats or somebody from the west side of the aisle was invited because no to the situation i don't know if you would like me to read the exact statement that i provided to the board i'll be happy to do that and you will note that there is nothing from a democrat standpoint i'm sure as you may be aware representatives doug ritchie along with representatives chris brown and representative josh robert hosted a crt and dei curriculum listening session at providence baptist

112church on tuesday evening the event was built as an event to encourage dialogue regarding crt dei and critical pedagogy between parents educational advocates school administrators and state officials that's in quotes representative richie brought in jessica laurent with missouri prosper to help facilitate ms lawrence states that missouri prosper promotes cultural exchange and opportunities for conversation around community topics we're excited to help northland families facilitate a transparent and respectful conversation on a subject that has swept the community and nation this past year also in attendance were dr mary byrne and cecilia johnson of which i provided their biographies via link i stayed i attended a listening session on behalf of our board to hear what our community has to say about crt and dei dr westfall participated in the panel as dr tucker was on a previously

113planned trip and dr dixon seahorn was also in attendance i estimate there were about 200 people in the church i want to provide you with my initial opinion and thoughts with regards to the listening session while representative ritchie set the evening as an opportunity to hear from constituents miss lauren was the first to speak she started the evening by attacking school districts she began with a statement losing is not an option with regards to crt and curriculum she definitively stated that school districts are teaching crt in classrooms she said that school districts are using language like diversity inclusion and bias to mask the reality that they are teaching crt she used test data from several district websites including lps to build her point that our districts are failing students with no context on the data

114and what it represented she said that diversity is fine and equality is not equity that set the tone for the evening we had roughly three hours of questions from parents across the northland park hill north kansas city lps kearney excelsior and smithville many of the lps constituents who spoke have reached out to us before with concerns about crt and other issues provided their names mary hill megan nielsen natalie schull tanya johnson while 80 of those asking questions were focused on crt and dei work the remaining 25 were focused on the importance of dei work the evening was heated and full of tension one particular instance of a profanity-laced tirade against representative brown as he voiced his support of dei work sticks out of my memory as i furiously took notes i recognized that every time

115someone spoke up on the importance of dei work representative richie allowed the three women he invited to speak out against their points every time someone spoke against crt and dei he didn't allow feedback from the panel there it is that's a statement right at the end of the three hours at the end of the three hours at the end of the three hours each of the panelists were allowed to provide comments starting with the school administrators you're going to skip over that what are you asking me to read it or do you want to sit here and converse with it no i'm asking you to respond to what you just said that you weren't calling those two sides out but yeah you just said representative richie allowed the three corrections to speak out against their

116points as they were it's a fact-based statement okay so we're just supposed to glean from that that okay i mean that's your your call you can interpret that how you like you can go back everybody that's fine in the three hours each of the panelists were allowed to provide comments starting with the school administrators legislators with second three women invited by representative ritchie went last school administrators were thanked for being there as listening sessions being held across the state have not had any previously hopefully that provides you with a glimpse of what i personally took away from the event i have five pages of notes happy to discuss further but wanted to provide the following key takeaways felt less like a listening session more like a validation of the beliefs that representative richie already has

117that i'll give you this one democratic legislators of the northland were not invited again my personal opinions uh there were no panelists who as i stated there were no panelists who would serve as experts on the side other side of the experts in attendance i was disappointed to see that it was not a true listening session crt equals dei to this group of individuals fighting against crt they all believe crt is being taught in our schools if not overtly then covertly believe that each district's pd efforts surrounding dei as a form of crt training they believe that districts use language to mass teaching crt to students while language is being used covertly in their eyes they take particular issue with the term equity vehemently against any equity yet support equality in favor of everyone having

118an equal amount not in favor of providing the right amount of resources based on the student's need to achieve a fair outcome and i do anticipate that we can expect some sort of audit being pursued of our school district in the near future there are comments from dr burn that desi needs to be audited and every penny accounted for she contends they are taking money from crt proponents if this is happening with deci we should be prepared that it will happen with us again happy to discuss further with you about additional questions and that was copied to our facilitator of records sandra and so under sunshine law that's a legit thing that i can send to the board everybody was buying carbon copied if you wanted to make the board uh in a conversation you

119would have had to add them all into the two line and have a conversation in that way and now i appreciate that i think that's one of the things you got to do and we've got to be careful behind the scenes and i will also say that as this happens three weeks ago would you want to wait until now to hear those conversations and what happened knowing that that is a hot button issue in our community today and everybody wants to understand likely well let me ask you this you got representative richie's response a week ago and you just sent it to us today send it to you you tell me i sent it to you yesterday okay and it doesn't matter about it immediately but the other one can wait a week because it's

120a response you are wrong but literally the date it's dated that way but it's your opinion man you're going to do what you want to do with this conversation so if you want to take it down that road take it down that road you just said what i wanted to wait i i don't know i asked representative ritchie if he would be comfortable with me sending it to the board that took a day i have a job i have a family i don't check my personal email all the time which is where i communicated with representative richard okay so what you're saying is we need to immediately know what happened in that meeting from your opinion and from your angle i do but it was okay to slow roll the response from representative ritchie because

121probably wasn't as important i mean i'm happy because that's what happened well that's your opinion scott and you're not my opinion it's dated that way you're welcome i will represent rich's response again this is public record board members followed up with representative ritchie after the ceot and dei curriculum listening session with a handful of questions he followed up this past week with responses i thought it would be beneficial to share those with you representative richie did agree that i could share the information he provided with regards to only republican legislators being at the listening session he stated in his email the listening session itself was coordinated to be a listening session i invited representatives herbert and brown because parents asked me to invite them no one asked for additional legislators my working relationship with other

122clay county representatives is positive and i would have had no problem with inviting them that said we do not expect invitations from one another should any representative in the northland coordinate a listening session i would not expect to participate these sessions are for our benefit and hearing from our constituents with regards to third party participation specifically the mo prosper organization as for the participation of mo prosper parents requested their participation they wanted to have someone available to answer technical questions regarding the history and application of crt in the education space in addition mo prosper is a new group that was formed by mo parents that are concerned about the issue my role on the joint education committee motivated them to engage me as well i made it clear to them that this was a listening

123session and not a breakout session on crt once the event began it became clear they forgot my instruction you will remember the instances that i drew attention back to those in the audience that were there to speak i did so because that was the purpose for which we were in attendance i do regret the way they interacted with the audience i am used to working with professional entities that respect etiquette and professionalism i we encountered something other than that i have conducted a follow-up conversation with mo prosper regarding their engagement they mentioned that if needed they'll issue a letter of apology and then the additional note provided in his response i was there to listen not to correct i invited administrators so they could do the same several administrators were uncomfortable with having to engage

124on this topic so i worked to protect them from having to directly feel questions they knew that to the degree they felt comfortable in answering questions they could do so again i provided his response because i felt it was important based on your conversation that you know it's one-sided so let me give you representative richie's response to it and the other piece of it that i'm not quite sure where you're headed with this is you've stated that since i've taken control you have two instances of where we're out of control one being a communication a text on a 16-19 project did i say we're out of control you said since it's come on i have these there's four things that's happened that i have concerns about i don't know where we're headed what are the

125four things i mean we're talking about a 16-19 project text that was sent to i guess the entire board and then you've got these two instances of emails with regards to the crt dei listening session had a resolution ready to be stamped by the board with given public dollars to a private entity that we had to pull which that was already told that it would have been pulled well and that was provided in a friday update which is quite clear that you did not read because that had been provided i'm telling you man if we're talking about pictures it was friday update that said we're going to have this on the tuesday agenda it was a couple weeks ahead of that okay so i pulled it before the meeting started so you wanted me to

126just pull it earlier is that your complaint well the conversation the conversation should have happened with the friday update meet right who pulled it we pulled it based on your conversation of not being ready who requested that it be pulled i don't know it was me and you know it that's about that on that note that was an administrative conversation as to posting that item on the agenda and then ensuring that it was included including including you correct you did sandra pulled it off the agenda in that respect the first training the first read the first read was the friday update information that was pushed forward having not heard anything that's why it appeared on that agenda but we since pulled it had a great conversation around it and have moved on beyond that item

127in terms of how that played out so that's fine what i'm hearing this is just the way we're going to do business from now on because the mshba said it was legal i think two friends that's what you want to do do it so there's a couple friends and we don't do it anymore so in those conversations that were being held last week having conferred with tom capps in terms of looking at our communication um i know we did that had conversations with him along with the missouri school boards association i know scott you talked with them as well i think there may be there may be others to pull in as it relates to sunshine law and as we've done each year and you all know this because you've had these conversations with us

128it's our board charter that speaks to how we do our work and how we conduct our business and how we have you know high expectations and a big piece of that is communication and so as we visited in the month of june we made some tweaks to that we spoke to bringing that back in september at our study session and so we certainly want to do that that's not anything that is set in stone it should be completely fluid as we evolve and as we you know work to craft our practice and best practices in service to our community the other thing i would say is oftentimes that evolves if you recall 10 15 20 years ago even you didn't have the email side of things you didn't have text you didn't have social media

129so we've we've changed with the times so to speak so that as we think about this conversation this evening do we need to shore some of those pieces up do we need to bring expertise as a refresher um certainly ask the perception of other board members that have certainly navigated that as well if there are any thoughts as it relates to this conversation so are we moving on to more communications or did you want to move quarter marks first we could move into more communications well i think i've got one point on that um remaining on the last last item so first and foremost there wasn't a discussion right and we also didn't have a study session this month so typically we get those updates earlier in the month and so you know one of

130those pieces is that this was july i appreciated the update there wasn't response there wasn't a conversation communication back and forth to create a meeting under sunshine law there's no issue with that being an open record i think it's been read out loud tonight so that's not a concern um there weren't responses and so i think these are things that are important discussions to have i think we're all for transparency i think they're discussions that the board can have in in in sessions where we work through those issues on setting goals for ourselves in discussions that are constructive and not not in some ways gotcha um you know moments and so the one thing i would say is i think it's important discussion to have about what we can do better but um well i

131mean i mean a moment where where you go and describe a document if you have a concern about that document ask nick to read it and he did i took that as an objective document and objective update on an event that happened that described what happened i wasn't there so i don't know were you there i don't i don't think you were i didn't even know about it and so that's information that's information that i found helpful to have a better understanding in the broader discussions that we're having as a district as a state and as a nation discussions at the legislative events this past week comments from governor parson on the difference between critical race theory and diversity equity and inclusion and so um so you're okay with that and that's fine and i'm

132like i said i don't like the rules for the board i'm not okay with this i am not okay with us sending our opinions to each other on email without being in a public session i think it's wrong it's probably no big deal and maybe everybody else does it i was also told during the last week nobody cares about sunshine nobody prosecutes it nobody looks into it it's a kind of a dead issue let's clarify who said it too please who told you that must msba okay thank you bye just making sure everybody understands where that's coming from thank you so so can i ask where do we need to go with this because because i feel like there there's a need for more discussion because because we need to to come up with what

133are we going to do correct i mean that's where you want that's what my understanding is where you want to go yes nick was asking for all my examples earlier i have one more but i maybe i won't bring it up but the point is nothing needs to be done if we're all okay with this and but scott you're employing you brought this up for a reason it's very near and dear to you it's very important to you you've never seen this done in the last 12 years that i've been on the board okay but not that doesn't mean it's wrong it doesn't mean it's illegal it doesn't mean it can't happen and it's like it shouldn't be done this way we shouldn't we shouldn't be going back to a time where we're starting to

134get information from each other without being in a public session and i don't think anybody on this board would disagree with that i i don't think any of us want to go back to a point in time when it whenever that might have been because it hasn't been since i've been on the board well i'm saying i don't want to go back to where we're sending emails to each other or text to the whole group so is that kind of a i was always told on any you can't afford an opinion on any business that may come before the board it is or may come before the poor and i was told by msba oh no that's wrong you can't have a discussion about it but you can afford all the opinions you want and

135i just think it's dangerous i just think it's wrong i in this information but i just is that from your recent conversation with msba i just yes okay so then what where do we want to go with this because i feel like we either need to i'm saying we should do more than what's letter of the law legal okay in restricting ourselves and from these kind of communications behind the scenes and do you think that's something that the board as a whole needs to take time to discuss in our september sure work session we can discuss it we can and then decide where we need to go because i don't think just discussing i'm not making a proposal and making a motion tonight by any means yeah i'm just saying and i think the other

136piece that is the other piece that is a value add is leaning into whether it's mr tom capps school district attorney or the missouri school boards association or there may be another entity out there in terms of getting additional expertise on this as we did last week but certainly to be able to answer other questions that the board may have that then supports a refresh of our board of education charter as it relates to communication or other expectations well i think they've already weighed in and they're only going to weigh how much legal but it's not legal which is fine and to be clear while this is and look we read it in a public setting everything that happened is public knowledge it's public domain and you always have the ability to pull any of

137that up and have a conversation of it in a board meeting anymore the letter you said yeah you could have said here on the agenda exactly 100 percent so it is public and it is out there it's public and out there because i had to make it public and get it out not true it's a public document once i sent it based on sunshine law somebody now the audience could have written a sunshine request and gotten it from the district they could have done that you also have the ability to bring it forward just as you did and that is your prerogative as a board member you can do that and bring it forward okay we'll let me go down this rope then according to what i just heard it would also be legal for

138you to send the next note to the other members and leave me off right it would be correct sure now he's going to bring it forward if it's if it goes to a quorum then it's a legal public document i guess if anybody else wants to bring it forward they certainly can but this is why we need to have the discussions in public as opposed to emails behind the scenes that's my comment that's my and i'm i'm giving you examples of why so so can we we disagree we do disagree very much you can do whatever you want and very much you're going to do it differently than we've done for the last 10 years to just say it's okay we're gonna do whatever that i've never seen you do that and i'm watching a

139specific question for years i just said i never did it and he never did it cameron never did it and david never did and what i'm hearing from nick is so what it's not legal it's not illegal so i'm going to do it i said you're just going to do it differently than we've done the last 10 years and he said no yes own it so you you are telling me that everything that you did as a president you did nothing behind the scenes in communication with other people everything was done in what's in front of people not with a quorum i absolutely had conversation we can't not talk because that's a discussion again this comes down to that's a discussion right so they're now outside of we've never had a quorum discussion behind the

140scenes outside of tom tomcaps or the missouri school boards association are there are there others to be able to bring in and speak to best practice as we move forward i think it's certainly worth having a conversation with board at a study session to be able to revisit our contract our charter but then also lay the questions out on the table to be able to provide a solution and around and as an administrator having done this for 14 years as a superintendent i would lean on my school district attorney and i would lean on the missouri school boards association beyond that it would be questions that i would pose to the state level in jefferson city if it became particular or specific the other option might be legal counsel for the department of elementary and

141secondary education i don't know if there are other recommendations to be able to seek out expertise or consult us as it relates to best practice i'm happy to say i'm not sure i'm convinced of it but i'm happy for the sake of conversation to say it's legal my question is we haven't done it for that way for at least 12 years why are we starting now and should we start now sure and i think that's a valid question doesn't mean it's right i say no it's not right so to angie's question earlier are we are we okay as a board of education yes having that conversation at a study session in september and then i would be tasked with trying to seek out expertise both on both fronts legally what we're able to do and

142abide by but then secondly what is best practice just to ensure that everything is truly pardon the expression above board so to speak because that's that's what we're about we're about learning continuing to improve and ensuring that we're serving our community other thoughts reflections it's a it's an important conversation we just we need to have it and we need to come up with where we want to go and as much as i would love to do that now it's nine o'clock um and and i feel like you know we we all need to be ready for that conversation scott what was wrong here we're in the legal limits the public discussion has been held so what what went wrong we're doing things differently than we've done for the last 12 years i've been on board

143and i don't like it i don't like it when you're asking the question so i'm going to answer i think you should the last four presidents didn't do this that doesn't mean things can't change that's what i'm saying i agree so let's change policy or whatever we want to do or just say it's legal it's fine i disagree i just disagree with that i think it's wrong and there isn't anything wrong with disagreeing i mean that that's what this board should be able to do but we should be able to come together you've worked too hard for that it's just one of five issues that have come up in the last four months and i'm just saying okay pick it up are you okay with that yeah all right i don't want you just saying

144yes just to be saying yes i'm perfectly fine i think that's where it should you should do that okay okay all right moving you to upcoming 7.05 regular board meeting august 17th followed by the study session september and 7. all the remainders in there if there are potential conflicts as you continue to look at your schedule all the way out through june of next year just let us know and then i will entertain a motion to adjourn need the board to turn second denise scott yes andy yes aj yes drew yes angie yes nick yes motion carries thank you all have a good evening you